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The House Ethics Committee will launch a formal investigation into alleged misconduct by Rep. Trey Radel (R-FL), Roll Call reports.
“Radel has been on leave since late last month, when news broke that he had been arrested in the District of Columbia for cocaine possession. He is now checked into a rehab clinic in Florida, where he says he is getting help for his addiction issues that will enable him to get back to work — despite the many calls in and out of his home state for him to step down.”
MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts suggested that’s how many view President Obama.
Donald Trump said he will decided soon about whether to challenge New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) in 2014, the Washington Post reports.
Said Trump: “I’ll make a decision … some time pretty soon… Let’s see what happens. You know, I had something else in mind. This was not actually something I wanted to do. I love the state; I love the country. But they feel very strongly about it. So at some point I’ll make a decision.”
Some great clicks today over at Wonk Wire:
Newark Star Ledger:
“No one has publicly accused Christie of ordering two of his top
appointees at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to close
lanes to the world’s busiest bridge to get back at a Democratic mayor
who wouldn’t endorse his re-election bid. But questions about the
incident have fueled a scandal that even Christie’s masterful team of
brand managers can’t make go away.”
First Read: “And if the Christie administration didn’t close the lanes for political reasons, it hasn’t given a really good reason why it closed them. In addition, if politics had nothing to do with these decisions, then why did he accept the resignations of his Port Authority appointees? If there is nothing to see here then these two officials shouldn’t have lost their jobs, right?”
First Read looks at the weekend Iowa Poll that found Rep. Paul Ryan with the highest favorable ratings of possible GOP presidential candidates.
“Ryan’s one of the few Washington insiders with credibility with the GOP base on the outside. As we noted above, he used that capital to get this budget compromise done. It will be interesting to see if Ryan can keep that popularity with the GOP base in a place like Iowa after a few months of intra-party debate over this budget deal. And the Christie numbers are a reminder that, with Iowa’s very conservative GOP electorate, he’s going to struggle. Sometimes the conventional wisdom is accurate and this Iowa poll reflects the C.W. on Christie with the GOP base.”
“On the Dem side, while the Clinton numbers will surprise no one, the Biden numbers might. But realize: If there’s no Clinton, he’ll be more formidable as a de factor non-Hillary frontrunner than perhaps the chattering class realizes. Sure, he’s no shoo-in for Dems if Clinton is no-go, and there will be a lot of Dems whose tires will get kicked by voters. But Biden will have a stronger hold on key Democratic constituencies in a primary than he gets credit for now.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has eight Christmas trees in his house, according to a Vanity Fair interview with his girlfriend, Sandra Lee.
Said Lee: “It’s amazing. It is so beautiful. But I’ve been working on it for three weeks.”
She added: “Even Andrew says, ‘Oh my God.'”
“I’m very, very annoyed and disappointed that my plan wasn’t God’s plan. I really want to know what the reason is.”
— Christine Quinn (D), quoted by the New York Daily News, on her failed mayoral bid.
Sen. Mary Landrieu’s (D-LA) campaign website “issues” page appears to have been copied directly from Georgia Democratic Senate candidate Michelle Nunn’s (D) website “ideas” page BuzzFeed reports.
The same company, Trilogy, designed both websites.
President Obama has accepted Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to deliver the State of the Union address on Tuesday, January 28, Roll Call reports.
Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) “drew some second looks in Washington, D.C., last week, but not necessarily because of his comments in the Senate. Instead, it was the rather dramatic facial injury he’s sporting, including a V-shaped bruise on his cheek that extends across a good portion of the side of his face,” the Spokane Spokesman Review reports.
Said one C-SPAN commenter: “Looks like someone knocked the Crapo out of him.”
Hillary Clinton “looms large as a potential 2016 presidential candidate, but she could be a major factor in the 2014 elections too,” USA Today reports.
“Ready for Hillary, the group organizing supporters nationwide for a potential Clinton presidential campaign, says it will ask its members to support candidates endorsed by Clinton in the 2014 midterm elections, and to push her policy agenda over the next two years.”
“Marxist ideology is wrong. But in my life I have known many Marxists who are good people, so I don’t feel offended.”
— Pope Francis, in an interview with La Stampa, responding to conservatives who say he’s a Marxist.
The New York Times reports at least nine Tea Party Republicans, “a mix of former incumbents and previous challengers” are running for Congress again — “but with a difference.”
“This time they have shelved their incendiary remarks about President Obama and the national debt in favor of a narrower focus on the Affordable Care Act, which they hope will attract moderate voters from both parties, even in heavily Democratic districts, who are disenchanted with its rollout. The campaigns, if successful, could be an indication of change in some corners of the Republican Party as many former firebrands mellow their messages [and] try to capitalize on the center. At the very least, their campaigns show that some people who ran vociferously against Washington appear eager to get back there.”
Newt Gingrich told ABC News that the bipartisan budget agreement is “brilliant politics” that will allow Republicans to keep the heat on Obamacare and avoid the terrible optics of more government shutdowns.
Said Gingrich: “I think this is mediocre policy and brilliant politics. It doesn’t get them what they want on policy terms, but it strips away the danger that people will notice anything but Obamacare. And the longer the country watches Obamacare, the more likely the Democrats are to lose the Senate.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “recently delivered a direct pitch to one of America’s top defense contractors: Get off the sidelines and start backing Republicans who will protect military spending,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
McConnell’s message “was that if Republican lawmakers lose primary elections from challengers further to their right who have few qualms about trimming military budgets, the defense industry could expect dwindling support in Washington.”
“The effort to beat back challenges from the right goes beyond the defense industry. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups have been stepping in to help business-friendly Republicans aligned with the GOP leadership, a reaction to the government shutdown in October, which the business groups opposed, and a sign of worries that tea party-aligned candidates might try to eliminate tax breaks and spending favored by businesses.”
Senate Republicans, “who spent most of the last week bemoaning a recent rules change that makes it easier for Democrats to confirm Obama administration appointees, will have to turn their attention this week to the two-year budget deal crafted by the heads of the House and Senate Budget Committees, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA),” CBS News reports.
“But in a deviation from the usual patterns in Washington, the bipartisan agreement may have a harder path in the Senate, where lawmakers are typically less averse to compromise than their House counterparts.”
However, The Hill reports that
Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), the second-ranking Senate Democratic leader, said that “Republicans jockeying for the White House in 2016 and Tea Party challengers in 2014 have imperiled the budget deal.”
“Durbin estimated that Democrats will lose three members of their caucus on the vote, which means they’ll need at least eight Republicans to cross the aisle and vote with them.”
First Read: “While there might be a Democratic defection or two, 60 votes appears to
be much more obtainable today than it was late last week. There won’t be
much drama.”:
Paul Ryan (R-WI) said that Republicans “would not raise the debt ceiling next year without some sort of concessions from Democrats, saying lawmakers were still crafting their strategy,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Said Ryan: “We, as a caucus, along with our Senate counterparts, are going to meet and discuss what it is we want to get out of the debt limit. We don’t want ‘nothing’ out of the debt limit. We’re going to decide what it is we can accomplish out of this debt limit fight.”
“The White House has said it will no longer negotiate with Republicans on conditions for raising the debt limit, but many Republicans have said they will only vote to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for budget changes like spending cuts.”
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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