“Federal regulators last week allowed a legal loophole that could effectively let former members of Congress spend leftover campaign money on personal expenses,” Axios reports.
“Campaign finance reform advocates say that opens the door to former public servants to live large off of money intended for political contests. Scores are already retired, and more members are heading for the door this fall ahead of potential Democratic losses and GOP challenges.”
“In the era of Donald Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party — when making falsehoods about an election isn’t disqualifying, when heckling a president at the State of the Union is no big deal, when attending an event tied to white supremacists doesn’t lead to exile — it may still be possible for a hard-right member of Congress to go too far,” the New York Times reports.
“That is the object lesson of Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, the House’s youngest member, whose bid for a second term is in jeopardy after a series of incendiary statements and personal foibles have soured many former supporters.”
“The anti-parasitic drug ivermectin, which has surged in popularity as an alternative treatment for Covid-19 despite a lack of strong research to back it up, showed no sign of alleviating the disease, according to results of a large clinical trial published on Wednesday,” the New York Times reports.
“Ivermectin’s popularity continued to climb in the pandemic’s second year. The podcaster Joe Rogan promoted it repeatedly on his shows. In a single week in August, U.S. insurance companies spent $2.4 million paying for ivermectin treatments.”
“The criminal investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has expanded to examine the preparations for the rally that preceded the riot, as the Justice Department aims to determine the full extent of any conspiracy to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory,” the Washington Post reports.
“In the past two months, a federal grand jury in Washington has issued subpoena requests to some officials in former president Donald Trump’s orbit who assisted in planning, funding and executing the Jan. 6 rally.”
“The development shows the degree to which the Justice Department investigation — which already involves more defendants than any other criminal prosecution in the nation’s history — has moved further beyond the storming of the Capitol to examine events preceding the attack.”
“A super political action committee affiliated with Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reserved almost $102 million in advertising time in an attempt to defend Democrats’ narrow five-seat majority in the House of Representatives,” Bloomberg reports.
“That amount is twice what the House Majority PAC had reserved two years ago.”
Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) admitted suggestions that his colleagues have done cocaine and invited him to orgies were “exaggerated” in a tense meeting with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Axios reports.
Said McCarthy: “I just told him he’s lost my trust, he’s gonna have to earn it back, and I laid out everything I find is unbecoming. And, you can’t just say ‘You can’t do this again.’ I mean, he’s, he’s got a lot of members very upset.”
He added: “It’s just frustrating. There’s no evidence behind his statements. And when I sit down with him… I told him you can’t make statements like that, as a member of Congress, that affects everybody else and the country as a whole.”
“Democrats are eyeing Chicago as a city of interest to host the party’s 2024 convention and the mayor, the governor and a key U.S. senator are coordinating on a plan to make it happen,” NBC News reports.
“While the discussions are early and informal, some national Democrats already see the Midwestern city as an appealing contender, in part for its heartland geography — touching key swing states like Wisconsin and Michigan — but also because of the comfort that would come with holding a marquee political event in a tried-and-true blue state.”
“God has intervened in my life in very significant ways to spare me from being tainted. I was taken off the air at Fox just before they went into a whole marathon of war porn in Ukraine.”
— Lara Logan, quoted by Rolling Stone, thankful that she was fired from Fox News.
“President Vladimir Putin of Russia has been misinformed by his advisers about the Russian military’s struggles in Ukraine, according to declassified U.S. intelligence,” the New York Times reports.
“The intelligence shows what appears to be growing tension between Mr. Putin and the Ministry of Defense, including with the Russian defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, who was once among the most trusted members of the Kremlin’s inner circle.”
The congressional naming commission which was set up to remove Confederate names from military bases will review the names of “more than 750 Department of Defense items” that include everything from military bases to streets and bridges, to determine whether their names “commemorate the Confederacy,” CNN reports.
“CBS News’s decision to hire former Trump administration official Mick Mulvaney as a paid on-air contributor is drawing backlash within the company because of his history of bashing the press and promoting the former president’s fact-free claims,” the Washington Post reports.
“But a top network executive seemed to lay the groundwork for the decision in a staff meeting earlier this month, when he said the network needed to hire more Republicans to prepare for a ‘likely’ Democratic midterm wipeout.”
A new Trafalgar Group poll in Missouri finds the Republican U.S. Senate primary deadlocked with Vicki Hartzler (R) and Eric Greitens (R) essentially tied at 24%, followed by Eric Smidtt (R) at 22%, Billy Long (R) at 8%, Dave Schatz (R) at 2%, Mark McCloskey (R) at 2% and another 16% undecided.
The Guardian: “Emmanuel Macron, after sweeping to power in 2017 promising to transform France with a new brand of politics that was neither left nor right, is polling at about 27% in the first round, followed by Le Pen on about 17%. Le Pen is gaining ground after campaigning hard on France’s cost of living crisis.”
“But if Macron faces Le Pen in the final round runoff on 24 April, the result is predicted to be much closer than when he won five years ago with 66%, with one poll this week putting Macron at 53% to Le Pen’s 47%.”
“Donald Trump used an official White House phone to place at least one call during the Capitol attack on January 6 last year that should have been reflected in the internal presidential call log from that day but was not,” The Guardian reports.
“The former president called the phone of a Republican senator, Mike Lee, with a number recorded as 202-395-0000, a placeholder number that shows up when a call is incoming from a number of White House department phones.”
“More than a month after Russia invaded Ukraine, inflation eclipses the war in Ukraine as the nation’s most urgent issue. Americans say inflation (30%) is the most urgent issue facing the country today, followed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (14%), and then immigration (9%),” according to a new Quinnipiac poll.
“There are large differences along party lines. Among Republicans, the top issues are inflation (39%), immigration (19%), and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (13%). Among Democrats, the top issues are Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (16%), inflation (15%), and election laws (13%). Among independents, the top issues are inflation (37%), Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (13%), followed by climate change (8%) and immigration (8%).”
Bret Stephens: “Suppose for a moment that Putin never intended to conquer all of Ukraine: that, from the beginning, his real targets were the energy riches of Ukraine’s east, which contain Europe’s second-largest known reserves of natural gas (after Norway’s).”
“Combine that with Russia’s previous territorial seizures in Crimea (which has huge offshore energy fields) and the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk (which contain part of an enormous shale-gas field), as well as Putin’s bid to control most or all of Ukraine’s coastline, and the shape of Putin’s ambitions become clear. He’s less interested in reuniting the Russian-speaking world than he is in securing Russia’s energy dominance.”
Said Canadian energy expert David Knight Legg: “Under the guise of an invasion, Putin is executing an enormous heist.”
“If this analysis is right, then Putin doesn’t seem like the miscalculating loser his critics make him out to be.”
“The Senate is scrambling to reach an agreement on a $15 billion Covid-19 aid bill before members leave for a two-week break at the end of next week,” NBC News reports.
“Democrats say the U.S. is running out of funding for vaccines, testing and treatment for Covid-19, and the Biden administration has warned that the lack of pandemic money comes at a critical moment in the pandemic.”
A new Emerson College/The Hill poll in Alabama finds Mike Durant (R) leading the Republican U.S. Senate primary with 33%, followed by Katie Britt (R) with 23%, and Mo Brooks (R) with 12%.
No other candidate reaches double digits and 26% are still undecided.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
“There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them.”
— Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press”
“Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all.”
— Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report
“Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”
— Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report
“The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom — nicely packaged, constantly updated… What political junkie could ask for more?”
— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
“Political Wire is a great, great site.”
— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”
— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”
— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”
— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.