Mayor Rob Ford defends Justin Bieber from media criticism. Ford: “Well, you know what, he’s a young guy. At 19 years old, I wish I was as successful as he was. He’s 19 years old, guys. Think back to when you were 19.”
Giuliani says “fifty-fifty” chance Christie is lying and knew about bridge closures.
Geez, with friends like that.
From TPM Reader AF …
Don’t quote me please but…. has anyone noticed that while NY-1’s Michael Scotto seems like a nice young man his Uncle is Anthony Scotto, feared Gambino boss and the King of the NY waterfront for many years.
Jon Meacham tells Tom Kludt he was “just plain wrong” in his comments this morning about executive orders.
I’ll add as an ed note, it’s pretty easy to say things that seem ridiculous in retrospect when you’re riffing on live TV. So this was a pretty big goof. But that’s always important to keep in mind.
Seth D. Michaels: “McConnell’s brilliance is just how much dishonesty he can pack into so few words.”
Top insurer reports more Obamacare signups than expected.
Jon Meacham says Lincoln and FDR never tried to “rebuild America on an Executive Order” like President Obama is supposedly proposing to do. Really? There are real issues with excessive reliance on executive orders. But I think someone needs to crack a history book and maybe find some better examples since Lincoln probably relied on executive powers (like ending slavery by executive order in most of the United States) more than any president in the country’s history (it’s still pretty controversial) and FDR is a close runner-up. Eeesh. This is an amazing thing for someone who presents himself as Mr. History and longivew to say. Watch.
The Wall Street Journal says the brouhaha over the Perkins letter to the editor shows that he has a point about the coming progressive Holocaust about the 1%.
Of all the places to achieve a top-tier education system, Poland might be the most surprising. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that the country was, as Amanda Ripley writes in an excerpt from her book The Smartest Kids In The World, a “communist backwater.” She writes about their path to success.
Join Ripley for a chat (sub. req.) this Friday at noon.