Who claims he’s innocent.

Exit question: Why is the Today show interviewing him in the first place? There’s no news value, only salacious ratings points. Stay classy, NBC.

Remember when Mitt Romney was skewered by the Left for saying in the debates that Syria is important because it’s “Iran’s route to the sea?”

Well, John Kerry made a surprise visit to Iraq over the weekend and the purpose of his trip sounded a lot like what Mitt warned about:

Secretary of State John Kerry’s surprise stop in Baghdad Sunday made him the highest-ranking Obama administration official to mark the 10th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq where it took place.

But Secretary Kerry’s visit had little to do with marking a milestone and much to do with invoking what dwindling influence America still has in postwar Iraq on two important issues for Washington: Iraq’s acquiescence at least to Iran’s use of Iraqi airspace to ferry arms to forces fighting for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and worrisome signs of a resurgence of sectarian divides and political power-grabbing in Iraq.

The United States wants Iraq to rigorously inspect Iranian cargo flights destined for Syria for arms shipments. And on the domestic political front, the US wants Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government to reconsider a decision to suspend provincial elections set for next month in two provinces with important Sunni populations. More broadly, it wants Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to do a better job of upholding democratic principles and promoting an inclusive political system.

This is old news, however. We’ve known since before the election that Iraq was letting Iran supply Syria by air (bullet point No. 7). 

It would be nice, however, if the media would report Kerry’s trip for what it is: an acknowledgement that the Obama administration has failed to stop Iran from propping up Assad with the complicity of our supposed allies in Iraq.

The Senator posted this yesterday:

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. I Corinthians 13

The question of marriage equality is a great American debate. Many people, some with strong religious faith, believe that marriage can only exist between a man and a woman. Other people, many of whom also have strong religious faith, believe that our country should not limit the commitment of marriage to some, but rather all Americans, gay and straight should be allowed to fully participate in the most basic of family values.

I have come to the conclusion that our government should not limit the right to marry based on who you love. While churches should never be required to conduct marriages outside of their religious beliefs, neither should the government tell people who they have a right to marry.

My views on this subject have changed over time, but as many of my gay and lesbian friends, colleagues and staff embrace long term committed relationships, I find myself unable to look them in the eye without honestly confronting this uncomfortable inequality. Supporting marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples is simply the right thing to do for our country, a country founded on the principals of liberty and equality.

Good people disagree with me. On the other hand, my children have a hard time understanding why this is even controversial. I think history will agree with my children.

This is big. Usually McCaskill reserves her Tumblr account for important announcements like how her husband makes a frittata out of leftovers or her recipe for lemon merenguie pie. 

Poor babies. They’re angry that Brian Williams asked — gasp — tough questions. Via the New York Post:

Hollywood uber-agent Ari Emanuel sent a fiery legal letter to NBC after he objected to a contentious interview he and his high-powered brothers sat for with Brian Williams for “Rock Center,” sources tell Page Six.

The brothers — Ari, Chicago Mayor Rahm and bioethicist Ezekiel — appeared on the show, in a segment that aired Friday, to talk about Ezekiel’s upcoming book, “Brothers Emanuel: A Memoir of an American Family.” But a source said that when they met Williams earlier this month to pretape it at a Manhattan bar, the NBC anchor was acting “like it was for ‘Meet the Press.’ ”

“Ari was not happy with it,” the source said of the aggressive interview done in a casual setting. “It was very odd, and [the brothers] were caught off guard. They were there to talk about the book and growing up together. They had offers to do this interview with lots of other people.”

The rest here.

The Congressional Research Service has a new study out calculating how many people have been killed in the United States in mass shootings since 1983. The number is 547, not including the shooters.

That’s roughly 18 per year.

As the United States averages 54 lightning deaths per year, you are three times more likely to be struck and killed by lightning than to be gunned down in a mass shooting. As Joe Biden would say, “literally.”

And on the plus side, a different CRS study analyzed the economic impact of increased sales of guns and ammunition. It seems our gun culture is a “boon” for the environment. Via National Journal:

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. And, it seems, what’s good for the gun industry is good for the goose. Through a federal excise tax on guns and ammunition, the booming industry is providing a nine-figure windfall to state conservation programs, according to a Congressional Research Service report issued this month.

The Wildlife Restoration Program, prescribed by the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937, distributes excise-tax revenues collected in the previous year to state wildlife agencies. The money goes toward programs for hunter training and wildlife conservation, paying for the upkeep of nature preserves, and providing capital to buy and protect new parcels of undeveloped land. Funds distributed by the program, which also draw on a tax on archery equipment, are expected to rise 38 percent this year to $534 million, up from $388 million in 2012, according to the report. That total, though, does not account for sequestration, which could shave $21 million from this year’s disbursements.

Much of the uptick in gun-buying appears motivated by long-simmering fears that the Obama administration will institute tough gun-control measures. Revenues from the 10 to 11 percent firearms tax jumped 45 percent in fiscal 2009, which began just before his election.

The trend shows no sign of abating. Revenues from the excise tax were up an additional 40 percent in the first quarter of 2013 over the same period last year. And the revenue bump could get even bigger. According to Jane Gravelle, senior specialist in economic policy at CRS and coauthor of the study, the reported numbers do not yet reflect the surge in gun and ammunition purchases since the Dec. 14 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. That’s because the tax is paid by manufacturers, who would not have felt the effects of the buying spree before the close of the fiscal quarter at the end of 2012.

The rest here.

Yes, we all know the New York Times is slanted in its coverage, and sometimes people whine about that too much. But when an actual reporter, who’s not a conservative and who wants the Times to be better, examines that bias in detail, it’s worth reading.

That’s what my colleague Jerry Kammer, who won the Pulitzer for helping send Duke Cunningham to jail, has done in a new report on the paper’s coverage of immigration. (It follows last week’s release of a report on how the NYT’s editorials on immigration got to be so ridiculously bad.)

Jerry writes, “Thus conceived as a clash of noble strivers versus snarling nativists, illegal immigration at the Times is not subjected to the rigorous analysis of costs and benefits that, under basic rules of journalism, should be applied to any major issue of public policy.” Why is this is important? His answer:

That failing is severe precisely because the Times is so influential. It affects not only public opinion but also the work of reporters around the country who might otherwise look more deeply into a story of great complexity and profound consequences. The Times has failed in its coverage of immigration, and we are all the poorer for it.

Read the whole thing.

I’m not sure it would be worth going to Columbia Journalism School even if it were free, as opposed to actually covering zoning commission meetings and searching county records and persisting with a developer or politician for a straight answer. But at $83,884 a year?  A Ph.D. in Zimbabwean puppetry would be a better investment.

At first glance, the Washington Post Outlook section’s list of hackneyed words and phrases to avoid is no silver bullet in altering the lexical Zeitgeist of the tight-knit journalism community. Be that as it may, it is important to note that this stinging rebuke may midwife a paradigm shift and bring an ignominious end to a dizzying array of iconic phrases going forward.

And the editors of the WSJ warn on the consequences of this move:

A Royal Charter for the Press

A new regulator will inevitably mean greater political sway over the media.

So Britain will get a new press regulator, established by Royal Charter, but underpinned by a law that will make it difficult to change the way the new body operates. A Royal Charter is a declaration by the monarch granting powers and privileges to an entity. Think the BBC, the Bank of England, or the East India Company.

Regulating newspapers by charter was part of the strange compromise struck among the Tories, Liberal Democrats and Labour in the wee hours Monday. The Lib Dems and Labour want a new press regulator established through legislation, with all the muscle that implies. Prime Minister David Cameron opposed a statutory regulator but faced possible defeat in Parliament on this point. Angst is still high in Westminster over the need to “do something” about a press corps supposedly run amok in the phone-hacking scandals.

Some are deriding a Royal Charter as a “medieval” institution. Since you have to go back to the 17th century to find a time when the Crown licensed newspaper publishers, the throwback analogy seems apt.

This new press regulator is anachronistic in other ways too. Politicians are already arguing over the extent to which Internet blogs would fall under its sway, though membership is supposed to be voluntary. Some of Britain’s most prominent bloggers want no part of it. Paul Staines, who blogs under the nom de plume Guido Fawkes, hosts his blog offshore. Even his mobile phone is offshore.

The rest here.

Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News is outraged over the assault-weapons ban failing in the Senate yesterday and held nothing back with his op-ed today titled, “Spineless pols spit on the graves of Newtown victims by not pushing for assault weapons ban.” An excerpt:

Any fool knows that Lanza couldn’t possibly have killed as many children as quickly as he did on the morning of Dec. 14 without an assault weapon in his hands. So how does the President and any other big politician who allows the gun nuts from the National Rifle Association to win again answer the larger question about weapons that make killings like the elementary-school massacre ridiculously easy:

If not now for a ban for these weapons, when?

If Sandy Hook Elementary doesn’t make every member of Congress take a stand against assault weapons in this country, then what does? How many small coffins do we need the next time?

And after the next Adam Lanza shows up with a gun like an AR-15 in a school or a theater or a shopping mall, no one will believe a word the President says at the next memorial service about profoundly changing gun laws in this country. Because three months after Newtown, it turns out that the President has no real power to change anything when it comes to guns in the hands of the wrong people in America.

Of course background checks are important. But so is an assault weapons ban. And please don’t believe the self-serving and slobbering supporters of the NRA — that means all the politicians in the House and the Senate who have pimped themselves out to the NRA — who tell you that a ban like this won’t make a difference, will not save lives the next time.

That happens to be a shameful and gutless lie.

Again: Ask any gun owner if Lanza could have killed as many children as he did in as short a time as he did — before he was a sure shot putting a bullet from one of his handguns through his snake-filled brain — if he didn’t have an AR-15 in his hands. Then go ask the gun lovers to explain all over again how a ban on weapons like this wouldn’t have saved three young lives that morning, or five, or maybe even more than that.

Yet, on Sunday Lupica penned this piece where he used anonymous quotes from an attendee at a law enforcement conference where Danny Stebbins, a colonel in Connecticut’s State, spoke on yet-to-be-publicly-released details of the Lanza attack. Lupica’s piece from Sunday contradicts his rantings of today where he blames the NRA and thinks an assault weapons ban will somehow, magically I guess, stop the next Lanza. Some excepts:

First, his headline . . .

Morbid find suggests murder-obsessed gunman Adam Lanza plotted Newtown, Conn.’s Sandy Hook massacre for years

Meticulous plotting . . .

“We were told (Lanza) had around 500 people on this sheet,” a law enforcement veteran told me Saturday night. “Names and the number of people killed and the weapons that were used, even the precise make and model of the weapons. It had to have taken years. It sounded like a doctoral thesis, that was the quality of the research.”

Video games get a fair amount of blame from the Connecticut State Police, something Lupica conveniently left out of today’s op-ed:

“They don’t believe this was just a spreadsheet. They believe it was a score sheet,” he continued. “This was the work of a video gamer, and that it was his intent to put his own name at the very top of that list. They believe that he picked an elementary school because he felt it was a point of least resistance, where he could rack up the greatest number of kills. That’s what (the Connecticut police) believe.”

The man paused and said, “They believe that (Lanza) believed that it was the way to pick up the easiest points. It’s why he didn’t want to be killed by law enforcement. In the code of a gamer, even a deranged gamer like this little bastard, if somebody else kills you, they get your points. They believe that’s why he killed himself.

Another point Lupica missed today: the Connecticut State Police are saying Lanza chose the school as a target because it was a “point of least resistance.” That’s exactly why the NRA said armed guards were needed to protect schools. And it’s also why President Obama agreed with the NRA in his series of “executive actions” on the importance of adding security to schools. 

More from the conference:

“He [Lanza] didn’t snap that day, he wasn’t one of those guys who was mad as hell and wasn’t going to take it anymore,” the man said. “He had been planning this thing forever. In the end, it was just a perfect storm: These guns, one of them an AR-15, in the hands of a violent, insane gamer. It was like porn to a rapist. They feed on it until they go out and say, enough of the video screen. Now I’m actually going to be a hunter.”

About those high-capacity magazines: turns out Lanza didn’t need them, again via Stebbins:

“It really was like he was lost in one of his own sick games. That’s what we heard. That he learned something from his game that you learn in (police) school, about how if you’re moving from room to room — the way he was in that school — you have to reload before you get to the next room. Maybe he has a 30-round magazine clip, and he’s only used half of it. But he’s willing to dump 15 rounds and have a new clip before he arrives in the next room.” [. . .]

“They believe he learned the principles of this — the tactical reload — from his game. Reload before you’re completely out. Keep going. When the strap broke on his first weapon (the AR-15), he went to his handgun at the end. Classic police training. Or something you learn playing kill games.”

In summary, Wayne LaPierre blamed video games. The Connecticut State Police is, according to Mike Lupica, blaming video games, and for the first time gives us an official indication that it was not just an AR-15 that was used in the killings, but a handgun as well. But Lupica is outraged at the NRA and the AR-15 in particular.

Now here’s the sickening part of the story. The part that nobody really wants to address and that’s what responsibility Adam Lanza’s mother bears for this tragedy. If this is actually what Stebbins said, then I’d say she’s an accomplice. . .

The police in Connecticut believe that Lanza’s mother, a gun lover herself, was an enabler of her son’s increasing obsession with guns, that she was making straw purchases of guns for him all along, and ignoring the fact that he was getting more and more fixated on them.

Lanza didn’t need to steal the guns because his mommy bought them for him. A woman with the financial ability to get her son whatever help he needed, and she failed. Newtown is the result of that failure.

Lupica wants to know how do you stop the next Lanza is the question and I don’t know if you can. 

Mike Lupica is no dummy, and I ask with all seriousness, does he really think that Lanza, if denied an AR-15, wouldn’t have done just as must damage with a firearm not banned by Senator Feinstein’s bill? 

Hillary playing catch-up to Rob Portman. Politico:

Via ABC News:

Pakistani officials said today they have arrested a suspect in connection with the brutal 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl.

Officials told ABC News the suspect, Qari Abdul Hayee, who often used the alias Asadullah, was captured Sunday in a targeted operation by the Pakistani Rangers, a paramilitary unit, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city and a sprawling metropolis home to an estimated 18 million people.

Pearl was kidnapped in January 2002 while en route to interview a Pakistani militant and was later beheaded in a gruesome video eventually posted online.

In 2007, self-described 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed reportedly confessed to having killed Pearl, but it’s unclear whether he personally carried out the beheading. Mohammed, currently in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, has never been charged with the crime.

Pakistani officials said they do not believe Hayee carried out the murder, but said he was “privy to the whole situation” and that he was part of the terror group that carried out the crime.

The rest here.

Heckuva’ job:

CNN, Fox News and MSNBC recently aired the name of the underage victim in the Steubenville rape trial during reports about the case.

Two high school football players were found guilty of raping a 16-year old girl in a controversial case in Steubenville, Ohio. The verdict was handed down on Sunday.

All three cable news networks aired a clip of one of the defendants, Trent Mays, apologizing to the victim in the courtroom. Mays had addressed the victim by name, which was not censored during CNN and MSNBC’s broadcasts on Sunday and Fox News’ broadcast on Monday. Local CBS affiliate WTRF also aired the clip without editing the victim’s name out.

Via TV Newser:

Within Pew’s State of the News Media 2013report, the topic of opinion versus reporting on cable news came up. As we noted earlier, since 2007 opinion programming has risen dramatically while reporting has declined, but it is worth breaking it down by network.

According to Pew’s analysis, MSNBC had by far the most opinion programming of the “big three” cable news channels, with 85% of segments opinion, versus 15% reporting. By comparison Fox News had 55% of segments opinion to 45% reporting, with CNN the only channel to offer more reporting than opinion, with 54% reporting and 46% opinion. Opinion is not just hosts sharing their views, but also pundits spouting on about their thoughts on matters.

On the whole, 63% of all segments on cable news feature opinion, compared to 37% for reporting.

Not surprisingly, primetime skewed heavily toward opinion, with a broader mix during the day, and a slight skew toward opinion in the morning hours.

The rest here.

Politico reports on the similarity citing numerous tweets, and includes this picture via Glenn Beck:

Kind of a Sith version of the devil, no?

But it’s not really Barack Obama who is behind the tweet below. It’s the “independent” 501(c)(4) named “Organizing for Action” that now controls the @BarackObama account:

So how does this work, exactly? The president has loaned an independent group his website (BarackObama.com), his campaign logo and his Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr accounts that all bear his name? But, from the explanation on the Twitter page, the president will still get to post messages to the independent group when he wants? Here’s the explanation from OFA, stressing the independence between the president and the “advocacy” group:

Will OFA be involved in elections, supporting candidates who share a commitment to these policies?

No. Neither OFA nor its chapters will be involved in any way in elections or partisan political activity. Its exclusive purpose is public policy advocacy and development, and in particular, both enactment of President Obama’s legislative agenda and the identification and advancement of other goals for progressive change at the state and local level.

And. . .

Does President Obama support the establishment and activities of OFA?

OFA is advocating for the agenda that President Obama has presented to the nation, and as an organization dedicated to this purpose, OFA has been grateful for the expression of support for its work by the President, Vice President and First Lady. Although it was privately established and will be privately operated, without government funding, OFA will work hard to retain the support and confidence of the President by effectively advocating for his Administration’s core agenda. It also looks forward to working with other civic organizations that are similarly committed to the successful enactment of this agenda.

Do the organizations working closely with or in alliance with OFA include the Democratic Party?

No. OFA is not a partisan political organization and will not engage in electoral activity with any partisan political organization. It welcomes Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to support its work, and its advocacy will be directed to all Americans, without regard to party or other political affiliations.

And as soon as President Obama’s term in office is over, he gets to control his “name” again, no doubt. 

I happened to catch MSNBC the other day when a panel was discussing and psychoanalyzing George W. Bush’s paintings, which were illegally obtained by a hacker going by the name of “Guccifer.” 

Well, Guccifer’s latest target is Sidney Blumenthal’s AOL e-mail account and his private correspondence with Hillary Clinton in particular.

Stay tuned if MSNBC airs any of the hacked content that might prove embarrassing to their Democratic masters.

. . . and all it takes is a donation to Al Franken to enter this wonderful contest:

A staff writer for TNR – Julia Ioffe — tweeted her observations from CPAC yesterday.

First up, a not-so-veiled implication that conservative Dana Loesch looks like a porn star:

Stay classy, Julia. And then there’s this. . .

Well, not quite as white as the revolving door of MSNBC anchors in the 8 p.m time-slot. Oh, and what good is a liberal writer if she can’t fit a Confederacy reference into her CPAC reporting? Kudos, Julia:

Bonus points for the misogyny.

I guess what was really going on at CPAC didn’t fit TNR’s narrative:

Heckuva’ job yesterday, Julia. Can’t wait to read TNR’s spin on the rest of the conference!

Ed Schultz is out as the 8 p.m. host on MSNBC, moving the the coveted Saturday and Sunday time-slot of  5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Schultz says it was his choice to move, yet Politico reports Schultz was pushed out. Or, you could say, asked to lean way, way forward.

In is Chris Hayes, who although a liberal, isn’t an Ed-Schultz-type clown. I don’t know if Hayes will generate better ratings than Schultz, but he’s an upgrade. And, at the very least, Hayes will actually book conservatives on his show, so that’s a plus.