JOURNALISM: Brian Williams Apologizes For False Iraq Story Casting Himself In A Heroic Light. “NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams apologized on Wednesday for falsely claiming that he had been aboard a helicopter that was shot down during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Stars and Stripes reports.”

To be fair, lots of journalists have lied about Iraq, so what’s one more?

UPDATE: “Brian Williams went Full Neil Tyson. You never go Full Neil Tyson.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Shades of Hillary’s Phony Sniper Story. (Bumped).

MORE: Brian Williams talks about his experience in Iraq, and about how much more macho he is than his critics.

ALYSSA ROSENBERG: Vaccine deniers, the criminalization of parenthood and the loss of community.

The refusal to vaccinate your children, relying on other families to create the environment that will keep yours safe, is a rejection of state power in favor of personal preference. The choice to call the police on parents who aren’t supervising their children in the way you think they ought to be is an invocation of state power that can have dramatic consequences. But both the vaccine refusal movement and the criminalization of certain parenting strategies (or parenting economic realities) are based on misinformation. And both are expressions of our profound withdrawal from one another.

Well, one problem is a breakdown of trust in public institutions. But that breakdown is a product of public institutions’ being untrustworthy, repeatedly, over many decades. She’s right, though, that irrational fears about vaccines have done less damage than irrational fears about, say, kids playing outdoors.

WHAT THE FOLKS AT ICE DO INSTEAD OF KEEPING TERRORISTS OUT: Trademark overreach of the day: ICE says “Yankees Suck” infringes.

JOURNALISM: The Nocera Correction. “It’s not our purpose here to pile onto Mr. Nocera. He’s a veteran newspaperman, and even the best of reporters and editors have made some real doozies in the course of long careers. We’ve made our share. But for the record, the editors the Times missed the biggest mistake of all in Mr. Nocera’s column. Sheldon Silver hasn’t been indicted — yet. Not only does the correction miss that blunder. It even repeats the error. It is a mistake that bears reflection at a time when the constitutional niceties are getting all too little attention.”

LIFE IN OBAMA’S AMERICA: When “Diversity” Really Means Plutocrats. Of course, to be fair, in Obama’s America, pretty much everything means plutocrats.

AT AMAZON, top deals on Valentine’s Day gifts.

Also, Winter Deals in Home & Kitchen.

LIFTING AT AGE 91: Strength Training – It’s Never Too Late.

PHOTOS OF Nigeria’s traditional rulers. They still matter. The Emir of Kano seems to be doing more to fight Boko Haram than the Nigerian Federal Government.

COMPANIES PAYING ADBLOCK to be whitelisted.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW about President Obama’s NASA Budget.

I AM BECOME K-CUP, DESTOYER OF WORLDS! I hear the K-cups are so bad for the environment that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has removed the Keurig machine from his private jet.

ASHE SCHOW: Columbia student found ‘not responsible’ of rape finally tells his side of the story.

BRIDGET JOHNSON: Why ISIS Used Fire to Murder the Jordanian Pilot.

USA TODAY: Bergdahl desertion report held hostage: His platoon knows the truth about his desertion. The public should know as well. Well, that’s inconvenient after the White House’s Rose Garden photo op.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 636.

THE COMING NIGERIAN CRACK UP?

The February 14 elections (to be followed by state elections two weeks later) pit an unpopular incumbent against a veteran opposition leader. President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from southern Nigeria representing the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has been a controversial figure since he inherited the highest office from Umaru Yar’Adua, a Muslim who died in office in 2010. Because an informal power-sharing agreement within the PDP dictates that the presidency rotates between a northern Muslim and a southern Christian, many Nigerian Muslims were infuriated that their President had served for less than the two possible terms. They were even more enraged when Jonathan ran for re-election in 2011. Jonathan’s opponent for a second consecutive election is Muhammadu Buhari, a northern Muslim from the All Progressives Congress (APC). Buhari was the country’s military ruler from 1983–85 and ran for President in 2003, 2007, and 2011. The APC is a newly formed political alliance of the four largest opposition parties, some of which supported Jonathan and the PDP in the last election.

There are many daunting election-related challenges in the coming months, not the least of which is security. Ongoing violence related to Boko Haram in three northeastern states has wreaked havoc, and although the electoral commission announced it will open polling stations there, nobody knows where and how this will be done. What observers do know is that those three states, which favor Buhari, will be extremely underrepresented when the final votes are tallied.

Nigeria’s Muslim north has traditionally had a place at the table due to superior martial prowess, while the Christian/other south has traditionally been richer. Recently, the south has gotten a lot richer. Most folks in the south wouldn’t lose a lot of sleep if the north simply broke off. However, I hear that a lot of surprising people favor Buhari simply because they think he would be able to crush Boko Haram. Goodluck Jonathan has not lived up to his name, not having been particularly lucky and having seemed a bit hapless. There are some much more competent figures in the south, but none are running for President this time.

AUSTIN BAY: Cyborgs Versus Invading Green Men: Putin’s Creeping Ukraine Invasion Continues.

YOU CAN SEE WHY THAT WOULD BE A SELLING POINT: SecDef Nominee Ashton Carter Promises To Keep The White House Away From The Defense Department.

YET ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF why civil asset forfeiture is terrible.

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ON THE DAILY SHOW: Jon Stewart’s Anti-Vaccine Pandering With Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

UPDATE: Remember When Liberal Comedian Bill Maher Was Anti-Vaccine?

TERRORISTS! HOSTAGE-TAKERS! Senate Democrats Block Homeland Security Bill.

LIZ PEEK: How To Prepare For Obama’s Spending Avalanche.

UPDATE: The Legacy of Debt: Interest Costs Poised to Surpass Defense and Nondefense Discretionary Spending. Well, once Greece and a few other countries set the precedent, we can always default.

WAPO: Vaccine debate presents a political minefield — as Hillary Clinton can attest. The article is written with as much of a pro-Hillary slant as they can manage, but it nonetheless illustrates her shifting positions, and doesn’t make her look especially good. And that the Post thought they had to do this at all says a lot.

Plus, one reason why it’s awkward for Hillary: Trial Lawyers and Dem Donors Support Anti-Vaccination Movement: Top left-wing financiers found and finance leading ‘anti-vax’ groups.

Throughout its anti-vaccination campaign, NVIC has received support from organizations and individuals associated with mainstream liberal and Democratic politics.

The Tides Foundation, a left-wing group that funnels money from high-dollar donors to like-minded activist groups, has donated to NVIC. Tides’ managing director sits on the board of the Network for Good, which has also contributed to NVIC.

One of its most prolific donors is the Dwoskin Family Foundation, run by Albert Dwoskin—a high-dollar Democratic donor, former chairman of the Democratic data firm Catalist, Democracy Alliance director, and adviser to the pro-Palestinian group J Street—and his wife, Claire, a former finance vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee.

The foundation’s most recent contributions came in 2012, when it donated nearly $30,000 to NVIC. It also gave $25,000 that year to Media Matters for America, a left-wing research outfit that has hammered conservatives who have expressed sentiments similar to NVIC’s.

Claire Dwoskin sits on NVIC’s board, according to documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service. She also founded the anti-vaccination Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute and helps organize the Vaccine Safety Conference, a gathering of like-minded activists.

The latest conference, held in 2011, was underwritten by Paul Soros, the late brother of the billionaire Democratic financier George Soros.

These events and organizations routinely promote findings that the bulk of the scientific establishment considers dangerous.

People should start questioning politicians about their connections to these groups and donors. For the children.