Rosie Gray: “Unlike the Washington firms hired directly by foreign governments,
Ukraine’s leadership has slipped its American agenda through an
increasingly popular loophole in the federal law intended to regulate
foreign activity in the United States, allowing it to follow the minimal
disclosure practices required of domestic corporate lobbies, not the
extensive ones demanded of registered foreign agents. It’s a loophole
now used by a range of post-communist governments, in particular, with
money to burn and no particular love of transparency. And it offers a
path to the end of a disclosure regime put in place in 1938, amid
American concern over the effects of Nazi propaganda.”
The GOP is Estranged from America
Andrew Kohut: “In my decades of polling, I recall only one moment when a party had been driven as far from the center as the Republican Party has been today.”
“The outsize influence of hard-line elements in the party base is doing to the GOP what supporters of Gene McCarthy and George McGovern did to the Democratic Party in the late 1960s and early 1970s — radicalizing its image and standing in the way of its revitalization.”
Bush Will Return $270K Paid By Convicted Fraudster
Jeb Bush (R) has agreed to return $270,000 that he was paid as a consultant to convicted fraudster Claudio Osorio, the South Florida Business Journal reports.
An agreement outlining Bush’s settlement payment was filed Thursday in bankruptcy court in Miami.
Clinton Encouraged Judd to Run
Contrary to reports he was trying to push her aside, ABC News has learned that Bill Clinton encouraged Ashely Judd to enter the U.S. Senate race in Kentucky “and promised he would help her, according to several Kentucky political sources. That conversation happened sometime between the November election and President Obama’s second inauguration.”
Earlier this month Clinton met with Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is also weighing a bid.
Lipstick on an Elephant
Robert Shrum says Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposal will derail any attempt at the Republican Party to remake itself in the eyes of voters.
“Not long before the Ryan budget sailed through the House on a nearly lockstep Republican vote–only 10 Republican stepped back from the political abyss–one freshman member comforted himself with the notion that ‘it’s pretend … We know it’s dead on arrival in the Senate.’ But it will be very much alive as a defining campaign issue in 2014, and unless the GOP turns from its rigid ideology, in 2016 too. And so far, what’s plainly and decidedly dead, for all the Beltway blather about it, is the Republican makeover.”
How Rick Perry Could Turn Texas Blue
Ron Brownstein
says Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s (R) decision not to expand Medicaid (unlike
other GOP governors) could be what ultimately hands Texas to the Democrats.
“Rejecting the
federal money might not pose an immediate political threat to Texas
Republicans, whose coalition revolves around white voters responsive to
small-government arguments. But renouncing the money represents an
enormous gamble for Republicans with the growing Hispanic community,
which is expected to approach one-third of the state’s eligible voters
in 2016. Hispanics would benefit most from expansion because they
constitute 60 percent of the state’s uninsured. A jaw-dropping 3.6
million Texas Hispanics lack insurance.”
He concludes: “In
1994, California Republican Gov. Pete Wilson mobilized his base by
promoting Proposition 187, a ballot initiative to deny services to
illegal immigrants. He won reelection that year–and then lost the war as
Hispanics stampeded from the GOP and helped turn the state lastingly
Democratic.”
Congress Turns to Immigration and Guns
USA Today: “A brief reprieve in the fiscal battles between President Obama and a divided Congress will allow two contentious and politically divisive domestic issues — guns and immigration — to take center stage in the national debate this spring.”
“The ability for Washington to find solutions to either issue will require the kind of bipartisan cooperation and common ground the president and congressional leaders have been unable to find on the budget. In other words: It won’t be easy.”
First Read: “Gun legislation lacking bipartisan support, immigration lacking actual legislation.”
Can the Republican Party Recover from Iraq?
Peggy Noonan: “Iraq and Afghanistan have ended badly for the Republicans, and the party won’t really right itself until it has candidates for national office who can present a new definition of what a realistic and well-grounded Republican foreign policy is, means and seeks to do. That will take debate. The party is now stuck more or less in domestic issues. As for foreign policy, they oppose Obama. In the future more will be needed.”
Massive Support for Background Checks
A new Quinnipiac poll finds that 88% of voters nationwide support
universal background checks before allowing purchase of a firearm while just 10% are opposed.
More interesting is that 85% of gun owners are also in favor.
But National Journal notes “these polls” showing broad support for background
checks “may gloss over some complexities in
public opinion on gun control, and explain why Democrats are having so
much trouble winning congressional support for even the most modest gun
regulations.”
Quote of the Day
“If I shoot it, I’m gonna eat it.”
— Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), interviewed by National Review, about hunting a lion in Zimbabwe which “wasn’t particularly tasty. It was kind of chewy, but I ate it too.”
The Secret Unity Ticket That Almost Toppled Romney
Joshua Green: “It’s one of the great untold stories of the 2012 presidential campaign, a tale of ego and intrigue that nearly upended the Republican primary contest and might even have produced a different nominee: As Mitt Romney struggled in the weeks leading up to the Michigan primary, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum nearly agreed to form a joint ‘Unity Ticket’ to consolidate conservative support and topple Romney.”
Said Santorum strategist John Brabender: “It would have sent shock waves through the establishment and the Romney campaign.”
“But the negotiations collapsed in acrimony because Gingrich and Santorum could not agree on who would get to be president.”
Is Hillary Clinton Too Conservative to Win the Nomination?
Ruby Cramer notes that Hillary Clinton’s reversal on same-sex marriage is a sign she is “ready to revisit a campaign platform that has been all but frozen in amber since she left the political stage for the State Department four years ago.”
“Because the former Secretary of State jumped from the campaign trail in 2008 to Washington’s Foggy Bottom, where she was barred from talking domestic politics, Clinton will have to dust off, and likely shift, her policy positions, Democratic strategists say, if she wants to run for president in 2016 in a party that has moved sharply to the left in recent years.”
Why Elizabeth Warren is Untouchable
David Bernstein says Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) “has an independence and authority that frees her to be outspoken without getting alienated. She can embarrass the Barack Obama administration for failing to send bankers to jail without fear. She can also react with righteous outrage when I asked about Obama’s recent support of ‘chained Consumer Price Index (CPI),’ which liberals view as a cut to Social Security benefits. When I suggest that most brand-new senators would not undercut their own party’s president that way, she responds: ‘Better I should say this now, than wait to have anybody surprised about it later on.'”
“There’s a reason for her confidence: not only does Warren have tremendous credibility on the issues, she is simply too popular, with too broad and devoted a following, for anyone to threaten — up to and including the Obama administration. She is not a career politician, entangled by the favors and deals traded on her way up the ladder.”
DNC Falls Deeper Into Debt
The Democratic National Committee, “which borrowed more than $20 million at the end of the 2012 election, continues to fall further into the red at a time when it is supposed to be paying off its debt,” the Washington Post reports.
“The committee, which was $20.6 million in debt as of Nov. 26, has actually added more since then. Its total obligations rose to $21.9 million at the end of February… In addition to taking on more debt, the committee has seen its cash on
hand reduced by more than half since Nov. 26, from $9.7 million to just
more than $4 million.”
Kasich Recants Support for Civil Unions
Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) said that he supports civil unions for same-sex couples but a spokesman later said that the Republican governor “misspoke when he expressed support for the legal partnerships,” the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.
Extra Bonus Quote of the Day
“We own talk radio, and Fox News for the most part.”
— Rush Limbaugh, on his radio show, on the influence of conservatives.
12 New Paintings by George W. Bush
Gawker “has obtained more photographs of George W. Bush’s paintings,
originally taken from the former president and his family’s email
accounts by a hacker using the name ‘Guccifer,’ and this may be the most
interesting batch yet.”
Democrats Plot Strategy for Vote-a-Rama
“Political warfare over the budget in Congress took a new twist Thursday as Senate Democrats openly schemed ahead of the blizzard of votes expected this week,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Democrats want to make sure that Senate Republicans are forced to put their support or opposition for Mr. Ryan’s budget on the record. Budget votes can carry political ramifications: Last week, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign said it would target 14 House Republicans who might run for Senate seats in 2014 by trying to tie the lawmakers directly to Mr. Ryan’s budget proposal.”
Roll Call: 10 Senate amendments to watch for.
