Orrin Hatch (R) has been quaking in his boots over the possibility that Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R) would primary him in 2012. But that’s not going to happen.

Why? Good question. A Republican friend of mine on the Hill asked me what I thought. I said maybe he just figured he could get it without a fight in six years. To which he replied, “That is far too logical, rational, and methodical for someone like Chaffetz. You or I might think like that, but him? Put me in the “Stunned Speechless” camp for now….”

So who knows? I’m not as close to it as folks on the Hill. So maybe they know more.

Rick Perry: Just because I wrote a book calling for privatizing Social Security doesn’t mean I’m for privatizing Social Security.

Also, the Perry campaign won’t say whether he still favors repealing the 16th Amendment, which sanctified the income tax, as he proposed in the book.

Former moderate GOP Rep. (maybe the only genuinely moderate GOP rep left) Chris Shays says he’s going to run for Joe Lieberman’s seat in 2012.

Remember, Lieberman has announced he’s retiring from the Senate at the end of this term, making it an open seat.

Does Wisconsin’s new GOP-backed voter ID law violate the state constitution?

McCain and Graham: Meh, Obama didn’t do enough to bring down Qaddafi.

Mitt Romney plans to raze current current beach manse in La Jolla and replace it with one more than three times larger.

Death toll among anti-government protestors rises to 2,200, according to UN human rights chief.

Benjy Sarlin on how Public Policy Polling used an impressive track record and whacky poll questions to become the “it” Democratic polling outfit.

For up to the minute breaking developments out of Libya check our auto-updating TPMLivewire.

Events are unfolding rapidly in Libya, where rebel forces have advanced into Tripoli. Muammar Qaddafi is promising to fight to the last ‘drop of blood’, but it now seems clear that the end of his rule, in whatever form it comes, could be little more than hours away.