NY Times:
They Can’t Wait to Vote’: Energized Democrats Target Dominant G.O.P. in Statehouses
For Republicans in the states, the political warning signs keep mounting: In Virginia, it was an electoral shellacking that nearly snapped their 20-year grip on the State House. In Wisconsin, it was a midwinter rout in a special election for the State Senate, fought in a conservative district.
And in Pennsylvania, it has been an exodus of state legislators from the Philadelphia area, where more than half a dozen Republicans have opted for retirement over a strenuous campaign in 2018.
CNN:
Super Bowl anti-terrorism documents left on plane
The Department of Homeland Security documents critiquing the response to a simulated anthrax attack on Super Bowl Sunday were marked "For Official Use Only" and "important for national security."
Recipients of the draft "after-action" reports were told to keep them locked up after business hours and to shred them prior to discarding. They were admonished not to share their contents with anyone who lacked "an operational need-to-know."
But security surrounding the December 2017 reports suffered an embarrassing breach:
A CNN employee discovered copies of them, along with other sensitive DHS material, in the seat-back pocket of a commercial plane. The reports were accompanied by the travel itinerary and boarding pass of the government scientist in charge of BioWatch, the DHS program that conducted the anthrax drills in preparation for Super Bowl LII in Minneapolis.
Congratulations, Eagles. And you, BioWatch dude, pay attention to what you’re doing.
WaPo:
Early gauge of 2018 turnout shows good signs for Democrats
The Post-ABC poll found Democrats holding a 12-point advantage over Republicans when registered voters were asked which party’s candidates they will support in their congressional districts, the so-called “generic ballot” question that has been correlated with the number of seats parties win. Democrats’ advantage has been somewhat smaller in other polls in January, standing at eight points in an average of recent national polls analyzed by The Post. Election analysts forecast that Democrats need a six-to-eight-point advantage in generic polls to win in a majority of House districts.
To give you an idea of how badly the memo fell flat:
WaPo:
Republican lawmakers distance themselves from Trump on memo
Calling on Trump not to interfere in Mueller’s investigation, four Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee dismissed on Sunday the idea that the memo’s criticism of how the FBI handled certain surveillance applications undermines the special counsel’s work. Reps. Trey Gowdy (S.C.), Chris Stewart (Utah), Will Hurd (Texas) and Brad Wenstrup (Ohio) represented the committee on the morning political talk shows.
The pressure is now on to release the Democratic memo, vote is as soon as today. And the fact that the partisan Nunes memo was such a waste of time ratchets that pressure up.
Orin Kerr/NY Times:
The Nunes Memo Is All Smoke, No Fire
The newly released memo accuses the Department of Justice and the F.B.I. of violating these principles. It claims that an affidavit to monitor Carter Page, the former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, failed to point out reasons to discredit the former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, whose research, according to the memo, was part of the basis for believing that Mr. Page was a foreign spy.
But the memo doesn’t make its case. It should prompt more confusion than outrage…
The memo gives us too little information to make a conclusion about whether the government abused the surveillance laws. It’s a partial view when we need a panorama to know what happened.
Liam Donovan/NY Post:
Why top Republicans are fleeing the House
Yet the GOP jailbreak continues. The House casualty list stands at 41 and counting.
And whether it’s the breakdown of regular order, the paralytic legislative process, consolidation of power within the leadership ranks or simply a calculated hedge against a rising Democratic tide, congressional chairmen are leaving the People’s House in droves.
So one can easily rationalize Gowdy’s decision, as one could each of the nine outgoing committee chairmen that came before him. Many, including Gowdy, leave behind safe seats, and weren’t responding to direct political threats. Now-former Budget Chairman Diane Black (R-Tenn.) is actually seeking a statewide promotion. And among those who were vulnerable, like Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce, most were term-limited by strict House GOP rules.
In the case of Appropriations Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen — himself both endangered and unlimited — the gavel may have been stripped even if he had returned. Which is to say each member exits under their own circumstances.
But, while Gowdy’s retirement won’t cost Republicans a seat, it represents the most visible indicator yet that as House control hangs in the balance, those with the most vested interest in holding serve are choosing flight over fight.
Vann R Newkirk II/Atlantic:
Is the CDC Losing Control?
The country’s flagship public-health agency is facing internal scandal and funding issues that will test its ability to respond to outbreaks on the horizon
To say the agency has taken a step back in Trump’s first year would be an understatement. On Wednesday, the new secretary of health and human services, Alex Azar, announced the resignation of CDC Director Brenda Fitzgerald, citing “complex financial interests that have imposed a broad recusal limiting her ability to complete all her duties.” According to a recent report from Politico, some of those holdings included eyebrow-raising investments in companies directly related to Fitzgerald’s work, including thousands of dollars in drug and insurance companies.
Close ties with these industries aren’t unusual among Trump administration officials: Former health secretary Tom Price had stock in biotech and pharmaceuticals companies, and Azar is a former executive with pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly. But Fitzgerald’s financial activity went even beyond this new norm. Politico reported that she’d held stock in tobacco companies Reynolds American, British American Tobacco, Imperial Brands, Philip Morris International, and Altria Group before she took office in July. As director, she purchased over $1,000 worth of stock in Japan Tobacco. That means that before she dumped the stocks in October, Fitzgerald held ownership in four of the “Big Five” tobacco companies in the world.
Speaking of the Feds, they’re practicing retaliatory censorship:
CMS threatens to bar Modern Healthcare from press calls after reporter refuses to alter story
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services threatened to ban a reporter from participating in the federal agency’s telephone news conferences after he refused to delete three sentences from a published story that apparently had rankled CMS Administrator Seema Verma.
The reporter — Virgil Dickson, Washington bureau chief for Modern Healthcare — believed the agency was making good on its threat on Thursday when, he said, his phone went mute during a CMS press call and a woman’s voice told him he was not allowed to participate. An editor later confirmed with CMS officials that he had been banned from press calls, Dickson said.
NY Times:
As F.B.I. Took a Year to Pursue the Nassar Case, Dozens Say They Were Molested
Only three years ago, Dr. Nassar was a popular doctor among the athletes he treated for U.S.A. Gymnastics, known for being goofy but maybe a bit too attentive. His treatments, which gymnastics officials believed were at the cutting edge, were also in demand at Michigan State, where he worked, as well as at his alma mater, Holt High School, and at a gymnastics academy called Twistars.
Issues had cropped up: a parent raising concerns about his behavior at Twistars; a female athlete or two at Michigan State complaining to no avail about inappropriate exams. In 2014, a university investigation of another complaint cleared Dr. Nassar of misconduct, but he was now required to have a third person present when treatment involved sensitive areas of the body — and to wear gloves.
Still, the doctor was trusted enough to conduct his procedures — including one called “intravaginal adjustment” — without supervision when treating the country’s best gymnasts at the Karolyi ranch, the exclusive and secluded national team training camp, about 60 miles north of Houston. Gymnasts of international caliber, like Ms. Nichols, of suburban Minneapolis, would spend a week each month at the ranch, under the exacting supervision of the revered coach Martha Karolyi…
“There is a duty to warn those who might be harmed in the future,” he said. “But everyone is still trying to ascertain whether a crime has been committed. And everybody has rights here” — a reference to both the alleged victims and the person being accused.
The Nassar case might have been further complicated, he said, by the fact that “there was a vigorous debate going on about whether this was a legitimate medical procedure.”
mlive:
It's not clear which exact procedure Nassar may have been performing. Victims claim in their legal filings he failed to explain the procedure before performing it, and many said the treatment was never listed on their medical charts.
NY Times:
Pelvic Massage Can Be Legitimate, but Not in Larry Nassar’s Hands
But medical professionals use pelvic floor physical therapy primarily for conditions like persistent pelvic pain, bowel and bladder problems like incontinence, and painful intercourse. It is not the first line of treatment for the kinds of problems that typically afflict gymnasts, like lower back and hip pain, which are less likely to require internal vaginal manipulations, experts say.
Furthermore, physicians generally do not perform the therapy themselves, even if they are, like Dr. Nassar, osteopathic physicians who are trained in hands-on techniques that use stretches and pressure to relieve muscle pain. Doctors who recommend pelvic floor physical therapy usually refer patients to physical therapists who specialize and are certified in it. And most of those therapists are women.
Read the above NY Times article and note that the major issue is what Nassar did (use the excuse of doing intravaginal adjustments to abuse little girls) and didn’t do (explain why, or chart it, for examples). Here is another on that topic, explaining the procedure. This should not be construed as an attack on osteopaths, as some have taken it. It isn’t. What Larry Nassar did is not condoned by anyone, including the American Osteopathic Association. And regardless of the above, this is not a procedure for little girls.