They are not communists, if communism means the system that deservedly collapsed in 1990 – and remember that communists who are still in power run today the most ruthless capitalism. The success of Chinese communist-run capitalism is an ominous sign that the marriage between capitalism and democracy is approaching a divorce. The only sense in which the protesters are communists is that they care for the commons – the commons of nature, of knowledge – which are threatened by the system.

They are dismissed as dreamers, but the true dreamers are those who think things can go on indefinitely the way they are, just with some cosmetic changes. They are not dreamers; they are the awakening from a dream that is turning into a nightmare. They are not destroying anything, but reacting to how the system is gradually destroying itself. We all know the classic scene from cartoons: the cat reaches a precipice but goes on walking; it starts to fall only when it looks down and notices the abyss. The protesters are just reminding those in power to look down.

"What happened last night was horrific," Luntz said. There were cries of "Yes" from the audience. Luntz had a message for the candidates: "Do not think you are helping your cause by destroying one another."

Former House speaker Gingrich rounded on Perry and Romney too, saying: "The bickering does not help the Republican party … it hurts the Republican party."

Muammar Gaddafi has been killed as his home town of Sirte was overrun by fighters seeking to complete the eight-month uprising in Libya, the interim prime minister has announced.

The former dictator reportedly died from wounds in his head and legs. It was unclear whether he was hit in a Nato air strike on a convoy fleeing Sirte, a firefight on the ground, or in concrete tunnels in the town itself.

In my previous post decrying the extreme redistribution of the tax burden from the wealthy to everyone else, I had to use two graphs to tell the story.  I couldn’t fit the increase in tax liabilities for the bottom 80% on the same graph that includes the over $1 million decrease in tax liability for the top 0.1%.

But my CBPP colleague Brian Highsmith could.  So here you have it: the change in tax liabilities, compared to current tax policy, under 9-9-9, for different income groups, in one incredibly unsettling graph.

Anwar al-Awlaki, a dual US-Yemeni citizen, has been one of America's top targets in its fight against al-Qaida. His firebrand rhetoric had become renowned on jihadi websites and is thought to have inspired many more followers. With a blog, a Facebook page and numerous YouTube videos of his sermons, he had increasingly been regarded by the US as one of the most dangerous al-Qaida leaders.

President Barack Obama authorised a request to target Awlaki in April last year, making him the first US citizen to be a legal target for assassination in the post-9/11 years. He was one of two US citizens killed in the strike. Samir Khan, US-born editor of Al Qaeda's online jihadist magazine, was also killed in the attack, according to Yemeni officials.

Faced with accusations from critics on Friday afternoon that the administration had authorised an "extra-judicial murder", White House officials sought to justify the strike on Awlaki officials as "self defence."