We’re pulling together the very latest and best information at our constantly updating Egypt Wire.

This is a fascinating piece about a new GOP plan to avoid raising the debt ceiling. The idea is to pay the Chinese government — and other foreign lenders — first and withhold payments to Social Security beneficiaries and other obligations to US citizens.

Newly-GOP-controlled state legislatures around the country prepare to push a new voter suppression agenda in the guise of cracking down on non-existent ‘voter fraud.’

I was just talking to TPM Editor-at-Large Steve Clemons. And he suggested another historical analogy for Egypt. For many obvious reasons, the analogy to Iran in 1979 is the one everyone is thinking of. But Steve says a more plausible and more optimistic one is the fall of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines in 1986. We’ll have Steve on to say more about this later today.

Late Update: Great Minds. Seems like Krugman is thinking along the same lines.

You can take a peek at the wish list for deregulation that the Heritage Foundation sent to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the chairman of the House oversight committee, at his request.

TPM Reader DZ suggests another analogy for Egypt …

I worked and lived in SE Asia a few years after Princeton so actually believe the parallel to watch re:Egypt may be Indonesia, the most populous Muslim one. We propped up Suharto from 1965 on but when he collapsed, there was a shift to a nominal democracy which continues under President SBY, following Gus Dur and Sukarnoputri.

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This year’s Conservative Political Action Conference gets underway next week in Washington, and it’s shaping up to be quite an event this time around.

CPAC is the Detroit Auto Show, no, even better, the Cannes Film Festival of movement conservatism. Has been for years. But this year the participation of the gay Republican group GOProud is prompting a boycott from some key movement figures: the Heritage Foundation, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) are all taking a pass on the event (although only Heritage is fessin’ up as to the real reason, after initially denying it).

So you’ve got all that swirling around in the run up to CPAC, plus you get the usual CPAC fun, which this year is like icing on the cake: Don Rumsfeld will receive the “Defender of the Constitution” award and Tucker Carlson is getting the “Accuracy In Media” award.

Federal district judge in Florida voids entire health care reform law.

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