Morning Reads: The Koch Brothers Plan to Spend Close to a Billion on 2016 Race

Good morning! Stay safe out there, East Coasters. We dodged a bullet here in New York City, but other places in the region have been hit with two feet of snow or more.

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp by Russian troops in 1945. And in 1973, the Vietnam war officially ended with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. Just 11 hours before a ceasefire went into effect, Colonel William Benedict Nolde was killed in action, becoming the final, official American casualty in the nine-year conflict.

Stat of the day: 88.5 percent — the share of America’s income growth between 1979 and 2012 that was grabbed by the top 1 percent of households, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Convicted –> On Monday, a jury convicted former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling on nine counts related to his leaking details of a secret operation to NYT reporter James Risen. AP has more.

Big money –> In the run-up to the 2016 elections, the Koch brothers plan for their political network to spend $889 million. Politico’s Kenneth Vogel calls it “a historic sum that in many ways would mark Charles and David Koch and their fellow conservative megadonors as more powerful than the official Republican Party.”

Speaking of the Kochs –> Three potential GOP presidential candidates — Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul — were asked at a private donor event for the Koch brothers’ political network whether they support any minimum wage. Bloomberg’s Julie Bykowicz writes that their answers “serve as a preview of debating styles that will be on display if any or all of them seek the Republican nomination.”

Civil war –> An advance on a government army garrison by Russian-backed Ukrainian separatists “has again unleashed all-out war after a five-month ceasefire and brought threats of new Western sanctions against Moscow,” report Natalia Zinets and Denis Dyomkin for Reuters. AND: AP’s Vladimir Isachenkov reports that a spokesman for Vladimir Putin “shrugged off the Western threat of more sanctions as ‘short-sighted.'”

Pravda on Lake Erie –> Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, a potential GOP presidential nominee (who isn’t?), “is starting a state-run taxpayer-funded news outlet that will make pre-written news stories available to Indiana media, as well as sometimes break news about his administration,” according to the Indianapolis Star. One target of the news operation will be small town papers that lack their own reporting staffs. According to the Star, “the Pence news outlet will [publish] stories written by state communications directors” that “range from straightforward news to lighter features, including personality profiles.”

Convictions overturned –> Last year a record number of Americans, 125, were exonerated and freed from prison. Sam Brodey reports for MoJo that local prosecutors took the lead, with a growing number of “conviction integrity units” established to investigate and remedy false convictions.

Family values? –> HuffPo’s Amanda Terkel reports that Alabama’s only openly gay lawmaker, State Rep. Patricia Todd (D), “is putting her anti-gay colleagues on notice: If they keep espousing family values rhetoric as a reason to oppose marriage equality, she’ll start making their marital infidelities public.”

The horse’s mouth –> Foreign Affairs managing editor Jonathan Tepperman scored a rare interview with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Bernie Sanders, deficit scold –> Rebecca Shabad reports for The Hill that the progressive Vermont senator “is flipping the script on the GOP with a seven-step plan to address national ‘deficits’ through increases in spending.” He called on lawmakers to address deficits “in jobs, income equality, infrastructure, trade, retirement security and education.”

When we were kids… –> Here’s Matt Glendinning, head of the Moses Brown Quaker Day School in Providence, Rhode Island, announcing that school is closed today…