The Commentariat -- February 5, 2015

Internal links removed.

Nedra Pickler of the AP: "President Barack Obama condemned those who seek to use religion as a rationale for carrying out violence around the world, declaring Thursday that 'no god condones terror.' 'We are summoned to push back against those who would distort our religion for their nihilistic ends,' Obama said during remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast.... Among those attending the annual gathering of politicians, dignitaries and faith leaders was the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. As with the Dalai Lama's past visits to Washington, his attendance at Thursday's breakfast drew criticism from Beijing...."

Federal Communications Commission Chair Tom Wheeler in Wired: "After more than a decade of debate and a record-setting proceeding that attracted nearly 4 million public comments, the time to settle the Net Neutrality question has arrived. This week, I will circulate to the members of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed new rules to preserve the internet as an open platform for innovation and free expression. This proposal is rooted in long-standing regulatory principles, marketplace experience, and public input received over the last several months." ...

... Brian Fung of the Washington Post: "The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday proposed the 'strongest open Internet protections' the Web has ever seen. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said by placing broadband Internet providers such as Comcast and Verizon Wireless under a stricter regulatory regime, consumers would be ensured an open Internet. Under the new regime, broadband providers would be explicitly banned from blocking content or creating fast lanes for Web services that can pay for preferential treatment into American homes.... The proposed rules are much more aggressive than many had initially predicted. Just a few months ago, Wheeler appeared ready to side with cable providers. But after much prodding, including protests in his driveway and a public plea from President Obama, Wheeler said Wednesday that the industry needs strong oversight."

... Evan McMorris-Santoro of BuzzFeed: "The trade group representing the nation's biggest technology firms moved quickly to get behind proposed Net Neutrality rules announced by the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Wednesday. The new rules, proposed by FCC Chair Tom Wheeler in a Wired op-ed, would regulate internet service providers like a utility, giving the government broad regulatory powers to ensure ISPs don't create preferred pathways for some websites while chocking off access to others." ...

... Joan McCarter of Daily Kos: "We spoke. He listened."

Craig Whitlock & Missy Ryan of the Washington Post: "Ashton B. Carter, President Obama's choice to become the next secretary of defense, promised lawmakers Wednesday that he would keep an independent voice and showed a willingness to differ with the White House over its strategy in several global hot spots. Carter, 60, a physicist who has held several senior posts at the Pentagon dating to the Carter administration, said he was 'very much inclined' to provide arms to Ukraine, would be open to reviewing U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan and would be cautious about releasing prisoners from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- in each case potentially putting him at odds with Obama." (Missing link.) ...

... Dana Milbank: "Ashton Carter, President Obama's nominee to be the next defense secretary, gave the Senate Armed Services Committee every indication Wednesday that he would be a hard-liner at the Pentagon and a strong counterweight to administration doves -- and conservatives on the panel were besotted.... Carter's sweet nothings were just what the hawks wanted to hear. But will he break their hearts like all the ones before him?" Milbank argues that he will.

Dan Mangan of CNBC: "More than 10 million people have selected Obamacare insurance plans or been automatically re-enrolled in existing plans, with just 11 days of open enrollment in health coverage remaining this season, according to official data released Wednesday." ...

... If You Don't Like ObamaCare, Here Are Some Worse Ideas. Robert Pear of the New York Times: "Three influential Republican members of Congress unveiled a comprehensive proposal on Wednesday to replace President Obama's health care overhaul with an alternative that would halt the expansion of Medicaid and scale back subsidies for middle-income people to buy private insurance. The plan, drafted with encouragement from Republican leaders in the Senate and the House, would retain some consumer protections in the Affordable Care Act, but would reduce federal regulation of insurance policies. States would have more authority to specify the 'essential health benefits' that must be provided by insurance. As an example, the federal government would no longer require insurance policies to include coverage for maternity care. The proposal was devised by Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the chairman of the Finance Committee; Representative Fred Upton of Michigan, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee; and Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, a member of the Finance and Health committees." ...

... ** "Read the Briefs." Linda Greenhouse on King v. Burwell, which poses a statutory, not a constitutional challenge: "The court has permitted itself to be recruited into the front lines of a partisan war. Not only the Affordable Care Act but the court itself is in peril as a result.... The fate of the statute ... hangs in the balance today, but I mean more than that. This time, so does the honor of the Supreme Court." ...

... ** CW: In trying to psyche out John Roberts, as we do every time the Court takes on a case that matters to us, here's one possible motive that I don't believe anyone has considered: his purpose in King could be to do exactly what Greenhouse argues the justices must: preserve the honor of the Court. Roberts like 9-0 decisions; they demonstrate that he has gathered his flock of quasi-liberals & full-blown loons into one happy brood. Ergo, it is not inconceivable that (a) Roberts is using King as a high-stakes, high-publicity case to show he is a master of consensus-building; (b) the Court is using King to send a signal to flamethrowers of every persuasion that they should quit clogging the courts with nonsense; (c) we'll get a 9-0 decision in favor of the government. Indeed, I'll make that my far-out prediction. I'm not dumb enough to put money on it. Readers have every right, needless to say, to mock my starry-eyed optimism if the Supremes rule for the plaintiffs. On the other hand, if I turn out to be right -- or close to right (think Alito, Thomas) -- you're permitted to register kudos. ...

... Paul Waldman: on the Not-Ready-for-Primetime Players: "... after six years of waiting for the moment they'd take complete control, you'd think [Republicans would] have some kind of plan. If they do, it's hard to discern how it's supposed to work. Every conflict they have with the president only seems to make them look worse, and they seem to be lurching from day to day with no idea how to do anything but fall on their faces." ...

... Rachana Pradhan of Politico: Tennessee Gov. "Bill Haslam's [R] alternative plan to expand Medicaid under Obamacare was dealt a devastating blow on Wednesday, when a Senate panel rejected it on the third day of a legislative special session called solely for that issue. Tennessee was widely seen as the next Republican state that could expand Medicaid under Obamacare, with Haslam negotiating with federal officials for months on an approach that included conservative policy elements. But Insure Tennessee always faced significant obstacles in getting legislative approval, and it was killed even though hospitals had agreed to cover the state's share of the costs."

Edward-Isaac Dovere, et al., of Politico: "The combustible, complicated dynamics of American and Israeli politics collided Wednesday on Capitol Hill, with Democrats and Republicans holding separate meetings with Israeli representatives while addressing the fallout from the deepening tension between leaders of the two nations." ...

... Jim Fallows of the Atlantic, after revisiting the unprecedented treachery of John Boehner's invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu, writes, "The Israeli prime minister argues that the world of 2015 is fundamentally similar to that of 1938. Americans can give him a hearing, and then pursue a more reasonable policy based on less far-fetched comparisons."

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia with President George W. Bush, April 2005.Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "... new claims by Zacarias Moussaoui, a convicted former member of Al Qaeda, that he had high-level contact with officials of the Saudi Arabian government in the prelude to Sept. 11 have brought renewed attention to the [9/11 Commission]'s withheld findings, which lawmakers and relatives of those killed in the attacks have tried unsuccessfully to declassify.... White House officials say the administration has undertaken a review on whether to release the pages but has no timetable for when they might be made public.... Former Senator Bob Graham of Florida..., as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee was a leader of the [9/11] inquiry. He has called for the release of the report's Part 4, which dealt with Saudi Arabia, since President George W. Bush ordered it classified when the rest of the report was released in December 2002."

Annals of "Journalism," Bullshit Edition. Travis Tritten of Stars & Stripes: "NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams admitted Wednesday he was not aboard a helicopter hit and forced down by RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] fire during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a false claim that has been repeated by the network for years. Williams repeated the claim Friday during NBC's coverage of a public tribute at a New York Rangers hockey game for a retired soldier that had provided ground security for the grounded helicopters, a game to which Williams accompanied him.... The admission came after crew members on the 159th Aviation Regiment's Chinook that was hit by two rockets and small arms fire told Stars and Stripes that the NBC anchor was nowhere near that aircraft or two other Chinooks flying in the formation that took fire. Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter.... 'I would not have chosen to make this mistake,' Williams said. 'I don't know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.'" ...

... CW: Yeah, me neither, Brian. Bet you were with Hillary Clinton when she & her party had to dodge sniper bullets in Bosnia, too. Williams had colleagues who died in Iraq, for Pete's sake. Did he really have to make up a story of his heroism? ...

... Here's the Washington Post story, by Paul Farhi, which is comprehensive. ...

... Hadas Gold & Dylan Byers of Politico: "On Friday night's broadcast, Williams cited 'a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG. Our traveling NBC News team was rescued, surrounded and kept alive by an armor mechanized platoon from the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry.' One crew member responded to the story on Facebook the following day, writing to Williams, 'Sorry dude, I don't remember you being on my aircraft. I do remember you walking up about an hour after we had landed to ask me what had happened.'... On Facebook, Williams ... apologized to the members of the crew." ...

... Lloyd Grove of the Daily Beast has a good post on the implications of Williams' fake war story. "The Brian Williams Apology Tour has begun...." ...

** NEW. Wherein Driftglass explains Glenn Greenwald's MO.

Nicky Wolfe of the Guardian: "Fox News has chosen to embed on its website the video of Islamic State burning a hostage to death, a move which makes them the only US media organisation to broadcast the video in full. The extremely graphic 22-minute video shows Muadh al-Kasasbeh, a Jordanian pilot, being set on fire and burned to death in a cage. Fox News did not post the videos of the killings of previous Isis hostages, and no other media company has hosted this video.... On Twitter, accounts associated with Isis supporters are sharing the video via the links to the Fox News site.... YouTube removed a link to the video a few hours after it was posted, and a spokesperson for Facebook told the Guardian that if anyone posted the video to the social networking site it would be taken down.... The television network's decision to host the footage drew criticism from terrorism analysts." ...

... Steve M.: "But Islamic State operatives also videotaped the executions of James Foley, Steven Sotloff, Alan Henning, Peter Kassig, and Haruna Yukawa. Why didn't Fox solemnly declare the need to share those videos? I have to assume it's because those victims were all white, with the exception of Yukawa, who was Japanese.... [Fox] probably couldn't have handled outrage from the family of any of the white execution victims.... Fox presumes that Heartland America sees Muadh al-Kasasbeh as just some guy from the Middle East."

... Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: "Of all the networks, Fox News may stand to lose the most from any editorial decision believed to advance a terrorist agenda, given its hard-line audience that keeps coming back for denunciations of President Obama's alleged softness in this area."

Toni Clarke of Reuters: "Dr. Margaret Hamburg, who as commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for almost six years has overseen public health initiatives ranging from tobacco control and food safety to personalized medicine and drug approvals, is stepping down, the agency said on Thursday."

Katie Zezima of the Washington Post: "Dan Pfeiffer, one of President Obama's closest and most trusted advisers, is leaving the White House within weeks. Pfeiffer is one of the president's longest-serving aides, having joined Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign. The White House said he will leave in early March." (See also the WashPo story linked under Presidential Race.) ...

... Juliet Eilperin & David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "The flurry of departures presents a challenge for the president, who has a limited window for action before the political center of gravity shifts toward the 2016 presidential campaign. The Pfeiffer departure means that nearly every member of the team who helped orchestrate Obama's rise to prominence has left the White House."

Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "Secret Service agents investigating the man who operated the drone that crashed on the White House lawn last week said they believed there was enough evidence to charge him with a crime, and they have presented the case to federal prosecutors, according to law enforcement officials. But the decision on whether to indict the man, Shawn Usman, has been a vexing one for the prosecutors because laws designed to protect the airspace around the White House were written for manned aircraft like planes, long before ... drones, became popular toys. There is also a question of whether Mr. Usman should face charges for something he contends happened because of a malfunction with the drone.... If the prosecutors decide against criminal charges, Mr. Usman may face civil charges from the Federal Aviation Administration." CW: Malfunction? I thought he was drunk.

Charles Pierce highlights an Indiana case which gives a glimpse into what the U.S. would be like post-Roe-v.-Wade, when abortion law would be "up to the states." CW: Let me just add that you can count on state prosecutors to bring cases in such a manner as to discriminate against the poor & minorities. Sweet little blonde upper-crusty girl? She made a "mistake." Poor young woman of color? She's a criminal.

Nicholas Kristof: 1976 Olympic Gold Medalist Bruce Jenner, who is apparently going through a cross-gender protocol which he will share in a television documentary, "seems to be preparing for a bold public mission involving something intensely personal, in a way that should open minds and hearts."

Rod Nordland & Anne Barnard of the New York Times: "There was one feeling that many of the Middle East's fractious clerics, competing ethnic groups and warring sects could agree on Wednesday: a shared sense of revulsion at the Islamic State's latest excess, its video showing a Jordanian pilot being burned alive inside a cage."

Fwiw, I thought the office looked rad. http://t.co/dhDUoBMnNF pic.twitter.com/XKnK5yNori

— Ben Terris (@bterris) February 3, 2015

... Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) gets a schock when his decorator invites WashPo reporter Ben Terris into his "Downton Abbey"-inspired Congressional office, replete with "a drippy crystal chandelier, a table propped up by two eagles, a bust of Abraham Lincoln and massive arrangements of pheasant feathers." ...

... Evan Hurst of Wonkette: "... a New Development has occurred, because the interior decorator did that for free, and some liberals called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) have ... have gone and filed themselves an ethics complaint on the owner of Congress's sexy timiest Instagram account holder.... Ha ha ha, maybe if he would stop looking at his perfect body in the mirror for five seconds and read THE RULES, he would know that he is in direct violation of Congress's longstanding NO FREE SCONCES policy." And do read the snark in CREW's press release. It seems the Earl of Peoria has a history of violating the RULES & federal law. Thanks to Akhilleus for the links. ...

... CW: Oops! I would be remiss in failing to note that the Earl of Peoria there voted to defund public teevee, which, when it gets around to it, airs "Downtown Abbey" in these here United States. Also, I wonder at the wisdom of a red-blooded American Re-publican Congressman hiring a decorating establishment named "Euro Trash." Shouldn't the ladies have changed the name of their company to Mom's American Freedom Apple Pie or something before embarking on this (unpaid) commission?

Gail Collins looks for a positive moral in the film "American Sniper." I'd say that's putting a ☺ on it.

Alex Pareene, in Gawker, on that time Michael Bloomberg gave President Obama an unsolicited charm-school lesson.

Presidential Race

Juliet Eilperin, et al., of the Washington Post: "White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri will leave the administration this spring, according to individuals familiar with the decision, to serve as communications director for Hillary Rodham Clinton's likely presidential campaign.... Palmieri's departure comes the same day White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer announced he would leave in March."

The Cheese Stands Alone. Ben Kamisar of the Hill: "Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) holds a big lead among New Hampshire Republicans in the early primary state, drawing 21 percent support among likely voters in a poll by news network NH1 released Wednesday." Molotov, Scottie! ...

... Steve M.: "... there's a lot of effort going into the process of making Walker seem like the people's choice. And -- for now, at least -- it seems to be working." ...

... MEANWHILE, back in Wisconsin.... Scott Walker Can't Handle the "Search for Truth." Karen Herzog of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Scott Walker tries to limit the mission of the state's university system to jobs factory, then pretends it was a "drafting error," an excuse that Herzog disproves. CW: But never mind. Walker's fervent anti-intellectualism should be super-popular with the Cult-of-the-Stupid, a/k/a the Republican base. Fear of Thinking is a malignant gene that forever eats away at our national DNA.

Michael Bender of Bloomberg Politics: "Inside an expansive ballroom in one of America's most troubled cities [Detroit], Jeb Bush sketched a broad outline for his increasingly likely presidential campaign, saying the nation -- on the verge of another golden era -- could double its rate of economic growth and should welcome immigrants willing to embrace U.S. values." ...

     ... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "In the first major policy speech of his basically-but-not-yet-formalized campaign for the Republican nomination in 2016, former Florida governor Jeb Bush established a very ambitious economic goal: 4 percent annual GDP growth. Over the last 30 years, that's been achieved seven times -- none of them under a president named 'Bush.'"

... Hey! A Compassionate Conservative! Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Jeb Bush used his first campaign-style speech on Wednesday to focus on the difficulties of low-income Americans, signaling that he intends to take a position on economic issues like income inequality that diverges with the approach traditionally championed by the Republican Party. Speaking in a city that was once synonymous with middle-class opportunity and stability but has been battered by the exodus of well-paying jobs, Mr. Bush framed the country's resurgent economy as a comeback for only the affluent." ...

... Alexandra Jaffe of CNN: "During a 'Family Reunion' conference hosted by the Hispanic Leadership Network in April 2013, Jeb Bush spoke freely on the promise immigrants hold for America and his views on reform. He said, during a discussion with Univision, that it was 'ridiculous' to think that DREAMers, children brought to the U.S. by their parents illegally, shouldn't have an 'accelerated path' to citizenship.... The comments Bush made several years ago weren't dealbreakers for him in a primary, multiple conservative operatives and lawmakers said." Other GOP operatives were far more negative. Jaffe provides multiple citations from the shocked & bewildered.

Frank Rich: "... Chris Christie was already a dead presidential candidate walking. So he doesn't have to worry about how his endorsement of 'choice' for vaccinations (but not for reproductive rights), or his previous public-health fiasco, incarcerating a nurse who'd treated Ebola patients, will play out in a national election. He's done. Rand Paul, on the other hand, has been a leading Republican contender, and he may have done himself serious political damage even within his own party ranks. The conservative columnist John Podhoretz has called Paul's musings on vaccinations among 'the most irresponsible remarks ever uttered by a major American politician." And more. ...

... Paul Waldman is pretty sure Rand Paul's past -- as his father's acolyte & surrogate -- is going to catch up with him. Waldman cites a case in which Paul the Younger was caught on tape espousing a crazy conspiracy theory that "they" were planning to build a "NAFTA superhighway" between Mexico & Canada, "the purpose of which is to unite the three countries in a single political entity known as the North American Union, under which American sovereignty will be lost and the dollar will be replaced with a currency known as the Amero." ...

... Well, There's This. Washington Free Beacon: "Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) said in& a 2009 interview with Alex Jones' InfoWars that mandatory vaccines for illnesses such as the swine flu could be an early step toward 'martial law,' and said the procedures have a long history of lethal side effects." CW: Remember, this guy is a medical doctor. ...

... CW: Also, too, he's not much of an arithmetician: He said in 2009 that "20 years ago my parents gave me smallpox vaccine." Paul was born in 1963. That would have made him about 26 years old when his parents got around to giving him the smallpox vaccination. This would, of course, have been after his becoming the Aqua Buddha. ...

... Jeremy Peters & Barry Meier of the New York Times have gotten around to highlighting Rand Paul's long association with the wacko Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which pushes theories -- including the link between vaccinations & various disabilities -- all rejected by research & mainstream doctors. Meanwhile, Dr. Randy invited "a New York Times reporter to accompany him to the Capitol physician's office to watch him receive a hepatitis A booster vaccination. During the visit, Mr. Paul said he believed that the science was definitive on the matter and that vaccines were not harmful. 'It just annoys me that I'm being characterized as someone who's against vaccines,' he said as he rolled up his T-shirt sleeve before the shot. 'That's not what I said. I said I've heard of people who've had vaccines, and they see a temporal association and they believe that.'" ...

... CW: Excuse me? Paul is an amazing liar. What he said -- two days ago -- was, "I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines." Dave Levitan of FactCheck.org sets the record straight in USA Today. Read the whole post. Paul doesn't understand the purpose of the hepatitis B vaccine, either, & his advice on that, said pediatrics professor James Cherry "is stupid." Dangerous, too. ...

... ** David Fahrenthold & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post look at Paul's missteps this week. Here's a bit of their report: "On the subject of vaccines, Paul struggled with what might be the first rule of presidential campaigning: try not to shoot yourself in the foot. And if you do, stop shooting.... After [his comments] raised a controversy, Paul reacted first with sarcasm: 'Well, I guess being for freedom would be really, uh, unusual? I guess I don't understand the point,' he said on CNBC.... Then he tried spin, saying he hadn't meant what he'd seemed to say about vaccines and mental disorders. Finally, he sought to play the victim. Paul posted a photo of himself getting a vaccine booster shot on Twitter, with a caption that included the line: 'Wonder how the liberal media will misreport this?' Paul's handling of the vaccine issue was one of several times recently where he seemed to struggle with the kind of high-pressure interactions that would become run-of-the-mill for a presidential candidate."

Beyond the Beltway

Jon Seidel of the Chicago Sun-Times on Gov. Bruce Rauner's (R-Ill.) state of the state address. CW: He sounds suspiciously like the governor of the state directly to the north of Illinois; i.e., a nasty piece of work. Fortunately, a Democratic legislature might not let him get away with much.

Nick Budnick of the Oregonian (Feb. 3): "Two longtime associates of Gov. John Kitzhaber [D] helped create jobs for first lady Cylvia Hayes with groups hoping to influence Oregon's state energy policy.... Hayes, the governor's fiancée, held the paying jobs even as her role inside Kitzhaber's office as an unpaid energy adviser geared up in 2011, her state calendar shows.... Greg Wolf, currently Kitzhaber's deputy chief of staff for field implementation, was key in creating [one] job [which paid Hayes $5,000 a month] and recommending Hayes for it just before he joined the administration.... Another paid her $118,000 over two years, a fellowship orchestrated by Dan Carol, a Kitzhaber campaign adviser. He joined Kitzhaber's staff the same month Hayes started collecting on her fellowship. Both arrangements involved foundations and organizations that had direct interests in influencing state policy in Oregon." ...

... Oregonian Editors: "John Kitzhaber must resign. 'I'm not going to consider resigning,' said Gov. John Kitzhaber at a disastrous press conference held Friday following revelations about the apparently borderless world of public policy and private gain in which he and fiancée Cylvia Hayes exist.... [Kitzhaber's] credibility has evaporated to such a degree that he can no longer serve effectively as governor. If he wants to serve his constituents he should resign.... The governor has not yet quibbled about the meaning of 'is,' but Friday's evasions were almost Clintonian."

No, you a USA citizen!.. Learn & understand the language!!!.

... Vermont Political Observer: When Vermont's Senate Minority Leader Joe Benning (R) received a letter from an 8th-grader suggesting the state adopt a Latin motto as well as its English-language one -- "Freedom and Unity" -- Benning thought it was a good idea & introduced a bill to adopt the Latin motto "Stella quarta decima fulgeat, English translation: "May the Fourteenth Star Shine Bright." But when Burlington station WCAX ran a feel-good story on Benning's move, angry stupid people didn't feel so good & protested on WCAX's Facebook page. Read some of their comments; nice to know there are plenty of idiots in blue Vermont. Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the lead.

News Ledes

Contributor MAG (today's Comments) & the Weather Channel Remind Us It's February. The Weather Channel forecasts "prolonged snow from Sunday through at least early Tuesday over a significant swath of the Northeast, in particular, much of New England, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey."

Reuters: "Health insurer Anthem Inc, which has nearly 40m US customers, said late on Wednesday that hackers had breached one of its IT systems and stolen personal information relating to current and former consumers and employees. The No. 2 health insurer in the United States said the breach did not appear to involve medical information or financial details such as credit card or bank account numbers."

AP: "Jordanian fighter jets have carried out new air strikes, the military said, a day after the country's king vowed to wage a harsh war against Islamic State (Isis) fighters who control parts of neighbouring Syria and Iraq. King Abdullah II pledged to step up the fight against Isis after the militants burned a captive Jordanian pilot to death in a cage and released a video of the killing. The images caused revulsion across the region. The army statement did not say which country was targeted."

New York Times: "With the White House weighing whether to send arms to Ukraine, Western nations intensified efforts Thursday to bring an end to the fighting. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President François Hollande of France are traveling to Kiev on Thursday to hold talks with President Petro O. Poroschenko of Ukraine, officials from the two countries said. On Friday, the German and French leaders are to continue to Moscow, where they are to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to discuss the situation in Ukraine. The German and French moves were announced as Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Kiev for high-level talks. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. prepared for parallel consultations on Friday with European leaders in Brussels."

The Commentariat -- February 4, 2015

Internal links removed.

Marina Koren of the National Journal: "Like Loretta Lynch, Ashton Carter is not a controversial Obama administration cabinet nominee. And like Lynch, Carter presented himself as a partner to the Senate committee that will help determine whether he is confirmed as the country's 25th secretary of defense.... Members of the committee appeared to appreciate Carter's opening testimony, which focused on the need to combat terrorism abroad and end hundreds of billions of dollars in automatic spending cuts, known as sequestration, to U.S. military funding.... But this confirmation hearing, like the one for Lynch for attorney general held last week, is not about Carter. It's about President Obama's handling of foreign policy in the late years of his presidency, and the Department of Defense that current secretary Chuck Hagel will leave behind."

Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked Republicans from taking up a bill that would fund the Department of Homeland Security but roll back the President Obama's recent executive actions on immigration, setting up a showdown over the agency -- and the administration's immigration policies -- before money for the department runs out at the end of the month." ...

... Mike Lillis of the Hill: House "Republicans, including Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), are vowing to hold the line on tying funding for the Homeland Security Department to language reversing Obama's executive actions on immigration -- even after Senate Democrats blocked their bill from being considered in the upper chamber. 'There's not a Plan B, because this is the plan,' Scalise said minutes after the Senate vote, according to Fox News's Chad Pergram. Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) echoed that message, saying 'many of us agree that we should stand behind the one bill that we sent over there.' CW: Sure sounds like the House is threating a government shutdown."

Fifty-six: Let's see, that's two score and 16. It's 4.5 dozen. But no matter how you add it up, it has to be some sort of world record in political futility. -- Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) ...

... Dana Milbank: "In Tuesday's repeal effort by House Republicans -- their first of this Congress and their 56th overall -- it became clear that they had succeeded at one thing: They had bored even themselves into a slumber. For much of the debate Tuesday afternoon, no more than a dozen seats were occupied on the pro-repeal side of the House. More than once, the GOP had nobody available to speak.... Proponents of the law had the passion." ...

... Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times: The House's 56th vote to repeal ObamaCare Tuesday could have serious repercussions if the Supreme Court is paying any attention. If the Houses fails "to address in advance the consequences of the court's overturning ACA subsidies, a court majority may conclude that the consequences are just too dire, and uphold the subsidies." ...

... Never fear. The House is coming up with a plan this very minute:

"The House GOP's Most Awesomest Wish List For An Obamacare Replacement." Sahil Kapur of TPM: "House Republicans want a health care plan that lowers costs, covers pre-existing conditions, grows the number of insured and lets people keep their plans and doctors -- all while 'eliminating job-killing policies and regulations.' The extraordinary wish list is written into the House legislation to repeal Obamacare [passed Tuesday]. It's another sign of how far Republicans are from having a viable alternative to Obamacare even as they insist on it being repealed. The guidelines seem not to grapple with the difficult policy tradeoffs at play, such as raising spending versus letting Americans go uninsured or imposing mandates versus letting insurers refuse to cover sick people." ...

... CW: TPM tries to do serious reporting. It really does. But sometimes a writer just can't help but jot down "Most Awesomest Wish List." ...

... Robert Pear of the New York Times: "Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, acknowledged that 'there has not been a unified Republican position' on how to replace the health care law or respond if the Supreme Court upholds the challenge to subsidies in states using the federal insurance exchange.... If the Supreme Court rules in favor of plaintiffs challenging the subsidies -- a decision is expected this year -- 'it will destroy health insurance exchanges in 30-odd states in the blink of an eye,' Mr. Cole said...." (Emphasis added.)

... digby, in Salon: "With this week's insanity, it's time to call GOP's health care approach what it is: a death trap for the non-rich."

... Republican "Leaders" Are No Longer Pretending to Be Sane.

Zandar of Balloon Juice: "Newly minted North Carolina GOP Sen. Thom Tillis will see your ant-vaxxer nonsense and raise you the freedom from having to wash your hands....":

In Right Wing World, the Chef Will Piss in Your Soup. Brendan James of TPM: "In a week packed with news over concerns for public health, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) described his own history of opposing certain health and hygiene regulations, including those that require employees to wash their hands after using the bathroom." Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead:

... Digby: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the feces of patriots and tyrants." ...

... CW: It isn't often that New York Times editors weigh in on toilet practices, but the page's top dog couldn't help it today. ...

... Hunter of Daily Kos: "Thom Tillis is not, however, a true libertarian. He is a fraud, because he thinks maybe you should be able to serve food with occasional human feces on it so long as you post a sign somewhere saying so. That's not actually saving any regulation, that's just shifting the regulation from an anti-poop regulation to a poop-neutral regulation." ...

... Paul Waldman: "Sometimes, you have to put up with one onerous regulation -- mandating a posted sign -- to taste the sweet nectar of freedom -- not having to wash your hands between going to the bathroom and preparing food for others. This is the kind of nuanced understanding of liberty that only a tea party senator can offer to the country." ...

... CW: I shall be wanting Tillis's friend & colleague, the gentleman from Kentucky; to wit, Li'l Randy -- to weigh in on this. Tillis's support of awful offal in your coffee is the logical next step along the path of Paul's Freeedom Trail.

Edward-Issac Dovere & Jake Sherman of Politico: "Vice President Joe Biden won't commit to attending Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to a joint meeting of Congress next month. He's not the only one. Dozens of House Democrats are privately threatening to skip the March 3 address, according to lawmakers and aides, in what's become the lowest point of a relationship between the Israeli prime minister and President Barack Obama that's never been good.... 'We defer to Democratic members if they'd like to attend or not,' a White House aide said Tuesday." ...

... CW: Just Don't Go was my first visceral thought upon hearing of the Boehner-Netanyahu scheme. My second: Democratic MoCs won't have the guts. So we'll see.

We in the Democratic Party raised millions out of poverty into the middle class, and made them so comfortable they could become Republicans. -- the late Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill

... Ah, the Merely Affluent. Thomas Edsall: "Middle-class populism ... raises a host of problems for the Democratic Party. When the middle-class populist message is turned into actual legislative proposals, the costs, in the form of higher taxes, will be imposed on the affluent. Such a shift in the allocation of government resources threatens the loyalty of a crucial Democratic constituency: well-off socially liberal voters.... They are not eager to see their taxes raised.... If such a simple and straightforward proposal as the shift of government dollars from affluent families to far less advantaged families scraping to pay college tuition [the 529 college savings tax break] gets an instantaneous thumbs down from Pelosi, Schumer and Van Hollen, the realistic prospects for a middle-class agenda, if the Democrats return to power, are marginal at best."

William Baude, in a New York Times op-ed: The Supreme Court makes thousands of decisions every year that are issued in complete secrecy. "The court is in the spotlight more and more. Transparency in all its decisions is vital to its continued legitimacy."

Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post: "Judging from her e-mails, Jill Kelley was star-struck by the big-name military commanders rotating between the war zones in the Middle East and her home town of Tampa. And they were equally smitten with her.... Now, a glimpse into Kelley's relationship with military commanders has emerged from another, previously undisclosed batch of e-mails.... The Washington Post requested the e-mails in November 2012 under the Freedom of Information Act. More than two years later, after numerous unexplained delays, the Pentagon released 238 pages of heavily censored documents." ...

... CW: One does have to wonder what the government is censoring. If these are "innocent" e-mails between military personnel & a groupie, why would they contain any material -- other than perhaps references to others not involved in the scandal -- that had to be redacted for, um, national security reasons?

It Depends on What the Meaning of "Pandering" Is. Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Michael Calderone of the Huffington Post: Sarah Kliff of "Vox reported Monday afternoon that candidate Obama had 'pandered to anti-vaxxers in 2008' by questioning 'the validity of vaccines.'" Several other news outlets followed up with similar stories, even as other reporters were disproving the claim. But Ezra Klein of Vox is sticking to Kliff's misleading story. Kliff has updated her story. A little. But the "pandering" headline remains. ...

... CW: I get that reporters make mistakes, & Kliff was relying on Brendan Nyhan -- a reputable journalist as well as on an old (and shortly thereafter revised) Washington Post fact-check -- in issue her "pandering" charge. Other outlets tweaked their stories to get closer to the facts. Klein is embarrassing himself here by insisting Obama's willingness to be polite to a voter, while still disagreeing with him/her, amounted to "pandering."

Scott Shane of the New York Times: "In highly unusual testimony inside the federal supermax prison, a former operative for Al Qaeda has described prominent members of Saudi Arabia's royal family as major donors to the terrorist network in the late 1990s and claimed that he discussed a plan to shoot down Air Force One with a Stinger missile with a staff member at the Saudi Embassy in Washington. The Qaeda member, Zacarias Moussaoui, has received a diagnosis of mental illness but was found competent to stand trial on terrorism charges. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2006 and is held in the most secure prison in the federal system, in Florence, Colo.... In a statement Monday night, the Saudi Embassy noted that the national Sept. 11 commission had rejected allegations that the Saudi government or Saudi officials had funded Al Qaeda."

The "Urban" Vote. Annie Karni & Celeste Katz of the New York Daily News: "President Obama was shocked and irritated by Mitt Romney's concession call in the 2012 presidential election and claimed Romney insinuated that Obama won only by getting out the black vote, according to a new book by presidential campaign strategist David Axelrod. Obama was 'unsmiling during the call, and slightly irritated when it was over,' Axelrod writes. The president hung up and said Romney admitted he was surprised at his own loss, Axelrod wrote. "'You really did a great job of getting the vote out in places like Cleveland and Milwaukee,' in other words, black people,'" Obama said, paraphrasing Romney. 'That's what he thinks this was all about.'" Romney is white. CW: He probably still thinks he lost the election to those free ObamaPhones.

Eliza Berman of Time: "Fifty years ago, the debate centered not on whether to vaccinate babies, but whether a pregnant woman infected with the virus should be able to decide whether to have the baby in the first place.... A growing movement calling for legalized abortion would declare victory with Roe v. Wade eight years later, but until then, women seeking abortions would either be denied or undergo the procedure in secrecy. A small number of doctors, however, chose to deliberately defy the law and perform abortions on women whose fetuses had been exposed to the German measles, also known as rubella." Thanks to Julie for the link. ...

... A great commentary by Akhilleus in today's thread on the libertarian's fetish for "freedom" to flout good public health practices.

Ishan Taroor of the Washington Post: "There's no Western statesmen -- at least in the English-speaking world -- more routinely lionized than Winston Churchill. Last Friday marked a half century since his funeral.... But there's another side to Churchill's politics and career that should not be forgotten amid the endless parade of eulogies. To many outside the West, he remains a grotesque racist and a stubborn imperialist, forever on the wrong side of history. Churchill's detractors point to his well-documented bigotry, articulated often with shocking callousness and contempt.... Churchill's racism was wrapped up in his Tory zeal for empire.... As a junior member of parliament, Churchill had cheered on Britain's plan for more conquests, insisting that its 'Aryan stock is bound to triumph.'" Read the whole article.

Presidential Race

The Anointed One. Part of me looks back and thinks that maybe God put me and my family through [union-bashing, leading to claimed death threats against him] all this for a purpose - and it wasn't just to get things done in Wisconsin, and it wasn't just to win all those elections in a state that normally doesn't go Republican. Maybe it was to set us to ... help get our country on the right track. -- Gov. Scott Walker, in an Iowa conference call Tuesday

... Ed Kilgore: "Walker's getting into a real groove in using the 'death threats' he and his family supposedly received as a sign of the martyrdom -- a sort of stigmata -- Christian conservatives are expected to confess these days. Sarah Palin couldn't do it better." ...

... Steve M. "Scott Walker has his script memorized." Looks like he can plug it in to any "conversation." "The key to beating Walker is going to be to knock him off script." ...

... CW: This was readily apparent when Martha Raddatz asked him about how to deal with ISIS. He used the word "aggressive" & attached it actually or implicitly to the phrase "around the world" three times in, what?, a one-minute exchange. That's his foreign policy in toto: "act aggressively around the world." Raddatz, in fact, did knock him off his limited script when she asked him what that meant. Because, he hadn't thought about that. If you don't hear Scottie repeating "act aggressively around the world" numerous times in the coming months, that means he got a new scriptwriter.

NEW. Amy Davison of the New Yorker: "There are so many people who consider Chris Christie a true friend, according to Chris Christie. This isn't just a matter of love but of legality, because New Jersey's ethics rules stipulate that the state's governor has more leeway in accepting gifts from his personal friends than from, say, businessmen with an interest in the Port Authority, or from the king of a Middle Eastern country." One wonders "whether Christie believes his own excuse -- that his wealthy hosts take disinterested pleasure in his company -- or is offering it cynically. The first suggests a delusional faith in his own charm (and that of his stepfather, mother-in-law, etc.), the other an openness to trading on his office. Neither is good, and both make him vulnerable."

Caitlin MacNeal of TPM: "Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Tuesday said he believes children should be vaccinated, but he said he supports exemptions for people with certain religious beliefs.... Cruz told reporters that the controversy over vaccines is 'largely silliness stirred up by the media,' according to Politico.... 'Nobody reasonably thinks Chris Christie is opposed to vaccinating kids other than a bunch of reporters who want to write headlines,' he said."...

... CW: Right, and the words flowing from the mouths of elected officials had nothing to do with it. Also, note that one has to have "certain" religious beliefs to be worthy of an exemption. I would guess Pastafarianism is not one of Ted's approved belief systems. And what about the religious beliefs of waiters whose faith eschews ritual handwashing? Any thoughts on that, Teddo? Ah, well maybe Thom Tillis's filthy extremism is nothing but silliness stirred up by the media.

Stump the Reader. The fellow on the left, who would never want to be referred to as "the fellow on the left," is likely to run for POTUS. This is his official portrait. Good luck guessing who he is. ...

... "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." Oh, crap, following is an update, via Politico, from Jindal's chief-of-staff Kyle Plotkin. Kendall Breitman of Politico: "Plotkin then began retweeting examples of what he described as 'liberals who are trolling me and think that the Governor looks insufficiently brown in the painting.' Jindal's office continued to accuse liberals of being 'fixated on race' on Wednesday." AND the newly-defined "official portrait" is such an excellent work of art:

Hey @CenLamar-that's not the official portrait. Constituent loaned it.This 1's official. Thx 4 ur race-baiting tweet pic.twitter.com/wx2SBY3ZBQ

— Kyle Plotkin (@kjplotkin) February 4, 2015

CW: Re: a comment in today's thread, I found the two images to the right side-by-side in a Google image search. The painting on the left is a portrait of the guy on the right. I have to say, in Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner's (R-Wis.) defense, he is way better at choosing artists to paint his official portrait than is the fellow portrayed above:

Beyond the Beltway

Annals of "Justice," Ctd. "If You Can't Fix It, Hide It." Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "Amid the recent rash of high-profile screw-ups in executions, new cover-up measures have been passed in more than a dozen states, allowing departments of corrections to increasingly refuse to disclose where their execution drugs come from, how and if they were tested, and whether corrections officers are qualified to administer them correctly. In response to these clampdowns on information about how tax dollars are being spent and how prisoners are being executed in their citizens' name, lawsuits have been filed by capital defense attorneys, civil liberties groups, and news organizations in Oklahoma, Ohio, Missouri, Georgia, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Arizona." ...

... Lithwick cites C. J. Ciaramella of the Daily Beast (January 2015): "America’s neurotic position of keeping the death penalty legal, while also requiring it to be as bloodless and sterile as possible, has led to a situation where states are relying on experimental combinations of drugs that are vetted by a quick glance at popular reference websites and purchased in secret from anonymous, barely regulated pharmacies with significantly less reliable products than major pharmaceutical companies." ...

... CW: Huh. In the view of Lithwick & Ciaramella -- & that busybody Sonia Sotomayor -- "a quick glance" at "WikiLeaks or whatever it is" or drugs.com does not constitute "research." And I thought when I relied on "WikiLeaks or whatever it is" this morning to ascertain the meaning of "rotflmao," I was doing topnotch scholarly research.

Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "The question before Pennsylvanians is this: Is Kathleen G. Kane [D], the first woman to be elected as the state's attorney general, the victim of angry men who targeted her after she exposed their pornography habits? Or are Ms. Kane's problems -- she stands accused by a grand jury of a bevy of crimes -- the self-imposed travails of a political comet who rose from obscurity to eminence, only to be undone by her own temperament and inexperience?"

Richard Leiby of the Washington Post: "About a month after a white officer fatally shot an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., the city's assistant police chief, Al Eickhoff, took to Google and searched under the words 'less lethal.'... Browsing a California company's Web site, Eickhoff found pictures and videos of a ... device docked on a normal handgun barrel. When a bullet fired, it melded with an attached projectile ... that flew with enough force to knock a person down, maybe break some ribs, but not kill him, the product's makers said -- even at close range.... This week, five Ferguson police instructors will train to use the device; the department plans to introduce it to the entire force of 55 officers."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Walter Liedtke, who served for 35 years as a curator of European paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and was a renowned scholar on Vermeer and the Delft School, died on Tuesday, one of six victims of the crash of a Metro-North commuter train in Valhalla, N.Y. He was 69."

WFAA Dallas-Fort Worth: "One of the infamous 'Texas 7' fugitives was executed by the State of Texas Wednesday night. Donald Newbury was put to death for his role in the murder of an Irving police officer on Christmas Eve in 2000. He was declared dead by lethal injection at 6:25 p.m."

Washington Post: "Jordan's King Abdullah II vowed Wednesday that his military forces would hit Islamic State militants with 'relentless' strikes upon 'their own homes,' an escalation that could place Jordan in the middle of the Syrian civil war. The king huddled with his security cabinet and top generals Wednesday just hours after Jordan hanged two convicted terrorists in retaliation against the Islamic State, which posted a video Tuesday of its fighters burning alive a captured Jordanian pilot in a cage."

Bloomberg: "The founder of the Silk Road website faces life in prison for running an underground Internet emporium that catered to hackers and drug traffickers. Ross Ulbricht, 30, who used the moniker 'Dread Pirate Roberts,' offered people the chance to anonymously buy illegal merchandise and services by using bitcoins. On Wednesday, a jury took about three hours to find him guilty on all seven federal charges."

New York Times: "A crowded Metro-North Railroad train passing through Westchester County at the height of the evening rush on Tuesday slammed into a sport-utility vehicle on the tracks at a crossing, creating a fiery crash and explosion that killed seven people, injured a dozen and forced the evacuation of hundreds. On Wednesday, federal transportation safety officials were prepared to travel to New York to investigate the crash, the deadliest in Metro-North's history." See also yesterday's Ledes.

The Commentariat -- February 3, 2015

Internal links & defunct video removed.

** Brooks Boliek, et al., of Politico: "On Thursday, [FCC Chair Tom] Wheeler[, a former cable company lobbyist,] is expected to present to the commission a set of rules that would treat broadband providers like utilities, effectively denying them the right to charge companies a premium for faster access to consumers and holding them accountable for any attempt to secretly impede the flow of data. When the commission finally approves them -- a vote is scheduled for late February -- it will mark the most significant rewrite of the rules of the road for the Internet in more than a dozen years and affect the competitive playing field for generations to come.... The origins of his dramatic pivot on this issue: an intense and relatively brief grass-roots lobbying campaign that targeted two people -- him and President Barack Obama." ...

... Thank you, John Oliver:

... And another big thanks to this Big Guy (Nov. 10, 2014):

David Sanger of the New York Times: "A year after President Obama ordered modest changes in how the nation's intelligence agencies collect and hold data on Americans and foreigners, the administration will announce new rules requiring intelligence analysts to delete private information they may incidentally collect about Americans that has no intelligence purpose, and to delete similar information about foreigners within five years."

Bill Curry in Salon: "Democrats are supposed to be the party of change but life in the bubble taught them to resist change.... As it is now organized and led, the Democratic Party is a corrupt and empty husk of an institution. But for all its patent defects I believe it offers the most direct path to progressive governance." Curry thinks progressives are too divided & must have a "conversation" that brings us all together in the way the Tea party movement brought the confederates together.

Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "The fight over immigration policy shifts to the Senate on Tuesday, with Democrats confident that they can block a homeland security financing bill that would reverse President Obama's directives to ease the threat of deportation against millions of undocumented immigrants. By using a filibuster to prevent a debate on the legislation, which has been passed by the House, Democrats are hoping they can force the new Republican majority to drop the immigration provisions and send the $40 billion spending bill to the president."

Justin Sink of the Hill: "The White House is looking to counter-program a vote by House Republicans to repeal ObamaCare by inviting a group of Americans who have benefitted from the law to meet President Obama. 'Today's meeting comes as Republicans in the House of Representatives vote to repeal the law and take these benefits away from millions of Americans,' a White House official said." ...

... Russell Berman of the Atlantic: "House Republicans will vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act again on Tuesday. It'll be the 56th shot they've taken at the law, and just like every other time they've tried to erase President Obama's signature achievement, this attempt is doomed to fail. Republicans have nowhere near the veto-proof majority they'd need to kill Obamacare.... They're doing it for the freshmen -- that is, the 47 House Republicans who just took office a month ago and have never had the high honor and privilege of voting to repeal Obamacare. By holding the vote, these lawmakers can head back to their districts and tell their constituents that yes, they did everything they could to get rid of the reviled law." ...

... Jennifer Haberkorn & Manu Raju of Politico: "The Supreme Court could be months away from blowing a huge hole in Obamacare -- and Republicans on Capitol Hill are at odds over how they'll respond if their side wins.... Some conservatives say the party should do everything in its power to kill the law if the Supreme Court rules their way. If Republicans in Congress try to preserve a crucial element of the law, conservatives say, it will be an all-out war within the GOP." ...

... Brian Beutler: "In a brief to the Supreme Court, dozens of public health scholars, along with the American Public Health Association, detail the harm the Court would create by ruling for the challengers in King vs. Burwell.... "'Using the national estimate that 8.2 million people can be expected to lose health insurance in the absence of subsidies on the federal marketplace, this ratio equates to over 9,800 additional Americans dying each year.'" CW: Let's see how many Supreme Court justices are willing to kill some 10,000 people a year in service of their political theology. Will it be four? Or five? I'm going to hope the Supremes are all lovely people, & not a one of them -- on the slender thread of one semantic slip-up -- is so craven as to knowingly & purposely jeopardize the lives & health of millions of Americans, in the process killing off thousands of them. I just might be wrong. ...

You're Not the Boss of Me. Josh Marshall of TPM: "... for older Americans, support for mandatory immunizations is overwhelming. And it just got lower and lower and lower the younger you go - with what looks like a steep turning points somewhere in the mid-30s. This is not good news." ...

... Presidential Race

Today in Crazy. Featuring GOP Presidential Contenders.

Calling Dr. Christie. Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie walked back comments he made [outside a vaccine lab in Cambridge, England,] Monday morning calling for 'balance' on the measles vaccine debate to allow for parental choice, asserting that 'there is no question kids should be vaccinated.'... Christie also took the unusual step of criticizing the president on foreign soil, saying Obama had been a poor negotiator, specifically regarding the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership." ...

... Charles Pierce: "This is like running a campaign on Teach The Controversy regarding Creationism, or a campaign based on the fact that 9/11 was an inside job." ...

... Catherine Thompson of TPM: "In an October 2009 interview with Fox Business Network's Don Imus, Christie defended the concerns of parents who believe in the theory that vaccines caused their children to develop autism. That belief stems from a now-debunked study linking vaccines to the disorder. "We need to look at all the different things affecting autism in New Jersey because we have the highest rate in the country, not just the environmental concerns but vaccinations,' Christie said. 'Parents of children with autism need to be heard, they need a seat at the table to be talking about these issues.'" ...

... Benjy Sarlin of NBC News: "Louise Kuo Habakus, an anti-vaccination activist who runs the site FearlessParent.org, provided a letter to MSNBC Monday in which Christie purportedly wrote that he understood their concerns about ties between vaccine mandates and autism -- long discredited by public officials -- and supported their push for parental choice. She shared a photo showing Christie meeting with her and what she said were other anti-vaccination activists with her organization, the NJ Vaccination Choice Coalition, as well as other autism groups at a meeting they organized with the then-candidate in August 2009.... The Washington Post's Fact Checker blog called out then-presidential candidates Barack Obama, John McCain, and Hillary Clinton in 2008 for suggesting the science around the issue was unsettled despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary." ...

... Scott Lemieux in LG&M: "Conservatives making vaccinating your kids a conspiracy liberal elitists inflict on your kids, like global warming or evolution, is just going to be awesome if you like lots of unnecessary death and suffering."

... Turns out the lab facility Christie visited in England is American-owned. AND, Steve M.: "as The Telegraph reports, Christie is in Cambridge, in part, 'to highlight New Jersey's pharmaceutical industry." (Also linked below.) So he's not just reinforcing superstition, he's insulting the industry he's there to promote. What an embarrassment."

... Also see digby on press secretary Josh Earnest's "milquetoast" response to a question about measles vaccines, way last week. "I'd guess they are afraid of people saying the state is intruding into the affairs of the family. But they do this all the time. The state forces people to use those car seats, after all. What's so different about this? And in this case, it's really not a matter of individual choice, is it? By failing to vaccinate, parents aren't just endangering their own kids they're endangering other people's kids. Even libertarians should have to take a big breath before they claim that's ok ... This is a very strange debate. These aren't obscure new protocols. They've been around forever and we literally have hundreds of millions of people walking around who lived to tell the tale." ...

... Steve M. pushes back against the rap on Obama & Hillary Clinton: "By September 2008...,Obama was angering the anti-vaxx community by telling an vaccine-skeptic blogger that he supported vaccination.... An anti-vaxx blog recently called Clinton 'the mother of the autism epidemic' because, in the first year of her husband's administration, she pushed for a law intended to increase childhood vaccination rates.... Oh, and a major focus of the Clinton Foundation is speeding up the rollout of new vaccines." ...

     ... UPDATE: See Michael Hiltzig's thorough vetting of Obama's statements on vaccinations. He shreds the "Obama-was-against-it-before-he-was-for-it" false storyline that has crept into mainstream media stories, like the one I cited above.

The science is clear: The earth is round, the sky is blue, and #vaccineswork. -- Hillary Clinton, in a tweet Monday evening

Calling Dr. Paul (Who Is a Real, Self-Certified Doctor, BTW). Freeeedom! Jonathan Chait: "... the scent of crazy in the air inevitably attracted Rand Paul, who gave a disturbing interview to CNBC. ...

... Carrie Dann of NBC News: "Republican Sen. Rand Paul is standing by his statement that most vaccinations should be 'voluntary,' telling CNBC that a parent's choice not to vaccinate a child is 'an issue of freedom.' In an interview with the network Monday, Paul said that vaccines are 'a good thing' but that parents 'should have some input' into whether or not their children must get them. And he gave credence to the idea - disputed by the majority of the scientific community - that vaccination can lead to mental disabilities. 'I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines,' he said." (Emphasis added.) CW: That kind of makes Li'l Randy the Michele Bachmann of 2016. ...

... Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed: "For more than two decades, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was a member of a group, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, that advocated a link between vaccinations and autism, among other conspiracy theories. The AAPS, as Kentucky's Courier-Journal noted in a 2010 article on Paul's association with it, opposes mandatory vaccinations and promoted discredited studies, which linked the vaccine-component thimerosal to autism in children.... An adviser for the senator told BuzzFeed News that he does not know if Paul is still a member, but that the senator does not support all the group's views." ...

... Apparently Rand Paul has decided to go the Christie Bully route. Besides interrupting interviewer Kelly Evans several times, twice at the end of the interview he lectured her for being "slanted," "argumentative" & asking questions based on "distortions." In fact, Evans was only repeating information that was common knowledge &/or had been previously reported. ...

... ** Charles Pierce: "... I will decline to refer to what Paul did there as 'mansplaining,' and instead, fall back on the old standby, 'Jesus, what an dickhead.'"

Philip Rucker & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "Medical experts reacted with alarm Monday as two top contenders for the Republican presidential nomination appeared to question whether child vaccinations should be mandatory -- injecting politics into an emotional issue that has taken on new resonance with a recent outbreak of measles in the United States.... Seth Mnookin, a professor at MIT who has written a book on the vaccination debate called 'The Panic Virus,' called the comments from Christie and Paul 'incredibly, incredibly irresponsible.' Such remarks, he said, 'basically fail at the first duty of a politician, which is to calm his constituents in moments of irrational crisis.'"

McKay Coppins of BuzzFeed: Christie "isn't the only prospective Republican presidential candidate making that argument. Carly Fiorina made similar remarks in an interview with BuzzFeed News a week ago. Asked whether a recent measles outbreak that has spread across 14 states signals further proof that children need to be vaccinated, Fiorina said, 'I think parents have to make choices for their family and their children.'... She went on, 'I think vaccinating for measles makes a lot of sense. But that's me. I do think parents have to make those choices. I mean, I got measles as a kid. We used to all get measles .. I got chicken pox, I got measles, I got mumps.'"

When Ben Carson Is the Sane Guy in the Room. Steven Yaccino of Bloomberg Business: "'Although I strongly believe in individual rights and the rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit, I also recognize that public health and public safety are extremely important in our society,' [Ben] Carson, a well-known neurosurgeon and conservative speaker, wrote in an e-mailed statement to Bloomberg Politics. 'Certain communicable diseases have been largely eradicated by immunization policies in this country and we should not allow those diseases to return by foregoing safe immunization programs, for philosophical, religious or other reasons when we have the means to eradicate them.'" ...

     ... UPDATE, via the New York Times: "Asked about the measles vaccine controversy on Monday, a spokesman for [former Texas Gov. Rick] Perry affirmed his commitment to 'protecting life' and pointed to efforts by his administration to increase immunization rates.... Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, also a possible 2016 candidate, was asked on Sunday about vaccinations on the ABC News program 'This Week,' and insisted that the science was clear and convincing. 'Study after study has shown that there are no negative long-term consequences,' he said. 'And the more kids who are not vaccinated, the more they're at risk and the more they put their neighbors' kids at risk as well.'" The Times story also cites Mike Huckabee as favoring vaccinations, but that was based on a 2010 post by Huckabee; the increasingly loony Huckabee might have changed his mind since.

David Graham of the Atlantic: "A world in which support or opposition to vaccination could become a partisan litmus test would be a dangerous one. It's not that hard to imagine -- just look at climate change, once a relatively uncontroversial issue that has shifted to the point that Republican officeholders widely reject it."

Many states (including California) make it relatively easy to refuse vaccination for 'philosophic' reasons. This does not, I suspect, mean that people are reading Immanuel Kant or John Stuart Mill; it means they are consuming dodgy sources on the Internet. -- Conservative WashPo columnist Michael Gerson

His Highness, King Christopher I. Kate Zernicke & Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: Chris Christie "shot to national prominence as a cheese-steak-on-the-boardwalk Everyman who bluntly preached transparency and austerity.... But throughout his career in public service, Mr. Christie has indulged a taste that runs more toward Champagne at the Four Seasons. He has also quietly let others pay the bills. That tendency ... has put him in ethically questionable situations, taking benefits from those who stand to benefit from him.... He made it clear when he campaigned for Mr. Romney in 2012 that he would do out-of-state events only if he was given a private plane, even during the primary, when the candidate's wife was still flying commercial to save money.... A Justice Department report after he left office found that he was the [federal] prosecutor who most often exceeded the charges allowed for hotel stays in different cities...." ...

... CW: It's true that Americans want their president to behave like royalty (unless he's black), but I doubt most Americans want a president who is as self-indulgent as a two-year-old: Christie eats too much, spends too much, vents too much, boasts too much. He's just too much.

Rachel Cohen of the American Prospect: "... compared to 'Bridgegate'..., Christie's [October 2010] veto of the new rail tunnel [under the Hudson River] is a far more serious scandal. For the sake of short-term political gain, Christie sacrificed the long-term interests of his state and the nation. The story of the blocked tunnel is also evidence of a wider problem: Republican leaders' refusal to deal with failing infrastructure for fear of raising taxes and antagonizing anti-tax groups on the right."

Dude! Don't worry about Rand Paul's wackadoodle views about freeeedom from vaccines, people. The real problem Paul has is the outfit he wore to the Koch brothers shebang. Also, he slouches. Ken Vogel & Tarini Parti of Politico: "Some attendees commented that Paul's appearance was 'cavalier'.... 'Jeans might work for a younger audience,' said another attendee, 'but these are old bulls who put on a tie every day to go to the office.'" CW: I like Paul's sartorial choice, though the jacket is a bit too dressy & the jeans look like they've seen the hot side of an iron.

Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast on GOP presidential candidates: "... despite all this spin from conservatives* about what a strong field this is, as usual the opposite is the truth. It's an astonishingly weak field, unified not only in their opposition to Barack Obama and the federal government but also in their hostility to actual ideas that might stand a chance of addressing the country's actual problems.... I finally sat myself down and watched that Scott Walker speech from last week that everyone is raving about.... It was little more than a series of red-meat appetizers and entrees: Wisconsin defunded Planned Parenthood, said no to Obamacare, passed some kind of law against 'frivolous' lawsuits, and moved to crack down on voter 'fraud' -- all of that besides, of course, his big move, busting the public-employee unions. There wasn't a single concrete idea about addressing any of the major problems the country faces.... Walker is even more vacuous on foreign policy, as Martha Raddatz revealed yesterday, twisting him around like a pretzel with a couple of mildly tough questions on Syria." ...

     ... * CW: And from the press! ...

... John Amato of Crooks & Liars: in the Raddatz Q&A, Walker "reminded me of a certain Alaskan governor who saw Putin's house from her home and didn't know what magazines she reads." ...

... BUT Kevin Drum of Mother Jones thinks Scottie is a quick study: "Walker still has a ways to go before he's ready for prime time. But I'll bet he gets there. He'll learn from his mistakes, and he's just about the only Republican candidate who has potential appeal to both tea partiers and mainstream voters. Six months from now minor early stumbles like this will be ancient history, and he'll have his campaign schtick much more finely honed. He remains a serious contender." ...

... PLUS, this just in from Steve M.: It looks as if Walker is Drudge's favorite, something that will matter in the primaries. Steve adds that it doesn't hurt that Scottie plays hardball & cites a few examples of what a dirty rotten scoundrel he is. ...

... AND Paul Waldman: "If you asked the same questions of Republicans who are supposedly more knowledgeable and experienced on foreign affairs, they'd give you the same empty, vague answers. Syria is a situation with no good options for the United States, but conservative dogma says that any international challenge can be solved if we show sufficient strength, toughness, and resolve.... So yes, chances are that Scott Walker's ideas about foreign policy are ill-informed and overly simplistic.... But that isn't because he's a governor, it's because he's a Republican politician." ...

... CW: In fact, that's exactly what Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) did Sunday, calling for 10,000 American troops to fight ISIS (also linked here yesterday). Graham fancies himself not just presidential timbre but a foreign policy expert. He has made numerous trips to the Middle East, including one where he & fellow Amigos John McCain & Joe Lieberman embraced Gaddafi.

Joshua Spivak, in a Los Angeles Times op-ed, explains why the GOP has so many presidential contenders this year.

CW: I was intending to save this for the weekend, but Amy Davidson's New Yorker post on Republicans' papal problems is getting a good deal of attention, so here it is.

One Super Bowl Story. Ian Crouch of the New Yorker asks, "Did we just watch Julian Edelman play through a concussion?" Crouch lays out the symptoms of a concussion that Patriots wide receiver Edelman exhibited after being knocked down in "what appeared to be an illegal helmet-to-helmet hit" during the fourth quarter of Sunday's totally inconsequential game (and I mean that). Despite showing symptoms when he was hit, as well as during subsequent plays, Edelman finished the game. "After the game, when he was asked about the hit, Edelman said, 'We’re not allowed to talk about injuries.'" CW: That's right: cover-up is the rule. ...

... ESPN: "New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman was tested for a concussion and cleared to finish Super Bowl XLIX after taking a big hit in the fourth quarter, a person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press. The person said Monday that Edelman, who caught the winning 3-yard touchdown pass, was checked on the New England sideline by medical staff and an independent neurologist.... On Monday, coach Bill Belichick was asked whether Edelman was checked for a concussion but largely sidestepped the question.

I'm a coach and I had a deal with our trainers and doctors. They're the medical experts and they don't call plays, and I'm the coach and I don't get involved in the medical part. When they clear players to play, then if we want to play them, we play them. The plays we call, I don't have to get approval from them. It's a good setup. -- Patriots Coach Bill Belichick, responding to a question about whether or not Julian Edelman suffered a concussion during the Super Bowl

Apparently coaches are "not allowed to talk about injuries," either. Cover-up is the rule. And you wonder why I'm not a sports fan. -- Constant Weader

Beyond the Beltway

Joe Fletcher of Addicting Information: "The Detroit Free Press recently ran an article [linked yesterday on the Commentariat] that told the story of James Robertson, a man who walks 21 miles a day to work, five days a week. The story went viral and the internet responded brilliantly. A GoFundMe fundraiser was created to try to raise enough money to buy a car for Robertson. In only seven hours, the crowdfund has not only reached the initial goal of raising $25,000, but has blown past it bringing in over $29,000 at the time this article was written. The crowdfund was started by Evan Leedy. Leedy is trying to get in contact with car dealerships, Ford, Chrysler, or GM to try to get a car." CW: If you contributed to the fund for Mr. Robertson, thank you very much. Thanks to Jeanne B. for the link. ...

... Sarah Larimer of the Washington Post has more. Contributions to the fund were up to $67,000 at the time of publication. ...

... Also from Bill Laitner of the Detroit Free Press, who wrote the original story about Robertson's arduous commute to work.

News Ledes

New York Daily News: "At least seven people were killed and at least 12 others were seriously injured when a Metro-North train hit a Jeep on the tracks in Westchester Tuesday and burst into a wild inferno, authorities said. The dead included the driver of the car and at least five train passengers, a police source said."

New York Times: "Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor whose mysterious death has gripped Argentina, had drafted a request for the arrest of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, accusing her of trying to shield Iranian officials from responsibility in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center here, the lead investigator into his death said Tuesday. The 26-page document, which was found in the garbage at Mr. Nisman's apartment, also sought the arrest of Héctor Timerman, Argentina's foreign minister. Both Mrs. Kirchner and Mr. Timerman have repeatedly denied Mr. Nisman's accusation that they tried to reach a secret deal with Iran to lift international arrest warrants for Iranian officials wanted in connection with the bombing."

New York Times: "In a new show of brutality for a group already known for displays of violence, the Islamic State released a video on Tuesday purporting to show the execution of a captive Jordanian pilot by burning him alive. The lengthy footage shows clips of Jordan's involvement in the United States-led airstrikes against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. At the end, the pilot, First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh, stands inside of a cage and is set on fire by an unidentified militant who uses a torch to ignite flammable liquid that has drenched the pilot's clothing." ...

... Washington Post: "The Islamic State's release on Tuesday of a video showing its fighters burning alive a captured Jordanian pilot sparked street protests calling for vengeance and threatened to draw this country's usually low-key monarch toward ever more direct confrontation with radical Islam. The Jordanian military, a close ally in the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State, vowed 'punishment and revenge' for the killing, which it said had probably been carried out in early January. The Associated Press reported late Tuesday that a Jordanian government spokesman confirmed that two prisoners had been executed." ...

... New York: "Just hours after ISIS released a video showing the execution-by-fire of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kassasbeh, his government has pledged to avenge his death by expediting the execution of Sajida al-Rishawi, the woman militants tried to trade for Japanese journalist Kenji Goto." ...

... Reuters Update: "Jordan executed by hanging on Wednesday a jailed Iraqi woman militant hours after Islamic State fighters released a video appearing to show a captured Jordanian pilot being burnt alive in a cage, a security source and state television said. The militants had demanded the release of the woman, Sajida al-Rishawi, in exchange for a Japanese hostage who was later killed.... Ziyad Karboli, an Iraqi al Qaeda operative, who was convicted in 2008 for killing a Jordanian, was also executed at dawn, said the security source...."

Let This Be the Last We Hear of This Guy. AP: "Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong hit two parked cars with an SUV after a night of partying in Aspen, Colorado, but agreed to let his longtime girlfriend take the blame to avoid national attention, police reports show."