“You couldn’t claim with a straight face that disclosing whatever he
disclosed in that story threatened the national security of the United
States.”
— Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey quoted by CBS News, arguing that the Obama administration investigation into Fox News reporter James Rosen was part of an effort to control information that’s available to the public.
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s two brothers were once involved in the drug trade and one was charged in relation to a drug-related kidnapping, according to the Toronto Globe and Mail.
Ford has been an accused of smoking crack cocaine on an as-yet-unseen video.
“I love what I am doing. I love it much more than the first time. Back then I got bored
because we didn’t have big problems. Now I am very enthusiastic.
Everything’s interesting, and it’s complicated. There is a zest!”
— California Gov. Jerry Brown (D), quoted by The Atlantic in a must-read profile.
You're reading the free version of Political Wire
Upgrade to a paid membership to unlock full access. The process is quick and easy. You can even use Apple Pay.
Senate Republicans “are locked in a widening internal dispute over future budget negotiations, splitting along generational and ideological lines on the party’s approach to the central issue that drove the conservative surge in the Obama era: how to deal with the federal debt,” the New York Times reports.
“It was the Old Guard versus the Tea Party, but with real ramifications, as Congress careens toward another debt limit and spending crisis this fall with seemingly no one at the steering wheel. The newer members say negotiations should go forward only with a binding precondition that a budget deal cannot raise the government’s statutory borrowing limit.”
Former Reps. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) and Connie Mack (R-FL) are getting divorced, Roll Call reports.
They were only the fourth couple to serve together in congressional history.
The Internal Revenue Service unit “under fire for its reviews of conservative organizations has a long history of targeting groups with extra scrutiny, including foreclosure-assistance charities, credit-counseling services and New York Jewish charities,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Businesswoman Michelle Nunn is actively preparing for a Senate campaign in Georgia and Democrats there expect an announcement early this summer, The Hill reports.
“Another senior Georgia Democrat said the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has called a few key Democrats in the state in recent days to tell them Nunn, the daughter of former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), was definitely running for the seat.”
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford finally came to deny he uses crack cocaine, the Toronto Sun reports.
Said Ford: “There has been a serious accusation from the Toronto Star that I use crack cocaine. I do not use crack cocaine nor am I an addict of crack cocaine.”
He added: “As for a video, I cannot comment on a video that I have never seen or does not exist. It is most unfortunate, very unfortunate that my colleagues and the great people of this city have been exposed to the fact that I have been judged by the media without any evidence.”
“I won’t dispute for one second the problems of a system that demands immense amount of fund-raisers by its legislators…It’s appalling, it’s disgusting, it’s wasteful and it opens the possibility of conflicts of interest and corruption. It’s unfortunately the world we live in.”
— Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), quoted by the New York Times.
Former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie says the Obama administration’s “steadily escalating war on leaks, the most militant I have seen since the Nixon administration, has disregarded the First Amendment and intimidated a growing number of government sources of information — most of which would not be classified — that is vital for journalists to hold leaders accountable.”
Former Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff (R) offered businessman Darl McBride $2 million to persuade him to ditch an effort to get his money back from a failed investment, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.
“McBride recorded the conversation and has turned over a copy to federal agents, part of a wide-ranging investigation into alleged misconduct in the attorney general’s office under Shurtleff and his successor, John Swallow.”
At a congressional hearing on an abortion bill that would ban the procedure after 20 weeks of pregnancy, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) “told a female witness that she should have carried her pregnancy to term even though doctors had discovered the fetus had no brain function,” the Huffington Post reports.
Said Gohmert: “Having my great sympathy and empathy both, I still come back wondering,
shouldn’t we wait, like that couple did, and see if the child can
survive before we decide to rip him apart?”
Wonk Wire highlights economic research showing that the tax cuts passed by President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003 failed to meet even the administration’s promised results.
The New York Times reports that Huma Abedin, the wife of New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner (D), “has been a main architect of her husband’s rehabilitative journey, shaping his calculated comeback and drawing on her close ties with one of the country’s most powerful families to lay the groundwork for his return.”
“A surrogate daughter to Bill and Hillary Clinton who has seen firsthand the cleansing power of campaigns, Ms. Abedin has leapt into her husband’s effort, conferring on strategy and helping to hire staff members from her long history with the Clintons: Ms. Abedin worked with Mr. Weiner’s new 30-year-old campaign manager, Danny Kedem, during Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 presidential run.”
Hillary Clinton’s forthcoming memoir has a simple book jacket but no title yet.
It’s scheduled to be released June 1, 2014.
Charlie Cook: “Basically, Republicans are attacking Obama where he is least vulnerable and at a time when they have minimal credibility. It isn’t working. By trying to turn everything into a scandal rather than saying Obama’s policies are wrongheaded–and rather than fixing their own image problems with minority, female, younger, and moderate voters–Republicans are focusing on attacking a guy whose name will never again appear on a ballot.”
Read the Cook Political Report, a Political Wire sponsor. Subscribe today.
Massachusetts U.S. Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez (R) called opponent Ed Markey (D) “pond scum” during an interview with a reporter.
Said Gomez: “I don’t think there’s anything more offensive. You know I’ve got four young kids, and they gotta sit there and gotta see an ad with their dad — who served honorably, talk to anybody I served with — whether as a pilot or as a SEAL, anybody I worked with. And for him to be as dirty and low, pond scum, like to put me up next to bin Laden, he’s just gotta be called what he is. It’s that simple.”
Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe (D) “knows a thing or two about conservatives like his Republican opponent, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli,” Yahoo News reports.
“That’s in part because his older brother, Joseph McAuliffe, spent two decades as a Republican activist who worked for the evangelical leader Pat Robertson’s presidential campaign, helped found a Christian political group in Florida, and was even arrested in the late 1980s while demonstrating at an abortion clinic.”
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.