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On this date in 1987, the Tower Commission published its report on the Iran-Contra affair. “Using the Contras as a front,” it reads, “and against international law, and US law, weapons were sold, using Israel as intermediaries, to Iran, during the brutal Iran-Iraq war. The US was also supplying weapons to Iraq, including ingredients for nerve gas, mustard gas and other chemical weapons.” The commission faulted Ronald Reagan, his National Security Adviser John Poindexter, then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Colonel Oliver North for the crimes.
Stat of the day: 82 percent — According to Amnesty International’s global report on human rights abuses, 131 out of 160 countries either tortured or “otherwise ill-treated” their citizens in 2014.
“Jihad John” –> The BBC reports that the masked man seen in videos depicting the executions of Westerners by the Islamic State has been identified as Mohammed Emwazi, “a Kuwaiti-born British man in his mid-20s from west London, who was known to UK security services.”
Mayor 1 percent –> At In These Times, Rick Perlstein writes that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s unexpected run-off for re-election is a result of his “corrupt politics” coming home to roost.
The clock ticks –> Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell relented to Senate Democrats and removed language rolling back Obama’s immigration actions from a bill that would keep the Department of Homeland Security funded after Friday. That puts pressure on the House, but Sarah Mimms reports for National Journal that Democrats fear that “Sen. Ted Cruz or Jeff Sessions or another immigration hard-liner will force McConnell to stab them in the back.”
Nation of laws? –> HuffPo’s Dana Liebelson reports that “conservative lawmakers in at least 11 states are pushing legislation that would prevent state law enforcement from enforcing some or all federal gun restrictions.” Liebelson says they were inspired in part by the success of states that have ignored federal marijuana laws.
Astroturf –> Established consumer groups had never heard of the US Consumer Coalition when it started attacking the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s brainchild. MoJo’s Patrick Caldwell looked into the group and found that it was started by a Republican PR firm, is staffed by veteran Republican operatives and financed by undisclosed donors.
Make them pay the tab –> At Slate, Leon Neyfakh argues that the best way to rein in overzealous prosecutors is to defund state prisons and make counties house more inmates in their own local jails and on their own correctional budgets.
Reading tea-leaves –> The government lost an obscure case at the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Although it was unrelated to health care, The Constitutional Accountability Center’s Brianne Gorod argues that the decision bodes very well for the Affordable Care Act in the upcoming King v. Burwell case. AND: David Savage reports for the LAT that “the administration and its allies have developed a novel argument” in defense of the ACA that’s “tailor-made to appeal to conservative justices: states’ rights.”
Two on Bibi –> Catherine Thomspon reports for TPM that John Kerry “slammed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opposition to a potential nuclear deal with Iran, calling it as wrongheaded as the prime minister’s backing of the Iraq War.” AND: Also at TPM, Mikhael Manekin, managing director at Molad, The Center for the Renewal of Israeli Democracy, writes that there’s a lot more at stake in Israel’s upcoming elections than just Iran. “Netanyahu’s rightwing government has stances and a track record on issues which Israelis feel every day,” he writes, cautioning Democrats ahead of Bibi’s March 3 speech to Congress that “when they stand up and applaud Netanyahu on Iran, particularly during an election period in Israel, they are also applauding the crushing of organized labor in Israel. When they applaud his over-the-top rhetoric comparing Hamas to ISIS, they applaud the weakening of LGBT rights in Israel.”
Terrorist masterminds –> Three Brooklyn goofballs extremists were arrested for allegedly plotting to join the Islamic State on Wednesday. It wasn’t brilliant detective work that uncovered their plot — they wrote about their plans on the Internet. TPM’s Caitlin O’Neill reports that one of them “cheerfully inquired in an online posting whether getting killed while shooting President Obama was sufficient to become a martyr.” AND: Travis Getty’s headline at Raw Story says it all: “Texas secessionists can’t understand why cops raided their revolution-plotting party”
Tough winter –> Bella English reports for the Boston Globe that in the midst of Massachusetts’ awful winter, “animal shelters are beyond capacity with weather-related injuries.” English writes: “The casualty list is wide ranging: possums with frostbite, a turtle frozen in a block of ice, a swan hit by a plow, a fox hit by a car.”
Drunk walking –> “In a crackdown on dangerous walking,” writes The Guardian’s Feargus O’Sullivan, “Spain’s Directorate General of Traffic plans to introduce breathalyser tests for pedestrians. They also suggest introducing an off-road speed limit for joggers.”
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