Good morning! Today is Ratification Day — the Treaty of Paris was ratified on January 14, 1784, ending our Revolutionary War. And on this date in 1967, thousands of hippies gathered in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park for what was billed as a “gathering of tribes” dubbed the “Human Be-In.” Soon it would be “the Summer of Love…”
Stat of the day: $60 million — the amount of revenue Colorado collected last year from sales of legal marijuana, according to Politifact. The state is also estimated to have saved almost $150 million in law enforcement costs.
Charlie Hebdo –> The satirical magazine raised its usual press run of 60,000 copies to five million, as the staff published the first issue since last week’s fatal attack on its offices. Thousands lined up to buy. AND: AQAP, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, claimed responsibility today for last week’s terror attacks in Paris, according to the AP. ALSO: A French national being held in custody in Bulgaria is believed to be linked to the small group of extremists who perpetrated the killings. ABC News reports that he will soon be extradited back to France. ALSO, TOO: Heather “Digby” Parton takes Rupert Murdoch to task for fanning the flames of Islamophobia.
Entrapment –> The alleged leader of a fringe “eco-terror” group walked free last week when prosecutors conceded that they hadn’t disclosed the role of an FBI informant in hatching a criminal plot. The revelation, reports The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington, has now “focused attention on the FBI’s use of undercover informants and prompted claims that the agency lured unsuspecting activists into criminal activity through blatant entrapment.”
Pen and a phone –> Coral Davenport reports for the NYT that in Obama’s “latest move using executive authority to tackle climate change, administration officials will announce plans this week to impose new regulations on the oil and gas industry’s emissions of methane.” Pound-for-pound, methane causes more climate change than carbon.
Dissent in the ranks –> At the NY Daily News, Rocco Parascandola and Tina Moore report that a Queens meeting of members of the NYPD’s largest police union featured “pushing, shoving and lots of screaming at Patrick Lynch,” the Police Benevolent Association president, over his decision to go to war with City Hall.
Romney 3.0 –> NY Mag’s Jonathan Chait isn’t buying reports that Mitt will run again in 2016. “Nothing could convince me that Romney will actually run for president,” he writes, “not even Romney taking the oath of office.” AND: At TAP, Paul Waldman scoffs at the idea that Romney would campaign on “helping the poor and supporting the middle class.” ALSO: In case you were wondering, the guy who enjoyed 15 minutes of fame in 2012 for getting the Romney-Ryan logo tattooed on his face tells Buzzfeed that he’ll be looking for a new candidate to support.
Family values –> Matt Bruenig reports for the Demos Policy Shop blog that “the poorest Norwegian children are twice as rich as the poorest American children.” AND: According to The Hill’s Lydia Wheeler, the Democrats’ next big issue will be the fight for mandatory paid leave.
Dems’ Keystone troll –> Sen. Bernie Sanders offered an amendment to a bill forcing the approval of the Keystone pipeline that would require his colleagues to state whether they agree “with the opinion of virtually the entire worldwide scientific community and a growing number of top national security experts, economists, and others” that human activities are changing the climate. Greg Sargent reports for WaPo.
“An assertion that is as wrong as it was predictable” –> A NYT editorial looks at the latest religious conservative to claim that his liberty has been trampled: The Chief of the Atlanta Fire Department wrote a book comparing gays and lesbians to child molesters, but was fired for “failing to get approval for the book’s publication, for commenting publicly on his suspension after being told not to, and for exposing the city to possible discrimination lawsuits.” AND: Either opponents of a Houston, Texas, ordinance that would bar discrimination against gays and lesbians forged many of the signatures they collected for a ballot measure, or everyone in Houston has the same handwriting. Zack Ford has that story for ThinkProgress.
Backlash –> Alison Vekshin reports for Bloomberg that police agencies in the San Francisco Bay Area have deployed drones for the first time, and it’s “provoking a backlash from leaders and activists who fear the surveillance will allow authorities to peer into private lives.”
A dog’s life –> It can be pretty good, actually. Just ask “Eclipse,” a two-year-old Labrador Retriever who learned how to take the bus to her local dog park in Seattle, and now frequently heads there without her human companion. She’s become a star among the riders — and a viral story on the Internet.
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