MONDAY’S MINI-REPORT…. Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Libya starts to unravel: “Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi’s regime showed more signs of crumbling Monday as scores of people were reportedly killed in the capital, witnesses said military helicopters shot at protesters on the ground, and the U.S. ordered non-essential diplomats to leave the North African nation. The six-day-old uprising had reached the capital, Tripoli, by Monday morning, with reports of buildings being set ablaze and looting in some neighborhoods. In Libya’s second-largest city of Benghazi, anti-government demonstrators celebrated on the streets, with reports growing that the city was now under their control.”
* The violence towards unarmed civilians in Libya is heartbreaking: “The faltering government of the Libyan strongman Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi struck back at mounting protests against his 40-year rule, as helicopters and warplanes besieged parts of the capital Monday, according to witnesses and news reports from Tripoli.”
* How bad has it gotten for the Libyan regime? This bad: “Members of Libya’s mission to the United Nations publicly repudiated Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi on Monday, calling him a genocidal war criminal responsible for mass shootings of demonstrators protesting against his four decades in power. They called upon him to resign. The repudiation, led by Libya’s deputy permanent representative at a news conference at the mission’s headquarters in New York, amounted to the most high-profile defection of Libyan diplomats in the anti-Qaddafi uprising that has convulsed Libya over the past week.”
* Afghanistan: “A suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to an Afghan government office Monday, killing at least 30 people — many who were waiting in line to obtain government identification cards, police said.”
* A disgraced, racist Tea Party leader presents his new anti-union plan: get right-wing activists to pose as SEIU organizers and cause trouble.
* Apparently, it’s still possible for pundits’ love of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) to get more ridiculous.
* If it seems odd to have Democrats in the Wisconsin Senate flee to deny the chamber a quorum, remember, it’s been a fairly common tactic for many years. Abraham Lincoln literally jumped out a window 170 years ago to deny a quorum in Illinois.
* Good point from Nate Silver: “Rasmussen should probably just drop the pretense that they are non-partisan.”
* Concerns rise over Rep. David Wu’s (D-Ore.) mental health.
* Arizona has an odd low-cost college plan: “Since the state evidently has no plans to give the public college more money (which could reduce tuition), the solution appears to be to give Arizona residents some low-quality education options.”
* I couldn’t care less whether Rush Limbaugh is fat, but when he goes after First Lady Michelle Obama on the air, suggesting that she’s overweight, I wonder if Limbaugh’s drug addiction has damaged his eyesight, too.
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
