The Commentariat -- February 9, 2015

Internal links removed.

"Nobody Understands Debt." Paul Krugman explains how debt works, macroeconomically speaking. If you memorize (and vaguely understand) this graf, you'll be smarter than everybody else at the party:

Because debt is money we owe to ourselves, it does not directly make the economy poorer (and paying it off doesn't make us richer). True, debt can pose a threat to financial stability -- but the situation is not improved if efforts to reduce debt end up pushing the economy into deflation and depression.

     ... So when some know-it-all launches into that familiar "fiscally-responsible" rant -- "Stop stealing from our kids," -- you can try to set him straight (and good luck with that -- he's probably more ignorant & more stubborn than Angela Merkel, the thrifty Swabian housewife). CW: It pleases me to no end that the particular know-it-all dunderhead to whom Krugman links ("Stop stealing") is Steve Rattner, because I pegged him for a smart-assed phony years ago. I'll bet Stevie is raging at the breakfast table right now.

Paul Lewis of the Guardian: "A leading member of the Senate banking committee [Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)] is calling on the US government to explain what action it took after receiving a massive cache of leaked data that revealed how the Swiss banking arm of HSBC, the world's second-largest bank, helped wealthy customers conceal billions of dollars of assets. The leaked files, which reveal how HSBC advised some clients on how to circumvent domestic tax authorities, were obtained through an international collaboration of news outlets.... The disclosure amounts to one of the biggest banking leaks in history, shedding light on 30,000 accounts holding almost $120bn (£78bn) of assets. Of those, around 2,900 clients were connected to the US, providing the IRS with a trail of evidence of potential American taxpayers who may have been hiding assets in Geneva."

Guardian: "Angela Merkel will meet Barack Obama at the White House on Monday, as the two leaders aim to resolve a potential split over arming Ukrainian fighters so they can combat Russian-backed separatists. The German chancellor and the US president will also discuss upcoming talks to revive a peace plan for Ukraine. There has been speculation that the US could send 'defensive weapons' to Ukraine, but this has little support among its European allies who fear it could escalate the year-long conflict in east Ukraine."

Ezra Klein interviews President Obama on a wide range of topics. I think the artwork & black set are supposed to be edgy. But definitely in need of two ferns. Ferns or not, Obama demonstrates once again that he's a very smart guy who knows WTF is going on.

Andrew, the Anti-Mario. Jeff Toobin has a useful profile in the New Yorker of Andrew Cuomo.

Margaret Talbot of the New Yorker has the statistical, factual answer to Rand Paul & Co.'s libertarian view of vaccination "options": "What does work is legislation. The highest vaccination rate in the country is in Mississippi, a state with an otherwise dismal set of health statistics. It allows people to opt out of vaccines only for medical reasons -- not for religious or personal ones. States that make it easier not to vaccinate have higher rates of infectious diseases.... What does not help at all is to treat vaccines and the diseases they prevent as partisan political matters." CW: But, hey, illness, death & facts aren't much compared to freeeedom.

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

Terrence McCoy of the Guardian isn't too sure of the veracity of the "Brian Williams, Katrina Hero" story. Here's an excerpt: "Somebody tried to push an IV on him [to relieve his debilitating dysentery], which [pop-historian David] Brinkley said he was 'desperately in need of,' but nobly declined. 'There were so many ill people in line who needed it more than me,' he said. 'My conscience wouldn't have felt right if I had tried to pull rank. But I was in pure hell. I had no medicine, nothing.'"

David Carr of the New York Times seems to think the fault, dear Brutus, is in ourselves: "We want our anchors to be both good at reading the news and also pretending to be in the middle of it. That's why, when the forces of man or Mother Nature whip up chaos, both broadcast and cable news outlets are compelled to ship the whole heaving apparatus to far-flung parts of the globe, with an anchor as the flag bearer." ...

... CW: What do you mean, "we," white man? Some of the early teevee news anchors & stars, like Walter Cronkite & Ed Murrow, came up as radio war correspondents. They actually did cover WWII on the ground. But younger anchors were stars before they donned their khakis & made setpieces of war zones. They -- and the suits -- put on these shows by choice, & I doubt many viewers are convinced these anchors are doing real field reporting. Brian Williams cut his reportorial chops in Kansas & Pennsylvania, for Pete's sake. No camo required. Today, he is better at fake news than Jon Stewart, who wears a suit for the show & leaves it to his "reporters" to dress up in outfits appropriate to the shots on the greenscreen.

Ken Auletta of the New Yorker: on a point I made yesterday or thereabouts: "... while the spotlight is on Williams's transgressions, a word about the complicity of NBC and the other networks' marketing machines. The networks have a stake in promoting their anchors as God-like figures. By showing them in war zones, with Obama or Putin, buffeted by hurricanes, and comforting victims, they are telling viewers that their anchors are truth-tellers who have been everywhere and seen everything and have experience you can trust."

CW: The real outrage isn't about Brian Williams per se; his yarn-spinning is merely a symptom. People are sick of fake news about fake politicians inventing fake evidence for war & every species of bad policy. Must we suspend disbelief for everything? A Life of Irony is probably not what most of us anticipated.

More Evidence NBC Is the Awesomest Network for News. Evan McMurry of Mediaite: "After President Barack Obama's remarks at last week's National Prayer Breakfast in which he said Christians and others should refrain from getting on their high horses about Islamic violence given their own bloody histories, Chuck Todd wondered if the president was essentially trolling the Prayer Breakfast crowd. 'My question is why he felt compelled to bring this up at all,' said [another pop-]historian Jon Meacham. 'I have my own theory,' Todd said. 'He's not a big fan of the Prayer Breakfast, and I think he almost enjoys creating a rhetorical debate.'" ...

... Wait! There's More. Heather of Crooks & Liars: "Andrea Mitchell was terribly upset that President Obama said the word 'crusades' at the breakfast. The horror! Obviously the Republicans just had no choice but to attack him... 'You can't really go back to 1095,' Mitchell said. 'It's so out of context. It is so much in passing. You don&'t use the word crusades in any context right now, it's just too fraught,' Mitchell added. 'And the week after a pilot is burned alive, in a video shown, you don't lean over backwards to be philosophical about the sins of the fathers.'" CW: You see, my dears, Mr. Obama has broken the Beltway Etiquette Book's Commandment: Thou shalt utter neither thoughts of consequence nor substance. (Corollary: except when touting deficit reduction or "reining in entitlements.") ...

... If, by chance you think I was unfair to the Hon. Mr. Meacham, Charles Pierce has a wonderful, extended takedown of this charlatan-in-cleric's-collar.

CW: The scariest shows on television are not some high-production-values primetime fare but the Sunday morning window into how completely dimwittiest are the brightest bulbs in Washington. Andrea Mitchell, Jon Meacham, Peggy Noonan, David Brooks -- these are our modern-day answers to the post of public intellectual once reserved for the likes of Mark Twain.

Presidential Race

Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Leaders of New York's Working Families Party on Sunday urged Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts to seek the Democratic nomination for president next year, formally calling on her to enter the 2016 race for the White House." CW: See also comments at the end of yesterday's thread by James S. & Nisky Guy.

Chico Harley & Jim Tankersley of the Washington Post (Feb. 6): "'When Hillary Clinton runs, she's going to say, "The Republicans gave us a crappy economy twice, and we fixed it twice. Why would you ever trust them again?"' said Kevin Hassett, a former economic adviser to GOP nominees Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. 'The objective for the people in the Republican Party who want to defeat her is to come up with a story about what's not great' in this recovery, especially wage growth, he said."

Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Less than a year before Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses, it appears that every Republican contender is making a serious play to win the state, setting up what is likely to be one of the most active, competitive campaigns here in recent memory. Political observers in Iowa say that the field is wide open and that numerous candidates have a legitimate shot to win or do well enough to come out with momentum. That is partly because moderates in the Iowa Republican Party, led by Gov. Terry Branstad, have reasserted themselves into the caucus process after watching social conservatives dominate in 2008 and 2012."

Scenes from the Dunderhead Know-It-All Department. Marc Caputo of the Miami Herald, in a Politico piece, profiles "Professor Marco Rubio," who co-teaches a political science class at Florida International University." CW: Thanks for the puff piece, Marc!

AND another Republican governor/presidential candidate solidifies his international creds with a trip to -- London! Rebecca Kaplan of CBS News: "Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker heads to London Monday for a four-day trade mission...." Take that, Hillary Clinton, Woman of the World. Read Kaplan's article for reminder of how successful Republicans have been in an environment that presents "seeming low levels of risk - no cultural or language differences or complex relationship to navigate."

Beyond the Beltway

The George Wallace of Our Times. Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "In a dramatic show of defiance toward the federal judiciary, Chief Justice Roy S. Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court on Sunday night ordered the state's probate judges not to issue marriage licenses to gay couples on Monday, the day same-sex marriages were expected to begin here.... The order, coming just hours before the January decisions of United States District Court Judge Callie V. S. Granade were scheduled to take effect, was almost certainly going to thrust this state into legal turmoil. It was not immediately clear how the state's 68 probate judges, who, like Chief Justice Moore, are popularly elected, would respond to the order." ...

     ... UPDATE. Amy Howe of ScotusBlog: "The Court today denied Alabama's request to stay a federal judge's ruling striking down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. The state had asked the Court to delay the implementation of that ruling until after the Court rules on the pending challenges to similar bans in Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, and Michigan. Because the Alabama ruling is scheduled to go into effect today, the Court's order effectively cleared the way for same-sex marriages to go forward in Alabama. ...

     ... UPDATE 2: Chris Geidner & Tasneem Nashrulla of BuzzFeed: "It was not immediately clear how probate judges across the state would react to the seemingly conflicting orders -- although one, a spokesperson in Montgomery County Probate Judge Steven L. Reed's office, confirmed to BuzzFeed News that they are issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples this morning. ...

     ... UPDATE 3: Here are the latest developments, via the New York Times' Alan Blinder. "Alabama became on Monday the latest state to allow same-sex marriage, as many probate judges defied an order by the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and began issuing licenses and performing weddings."

Maureen Groppe of USA Today: "A West Virginia lawmaker has apologized for saying that while rape is awful, a child that results from a rape is beautiful. The comment from state Rep. Brian Kurcaba was made Thursday when members of the West Virginia House of Delegates debated a bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The bill does not allow for an exemption in cases of rape." CW: No indication Kurcaba is sorry he's a hateful misogynist.

News Ledes

Hill: "Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will undergo a second operation on Wednesday morning to repair damage to his right eye following an exercise accident. The operation is a follow-up to a procedure he underwent on Jan. 26 and will be performed at the George Washington University Hospital in Washington."

Slate: "Drew Peterson, the ex-cop currently serving a 38-year sentence for the 2004 murder of his third wife, was charged on Monday with trying to hire a hit man to kill the state attorney who prosecuted his case." The Chicago Tribune story is here.

The Commentariat -- February 8, 2015

Internal links removed.

** Jim Fallows of the Atlantic: "A nation can't possibly come up with rules to outlaw every form of misbehavior. It relies on norms to guide behavior -- which is why some current violations of those norms deserve attention." ...

... Steve Coll, in a New York Review of Books review of James Risen's book Pay any Price, provides a good example of what happens when government officials -- in this case Eric Holder -- break the norm.

Anthony Faiola & Carol Morello of the Washington Post: "Diplomats and politicians raced Saturday to devise a strategy for halting the fierce combat and mounting civilian casualties in eastern Ukraine, with the focus on how best to get Russia to pull back its troops and heavy weaponry. The crisis in eastern Ukraine, where government forces are under siege from separatists supported and equipped by Moscow, is dominating the Munich Security Conference, an annual event drawing national security officials, analysts and policymakers from around the world." ...

     ... UPDATE: "A peace proposal for Ukraine edged toward a possible breakthrough as the leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine agreed Sunday to a joint summit alongside representatives of the pro-Moscow separatists who have waged a bloody campaign in the Ukrainian east."

Michael Shear & Carl Hulse of the New York Times: President "Obama has so far found little traction with Congress on major domestic policy proposals related to child care, paid sick leave, tax policy and higher education. His legislative aides have struggled to find Republicans willing to endorse the legislation. Few Republicans say they have even been approached.... The president's team has made some headway with the opposition on a handful of issues, including efforts to improve cybersecurity, invest in infrastructure and advance trade deals. On Thursday, the White House announced a Republican sponsor for a bill to safeguard data collected from children in schools."

Mike Lillis of the Hill: "A growing number of top Democrats plan to skip next month's Capitol Hill speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Reps. James Clyburn (S.C.), the third-ranking House Democrat, and Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.), chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), are just the latest lawmakers to indicate they won't attend the March 3 address before a rare joint session of Congress." (See also Jim Fallows' piece on breaking norms, linked above.)

Arthur Caplan, a medical ethicist, in a Washington Post op-ed: "Doctors who purvey views based on anecdote, myth, hearsay, rumor, ideology, fraud or some combination of all of these, particularly during an epidemic, should have their medical licenses revoked.... A doctor is not just another person with First Amendment rights to free speech.... Because lives hang in the balance, medical speech is held to a higher standard.... Counseling against vaccination is ... misconduct." AND, yes, Caplan zeroes in on Dr. Rand Paul. Caplan helpfully includes chapter & verse of the Kentucky law that he believes Paul has violated. ...

     ... CW: Ironically, Paul seems too damned dumb to understand the not-especially-nuanced argument Caplan presents to explain why doctors don't have the freeeeedom to spout medical mumbojumbo in the same way a layperson does. I can just seem Li'l Randy jumping up & down waving the Bill of Rights at his Kentucky medical board ethics hearing. ...

... Mark Silk, in Religion News Service: America's fear of vaccination predates the nation. New England Puritan minister Cotton Mather promoted the smallpox vaccine, but among his detractors was Ben Franklin. Years later, Franklin had a conversion after his own son died of smallpox: "'I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation,' Franklin wrote in his Autobiography.

Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: "Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg slammed the legalization of pot during a trip to Colorado this weekend, calling it 'one of the stupider things' happening in the United States. The socially liberal former mayor, who has admitted to consuming marijuana decades ago, argued that states that move to legalize the plant for recreational and medical purposes are risking children's intelligence." CW: Evidently if you're financially comfortable & white, there are no mental inhibitory consequences to smoking pot, & you can still be smart enough to become a self-made billionaire. Also, you can definitely avoid prosecution & incarceration for illegal possession, which is something of a career-buster. Tough luck, little people!

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
Slow-Jammin' the Newsman

Emily Steel of the New York Times: "Brian Williams said on Saturday that he was stepping aside from the daily broadcast of NBC's 'Nightly News' for the next several days, after admitting that he had misled the public about being on a helicopter that was forced down in Iraq. In a memo to the NBC News staff, Mr. Williams said that Lester Holt, the anchor for 'Dateline,' would step in as the network dealt with the issue." Here's Williams' memo. ...

... Maureen Dowd: "THIS was a bomb that had been ticking for a while. NBC executives were warned a year ago that Brian Williams was constantly inflating his biography. They were flummoxed over why the leading network anchor felt that he needed Hemingwayesque, bullets-whizzing-by flourishes to puff himself up, sometimes to the point where it was a joke in the news division." ...

... Paul Farhi of the Washington Post: "In an interview with a campus television station before a speaking engagement at Fairfield University in Connecticut [in 2007], Williams said he 'looked down the tube' of a rocket launcher after the weapon had been fired at another helicopter during his 2003 trip to Iraq. 'I've been very lucky to have survived a few things that I've been involved in,' he said in the video, posted on the Web site Ace of Spades HQ. In the same interview, he said that in the war between Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah, 'there were Katuyshka rockets passing just beneath the helicopter I was riding in.'...* A military helicopter that preceded Williams's helicopter to a landing spot in the Iraqi desert did sustain damage from an RPG, but it was at least a half-hour ahead of Williams's flight, making it unlikely that he could have 'looked down the tube' of the weapon." ...

     ... *NEW. CW: That's funny, because in his original reporting, about a year before the 2007 interview, which included video of Williams' ' "riding in the helicopter," Williams neither mentioned nor showed any "Katuyshka rockets passing just beneath the helicopter." Rather, he pointed out the window to "trails of smoke and dust visible out the window [which] are where Katyusha rockets have landed" & "from a distance of six miles," he saw a couple of rocket launches. Apparently, those rockets weren't aimed in his direction. Or he didn't, you know, report them as "passing just beneath" his chopper. It looks as if it doesn't take long for Williams to "misremember" things. Maybe he conflated his own experiences with scenes from the film "Six Days in June," a film about the 1967 Six Day War, which Williams may have watched in preparation for his reporting in Israel.

... Jim Fallows: "... I still find it just about incomprehensible that someone: (a) whose professional background involves observing and reporting events, (b) who holds one of the handful of jobs in the world most reliant on trustworthiness, and (c) who knew he was talking to an audience of millions of people that would (d) include others with first-hand knowledge of the incident, would nonetheless (e) 'misremember' what must have been one of the most dramatic and traumatic moments of his life, after (f) accurately reporting the event for the first few years after it took place, and (g) when the whole thing is only a dozen years in the past, not somewhere in the fog of distant childhood memory." ...

     ... CW: With an assist from Andrew Tyndall, Fallows expand on a point I tried to make in yesterday's Comments, but they do a much better job. Tyndall: "Jim Fallows of The Atlantic recently observed that such 'reverent' solidarity with our troops acts as a ring-fence that protects the entire military-industrial complex from the scrutiny it deserves. So the editorial importance of the fib Williams told is not only that it displays a reflexive desire toward identification with the military; it also represents his own newscast's self-disqualification as a dispassionate journalistic observer of the Pentagon's role in the domestic body politic and the nation's foreign policy." (Emphasis original.)

Kareem Fahim of the New York Times: In Iraq, Shiite militias are having some success at pushing back ISIS, but are almost guaranteed to continue to Shiite-Sunni divisive environment that has plagued Iraq since the Brits created the country. ...

... MEANWHILE, here in the USA, we face our own problems with militant extremists. FreakOut Nation: "National NRA Board member Charles Cotton ​posted on the Texas CHL Forum, writing, 'Perhaps a good paddling in school may keep me from having to put a bullet in [a student] later.'... " His full statement reads:

Once again Rep. Alma Allen [a Democratic Texas legislator] has filed a bill to prohibit the use of corporal punishment in public primary and secondary schools. I'm sure some folks are going to wonder why this bill would be tracked since it doesn't deal directly with guns or self-defense. Rather than type the explanation again this session, I've copied it below. I'm sick of this woman and her 'don't touch my kid regardless what he/she did or will do again' attitude. Perhaps a good paddling in school may keep me from having to put a bullet in him later. ...

... Update: Rep. Allen is black.

God News, Ctd.

We've dealt for several days this week with comments the infidel Barack Obama's made at the National Prayer Breakfast. Here, Jay Michaelson of Religion News Service patiently explains history to wingnuts.

As luck would have it, that particular spate of wingnuttery is not all the God News that's unfit to print this week.

Lester Feder of BuzzFeed: "Pope Francis gave his blessing on Wednesday to a referendum that would ban marriage and adoption rights for same-sex couples in Slovakia, which will be voted on this Saturday." Via Steve Benen. ...

... David Gibson of Religion News Service: "Pope Francis ... on Saturday (Feb. 7) ... argu[ed] that the Catholic Church should help 'guarantee the freedom of choice' for women to take up leading posts in the church and in public life while also maintaining their 'irreplaceable role' as mothers at home.... He said Western societies have left behind the old model of the 'subordination' of women to men, though he said the 'negative effects' of that tradition continue. At the same time, he said, the world has moved beyond a model of 'pure and simple parity, applied mechanically, of absolute equivalence' between men and women." ...

... For some background on Francis, Eamon Duffy reviews three books about him, suggesting Francis is a priest who has learned from his mistakes, but he is not about to change church doctrine. CW: Ergo, his anti-gay-marriage stance & his enigmatic remarks on women's "place."

"Intimations of the Apocalypse." Joe Barton Is Still Nutty. Laura Barron-Lopez of the Hill: "Rep. Joe Barton (Texas) isn't about to have his prized legislation get tagged with a 666 -- the number of the beast. Barton on Wednesday successfully changed the bill number for his legislation repealing a decades-old ban on crude oil exports from 666, a figure frequently tied to the antichrist and Satanism, to the more anodyne 702." Also via Benen. ...

... Steve M.: "Some of you may recall that when Ronald Reagan left the presidency, a group of friends bought him and Nancy a house in Bel-Air, California, located at 666 St. Cloud Road. The Reagans accepted the gift, but had the address changed to 668 St. Cloud Road, to avoid intimations of the apocalypse. Yes, really."

Kevin Eckstrom of Religion News Service: "The Episcopal Church lost a major court battle on Tuesday (Feb. 3) when a South Carolina judge ruled that the Diocese of South Carolina legally seceded from the denomination, and can retain control of $500 million in church property and assets.... The parishes that remain loyal to the national denomination, known as The Episcopal Church in South Carolina, plan to appeal...."

Presidential Race

Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "With advice from more than 200 policy experts, Hillary Rodham Clinton is trying to answer what has emerged as a central question of her early presidential campaign strategy: how to address the anger about income inequality without overly vilifying the wealthy. Mrs. Clinton has not had to wade into domestic policy since before she became secretary of state in 2009, and she has spent the past few months engaged in policy discussions with economists on the left and closer to the Democratic Party's center.... Sorting through the often divergent advice to develop an economic plan could affect the timing and planning of the official announcement of her campaign." ...

... CW: If Larry Summers' recent sudden shift to a more populist message is any indication -- something Akhilleus & I discussed a few weeks back -- I do believe we know just about where Hillary is going with the little income inequality conundrum. She is talking, BTW, to some of the right people -- and to some of the very wrong people. It is, of course, the very wrong people who will be financing her campaign.

Ben Kamisar of the Hill: "The U.S. Attorney's office in New Jersey dismissed media reports that it has launched a new criminal investigation into Gov. Chris Christie (R) as 'a tremendous leap forward' in a statement provided Friday to MSNBC's 'The Rachel Maddow Show.' At issue is an allegation that Christie's office helped scuttle indictments against the governor's allies and that a former county prosecutor who tried to blow the whistle was fired. An International Business Times report from Thursday claimed that prosecutors launched a formal investigation into the matter."

Beyond the Beltway

Today in Responsible Gun Ownership. AP: "Neighbors along a quiet, suburban street outside Atlanta were left horrified after police say a man shot six people -- killing four of them, including his ex-wife and several children -- before ending the rampage by fatally turning the gun on himself." CW: This "family dispute resolution" methodology seems to be becoming increasingly common, especially in NRA-friendly states.

Albuquerque Journal: Albuquerque law enforcement have brought charges of felony child abuse against the parents of a two-year-old who shot them both. A police spokesman said "the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also is investigating whether the child's father -- 24-year-old Justin Reynolds, a convicted felon -- will be charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm."

News Ledes

Washington Post: "Dean Smith, the legendary former coach at North Carolina and one of the greatest coaches of all time in college basketball, has died at the age of 83." The Raleigh News & Observer obituary is here.

Los Angeles Times: "Former Olympian Bruce Jenner was a driver in a multivehicle crash Saturday on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu that left one person dead and five injured, authorities said.... Jenner, whose apparent transition from male to female has drawn intense media coverage in recent days, was being followed by paparazzi when the collision occurred, but it's doubtful he was trying to outrun them, said L.A. County Sheriff's Sgt. Philip Brooks."

Guardian: "The woman who alleges that she was made to have sex with Prince Andrew when she was 17 has told a court she believes US authorities hold video footage of her having underage sex with powerful associates of Andrew's friend Jeffrey Epstein. Virginia Roberts also alleged in a new affidavit filed on Friday that she was so badly assaulted by Epstein's friends that she thought she might die."

The Commentariat -- February 7, 2015

Internal links removed.

White House: "President Obama highlights the progress our economy has made, with more than 3.1 million jobs created in 2014 -- the best year for job growth since the late 1990s. America has come a long way, and with the right policies focused on middle-class economics we can continue to grow our economy into one where those who work hard can get ahead":

Nelson Schwartz of the New York Times: "The economy barreled through the last three months with strong momentum, the Labor Department said Friday, as American employers added 257,000 jobs in January, wage growth rebounded and more people went looking for work in an improving labor market. With new figures on the last two months of the year, 2014 turned out to be the strongest year for job gains since 1999." ...

... Neil Irwin of the New York Times: "That uptick in the unemployment rate? It happened not because fewer people had jobs, but because the size of the labor force rose by a whopping 703,000 in January after annual population adjustments.... And finally -- finally -- there was meaningful evidence that an improving job market was translating into higher pay for workers.... For years, we've been waiting for evidence that wages will rise and that some of the millions of people who left the labor force in the last several years will return. And we got it on Friday, with all that implies." ...

... CW: Thank you, Mitch McConnell, for making all of this possible. ...

... Ben White of CNBC: "The January jobs report ... had no weak spots, leaving Republicans scrambling for a new angle to attack the economy under President Barack Obama. One Republican line is that the recent increase in job gains is a direct result of the GOP taking control of the Senate. This is a patently ridiculous argument.... [CW: You mean I shouldn't have thanked Mitch?] ... House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan ... us[ed] the jobs report as a pitch for both corporate tax reform and trade deals.... Ryan's main job now is convincing Republicans whose main operating ethos is to oppose anything Obama wants...."

"The Definition of Insanity." Gene Robinson: "At a moment of heightened concern that terrorists in the Middle East might stage or inspire attacks on U.S. soil, the GOP-controlled House and Senate are unable to agree on a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security..... It was obvious from the beginning that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) did not have the 60 votes needed to get the bill through the Senate. Nevertheless, McConnell has dutifully brought the bill up three times -- and seen it rejected each time by Democrats.... 'Isn't that the definition of insanity? Voting for the same bill over and over again? [Sen. John] McCain asked. Indeed, the whole episode does seem pretty insane. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) knew the bill he sent to the Senate would be dead on arrival.... The GOP majority in the House continues to value symbolic posturing over pragmatic action." ...

By Contrast, A Modicum of Sanity. When you're talking about energy, I think there is a very legitimate discussion to be had about climate. How we might factor that into a bigger [legislative] package is something that obviously has yet to be discussed. The priorities I have placed on my view of a good energy policy for this country [are] that it's abundant, affordable, clean, diverse and secure. I don't just skip over the clean part. It's important to me. I think it should be important to all members. -- Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Chair of the Energy & Natural Resources Committee (via Paul Waldman)

Mario Trujillo of the Hill: "The House Oversight Committee is investigating if the White House had any 'improper influence' on the Federal Communication Commission's net neutrality rules unveiled this week. Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) sent a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler requesting all staff communications with the White House and other executive branch agencies about the issue, as well as internal documents discussing the White House recommendations and visitor logs of any meetings with administration officials."

Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "In a reversal of his campaign-trail assurances that the tide of war is receding, the final national security strategy of Barack Obama's presidency declares terrorism 'a persistent threat' amidst a 'generational struggle for power in the Middle East'. The 2015 National Security Strategy, released by the White House on Friday, resigns the US to an open-ended conflict against al-Qaida and now the Islamic State (Isis), as well as their undefined 'affiliates'. It does not significantly discuss Yemen or Pakistan, the two most active theaters of drone strikes against al-Qaida. While the document declares al-Qaida's core leadership 'decimated', the strategy forecasts a continued global conflict against a 'more diffuse' series of al-Qaida and Isis networks abroad...."

Rukmini Callimachi & Rick Gladstone of the New York Times: "The Islamic State claimed Friday that the Jordanian bombings in northern Syria intended to avenge its immolation of a captured pilot had killed an American woman held hostage by the group. An Islamic State message published by the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks jihadist activity, said the American woman, Kayla Mueller, was killed when the building where she was being held in the Raqqa area collapsed in an airstrike.... There was no immediate way to verify the claim...." ...

... Juan Cole: "Speaking of burning people alive, one technique the US used was the BLU-82B, a 15,000 pound bomb detonated near the ground with a blast radius of about 5000 feet, but leaving no crater. It was intended to intimidate by burning up large numbers of infantrymen or armored personnel.... It was retired in 2008 in favor of something even more destructive.... The purpose of the bombing was to terrify Iraqis into submitting. That is, it was a form of state terrorism. Iraq had not attacked the US.... We shouldn't forget that [what ISIS is doing] was also what Bush was going for in 2003 when he inadvertently started the process of creating Daesh [ISIS & ISIL] as a backlash to his own monumental ruthlessness." ...

... Ta-Nehesi Coates of the Atlantic: "People who wonder why the president does not talk more about race would do well to examine the recent blow-up over his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast.... That [the President's] relatively mild, and correct, point [about Christians using religion to "justify" slavery & Jim Crow] cannot be made without the comments being dubbed, 'the most offensive I've ever heard a president make in my lifetime,' by a former Virginia governor gives you some sense of the limited tolerance for any honest conversation around racism in our politics.... If you are truly appalled by the brutality of ISIS, then a wise and essential step is understanding the lure of brutality, and recalling how easily your own society can be, and how often it has been, pulled over the brink." ...

... Greg Sargent: "... to the degree that Obama is being criticized for 'offending Christians,' and departing from American 'values,' it's worth noting that his suggestion that Christianity has been pressed into service to justify some of the darker moments in American history is not at all controversial." ...

... ** Paul Waldman: "... of course awful things have been done in the name of many religions, and when Obama mentions the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the religious justifications given for slavery, he's talking about old history. You'd have to be nuts to find in that some kind of insult to Christians or to America. Or you'd have to be a Republican." (Missing link!) CW: Waldman also calls out Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post, which I was too lazy to do yesterday. (I was tempted not to link her story at all because of her lede, but instead I just skipped the lede because down the page she provided some good examples of wingnuttery.) Waldman gives an excellent explanation of the perverted "thinking" of Obama's critics. ...

... CW: Notice, if you will, that I had no trouble connecting the dots between George Bush's "shock & awe" tactics -- as described by Juan Cole -- & critiques of confederates who criticized President Obama's mention of the Crusades, the Inquisition, slavery & Jim Crow. Obama could have used the Bush administration as a contemporary example of the abuse of religion as a justification for terrorist acts. As reported in 2009, Dubya tried to sell the Iraq War to France's then-President Jacques Chirac. as a holy war prophesized in the Old Testament. In addition, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld used to send Bush his daily briefings in scripture-wrapped folders. In the mind of its leader, or at least titular leader, the Iraq War was a holy war, waged under the auspices of the Christian god. And during the course of that war, our leader authorized atrocities in our name. ...

... CW: I've avoided embedding video of Obama's remarks, just because the whole prayer-breakfast thing doesn't sit well with me, but the objections to the speech outweigh my presidential-prayer willies, so here you go:

    ... The transcript is here.

Mr. Biden Regrets. Jeremy Diamond of CNN: Vice President "Biden will be traveling abroad when [Israeli PM Benjamin] Netanyahu comes to Washington to address a joint session of Congress on March 3, his office said Friday.... The Vice President's office declined to say which country he will travel to while the Israeli head of state is in Washington." ...

... CW: Worth noting. Biden will be missed. In a joint session, he would have been seated on the podium, behind the speaker & beside the Speaker. I suspect Mitch McConnell will get that seat now. OR maybe the administration will send an undersecretary of transportation to fill Biden's seat OR Boehner could expand the Clint Eastwood empty-chair meme. I wonder how many Democratic members of Congress will be traveling to undisclosed locations on the day of Netanyahu's affront now that Biden has given them cover.

NEW. Jimmy Williams of Blue Nation Review: "... the month before the 2012 elections, Congressman [Aaron] Schock [R-Ill.] sold his house to a major Republican donor who was also one of his campaign supporters for a price that appears to far exceed the market value at the time.... According to Zillow's home price index, Congressman Schock sold his house at the absolute rock bottom for the Illinois real estate market, also the worst month for housing prices in a decade." ...

     ... Schock wouldn't speak to Williams, but he told WLS News (Chicago), "The blog post the gentleman just wrote was very hurtful, you know, because it questions my business dealings, but when you're in this environment, all's fair." CW: I suppose it is "hurtful" when somebody outs you as a corrupt politician.

     ... CW: I"m having a hard time seeing the difference between Shcock's trick & stuffing your cash bribes in the freezer, although I suppose real estate-based bribes are a lot more "Downton Abbey"-classy than are frozen Benjamins. ...

     ... UPDATE: Now even the New York Times is taking note of the real estate deal, if in a small way.

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

Brian Williams, The Cover-up Investigation. Paul Farhi of the Washington Post: "NBC News launched an internal investigation Friday into statements made by its lead anchor, Brian Williams, about his reporting from Iraq in 2003, as well as his award-winning coverage of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The investigation, confirmed by NBC officials, represents a change in the network's attitude toward its popular anchor only a day after senior managers appeared to have accepted his apology for misstating the facts...."

Brian Stelter of CNN: "The pilot I interviewed on Thursday [linked here yesterday] about Brian Williams is no longer standing by his story. That pilot, Rich Krell, told me he was flying the helicopter Williams was on in Iraq -- an account now contradicted by several other soldiers.... On Thursday night, two others, Christopher Simeone and Allan Kelly, told The New York Times that they -- not Krell -- had piloted Williams' helicopter, and that 'they did not recall their convoy of helicopters coming under fire.' Simeone, Kelly and a third soldier, Joseph Miller, also spoke with The Omaha World-Herald.... Bottom line: this pilot is revising his story - and, because of that, I'm revising mine. What initially looked like an account that supported some of Brian Williams' war story -- that he came 'under fire' that day -- no longer appears to be true." ...

... Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: "The upshot [of Krell's recantation] spells renewed trouble for Williams and a minor bruise for CNN."

Chris Simeone, who says he piloted Williams' helicopter, in a New York Post op-ed: "Brian Williams' account is not true." Simeone provides his own account & notes discrepancies between his story & Williams'.

Michael Calderone of the Huffington Post: Former NBC News anchor Tom "Brokaw pushed back against a New York Post story [linked here yesterday, with caveats] claiming he wanted Williams fired, but notably didn't offer his own statement of support. 'I have neither demanded nor suggested Brian be fired,' Brokaw said in an email to The Huffington Post. 'His future is up to Brian and NBC News executives.'"

John Simerman of the New Orleans Advocate: "While doubters have noted correctly that the Quarter, New Orleans' original high ground, remained largely if not completely dry, photographs and news reports from the time indicate there was flooding around the Ritz-Carlton, where the network source confirmed Williams stayed."

Juan Cole: "Many of Williams's fiercest critics are conservatives, for whom network television news is a liberal conspiracy -- a charge that is wholly unfair and untrue (otherwise we on the left wouldn't risk a stroke every time we watch it). Worse, many of them think that Fox Cable News really is fair and balanced. The same conservatives, however, go on idolizing Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, both of whom much more egregiously made stuff up about their military service than Williams.... Ronald Reagan told visiting Israeli premier Yitzhak Shamir in fall of 1983 that he had helped liberate the Auschwitz concentration camp as a soldier in the European theater and had taken footage of the horrors of the camp.... Reagan was in uniform during WW II, but was detailed to Hollywood. He never left the United States.... Joe Conason sleuthed out George W. Bush's lies about his military service.... Bush lied about trying to volunteer for Vietnam (!) and then lied again when he said he 'continued flying with my unit' when in reality he was sloughing off on a civilian local GOP campaign in another state...." Cole makes clear both Reagan's & Bush's lies were far bigger whoppers than Williams' exaggerations. Cole makes a point that Akhilleus made in yesterday's commentary.

Sorry, came across this when I was looking for something else:

When people ask Justice Ruth Ginsburg how many women should be on the Supreme Court, she has an answer.

Presidential Race

Jennifer Jacobs of the Des Moines Register: "Joe Biden, the vice president and an underdog for the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, is scheduled to be back in Iowa next week. Biden will speak in Des Moines on Thursday, sources familiar with preparations for his trip told The Des Moines Register. His office later confirmed that he will deliver remarks at Drake University and do a roundtable at Des Moines Area Community College on college affordability. The news comes in the wake of the release this past weekend of a new Iowa Poll that shows Biden trails both Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren in the horse race for most popular presidential pick among likely Democratic caucusgoers."

Jonathan Bernstein of Bloomberg Politics on what Scott Walker's big "surge" in the polls (15% in Iowa; 21% in New Hampshire) means to his nomination chances: "Scott Walker now is still the Scott Walker of December ... but the polling surge may have real effects, even if it isn't 'real.' If the spike convinces John Kasich, Mike Pence or Bobby Jindal to drop out, that alone would increase Walker's chances for the nomination.... It certainly will bring in money and other resources for Walker; those, in turn, could buy him further success.... What matters, too, is that Walker entered this surge as a viable candidate; he's no Herman Cain or Newt Gingrich.... The latest polls tell us almost nothing about voters.... If these early polls are important, it is only because of the way the people who pay close attention to Republican Party politics react to them." ...

... "Drafting Error," Ctd. The New York Times Editors take the occasion of Scott Walker's not only decimating the U.W. system's budget but also striking its beloved mission statement -- "a trade school agenda ... substituted for the idea of a university" -- to label him an extremist. Plus they catch him out lying about it: "His office attempted the ridiculous excuse that the pernicious editing of the university's mission was simply 'a drafting error' in the budget text and that the Wisconsin Idea would be left intact after all. But a December email showed clear instructions from the administration to make the deletions."

The Excellent Jindal-Brownback-Generic-GOP Economic Plan. Tyler Bridges of Politico: "Gov. Bobby Jindal has a plan: Do for the country what he's done for Louisiana. Cut taxes and cut the government workforce and the economy will bloom.... It's a message he's peddling as he lays the groundwork for a presidential run. Indeed, as Jindal is quick to say, private-sector job growth and the economy in Louisiana have outpaced the national average during his tenure as governor.... But here's what Jindal doesn't say: Louisiana's budget is hemorrhaging red ink, and it's getting worse. He inherited a $900 million surplus when he became governor seven years ago, and his administration's own budget documents now show the state is facing deficits of more than $1 billion for as far as the eye can see. There are no easy solutions today because Jindal has increasingly balanced the budget by resorting to one-time fixes, depleting the state's reserve funds and taking money meant for other purposes." ...

... Blame It on Bobby. Campbell Robertson of the New York Times: "... in the Louisiana capital, there is mostly one topic on everyone's mind these days...: the fiscal reckoning the state is facing for next year and perhaps for multiple budgets to come. 'Since I've been in Louisiana I've never seen a budget cycle as desperate as this one,' said Robert Travis Scott, the president of the Public Affairs Research Council, a nonpartisan group based in Baton Rouge. Louisiana's budget shortfall is projected to reach $1.6 billion next year and to remain in that ballpark for a while. The downturn in oil prices has undoubtedly worsened the problem, forcing midyear cuts to the current budget. But economists, policy experts and lawmakers of both parties, pointing out that next year's projected shortfall was well over a billion dollars even when oil prices were riding high, turn to a different culprit: the fiscal policy pushed by the Jindal administration and backed by the State Legislature.

The Vaccinatingest Govenor. Our vaccination rate in Texas [in 2000] was 65 percent. When I left two weeks ago, it was 95 percent. -- Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) February 5

The vaccination rate went up about 14 percent, not 50 percent, and it stalled in the last half of his tenure of governor. This doesn't quite rise to Four Pinocchios, but it's close. -- Glenn Kessler, Washington Post

Gail Collins: "Today, we're going to talk about 'God, Guns, Grits and Gravy,' Mike Huckabee's entry into the presidential book-writing sweepstakes. These tomes are going to be piling up soon, and remember: We read them so you don't have to."

Beyond the Beltway

Why join the Democratic Party and run for lieutenant governor? I'll tell you: We are all Mississippians first. Elected officials should be in the business of helping all Mississippians, not picking out who to hurt.... The Republican Party leaders' actions against supporting Medicaid expansion and threatening our local hospitals was the final, deciding factor for me. -- Former State Sen. Tim Johnson (R-Miss.) ...

... Not a Hoax. Steve Benen: Former GOP Mississippi State Sen. Tim Johnson is leaving the Republican party to become a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor to help get Mississippians access to the Medicaid extension funds. "Note, Mississippi is one of only three states that will hold statewide elections this year." ...

... Rachana Pradhan & Sarah Wheaton of Politico: "Wyoming has become yet another state where a Republican governor's effort to expand Medicaid has been defeated by his own Legislature. On Friday, the Wyoming Senate shot down Gov. Matt Mead's expansion plan, and a House committee then pulled its bill. The double whammy effectively killed the state's chances of enacting the Obamacare option this year."

The Up Side of Rape. Tara Culp-Ressler of Think Progress: In a tweet, West Virginia Del. Brian Kurcaba (R) said "that abortion bans shouldn't have exceptions for women who became pregnant from sexual assault because 'what is beautiful is the child that could come from this.'... Kurcaba ... made the comments -- which were first reported by Charleston Gazette staffer David Gutman -- during a public hearing on Thursday. A health committee in the legislature was debating a proposed 20-week abortion ban. Kurcaba was explaining why he opposed a Democratic-sponsored amendment to add an exception for rape victims."

News Ledes

Slate: "With wind chills as low as 12 below zero Fahrenheit in Boston, Friday was one of the coldest mornings in New England history. At this rate, Bostonians can only cherish their few unfrozen tears, because winter's fury isn't leaving anytime soon. Friday's bone-chilling cold will kick off another brutal stretch of winter weather for New England, which just endured its snowiest week in history -- with four feet in 10 days in Boston.... That's a year's worth of snow just since late January."

New York Times: "Lizabeth Scott, a sultry blonde with a come-hither voice cut out for the seething romantic and homicidal passions of her Hollywood film noir roles in the late 1940s and early '50s, died on Jan. 31 in Los Angeles. She was 92."

New York Times: "André Brink, a towering South African literary presence for decades whose work in English and Afrikaans fell afoul of apartheid-era censors, died Friday, South African news reports said, citing his publisher, N.B. Publishers. He was 79."