Good morning — and Happy Inventors’ Day! Go make something new.
On this date in 1968, the Memphis sanitation strike began after two African-American workers were crushed to death in the back of their garbage truck, where they had taken shelter from the rain. From the beginning, the strike was connected to the civil rights movement — strikers lamented years of discrimination as well as low pay and dangerous working conditions. After nine weeks, and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., who had come to Memphis in their support, the workers settled, winning a small pay increase and the right to join a union.
Stat of the day: $249 million — The amount raised by the Koch brothers at their recent Palm Beach retreat, according to Andy Kroll at Mother Jones.
Tragic –> Police say “an ongoing dispute over parking” may have motivated 46-year-old Craig Stephen Hicks to shoot and kill three students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, but the victims were Muslims and prior to the killings, Hicks had railed about Islam on social media.
Torture –> A military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base hit a snag this week when two accused conspirators in the 9/11 attacks said they recognized a translator in the courtroom as someone who had “assisted CIA torture” at a black site where they were previously held. Daphne Eviatar, a lawyer with Human Rights First, writes at HuffPo that “the case has repeatedly stalled over concerns that the government is spying on defense counsel, most recently by trying to turn a defense team member into an FBI informant.”
Indicted –> John Marzulli, Thomas Tracy and Oren Yaniv report for the NY Daily News that a grand jury has indicted Peter Liang, the rookie NYPD officer who shot and killed Akai Gurley in an apparent accident — and without a word of warning — on manslaughter charges. If convicted, Liang could face up to 15 years in prison.
Drama in Hillaryland –> Nicholas Confessore and Amy Chozick report that “lingering tensions between Hillary Rodham Clinton’s loyalists and the strategists who helped President Obama defeat her in 2008 have erupted into an intense public struggle over who will wield money and clout in her emerging 2016 presidential campaign.”
Boycotting Bibi –> Justin Sink and Mike Lillis report for The Hill that “more than a dozen congressional Democrats say they plan to skip Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress amid conflicting signals over whether he will pull out from the March 3 address.” BUT: Netanyahu tweeted on Tuesday, “I’m determined to speak before Congress to stop Iran. RETWEET if I have your support.”
Not an easy find –> The attorneys behind the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act had a hard time finding people who were being harmed by receiving subsidies to purchase health insurance. The WSJ reports that one of the plaintiffs listed her address as a short-stay hotel, calling into question whether she has standing in the case. Two other plaintiffs may also lack standing because they’re eligible for veterans’ benefits, report the Journal’s Louise Radnofsky and Brent Kendall.
Religious police –> At TPM, Ed Kilgore writes that the brouhaha over Obama’s recent remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast is indicative of how conservatives have tried to push liberals out of Christianity.
Ageless? –> The universe is thought to be 13.8 billion years old. But physicists with a new model say that it might have existed forever — a finding that, if confirmed, would negate the Big Bang Theory. Lisa Zyga has much more detail at the science news website Phys.org.
End of an era –> Jon Stewart is leaving The Daily Show some time later this year, according to USA Today. Watch his announcement below…
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