Morning Reads: Help Me, I Think I'm Falling...

Good morning and Happy 71st Birthday to Joni Mitchell (we send these wishes in a melancholy, sort of wistful way, yet one that’s lyrically nimble and harmonically complex).

And a Happy 100th Birthday to The New Republic magazine, first published on this date a century ago. Your humble editor had his first job in journalism there, editing the magazine’s semi-annual index; not in 1914, but shortly after…

Time for some news that caught our attention while playing Joni Mitchell’s “Court and Spark.”

Now you tell us –> Here’s the lede in The New York Times — “Three days after voters expressed their discontent with the state of the economy, the government on Friday reported further signs of improvement, estimating that employers added 214,000 jobs in October, while the official jobless rate dropped to 5.8 percent.”

Grinning all the way to the bank –> With the election results in, K Street can go back to the business of shelling out influence for cash, with many adding the soon-to-be-new occupants of Capitol Hill to their speed dials. One lobbyist tells Megan Wilson at The Hill, “There are a lot of big smiles this morning.” We’ll bet.

GOP gains = Planet’s loss –> Now that the Republicans have their largest House majority since Harry Truman’s time, expect no mercy for Mother Earth. Ari Ratner at Vice News writes, “At best, it means a Congress that is disengaged from serious environmental issues just as the US faces critical choices in how to combat climate change. At worst, it means a Congress actively opposed to the environment.”

Cramming for finals –> “Before ceding full control of Congress to the GOP in January, Senate Democrats are planning to rush a host of critical measures to President Obama’s desk,” including hundreds of federal appointments and “bills to revive dozens of expired tax breaks and avoid a government shutdown for another year.” WaPo’s Lori Montgomery and Ed O’Keefe share the details.

“Go big” –> The NYT editorial board tells President Obama “waiting for Congress to help fix immigration is delusional” — take executive action.

Featuring the Supremes –> The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit just became the first federal appeals court in the country to side with marriage discrimination. Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress says this “all but guarantees” that the US Supreme Court “will decide whether the Constitution’s promise of equality extends to gay people in all 50 states.”

Foreign correspondent –> The WSJ is all over the news that President Obama wrote a secret letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last month in which he “described a shared interest in fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria,” and nudged “Iran’s religious leader closer to a nuclear deal.” Jay Solomon and Carol E. Lee share the byline. An accompanying article claims the letter “rattles Congressional nerves.” John Boehner: “I don’t trust the Iranians, I don’t think we need to bring them into this.”

Worse than we thought –> Last month’s NY Times investigation by CJ Chivers revealed 17 cases of American service personnel who were exposed to degraded and leaking chemical weapons left over from the Iran-Iraq War back in the eighties. Now: “More than 600 American service members since 2003 have reported to military medical staff members that they believe they were exposed to chemical warfare agents in Iraq, but the Pentagon failed to recognize the scope of the reported cases or offer adequate tracking and treatment to those who may have been injured, defense officials say.”

Have they been watching Homeland this season? –> Anne Gearan and Adam Goldman at WaPo report that State Department vet and Pakistan expert Robin L. Raphel is the focus of a counterintelligence investigation, “which typically involves allegations of spying on behalf of foreign governments,” and has had her security clearances withdrawn. At one time, she was married to US Ambassador to Pakistan Arnold Raphel. He died in the mysterious plane crash that killed Pakistani President Mohammed Zia in 1988.

“The $9 Billion Witness” –> Matt Taibbi is back at Rolling Stone and introduces readers to Alayne Fleischmann, the woman JPMorgan Chase paid one of the largest fines in American history to keep from talking about the “massive criminal securities fraud” she saw in the megabank’s mortgages division. “I could lose everything,” she says. “But if we don’t start speaking up, then this really is all we’re going to get: the biggest financial cover-up in history.”

Texas, My Texas –> Tim Murphy has this post-mortem in MoJo for Battleground Texas, the group trying to turn the crimson-red Lone Star State blue. Democrats lost every statewide race for the 16th year in a row: “The idea was that an Obama-style organizing operation could make a real impact in down-ballot races, which are traditionally less sophisticated. It didn’t.” But they ain’t down yet, just recalibrating…

Does it have a fireplace? –> At $195 million, real estate mogul Jeff Greene’s 25-acre estate in Beverly Hills is “the most expensive home to be publicly listed for sale in the U.S.” According to the LA Times, the second floor of the main mansion includes “a 15,000-square-foot entertainment complex containing a disco/ballroom with a revolving dance floor, a DJ booth and a laser-light system. Up to 250 guests can be seated there for dining.” There’s also a 27-car garage and a vineyard. No mention of a moat.

But she’s no Joni Mitchell –> At Slate, Chris Molanphy reports that Taylor Swift’s new album, 1989, went instantly platinum. “How did she pull that off?” he asks. “Part of the answer is unique to Swift, but not all of it. What’s happening in the music business is deeply redolent of our winner-take-all, 1-percenter economy. There’s a tiny handful of musical-cultural conversations Americans have decided they want to be a part of, and then there’s everything else.”

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