Associated Press: “Steve Lough (D) is wearing his red nose with pride, appearing in clown makeup on his campaign website as he runs against four others in South Carolina’s Democratic primary for the seat held by Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC).”
“Lough was a professional clown with Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus.”
A new CNBC poll finds just 32% of the public reports having more take home pay because of new tax law, including only 48% of Trump supporters and 35% of the middle class.
More than half say they see no change in their paychecks and 16% are unsure.
“President Trump frequently said Mexico would pay for a wall along the southern border as he sought the presidency in 2016. Now, he is privately pushing the U.S. military to fund construction of his signature project,” the Washington Post reports.
“Trump, who told advisers he was spurned in a large spending bill last week when lawmakers appropriated only $1.6 billion for the border wall, has begun suggesting that the Pentagon could fund the sprawling construction, citing a ‘national security’ risk.”
Coming soon: Everything Trump Touches Dies: A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever by Rick Wilson.
“Rushing to cancel a pair of court-ordered special elections, Gov. Scott Walker (R) has asked a judge to give him a week to approve legislation giving him broader powers to determine when to allow voters to fill vacancies in the Legislature,” the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports.
“The late-night filing was the latest move by Walker and his fellow Republicans in the Legislature to overturn a court order that he call special elections to fill the seats of two lawmakers who stepped down in December to join his administration.”
“The National Rifle Association acknowledged that it accepts foreign donations but says it does not use them for election work — even as federal investigators look into the role the NRA might have played in Russia’s attack on the 2016 election,” NPR reports.
“Pressure on the organization has also been increased by a McClatchy report which suggested that the FBI had been investigating whether a top Russian banker with Kremlin ties illegally funneled money to the NRA to aid President Trump’s campaign for president. The Federal Election Commission has also opened a preliminary investigation into this question.”
Utah U.S. Senate candidate Mitt Romney (R) said he’s more conservative on certain issues than President Trump, the Provo Daily Herald reports.
Said Romney: “For instance, I’m a deficit hawk. That makes me more conservative than a lot of Republicans and a lot of Democrats. I’m also more of a hawk on immigration than even the president. My view was these DACA kids shouldn’t all be allowed to stay in the country legally.”
“The FBI possesses a secret report asserting that Vladimir Putin’s former media czar was beaten to death by hired thugs in Washington, DC — directly contradicting the US government’s official finding that Mikhail Lesin died by accident,” BuzzFeed News reports.
“The report, according to four sources who have read all or parts of it, was written by the former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, who also wrote the famous dossier alleging that Russia had been ‘cultivating, supporting and assisting’ Donald Trump. The bureau received his report while it was helping the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department investigate the Russian media baron’s death.”
A new AP-NORC poll finds a growing American economy and passage of a Republican tax overhaul appear to be helping President Trump lift his approval ratings from historic lows.
“Trump remains unpopular with the majority of Americans, 58%. But 42% say they now approve of the job he’s doing as president, up seven points from a month ago. That’s a welcome change in trajectory for a White House that has been battered by chaos, controversies and internal upheaval.”
John Paul Stevens: “Rarely in my lifetime have I seen the type of civic engagement schoolchildren and their supporters demonstrated in Washington and other major cities throughout the country this past Saturday. These demonstrations demand our respect. They reveal the broad public support for legislation to minimize the risk of mass killings of schoolchildren and others in our society.”
“That support is a clear sign to lawmakers to enact legislation prohibiting civilian ownership of semiautomatic weapons, increasing the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21 years old, and establishing more comprehensive background checks on all purchasers of firearms. But the demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment.”
[alert type=”general” dismiss=”no”]Stevens, of course, is a retired U.S. Supreme Court justice.[/alert]
Politico: “It’s not happenstance. Nor is keeping on Lis Smith, the hard-charging political operative who makes sure he’s constantly in the news. Or keeping up with Obama strategist David Axelrod, who recommended he hire Smith in the first place for the Democratic National Committee chair race that put him on Democrats’ radar last year. Or quietly building relationships over dinners and drinks with big-name Democrats, or courting national reporters, or wooing donors for his PAC, or digging in on political advertising research.”
“Buttigieg is getting closer to a presidential race. And serious people are telling the South Bend, Indiana mayor, who’d be the first major presidential candidate who’s either openly gay or an Afghanistan veteran or a millennial, to take it seriously.”
“A backbench Republican sparked the latest round of speculation Monday about Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s future by suggesting other GOP lawmakers were bracing for the Wisconsin Republican to resign from office this spring. The suggestion, offered as ‘rumor mill’ by Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV), drew an immediate dismissal from Ryan’s office,” the Washington Post reports.
Said a spokesperson: “The speaker is not resigning.”
“While Republicans have been bracing for months for a punishing election in November, they are increasingly alarmed that their losses may be even worse than feared because the midterm campaign appears destined to turn more on the behavior of the man in the White House than any other in decades,” the New York Times reports.
“As much as gun control, immigration, the sweeping tax overhaul and other issues are mobilizing voters on the left and the right, the seamy sex allegations and Mr. Trump’s erratic style could end up alienating crucial blocs of suburban voters and politically moderate women who might be drawn to some Republican policies but find the president’s purported sex antics to be reprehensible.”
“The 2020 U.S. Census will include a controversial question about citizenship status, the Commerce Department announced Monday night, a move that sparked outrage from Congressional Democrats, civil rights groups and liberal state attorneys general,” Politico reports.
“White House attorneys are examining whether two loans totaling more than $500 million to Jared Kushner’s family business may have violated any criminal laws or federal ethics regulations,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The Office of Government Ethics told a Democratic lawmaker in the letter that the White House is probing whether a $184 million loan from the real-estate arm of Apollo Global Management LLC and a $325 million loan from Citigroup Inc. may have run afoul of the rules and laws governing the conduct of federal employees.”
President Trump has privately “lobbed sharp attacks” at Stormy Daniels and her media tour, “calling her allegations a ‘hoax’ and asking confidants if the episode is hurting his poll numbers. The president even has griped to several people that Daniels is not the type of woman he finds attractive,” the Washington Post reports.
“Trump — who was among the estimated 22 million Americans who watched the Daniels interview that aired Sunday night — asked staff in the White House if they, too, had watched and wondered what they thought of it, someone who has spoken to him said. The president said that he personally did not think Daniels appeared credible, added this person, who has talked to the president about his interactions with the pornographic film star and did not want to be identified discussing it.”
A judge rejected a bid by Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R) for a trial by judge, not a jury, on Greitens’ felony invasion of privacy case, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
The trial is set for May 14.
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.