French Radio transcriptions tonight. This one, a performance of the Concerto Pastorale for piano and Orchestra by Rene Challan who, aside from his career as composer was also house producer for French Columbia in Paris. Although this piece has been recorded commercially by Samson Francois and the Paris Conservatory conducted by Georges Tzipine around 1958, this recording was done around 1950 for Radio France and features the French National Orchestra under the legendary Manuel Rosenthal and has not been available commerically. And since this piece was composed in 1943, it's likely this is the first-ever recording of the piece.

In any event, it's around 18 minutes, moves right along and is probably not familiar to a lot of people.

Well now you are.

Out of the mouth of babes: 8 year old JuJu has some insight for Egypt's Hosni Mubarak.

Yup.

Sen. John McCain exemplifies the thin line that United States foreign policy must tread and the careful selective memory we must employ in terms of what's happening in Egypt.

Choosing to mimic the careful parsing earlier offered by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Mr. Sunday Talk Show Circuit voices support for the Egyptian people (not the Egyptian rioters, not Mubarek, not El Baradei, just the generic people of Egypt). But he also ignores the irony of both our myopic foreign policy and our own international reputation:

I think one of the lessons here is that we need to be on the right side of history in these countries and we need to do a better job of emphasizing and arguing strenuously for human rights. I understand how important -- and I hope we all understand how important Egypt is as an ally, as a center of culture. And one out of every four Arabs in the Middle East live in Egypt and how important they are. But it was clear for a long time that the kind of repressive regime sooner or -- that Mubarak controls, sooner or later there is going to be great difficulties.

Yes, let's talk about the importance of human rights when the Egyptians know only too well our killing of hundreds of thousands Iraqi civilians and displacement of a million more; our stealth war in Pakistan, killing wedding parties with drone strikes; our refusal to even count how many Afghan casualties we're responsible for; our blind eye to the human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia, Israel, Yemen, etc. Especially since we've been using the repressive aspect of Egypt's government to do our dirty work with rendition and torture, something that is not unknown to the general citizenry. Yup, we're really on the right side of history for this one. It's also hard for the Egyptian people to forget that we've enabled that repressive regime for 30 years, as Crowley points out:

CROWLEY: And -- but we are talking about other U.S. allies in the area who we have joined forces with and they are not exactly democracies -- Jordan, Saudi Arabia, places like that. Now what?

I mean, on Capitol Hill you all have the ability to cut aid to these countries, but Egypt is number two in foreign aid after Israel.

At least McCain is making lip service to aspiring to a free and fair democracy for Egypt. John Bolton and Rep. Thaddeus McCotter don't even pretend to care about it, demanding that the US unconditionally support Mubarak.

Transcripts below the fold

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Is anyone else as tired of this latest talking points by Republicans that continually goes unchallenged by the media -- spending cuts are going to create jobs. John Boehner claims he's got hundreds of economists who agree with him after Chris Wallace points out that a lot of economists don't agree with him, but of course Wallace didn't bother to ask him what some of their names were.

How about we fix our trade laws and quit rewarding companies for outsourcing American jobs? Heaven forbid that never seems to be part of the conversation from our politicians when the topic of jobs comes up.

Nicole: Anyone wish that Wallace the Lesser would have asked him for just one or two of the names of those "200 economists" that Boehner insisted agree with this ridiculous meme? It's one that Rep. Robert Hurt (R-VA05) also repeated in a widely-disseminated op-ed this weekend:

As the failed trillion dollar stimulus proved, increased government spending did not create the millions of jobs promised and only added to our record-breaking deficits and over $14 trillion in debt. The new projection that this year’s deficit will reach nearly $1.5 million only reinforces the need to cut up Washington’s credit cards once and for all.

That is why I have been proud to support many measures that have come before the House that will rein in out of control government spending and help put Central and Southside Virginia on a true path towards a long-lasting economy recovery.

Those measures include voting to cut non-security discretionary government spending back to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels and voting to repeal the budget-busting government takeover of health care, cutting $2.6 trillion over ten years and reducing the deficit by $700 billion. The House has also voted to cut Congressional budgets, to end the wasteful mandatory printing of bills, and to end the taxpayer funding of presidential election campaigns and party conventions, saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Failed stimulus? Are we in the midst of another Great Depression? No? Wasn't that the purpose of the stimulus, to pull us back from the brink? The only reason it didn't do better were all the stupid concessions added to get the Republicans to sign off on it. And as far as jobs are concerned, the unemployment rate is still bleak, but to ignore that the Obama administration -- even with all the obstruction placed before them by the Republican Party -- managed to create more jobs in 2010 than Bush did in all eight years of his term put together is fundamentally disinforming the public.

But that's the plan for the GOP. If you get enough right wing people on traditional media and right wing blogs repeating ad nauseam that the stimulus didn't work, well, then no one challenges these failed ideas that Boehner advocates. And it may backfire on them in the end:

Obama felt the need to push health reform while at the height of his influence. GOP activists may feel the same way about spending. They should be wary.

This isn’t to say that some immediate well-targeted spending reductions are a bad idea. They are not. But the mindless across-the-board cuts (excluding, of course, defense, veterans benefits, homeland security, and Medicare), the GOP has in mind seem both clumsy and counterproductive in today’s economy.

Just as Democrats paid a steep price for pursuing health reform at a time of high unemployment, so may Republicans pay dearly if they try to rapidly shrink government while the economy remains weak. Ideological purity is one thing. But it rarely trumps bad timing.

(h/t David)

Nobel Laureate and former IAEA head Mohammed El-Baradei spoke to throngs in Egypt's Tahrir Square earlier today, calling for Hosni Mubarak to step down as President of Egypt.

"Today, I have come to share with you the most beautiful day for Egypt," he told the demonstrators. "Today, I look into the eyes of each and every one of you. Each of us is a different Egyptian. Today, we are proud of Egyptians."

"We have restored our rights, restored our freedoms, and what we have begun cannot be reversed," ElBaradei continued.

"And as we mentioned before, we have a key demand, and that's for the regime to step down, and to start a new era," he concluded.

El Baradei returned to Egypt on January 25th, the same day protests began against the Egyptian government, and has been under house arrest since January 26th. Today was the first day he was seen in public.

Al Jazeera reports:

The protesters in Cairo, joined by hundreds of judges, had collected again in Tahrir Square in the afternoon to demand the resignation of Hosni Mubarak.

Al Jazeera's correspondent, reporting from the scene, said that demonstrators confronted a fire truck, at which point army troops fired into the air in a bid to disperse them.

He said the protesters did not move back, and a tank commander then ordered the fire truck to leave. When the truck moved away from the square, the thousands of protesters erupted into applause and climbed onto the tank in celebration, hugging soldiers.

Mubarak's regime is crumbling as it continues to lose support from the West. In a series of telephone calls this morning, President Obama called for an orderly transition from the Mubarak regime to a government elected through free and fair elections. This is not to say Mubarak is without support. The Saudi government has condemned the protests as being the work of "infiltrators".

However, the Saudi government has condemned the protests, saying many of them were "infiltrators" who seek to destabilise their country.

King Abdullah called Mubarak and, according to the Saudi Press Agency, "was reassured" about the situation in Egypt.

"During the call, the king said, ‘Egypt is a country of Arabism and Islam. No Arab and Muslim human being can bear that some infiltrators, in the name of freedom of expression, have infiltrated into the brotherly people of Egypt, to destabilise its security and stability and they have been exploited to spew out their hatred in destruction, intimidation, burning, looting and inciting a malicious sedition,’" the news agency said.

Saudi Arabia "strongly condemns" the protest, it said.

Despite the measured calls for reform, beginning with free and fair elections, it's clear that the people of Egypt are fighting for an end to the Mubarak regime, starting now. Ayman Nour, leader of the El-Ghad Liberal Party spoke on Al-Jazeera earlier today. These quotes from Nour from the Twitter stream of Sultan Al Qassemi, columnist for The National, who has been sending updates constantly since the protests began.

"We have formed an opposition committee for change that involves ten members, represented by El Baradei."

"Today was the first session of the People's Popular Parliament which includes El Baradei, Mohammed El Beltaji, myself.."

"(other members) Justice Mahmoud El Khodairi, George Ishaq, Mr Abu Al Ezz, it is a ten member committee."

"Our key demand is for Mubarak to step down, we will negotiate with the army, we will negotiate with other opposition members

We are not negotiating with Mubarak since our main demand is for him to step down. We will negotiate with the army.

"We are not asking for an (army) coup. We are asking the army to take the side of the people not the side of the tyrant"

"This govt has not communicated with the opposition party until the last minute, they will be forced to negotiate with us"

This committee will have the duty to manage the crisis. We will negotiate in order to improve the security conditions in the country"

We want all the resolutions issued by Mubarak since January to be revoked & invalidated" (doesn't say which date exactly).

The army's duty is to defend the country not the oppressor who has been ruling by an iron fist. All the rallies ask him to step down.

We ask the army not to play a political role. We ask it to defend & safeguard the security, stability of the country."

"People were wreaking havoc, chaos & looting around including the undercover police personnel. We have arrested many of them..& found that they were carrying police identity cards. They were looting around, intimidating people."

Therefore people are now adamant about toppling of the regime. We will negotiate a peaceful exit for Mubarak for the sake of Egypt.

Today will be a key day in these protests, because Mubarak has indicated the police will be on the streets tomorrow. If their previous behavior is any indication, there will be much more bloodshed than there has already.

Yup.

This is live video sent back from the Quarantine the Kochs rally in Rancho Mirage about an hour and a half ago. John Amato is on the scene and has called me a couple of times with updates. There are about 1500 people or so there, peacefully protesting the convocation of billionaires at the Rancho Las Palmas resort. The purpose of the meeting is to figure out how to impeach Obama and take over our government in order to preserve their wealth, justice, and liberty at the expense of ours. Glenn Beck was the keynote speaker last night, and Eric Cantor was also on the guest list. (Full list here (PDF))

Remarkably, there are scores of riot police guarding the driveways into the resort. The last report I've seen says 25 people have been arrested. Here's a shot posted earlier today:

At the end of that video you'll see more of them, even.

Andrew Breitbart has evidently caught the fever. It’s been reported that he’s hanging out with the protesters. Too lazy to walk, he’s sporting shorts and rollerblades. Be afraid. In his usual less-than-forthright manner, he claims “internal emails from organizers necessitate riot police.” Mmmhmmm.

John will be writing up a much longer and more interesting post than this one, I'm sure. But for now, I thought it important that we see the exercise of OUR right to free speech and assembly, too.

I have more photos and links on my liveblog. Nancy Goldstein is covering it for TheNation here, the local CBS station has a nice article here, and you can follow the Twitter hashtag #UncloakKoch. The organizers of the rally are Common Cause, TheOther98.com, and California Nurse's Association.

Here's David Dayen's report. His twitter stream was one of the best for real time updates.

Perhaps it's a testimony to just how tenuous and potentially dangerous the situation is in Egypt, but even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell--who has made ensuring President Obama only a single term his foremost priority--could not bring himself to wax partisan about the White House's approach to the Egyptian riots.

When lobbed a big, fat softball by David Gregory, perhaps hoping for a more political response, McConnell demurred and reiterated his support for the actions of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama.

SEN. McCONNELL: Yeah, I, I don't have any criticism of President Obama or Secretary Clinton at this point. I mean, they know full well that we can't give the Egyptians advice about who their leadership is. That's beyond the reach of the United States. And I think we ought to speak as one voice during this crisis, and so I'm not prepared...

MR. GREGORY: What about, what about U.S. military aid, over a billion dollars, $1.3 billion? Is that on the table? Should that be withheld if things don't go the way we'd like it to go?

SEN. McCONNELL: Yeah, look, answering those kind of hypotheticals is not a good idea. We need to wait and see what emerges in Egypt.

While I applaud McConnell's restraint and desire to speak with a unified voice, I wouldn't get too used to it.

Transcripts below the fold

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David Gregory apparently thinks that making cuts to Social Security, rather than raising the income cap, is some sort of "balanced approach" to keeping it solvent in the long term. Gregory also allowed McConnell to use language that makes it sound like the fund is running a negative balance already rather than having a $2.5 trillion surplus.

And of course McConnell only wants to go after Social Security if President Obama is willing to make it a bi-partisan affair. I've got to wonder if McConnell cares if he gets reelected if he really thinks making cuts to Social Security rather than raising the income cap on that regressive tax is a good idea.

GREGORY: Well, that's very interesting because I've also detected a great deal of caution on the part of Republicans who, who campaigned on the idea of spending cuts. And yet, when it comes to a program like Social Security--it was Speaker Boehner who told a group of us this week, "Well, look, we need to spend more time defining the problem before we get in the boat with the president here and say that we've got to make long-term changes." Is that your view?

McCONNELL: Well, look, we have, we have two problems here. It's our annual deficit, completely out of control. We're going to send the president a lot less--we're going to allow him to sign onto a lot less spending than he recommended the other night and that he's likely to send us in the budget. Then with, with regard to long-term unfunded liabilities, the entitlements, Speaker Boehner's correct, you cannot do that on a partisan basis. President Bush tried doing that in 2005 with regard to Social Security's problems. And by the way, the announcement this week that Social Security's gone into deficit, it will run a $45 billion deficit this year and for as far as the eye can see. Look, entitlement reform can only be done on a bipartisan basis. It's happened before. Reagan and Tip O'Neill fixed Social Security in '83. Reagan and the Democratic House did tax reform in '86.

GREGORY: So, but if the president were to say, "OK, Leader McConnell, if, if you're prepared to deal with some revenue increases, we can also deal with some benefit cuts. Let's take a balanced approach to Social Security," you could support that?

McCONNELL: Look, you know, you've tried this before. I, I'm not going to negotiate the deal with David Gregory. I'd be happy to negotiate it...

GREGORY: I keep hoping you'll change your mind.

McCONNELL: I'd be happy to try to negotiate the deal, and Speaker Boehner would too, with the president and the vice president and others.

GREGORY: But does the president have to go first before you'll take on entitlement reform?

McCONNELL: We have to go together. We have to go together. The American people are asking us to tackle these problems. I think the president needs to be more bold. We're prepared to meet--I've got a lot of new members, and Speaker Boehner does as well, who came here to tackle this big problem. We were waiting...

GREGORY: But you're saying, "Be bold on entitlements and Republicans will meet you halfway"?

McCONNELL: We're happy to sit down and talk about entitlement reform with the president. We know Social Security is in trouble. It was just announced by CBO this week. We know Medicare is on an unsustained path. They took a half a trillion dollars out of it to fund this healthcare program that they enacted. Look, we need to get serious about this.