Good morning — and a happy 73rd birthday to Stephen Hawking!

On this date in 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson called for a “war on poverty” in the US. During his time in office, LBJ launched Medicare/Medicaid, Head Start and the Job Corps, expanded Social Security and implemented the food stamp program. The share of Americans living in poverty dropped from around 23 percent to 12 percent. 

Stat of the day: 42 percent — the share of Americans who still believe the US found an “active weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq after the 2003 invasion,” according to a poll conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University. “Beliefs like these are strongly connected with partisanship and media choices,” write the pollsters, “with Republicans and Fox News viewers being more likely to endorse them.”

The point –> Juan Cole posits that the terror attack on Charlie Hebdo’s Paris office was “a strategic strike, aiming at polarizing the French and European public.” Al Qaeda’s big recruiting problem, says Cole, is that most Muslims in France aren’t religious, nor interested in politics — and the group hoped to heighten tensions between Muslims and the Christian majority. AND: Vox’s Ezra Klein adds: “This isn’t about Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons, any more than a rape is about what the victim is wearing, or a murder is about where the victim was walking.”

“A hostile educational environment” –> Brendan Sonnone reports for the Orlando Sentinel that the woman who accused FSU football star Jameis Winston of rape is now suing the university, arguing that the school “violated her Title IX rights by refusing to properly investigate the incident.”

Not wasting any time –> On the first day of the 114th Congress, Republicans introduced a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of gestation. At RH Reality Check, Emily Crockett writes that the bill “relies on the discredited notion that fetuses can feel pain at 20 weeks, and would directly challenge Roe v. Wade since it would ban abortion several weeks before a fetus is viable outside the womb.” ALSO: Jonathan Chait explains the GOP’s creative accounting scheme in a New York magazine story headlined, “Why the Republican Congress’s First Act Was to Declare War on Math.” AND: Jeremy Peters and Ashley Parker report for the NYT that Dems are “displaying some surliness” and “making the case that they would not be silent or passive players in the new Republican-controlled Congress.”

From bad to worse –> According to the UN, Syria has overtaken Afghanistan as the world’s leading source of refugees. Sangwon Yoon reports for Bloomberg. AND: Medicins Sans Frontieres reports from Aleppo: “not only has the dynamic of violence increased, but access to aid has also been restricted. Needs are greater but the aid system is not meeting them. Today, Syria remains the most serious humanitarian crisis in the world.”

“Dangerous, disgraceful game” –> At The Week, Damon Linker writes that “the NYPD … is a modestly sized military force deployed on the streets of the city,” and the department’s rebellion against the city’s civilian leadership threatens a bedrock norm of liberal democracy.

Activism works –> Bill McKibben, writing in The Guardian, says that Obama’s promise to veto a bill forcing approval of the Keystone pipeline proves the point.

Overrated –> At FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver explains why he’s not impressed with NJ Gov. Chris Christie’s presidential prospects.

Big Navel-Gazing –> At The Baffler, Scott Beauchamp writes that think-tanks are a bigger business — and more influential — than most people think. He cites a 2013 study that found, he writes, “wealthy individual donors had replaced corporations as the predominant contributors to think tanks – contributing hundreds of millions of dollars a year to support ‘research’ finding…well, whatever the donors wanted, really.”

She seems nice –> A candidate for mayor of Colorado Springs is in jail “on many charges,” according to The Denver Post. Justine Herring, a real estate broker, was arrested for domestic violence, impersonating a law enforcement officer and other charges after twice menacing a victim with an assault rifle, once at a city park “frequented by families and youth sports teams.” The Post reports that she has a history of domestic violence.

LIZ! –> Kyle Cheney reports for Politico that Sen. Elizabeth Warren “savaged trickle-down economics and took a swipe at President Ronald Reagan on Wednesday, blaming both parties for policies she said have devastated U.S. workers while propping up the wealthy.”

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