The Commentariat -- Feb. 10, 2015

Internal links removed.

Deb Reichmann of the AP: "President Barack Obama is expected -- as early as Tuesday -- to ask Congress for new war powers, sending Capitol Hill his blueprint for an updated authorization for the use of military force to fight the Islamic State group."

Michael Shear & Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "President Obama said Monday that he would wait for the outcome of peace talks before deciding whether to provide lethal weapons to Ukraine. Such assistance would represent a striking break with European allies who say that arming the country against Russian aggression would make the conflict worse. In a joint White House news conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Mr. Obama said he was hopeful that economic sanctions would persuade President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to seize a diplomatic solution. But he said the United States would consider sending defensive weapons to Ukraine if European-led talks scheduled for this week did not produce peace."

Julie Davis & Isabel Kershner of the New York Times: "The latest conflict between President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel erupted into public view on Monday, as the two leaders clashed from afar over Mr. Netanyahu's plans to visit Washington next month and the direction of negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. At a White House news conference, Mr. Obama signaled his displeasure with the speech Mr. Netanyahu is scheduled to give in March.... But in Jerusalem, Mr. Netanyahu vowed that he would go forward with the speech, despite increasing pressure in Israel and the United States to cancel or alter his plans to use it to appeal directly to American lawmakers for a harder line against Iran." ...

... Mike Lillis of the Hill has put together a whip list of Democrats who have said they will & will not attend Netanyahu's speech.

Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones tracks down the four plaintiffs in the case of King v. Burwell. They're all nincompoops, but I guess my favorite is "Brenda Levy ... [who] will qualify for Medicare in June, around the same time the Supreme Court is likely to issue a decision in this case.... She didn't recall exactly how she had been selected as a plaintiff in the case.... [She's a substitute teacher & an anti-gay activist.] Levy said that she had never met the lawyers handling the case in person.... When I asked her if she realized that her lawsuit could potentially wipe out health coverage for millions, she looked befuddled. 'I don't want things to be more difficult for people,' she said. 'I don't like the idea of throwing people off their health insurance.'" ...

.. Greg Sargent reports that the Wall Street Journal is raising questions about the standing of the four plaintiffs in King v. Burwell in this story, by Louise Radnofsky & Brent Kendall, and in this one (Feb. 6), by Radnofsky, Kendall & Jess Bravin. However, as Sargent notes, "... the standing questions almost certainly won't be enough to disable the lawsuit. All it needs is one plaintiff with standing. And there are other people out there -- on other lawsuits, and beyond -- who can legitimately claim injury. This legal challenge will go forward one way or another." ...

... Be Careful What You Wish For. Brian Beutler on the consequences for Republicans, who are hoping the Supremes will rule for King, et al.: "The case ... is an unexploded ordnance lying in the middle of the 2016 presidential campaign field. An adverse King ruling wouldn't just introduce familiar, crisis-driven legislative politics. It would likely become the defining issue of the Republican primary and general election. It would leave Republicans strategically and substantively divided over how to contain the fallout. And it would transform Obamacare as an issue from a modest liability for the Democratic candidate, into a factor that unifies the entire party against Republicans and the Supreme Court." ...

... ** Robert Kirsch of the Roosevelt Institute, in the Hill: Under the GOP's latest "plan" to "replace" the ACA, "middle-class, seniors and low-income -- would pay more to get lousy insurance and many more working Americans would go without health coverage." ...

... If you wonder why the Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam's (R) effort to secure Medicaid expansion funds for Tennesseans failed in the state's legislator, blame it on David Koch. According to Perry Bacon of NBC News, "... the state's chapter of Americans for Prosperity..., whose foundation is chaired by controversial billionaire David Koch, argued Haslam was just trying to trick conservatives into implementing Obamacare in their state by giving it a new name. AFP campaigned aggressively Haslam's plans..., even running radio ads blasting GOP state legislators who said they might vote for it." Via Greg Sargent.

Alec MacGillis of Slate: Last week "... the Obama administration, spurred on by a stunning investigation by the Huffington Post, quietly took an important step in ... [fighting] heroin addiction.... The White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy announced that it would forbid drug courts that receive federal funding ... from barring defendants from going on Suboxone," a drug that "that has been shown to be highly effective in treating addiction to heroin and prescription painkillers" & can be taken at home because it is more difficult to abuse than methadone.

Hmm. Katie Valentine of Think Progress: "Federal agents have been contacting activists who have participated in anti-Keystone XL and anti-tar sands protests, according to the Canadian Press. The visits have been happening to activists in Oregon, Washington state, and Idaho, and a lawyer working with the activists told the Canadian Press that he has advised them not to talk to the agents."

Ben Protess & Jessica Silver-Greenberg of the New York Times: "The Justice Department is pushing some of the biggest banks on Wall Street -- including, for the first time in decades, American institutions -- to plead guilty to criminal charges that they manipulated the prices of foreign currencies. In the final stages of a long-running investigation into corruption in the world's largest financial market, federal prosecutors have recently informed Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Citigroup that they must enter guilty pleas to settle the cases, according to lawyers briefed on the matter....Yet ... a development that has not been previously reported -- additional currency misconduct has surfaced in a New York state investigation, confidential documents show."

GOP Jihad. William Saletan of Slate: Republicans & confederate pundits who have chided President Obama for noting historic acts of violence committed in the name of Christianity are making the same arguments today's Islamic jihadists make about the justifications for their violence. ...

... ** Bill Moyers vividly describes Americans gleefully burning another American alive in 1916. "Between 1882 and 1968 -- 1968! -- there were 4,743 recorded lynchings in the US. About a quarter of them were white people, many of whom had been killed for sympathizing with black folks.... Our own barbarians did not have to wait at any gate. They were insiders. Home grown. Godly. Our neighbors, friends, and kin. People like us." ...

... The Conferate Reign of Terror. Campbell Robertson of the New York Times: "On Tuesday..., the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala., released a report on the history of lynchings in the United States, the result of five years of research and 160 visits to sites around the South. The authors of the report compiled an inventory of 3,959 victims of 'racial terror lynchings' in 12 Southern states from 1877 to 1950.... The process is intended, [Bryan] Stevenson[, the organization's founder,] said, to force people to reckon with the narrative through-line of the country's vicious racial history, rather than thinking of that history in a short-range, piecemeal way. 'Lynching and the terror era shaped the geography, politics, economics and social characteristics of being black in America during the 20th century,' Mr. Stevenson said, arguing that many participants in the great migration from the South should be thought of as refugees fleeing terrorism rather than people simply seeking work." ...

... The organization provides a map of the sites of lynchings from 1877 to 1950, republished in the Times. The report, "Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror," is here (pdf).

Well, it's too late to ask for a recount. -- President-Elect Barack Obama, Late Fall 2008, upon reviewing the disastrous economic situation

Jonathan Chait reports on an effort -- to be continued, no doubt -- to assert that the Bush administration did not "lie us into" the Iraq War. Of course it is necessary to distort or ignore facts to proclaim this whopper, but the "goal here seems to be to make it impossible for journalists to treat this particular fact as if it were a fact."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.

Brendan James of TPM: "'Morning Joe' host Joe Scarborough embarked on a rant Monday morning when asked whether House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) made a mistake inviting the Israeli prime minister to address Congress. During his tirade, Scarborough railed against Democrats snubbing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he called 'a spokesperson for Jews worldwide,' and accused President Barack Obama of 'allowing the Iranians to roll over him' in negotiations over Iran's nuclear program." ...

.. CW: Hey, Joe. Who is the spokesperson for Christians worldwide? Pope Francis? Barack Obama?

Jon Stewart does a great job putting the Brian Williams in context.

     ... Update: Verizon has taken down the video, but you can still watch the segment here. ...

... Ouch! Emily Steel & Ravi Samoiya of the New York Times: "Before [Brian] Williams apologized for exaggerating an account of a forced helicopter landing during the Iraq war, he ranked as the 23rd-most-trusted person in the country.... On Monday, he ranked as No. 835." Another guy down there in the 830s?: Willie Robertson of "Duck Dynasty." CW: And I thought the public wasn't paying attention. ...

... Jordan Charitan of USA Today: "On Friday, preliminary ratings for Nightly NewsWith Brian Williams were down 36% in the coveted 25-to-54 demographic compared with the previous week's average as controversy swirled around the anchor.... Williams' competitors also dipped: ABC was down 16% and CBS down 17% compared with the previous week's average." ...

... Hadas Gold of Politico: "The first time Brian Williams heard that his helicopter was an hour behind the Chinook that got hit by an RPG -- and not directly behind it -- was last week, on Feb. 4, during an interview with Stars & Stripes. In that interview, that audio of which was published Monday, Williams acted surprised to hear that soldiers who were with him that day told Stars & Stripes that Williams' Chinook helicopter was not flying with the helicopters that were hit." Transcript & audio of the full interview, by Travis Tritten, is here. ...

... MEANWHILE, in the French Quarter. Jessica Williams of the Times-Picayune: "The former general manager of the Ritz-Carlton New Orleans, where embattled 'NBC Nightly News' anchor Brian Williams reportedly roomed during Hurricane Katrina, said Sunday (Feb. 8) that neither mass flooding nor floating human remains were near the hotel after the levees broke. Her statement raises questions about Williams' stated Katrina experiences and could add to a pool of public skepticism regarding his tale."

Jack Shafer in Politico Magazine: Ezra Klein & Matt Yglesias, who interviewed President Obama for Vox (linked here yesterday) are "less interested in interviewing Obama than they are in explaining his policies. Again and again, they serve him softball — no, make that Nerf ball -- questions and then insert infographics and footnotes that help advance White House positions. Vox has lavished such spectacular production values on the video version of the Obama interview -- swirling graphics and illustrations, background music (background music!?), aggressive editing, multiple camera angles that the clips end up looking and sounding like extended commercials for the Obama-in-2016 campaign. I've seen subtler Scientology recruitment films." ...

... ** David Dayen of Salon writes an excellent piece on what Obama didn't say (and what he did say) in the Vox interview about international trade deals. CW: AND yes, Matt Yglesias, who conducted the interview on international policy, let Obama get away with some pretty disingenuous spin, as Dayen illuminates. Still, the interview kind of boxes the President into a promise of transparency & protection of labor on the TPP. We'll see how that goes.

Presidential Race

Dana Milbank: Bobby Jindal came to Washington to tout his presidential creds, only to refuse to answer reporters' questions about his abysmal record as governor. Milbank has specifics of the Q&A, & they're funny. The Louisiana Sidestep turns out to be an awkward dance. "Some of the [Republican] party's most promising candidates are governors or former governors running on their executive experience. But their experience isn't always a good advertisement for the limited-government policies they promote." ...

... Well, gosh, James Hohmann of Politico describes Jindal as an "energized" candidate who "hit back at his critics on the right and left, dismissing them as elitist hacks who can't stand the idea of an Ivy League-educated, unapologetic conservative. He accused GOP bosses in Washington of trying to sanitize the nomination battle and 'get us to stop being so rude.' He blasted right-leaning writers who've criticized him, saying they're just out to curry favor with the editorial page of The New York Times and get booked on the Sunday shows. And the 43-year-old governor argued that some Republicans are fine with crony capitalism, as long as their pockets are being lined."

Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "... Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has hired Ethan Czahor, a Santa Monica-based techie who co-founded Hipster.com, to be chief technology officer for his political action committee.... After the story of his hiring broke, tweets on his Twitter account started disappearing.... Several of the deleted tweets refer to women as 'sluts'.... Some are about gay men at the gym.... 'Governor Bush believes the comments were inappropriate,' a Bush spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. 'They have been deleted at our request.'" CW: Kaczynski provides plenty of examples of the deleted tweets. Judging from their content & quality, Czahor must be an obnoxious 14-year-old in need of serious counselling. ...

     ... Update. Jonathan Easley of the Hill: "'Jeb Bush said the country needed "adult conversations" and then promptly hired a digital staffer who proudly shares misogynist views on women, homophobic views about the LGBT community, and mocks everyone from newborns to the McCain family,' said [Democratic National Committee] Deputy National Press Secretary Rebecca Chalif. 'I'm not sure what sort of conversations are going on with the adults Governor Bush knows, but these statements don't belong in a schoolyard screaming match, much less in our political discourse,' Chalif continued."

Gabriel Debenedetti of Politico: "The latest front in Republicans' anti-Clinton effort will launch on Tuesday morning, with the Republican National Committee's 'Hillary's Hiding' campaign designed to highlight the former secretary of state's recent lack of straightforward political activity despite her presumed pre-candidate status." CW: Yeah, because she's not out there making a complete fool of herself a la many GOP candidates, she's in hiding. ...

     ... OR, as Margaret Hartmann of New York puts it, "Republicans Are Pressuring Hillary Clinton to Enter the 2016 Race."

Ken Vogel of Politico: "David Brock on Monday abruptly resigned from the board of the super PAC Priorities USA Action, revealing rifts that threaten the big-money juggernaut being built to support Hillary Clinton's expected presidential campaign. In a resignation letter obtained by Politico, Brock, a close Clinton ally, accused Priorities officials of planting 'an orchestrated political hit job' against his own pro-Clinton groups, American Bridge and Media Matters."

Beyond the Beltway

Nullification, Ctd. Sandhya Somashekhar of the Washington Post: "On the day that same-sex unions became legal in Alabama, local officials in dozens of counties on Monday defied a federal judge's decision and refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, casting the state into judicial chaos.... In the majority of counties, officials said they would refuse to license same-sex marriages or stop providing licenses altogether, confronting couples -- gay and heterosexual -- with locked doors and drawn windows. Many of the state's 68 probate judges mounted their resistance to the federal decision at the urging of the firebrand chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy Moore." ...

Today's decision represents yet another example of this Court's increasingly cavalier attitude toward the States.... This acquiescence [to the lower federal court decision] may well be seen as a signal of the court's intended resolution of that question. -- Justice Thomas, dissent in Supreme Court's denial of Alabama's application for a stay; joined by Justice Scalia

... Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The most prominent sign that the Supreme Court is poised to recognize a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry nationwide came Monday from an unlikely source: conservative Justice Clarence Thomas. The court is months away from hearing arguments in a landmark case about whether states are free to ban such unions. But Thomas said a majority of the justices may have already made up their minds, as reflected by the court's 'indecorous' decision Monday morning allowing same-sex marriages to proceed in Alabama." ...

... Thomas's dissent is here (pdf). CW: Looks as if it will be a 7-2 decision (although there is no telling how many Supremes voted not to lift the stay).

Monica Davey & Mitch Smith of the New York Times: "Gov. Bruce Rauner, the newly elected Republican who has often criticized public sector unions, took his first step toward curbing their power on Monday by announcing an executive order that would bar unions from requiring all state workers to pay the equivalent of dues. Mr. Rauner, who faces a Democratic-controlled legislature with strong ties to labor, took the unilateral step saying that he believed those fees violate the United States Constitution." CW: This is a good example of why you vote for the Democratic candidate, even if s/he's a jerk.

News Ledes

Hill: "The State Department is suspending embassy operations in Yemen amid concerns about the volatile security situation there, a significant blow to relations with a one-time key ally in the fight against al Qaeda. Embassy staff have been relocated out of the capital city of Sana'a, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, adding that the political transition underway created a risk of renewed violence that threatened the diplomatic community."

Hill: "Newsweek's Twitter account was apparently hacked by Islamist extremist sympathizers, with a disturbing threat tweeted at first lady Michelle Obama and the first family."

Washington Post: "The FBI has notified the family of Kayla Mueller, the 26-year-old American woman held hostage by the Islamic State in Syria, that she is dead." ...

... New York Times UPDATE: "For one tortured weekend, the parents of Kayla Mueller refused to believe that their daughter was dead. From their home in Prescott, Ariz., they issued an impassioned plea to the Islamic State, which had held her captive since August 2013, and urged the extremist organization to contact them privately with proof of her death. The militants acquiesced and sent at least three photographs of her corpse."

New York: "TMZ is reporting that Bobby Brown and Houston's mother Cissy have agreed to take Bobbi Kristina [Brown] off life support on Wednesday, the three-year anniversary of her mother's death.... Twenty-one-year-old Brown has been in a medically induced coma since being found unresponsive in a bathtub on January 31. The cause is unknown, but police are reportedly investigating Brown's boyfriend Nick Gordon on suspicion of foul play."

AP: "A relentless storm that dumped more than two feet of snow on some parts of New England was finally expected to wind down on Tuesday but not before bringing the Boston-area public transit system to its knees and forcing some communities to consider dumping piles of snow into the ocean to help relieve clogged streets.... Forecasters said more snow was possible on Thursday."

New York Times: "Critical elements of Puerto Rico's plan to avert financial disaster are in jeopardy, after a federal judge struck down a law that allowed the government to restructure certain debts. The law, known as the Recovery Act, was meant to give Puerto Rico's public corporations protections similar to bankruptcy. Unlike American cities like Detroit, which used federal bankruptcy law to sort out its finances, Puerto Rico, a United States commonwealth, is not permitted to declare bankruptcy."

Guardian: "The Syrian government is being continually informed via Iraq and other countries about US-led air strikes against Islamic militants in Syria, Bashar al-Assad has said."

Los Angeles Times: "An upstart anti-corruption party swept to a landslide victory Tuesday in state elections in the Indian capital, dealing the first significant political setback to Prime Minister Narendra Modi."

Guardian: "A Cairo appeals judge has issued a damning appraisal of last year's trial of three al-Jazeera English journalists, a month after he quashed their convictions and sent their case to a retrial that will begin on Thursday. The initial trial failed to provide conclusive evidence that the defendants had helped the banned Muslim Brotherhood or promoted the group in the media, wrote Judge Anwar Gabry, the deputy head of the court of cassation, Egypt's highest court of appeal."

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."