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."

The Commentariat -- February 6, 2015

Internal links & defunct videos removed.

Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "Now that they control both houses of Congress, Republicans are beginning to learn the limits of their newfound power. For the third day in a row, Senate Republicans called a vote on a bill to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded. And for the third time, it failed to clear a Democratic filibuster.... The tactics that had served them well when they were in the minority were now being effectively exploited against them. Democrats were gleeful as, one by one, they flashed thumbs down to the Senate clerks and recorded their no votes.... [Republicans] promised voters positive movement when they crushed Democrats in the midterm elections. So far, inertia has prevailed." CW: Stupidest Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), explains why it's all Obama's fault. ...

... Burgess Everett & Jake Sherman of Politico: "Three weeks before the Department of Homeland Security's funding runs out, Congress is skipping town for a long weekend -- and GOP leaders in both chambers are pointing fingers at each other on who must find a way out of the logjam. Some on the Hill are predicting a 'prolonged fight' that may drag on even after the Feb. 27 funding deadline -- a date that Republican leaders insisted on setting but have no clue how to meet.... Meanwhile, neither the House nor Senate will vote on Friday, and they both plan to be in recess the entire week of Feb. 16."

Jason Millman of the Washington Post: "The GOP [healthcare] plan outlined by congressional aides Wednesday is similar to on that the senators offered last year, which the GOP never united around.... There's no actual timetable yet for when lawmakers could write a bill or hold hearings on the plan, and it's unlikely to move ahead of the Supreme Court's decision on subsidies in the King v. Burwell case." CW: As I've read elsewhere, Republicans have made no attempt to ask the CBO to "score" the "plan" because there really isn't any more that a rough outline, with no clue as to how it might be funded, so the "plan" gives the CBO nothing to score. ...

     ... Update: I may be wrong about the CBO's ability to score the Burr plan. Jeffrey Young & Jonathan Cohn of the Huffington Post suggest the CBO could plug the "plan" into its forecasting model. Young & Cohn's piece outlines the likely effects of this latest fake plan, should it be implemented. ...

... Scott Lemieux of LG&M: "Congressional Republicans are claiming to have a plan to replace the ACA. It is, first of all, not a 'plan' in the sense that Republicans have the slightest intention of enacting it. The point is to not to make health care policy but to give an excuse for five judges who may be ready to embrace absurd legal arguments to strip millions of people of their health insurance, and perhaps fool a few more gullible rubes into thinking the Republicans actually have an alternative to the ACA. In addition, this plan is not really 'new'; it's only a very minor variation from last year's Burr-Hatch-Upton Potemkin proposal. Which means that on the one hand it would ensure many fewer people, and on the other hand involve substantial middle class tax increases and utterly savage attacks on the poor...." ...

... A ruse, Scott? An excuse to cover the Supremes? How could you suggest that? ...

... Peter Sullivan of the Hill: "Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said Thursday that Republicans might not be able to pass an alternative to ObamaCare until 2017.... Appearing ... on Fox News's 'Special Report with Bret Baier,' Burr said no single idea is likely to generate consensus. 'I don't think so,' he said. 'I think that there are going to be a lot of ideas not only in Congress but around the think tanks here in Washington and around the country.'" CW: Republicans have been "thinking about" a replacement for ObamaCare since Obama signed the ACA into law in 2010. They're going to keep "thinking" till the end of time. ...

... Jennifer Haberkorn: David M.King, 64, is the lead plaintiff on the Supreme Court case that challenges the government's right to grant tax subsidies to millions of Americans.... [He] isn't shy about telling the world that he thinks the president is an 'idiot,' posting altered images of the first lady in Middle Eastern clothing and expressing his hatred for the 'Democraps' who enacted the health care law.... He is skeptical of the media -- offering to let a reporter in only to 'get the chill off' a cold February morning -- and wouldn't discuss the origins of his case." CW: King will be eligible for Medicare next year.

Let No Good Prayer Go Unpunished. John Amato of Crooks & Liars: Wingers go crazy over President Obama's mention, at Thursday's National Prayer Breakfast, of the atrocities of the Christian crusades. ...

     ... Here's a Red State headline, which Amato linked: "Obama uses National Prayer Breakfast to compare Christianity to ISIS." And this one from Hot Air: "Obama: You know, Christians were just as bad as ISIS a few centuries ago." ...

     ... Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post finds more confederates who can't handle the truth. ...

     ... AND Steve M. finds more (because they just keep coming). Steve notes that, contra a wingnut claim, President Lincoln (or so the story goes) mightily questioned the notion of American exceptionalism -- and at the height of the American Civil War. ...

     ... Here are President Obama's full remarks at the breakfast. Very little in it about the brutal Simon de Montfort & his horrifying Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars. Such a disappointment.

German Lopez of Vox: "The federal government considers marijuana to have no medical value. But US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Wednesday said 'marijuana can be helpful' for some medical conditions and symptoms. And it seems like this wasn't a slip-up: the US Department of Health and Human Services appears to be promoting the comments on Twitter.... This is a big deal. In the past, these types of positive comments about pot have been walked back by public officials."

A Win-Win Company Policy. James Surowiecki of the New Yorker: "... last month, Aetna's C.E.O., Mark Bertolini, announced that the company's lowest-paid workers would get a substantial raise -- from twelve to sixteen dollars an hour, in some cases -- as well as improved medical coverage. Bertolini ... said that it was not 'fair' for employees of a Fortune 50 company to be struggling to make ends meet. He explicitly linked the decision to the broader debate about inequality, mentioning that he had given copies of Thomas Piketty's 'Capital in the Twenty-first Century' to all his top executives. 'Companies are not just money-making machines,' he told me last week. 'For the good of the social order, these are the kinds of investments we should be willing to make.'" Read the whole post. Thanks to Victoria D. for the link.

Cecilia Kang of the Washington Post: Sony co-CEO Amy Pascal's "extraordinary rise ended Thursday as Sony Pictures Entertainment announced Pascal was stepping down as co-chair of the major studio, months after she endured a prolonged public relations disaster when hacked private e-mails showed her making racially charged jokes about the president."

He had, they said, tasted in succession all the apples of the tree of knowledge, and, whether from hunger or disgust, had ended by tasting the forbidden fruit. ― Victor Hugo, em> The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, description of Claude Frollo

... AP: "Harvard University has instituted a total ban on professors having sex with undergraduate students, strengthening language the school said did not reflect the faculty's expectations on appropriate relationships between students and faculty members. In a statement released Thursday, Harvard said the change came as part of a formal review of its Title IX policy, the federal civil rights law prohibiting sex discrimination in education." CW: Good luck with that!

Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed: "A controversial professor on Wednesday revealed that Marquette University is trying to revoke his tenure and fire him for statements he made about a graduate instructor, with her name, on his blog. The university says his behavior was unprofessional and that he misled the public about what happened in a dispute between the graduate instructor and an undergraduate student. The professor, John McAdams, says he is being punished for his free speech. He also maintains that Marquette shouldn't be attacking him, given that he is defending an undergraduate's views against gay marriage that are consistent with Roman Catholic teachings. (Marquette is a Jesuit university.)" ...

... Scott Lemieux in LG&M: "The clause that Marquette is using to justify the firing -- 'should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others' -- would render academic freedom a nullity."

Tim Egan: "To understand how [fake dietary supplements are marketed in the U.S.], you have to go back to 1994, when Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah midwifed through Congress a new industry protected from all but minimal regulation. It is also an industry that would make many of his closest associates and family members rich. In turn, they've rewarded him with sizable campaign contributions." CW: Diogenes would come away shaking his head in disbelief after the trip through the halls of Congress.

Now for the Finger-Pointing. Dan Williams of Reuters: "A senior Israeli official suggested on Friday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been misled [by House Speaker John Boehner] into thinking an invitation to address the U.S. Congress on Iran next month was fully supported by the Democrats.... 'It appears that the speaker of Congress made a move, in which we trusted, but which it ultimately became clear was a one sided move and not a move by both sides,' Deputy Israeli Foreign Minister Tzachi Hanegbi told 102 FM Tel Aviv Radio on Friday." ...

     ... CW: Mind you, I don't buy this phony excuse for a minute. Because of this: New York Times (January 28): Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Ron "Dermer relayed the invitation to Mr. Netanyahu from Mr. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, without notifying top officials in Washington or Jerusalem. American and Israeli officials said that Mr. Dermer, in the course of a lengthy meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry just before Mr. Netanyahu’s speech was announced, never mentioned it."

Annals of "Journalism," Fog-of-War Edition

Brian Williams' Memoir Will Be Fabulous!

Margaret Hartmann of New York: Brian Williams' "stories about Hurricane Katrina have also come into question. Over the years, Williams has described seeing a body float by his hotel in the French Quarter, though the area was not heavily flooded like the rest of New Orleans, and made some other strange claims about his time reporting on the storm.... It does seem that the story about the body has shifted over the years." And more. It seems Williams "conflates" his stories on a regular basis & "misremembers" quite a bit. As Hartmann points out, Williams' coverage of the Katrina catastrophe is an important component of his career. CW: If his Katrina fame flames, too, he's just another guy in a bar telling war stories. ...

... John Simerman of the New Orleans Advocate covers much of the same ground Hartmann explores.

Emily Smith & Kenneth Garger of the New York Post: Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw "is furious that Brian Williams is still in the anchor chair after he sheepishly admitted he hadn't traveled on a helicopter hit by enemy fire. 'Brokaw wants Williams' head on a platter,' an NBC source said. "... a lesser journalist or producer would have been immediately fired or suspended for a false report.'" CW: Two things about this report: (1) It comes from the New York Post's gossip page; (2) Who gives a damn what Tom Brokaw thinks?

Jonathan Mahler of the New York Times: "On Thursday, [NBC News anchor Brian Williams'] real problems started. A host of military veterans and commentators came forward on television and social media, challenging Mr. Williams's assertion that he had made an innocent mistake when he spoke, on several occasions, about having been in a United States military helicopter that was forced down by enemy fire in Iraq in 2003. Some went so far as to call for his resignation. In his apology, Mr. Williams said that he had been on a different helicopter, behind the one that had sustained fire, and that he had inadvertently 'conflated' the two. The explanation earned him not only widespread criticism on radio and TV talk shows, but widespread ridicule on Twitter, under the hashtag BrianWilliamsMisremembers.... Mr. Williams just extended his contract with NBC in December, with terms reported to be as much as $10 million a year for as long as five years. At the time, Deborah M. Turness, the head of NBC News, called him one of 'the most trusted journalists of our time.'"

Brian Stelter of CNN: "If NBC and Brian Williams believed a Facebook post and an on-air apology were enough, they were wrong.... The executives in charge of the news division have declined to comment, perhaps out of a reluctance to advance the story. And following his apology on Wednesday, Williams said nothing more about it on his Thursday night newscast." ...

     ... HOWEVER, Jake Tapper talked to Rich Krell, the pilot of the helicopter in which Williams was riding, & Krell partially backs Williams' story. As Stelter reports, "Rich Krell, who was piloting the Chinook that Williams was on, tells a different story than the crew members who spoke to Stars and Stripes. Some of things he's said are not true. But some of the things they're saying against him are not true either,' said Krell.... All three of the helicopters were hit by small arms fire, Krell said, supporting Williams' past claims about that." ...

... Al Tompkins of Poynter summarizes Krell's remarks. This is key: "Krell told CNN the chopper was not 'crippled' even after being hit by a few rounds of gunfire. The small arms fire caused damage to the chopper's equipment but not enough to force an emergency landing. Krell said he landed in the desert because of an approaching sandstorm. Krell said it was right for Williams to apologize for saying wrongly that his chopper was hit by an RPG. But the other details of the story, he said, were correct." ...

... ON THE OTHER HAND. Travis Tritten of Stars & Stripes: "Krell’s version was at odds with the recollections of both [David] Luke [-- a ... flight engineer ... who was aboard a helicopter flying along with the one carrying Williams and his NBC crew --] and Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Miller, who was the flight engineer on the aircraft carrying Williams and his crew. Miller and Luke insisted separately that aircraft in their formation did not take ground fire that day and landed in Iraq only because of the sandstorm, which paralyzed coalition operations for days. 'No, we never came under direct enemy fire to the aircraft,' Miller told Stars and Stripes on Wednesday."

Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times: "It may take 10 years to earn it, but trust in news anchors can be shaken in less than 10 minutes.... A public apology is just the first step, and Mr. Williams's mea culpa wasn't very humble. He made his fib sound like a one-time misguided effort to pay homage to veterans.... Those puffy NBC promos that tout Mr. Williams's 'battle scars' and 'integrity' don't help."

Rem Reider of USA Today: "Williams still doesn't get it. Being called out by the vets on Facebook, and the reporting by Travis Tritten of Stars and Stripes, have changed everything. When you are nailed like this, you need a forthright mea culpa, not lawyerly parsing of words. But it's doubtful even that would help, particularly now."

Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: "Why did it take pushback from 'some brave men and women in the air crews.'...? Do these folks have to fight our wars and fact-check NBC News?... The fact that [NBC News] personnel aside from Williams knew that his statements on these events were erroneous should prompt an internal probe as to how these falsehoods circulated so freely."

Andy Borowitz has a list Brian Williams' tales of harrowing experiences which the fact-checking department at NBC News has verified. Here's one of them: "In May of 2011, the elevator in my building suffered an equipment malfunction en route to my penthouse. I was stuck talking to a tax attorney for seven minutes before I was rescued."

We should take care before assuming deliberate deception here. As a memory researcher, I find it credible that Brian Williams had a genuine memory error. We all gradually change narratives about the past in a way that is not deliberate, but because we are under less scrutiny than national journalists, we never realize all the memory errors we make. -- Memory Expert Lawrence Patihis

A Lovely Story of "Misremembering":

Schocking Red, Day 2. Jeff Zeleny interviews Rep. Aaron Schock [R-Ill.] about his lovely offices. Schock, contra reports yesterday, says he will be paying his decorator for her "Downton Abbey" salon knockoff:

...Katie Zavadski of New York: "... Benjamin Cole -- the aide who reprimanded a Washington Post reporter for capturing the period-drama-inspired office -- has resigned after ... ThinkProgress" found that in posts on his Facebook page, "Cole compared black people to escaped zoo animals.... 'I am extremely disappointed by the inexcusable and offensive online comments made by a member of my staff,' Schock said in a statement about the resignation to the Journal Star. 'I would expect better from any member of my team. Upon learning about them I met with Mr. Cole and he offered his resignation which I have accepted.'"

Paul Krugman, Short Version: "Germany to Greece: Nice banking system you got there. Be a shame if something were to happen to it. Greece to Germany: Oh, yeah? Well, we'd hate to see your nice, shiny European Union get all banged up."

Eve Fairbanks in the New Republic on the presidency of Uruguay's José Mujica. A good story to read -- all the way to the end.

Presidential Race

** Matt Yglesias of Vox: "Launching his not-quite-a-presidential-campaign in Detroit this week, Jeb Bush delivered what I think would be an incredible speech for a job that doesn't actually exist. Call it 'Mayor of America.' What Jeb didn't do was offer a speech that suggests he'd be a good president, or is even aware of what the president's job is.... It's crucial to recognize that in the United States, the federal government does not operate as a scaled-up version of a state or local government. The federal government is an insurance company with an army....They also tax differently. State and local governments collect regressive sales and property taxes, while the federal government collects progressive income taxes." ...

     ... CW: Read the whole post. In it, Yglesias explains as much about Congressional Republicans as he does about Jeb Bush. They think small; they think local. Ergo, they don't actually know how to govern a nation. Yglesias also helps explain why Republicans, especially, get away with fooling voters: voters think locally, too. Guided by shortsighted Republicans (and too many Democrats, including, on occasion our current POTUS), they accept their households & their communities as metaphors for a federal government which actually has quite different functions. ...

Brian Beutler: The difference between Jeb Bush & Scott Walker is rhetorical style. Both Bush & Walker "... see the country's economic challenges almost identically. To the extent that Bush believes inequality is a problem, he revealed on Wednesday that he has no intention of alleviating it by using federal power to distribute income downward, and, like Walker, he believes that the biggest structural force driving inequality is dependence on government."

Former Bushie Michael Gerson: "It has become the Rand Paul pattern: A few weeks paddling vigorously in the mainstream, followed by a lapse into authenticity, followed by transparent damage control, followed by churlishness toward anyone in the media who notices.... When Chris Christie commits a gaffe on vaccination and reverses himself, it indicates a man out of his depth. With Paul, it reveals the unexplored depths of a highly ideological and conspiratorial worldview.... While many prospective presidential candidates seek catchier ways to express their political philosophy, Paul must take pains to conceal the ambition of his ideals.... It is a difficult position for a candidate when every glimmer of authenticity is a potential blunder.... For all its flaws of length and cost, a presidential campaign strips away pose and pretense. And that is a particular problem for Rand Paul."

Claude Brodesser-Akner in NJ.com: "The reviews are in on Gov. Chris Christie's trip to the United Kingdom, and they are not good. 'I think the trip was an utter failure,' said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian.... 'It should have been a trip of "good behavior" instead of showing a short fuse, because by any time an American leader goes abroad, there's a diplomatic nature to the trip.' Brinkley said Christie then revealed a lack of control when he snarled at a Washington Post reporter who pressed him on the West's response to ISIS, 'Is there something you don't understand about "No questions"?'" ...

... Josh Margolin & Shushannah Walshe of ABC News: "Federal authorities have launched a criminal investigation into New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, as well as members of his administration, a man at the center of the investigation told ABC News. The U.S. attorney's office in New Jersey has interviewed former Hunterdon County Assistant Prosecutor Bennett Barlyn, who claims he was fired because he objected to Christie officials dismissing indictments against political allies of the governor. Barlyn confirmed the investigation to ABC News." ...

... Lillian Shupe of the Hunterdon County Democrat has more. (The HCD is a weekly newspaper, not an organ of the Democratic party.)

Beyond the Beltway

AP: "The Roman Catholic archbishop of San Francisco has ... demand[ed] teachers lead their public and professional lives consistently with church teachings on homosexuality, same-sex marriage, abortion, birth control and other behaviours he describes as evil. Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone plans to include the language in next year's faculty handbooks for four high schools owned and operated by the archdiocese.... Cordileone ... has proposed that the contract being negotiated identify all school employees as ministers of the church, a change gay rights groups said would put teachers who do not adhere to the beliefs in the handbook at risk of dismissal. The US supreme court has exempted churches and religious schools from having to abide by federal anti-discrimination laws for employees in 'ministerial roles'." Cordileone was a prime mover of Prop 8, the temporarily successful effort to outlaw same-sex marriage in California.

Tanzina Vega of the New York Times: "Malcolm A. Smith, the former majority leader of the New York State Senate, was convicted on Thursday of federal corruption charges including bribery, wire fraud and extortion. Mr. Smith, 57, a Democrat from Queens, had been accused of conspiring to pay Daniel J. Halloran III, a former Republican city councilman from Queens, and three Republican county leaders ... thousands of dollars in an effort to run for mayor of New York City on the Republican ballot in 2013."

News Ledes

Politico: "Mississippi Republican Rep. Alan Nunnelee has died from complications related to a brain tumor, his family announced on Friday. The Republican was diagnosed with cancer in May and was sent to home hospice last month after doctors discovered a second, untreatable tumor in his brain."

New York Times: "With fighting intensifying in eastern Ukraine and the White House weighing whether to send arms to bolster the government's forces, Western leaders embarked on a concerted diplomatic effort on Thursday aimed at ending a conflict that has strained relations with Russia."

Bloomberg News: "Employers in the U.S. added more jobs than forecast in January, capping the biggest three-month gain in 17 years, and workers' earnings jumped."

Washington Post: "Hackers gained access to the private data of 80 million former and current members and employees of Anthem in one of the largest medical-related cyber-intrusions in history. Authorities said the breach, which was discovered late last month and disclosed this week, did not involve private health records or credit card numbers but did expose Social Security numbers, income data, birthdays, and street and e-mail addresses. Investigators suspect Chinese hackers may be responsible for the breach, according to a person briefed on some aspects of the probe. There are also some indications that other health-care companies may have been targeted...."

Guardian: "Mass surveillance of the internet by the British monitoring agency GCHQ was unlawful until the end of last year, the UK's most secretive court has ruled. The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) ruled on Friday that the agency's access to intercepted information obtained by the US National Security Agency (NSA) breached human rights law."

Guardian: "The Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, could be removed from office as early as next week after facing a revolt from within his own party. A backbench MP from Abbott's governing Liberal party announced on Friday that he would be moving a motion to have the leadership declared open. The move followed a series of mis-steps and political blunders by the prime minster, including the decision to award a knighthood to Prince Philip on Australia Day."