Former Russian deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, a leading opposition figure, was shot dead in Moscow, the BBC reports.
“An unidentified attacker shot Mr Nemtsov four times in central Moscow.”
“He had earned a reputation as an economic reformer while governor of one of Russia’s biggest cities, Nizhny Novgorod. Falling out of favour with Yeltsin’s successor, Vladimir Putin, Mr Nemtsov became an outspoken opposition politician.”
“The Justice Department is stepping up scrutiny of the increasingly cozy ties between candidates and their outside allies, a move that could jolt the freewheeling campaign finance atmosphere ahead of the 2016 elections,” the Washington Post reports.
“The department’s move comes as complaints have stalled before the Federal Election Commission, which has not moved ahead with any coordination investigations since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010 triggered a proliferation of big-money groups.”
“Rather than cursing the darkness, reflexively screaming ‘amnesty,’ and calling for deportation of a population the size of Ohio, they need to light a candle and show the way forward on this complex issue. And they must do this in a way that solves the problem and does not doom the Republican Party to political irrelevance in the future.”
— GOP pollster Whit Ayres, quoted by the Washington Post.
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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) “proposed budget — which would cut $300 million dollars out of the state’s beloved public university system — has a non-fiscal bombshell tucked in between its insane pages,” Jezebel reports.
“Under Walker’s budget, universities would no longer have to report the number of sexual assaults that take place on a campus to the Department of Justice. Under Walker’s plan, university employees who witness a sexual assault would no longer have to report it.”
Huffington Post: “Walker’s two-year spending plan does not appear to replace the rape reporting requirements with anything, and it’s out of step with federal law. Colleges are currently required to incorporate prevention programs and information about sexual assault reporting options in orientation per the Violence Against Women Act.”
Update: Jezebel updates the story noting the University “requested that Gov. Walker delete the requirements because efforts were redundant.”
Hillary Clinton’s advisers “are in serious discussions with nearly a half-dozen operatives to fill key roles such as political director on a likely 2016 presidential campaign,” the New York Times reports.
“The prospects are mostly people who have worked with Mrs. Clinton before… The conversations reflect a fast-moving effort by Mrs. Clinton to build a campaign as a number of Democratic Party operatives are vying for position.”
First Read notes House Republican leaders have finally come up with a temporary solution to fund the Department of Homeland Security and end their immigration showdown.
“The reason this is the politically smart way for the House GOP leadership to go is that the three-week extension gives Republicans time to find how the 5th Circuit is going to rule on the Obama administration’s request for a stay on the immigration action. If the 5th Circuit does NOT give the administration a stay, then in three weeks, funding DHS for the rest of the year will be a layup. So Boehner is trying to buy time, but will his conference give him the time?”
“These are Americans. You are talking about, in the case of ISIS, people who are beheading individuals and committing heinous crimes, who are the face of evil. To try to make the relationship between them and the unions is inappropriate.”
— Rick Perry, in an interview with NBC News, criticizing Scott Walker’s comparison of union protests with the Islamic State.
During a lecture in Arkansas, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia “commented that four of the court’s justices represented every borough of New York City but Manhattan. And of the nine justices, six were Catholic and three were Jews,” the Arkansas Democrat Gazette reports.
But he added: “We weren’t meant to be representative. We decide the meaning of what the people adopted in statutes and the Constitution.”
House Republicans “presented a plan for a stopgap bill that would fund the Department of Homeland Security for three weeks, raising hopes of averting a looming shutdown of the agency,” the Washington Post reports.
“Facing a Friday-night-into-Saturday-morning shutdown deadline, the plan might ultimately win support from lawmakers in both parties on Friday. But its passage would only continue a standoff between the House and the Senate over longer-term DHS funding.”
Politico: “The coming March logjam represents a major failure for the Republican Congress. GOP leaders vowed to avoid them, but legislative cliffs are back.”
“Just weeks after traveling to London, White House hopeful and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker announced a nine-day, three-nation trade mission to Western Europe,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
“As a governor, Walker’s natural weak point in a potential 2016 campaign has been a lack of foreign policy experience, and his taxpayer-funded trips abroad could provide either an answer to his critics or further confirm their doubts. So far, the Walker administration has not released the cost to taxpayers of the four-day trade trip to Great Britain.”
Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-NV) “uncompromising posture during the flap over homeland security funding and his emerging plans for an upcoming fight over immigration make clear he’s doing little to change the hardball style that defined his tenure as majority leader. This despite losing control of the chamber after last fall’s Democratic debacle and tamping down a coup among centrists seeking his ouster,” Politico reports.
“The 75-year-old Reid, who may seek reelection next year and is in his second stint as minority leader, is betting that Republicans are so nervous about being blamed for a crisis in Washington — as they have been repeatedly before — that they will capitulate again. Naturally, his unyielding stance has maddened Republicans.”
Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL) “attended dinner and drinks in 2011 at Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace and at a swank nightclub London — and never disclosed receiving a single gift on his financial disclosure form,” Politico reports.
“Schock, a fourth-term Republican congressman with a prized seat on the Ways and Means Committee, has hired lawyers and a crisis communications firm amid a burgeoning scandal over his high-spending ways and potential misuse of official and campaign funds. His office said it is performing an internal audit of his official accounts in response to questions over whether he improperly spent money from his House office budget and failed to report gifts.”
The Wall Street Journal reports “it wasn’t clear if any potential candidate was building particular momentum” at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC.
“More obvious were signs of what the crowd, which tends to skew younger than the overall GOP electorate, doesn’t want: A centrist nominee, or someone who backs Common Core national education standards or liberalized immigration laws. For some, that disqualified Jeb Bush, a likely candidate who is widely viewed as one of the front-runners.”
Jeb Bush “made certain that he has no plan to pander to his party’s conservative base in pursuit of the Republican nomination when he declared, ‘I’m not backing down from something that is a core belief. Are we all supposed to cower because at the moment people are upset about something? No way, no how,'” the Washington Post reports.
“Bush’s pledge will be tested, though, as he wades into the proverbial lion’s den Friday when he speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual speechmaking festival that draws thousands of conservative activists to National Harbor outside of Washington.”
“After two bustling months spent shoring up his natural areas of strength — raising a mountain of cash from the GOP’s monied class, recruiting seasoned policy experts and political operatives, and charming old-guard opinion-makers — Bush is stepping into a new and potentially more perilous phase of his expected candidacy.”
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) told conservatives that his experience with union protests has prepared him to confront terrorists, TPM reports.
Said Walker: “I want a commander-in-chief who will do everything in their power to ensure that the threat from radical Islamic terrorists do not wash up on American soil. We will have someone who leads and ultimately will send a message not only that we will protect American soil but do not take this upon freedom-loving people anywhere else in the world. We need a leader with that kind of confidence. If I can take on a 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world.”
Missouri state auditor Tom Schweich (R), a leading contender for the governor’s office in next year’s election, has died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
Politico: “The incident sent a shudder through Missouri government and political circles. Schweich had been in the early stages of an already-tense primary against Catherine Hanaway, a former state House speaker and U.S. attorney.”
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) “has repeatedly claimed that Louisiana’s projected $1.6 billion financial shortfall in the next fiscal year is primarily due to falling oil prices, but the state’s own economist is saying — in no uncertain terms — that this is not the case,” the New Orleans Times Picayune reports.
“Unlike Jindal, Albrecht blamed the majority of the shortfall on Louisiana’s budgeting tactics over the last few years. He said Jindal and the Legislature have relied on piecemeal funding sources — trusts, revenue from property sales and other things — that don’t replenish themselves year after year. This has lead to the financial crisis.”
Dan Drezner: “The thing about most foreign policy decision-making is that a lot of it is irrevocable. In some cases it’s literally impossible: The United States can’t un-invade Iraq, for example. In other cases, the cumulative effects of certain choices renders a particular policy essentially locked in. The United States can’t really renegotiate NAFTA or dramatically curtail its economic opening to China, for example…”
“This makes Netanyahu’s decision to deliver this speech all the more confusing. The marginal value-added of addressing Congress (as opposed to just AIPAC, which he was going to do anyway) is not that great… The speech is such an obvious effort by Netanyahu to bolster his domestic position that the head of Israel’s election commission has ruled that the speech will be broadcast on a five-minute delay to excise any blatant campaigning.”
“Benjamin Netanyahu is many things, but stupid is not one of them. Why is he pursuing the course of action he is pursuing despite the fretting of his national security team?”
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.
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