Mubarak regime has turned off the internet in advance of mass demonstrations tomorrow while VP Biden sings Mubarak’s praises. Protesters fear a bloodbath is coming.

In a sometimes contentious call, Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission representatives Phil Angelides and Brooksley Born acknowledged that we might still be in a financial crisis, and that their report should not be seen as the last word on an event that still has the capacity to significantly damage the global economy.

Given the avoidance of the economic crisis and its impact on American families in this week’s State of the Union speech, isn’t “winning the future” just a corporate branding exercise to differentiate America Inc. from India Ltd. and China Corp.?

Last night’s DoD press conference on Bradley Manning was a bizarre affair. Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell was snappish, hectoring and ill-prepared. They were clearly thrown when Jim Miklaszewski reported that the Quantico brig commander acted inappropriately in putting Manning on suicide watch, and the journalists present greeted Morrell’s excuses with extreme skepticism.

As Marcy Wheeler noted earlier, “It’s clear…that DOD’s press shop is struggling to craft a party line about Manning’s treatment that both appears coherent and that somehow refutes Miklaszewski’s reporting.”

So what does a flailing press operation do when they can’t kill the public momentum building for an investigation? Why put out an anonymous hit piece on Bradley Manning to act as a wet blanket, of course.

In a unanimous, 7-0 decision, the Illinois Supreme Court said that Rahm Emanuel will appear on the February 22 ballot for Mayor of Chicago. This overturns a previous ruling from a state appeals court.

Jay Carney, a former writer for TIME Magazine and currenlty the spokesman for Vice President Biden, will replace Robert Gibbs as the White House Press Secretary, according to multiple sources.

For the first time in a very long time, the American people have a slight, net positive view of the Republican party.

I have to agree with the WaPo editorial page that Egypt’s regime is unstable, and it’s a direct result of three decades of stifling dissent and repressing their people. Obviously, the United States has considered them an ally through that entire period. I actually do not believe that Egypt’s government will fall tomorrow or even soon, despite the presence of Mohammed ElBaradei urging Mubarak to retire. Unlike Tunisia, the military is well-paid and firmly under the control of the regime. Like Iran, these protests could fade out in the near-term. But over time, you can see how these feelings and emotions in the citizenry will never be extinguished.

Something is badly amiss in the Department of Defense’s efforts to tell its side of how it is treating Bradley Manning.

Make no mistake – the Senate, and all its members, are getting precisely what they deserve. Any future whining about how difficult it is to break a filibuster will go in one ear and out the other. They had their chance to fix this, and they punted. I don’t believe Republicans will be as generous.