The House Ethics Committee announced that it will extend its probe of Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) 2012 White House bid, although it gave no timetable for a resolution of the long-standing case, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.
House Republicans Divided on Nearly Everything
Byron York quotes a leading House Republican on the state of relations among GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill: “I believe the White House wakes up every morning thinking how they can punch us in the nose. And we wake up every morning thinking how we can punch each other in the nose.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“We need 100 more like Jesse Helms.”
— Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), quoted by Mother Jones, on the U.S. Senate he would like.
Perry Takes Aim at O’Malley
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) took a swipe at Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) and Maryland’s business climate in radio ads aimed at luring companies and residents to the Lone Star state, the Baltimore Sun reports.
Said Perry in a radio ad: “When you grow tired of Maryland taxes squeezing every dime out of your business, think Texas.”
Corker Says Obama is a ‘Diminished Figure’
Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), who has been supportive of President Obama’s call for the use of military force in Syria, says the president is a “diminished figure” in Congress following his address to the nation about Syria on Tuesday night, the Washington Post reports.
Said Corker: “I guess it was a result of last night, my temperature level is up slightly today. He is diminished figure here on Capitol Hill. I can assure you of that.”
Associated Press:
“Some of President Barack Obama’s top allies say the president misread a
few crucial political forces when he asked Congress to support his bid
to strike Syria.”
Obama Stumbles Badly on Syria
Joe Klein cuts to “the essence of the policy problem Obama has been wrestling with on Syria: when you explore the possibilities for intervention, any vaguely plausible action quickly reaches a dead end.”
“The President knows this, which makes his words and gestures during the weeks leading up to his Syria speech all the more perplexing. He willingly jumped into a bear trap of his own creation. In the process, he has damaged his presidency and weakened the nation’s standing in the world. It has been one of the more stunning and inexplicable displays of presidential incompetence that I’ve ever witnessed.”
Synder Opens Early Lead in Re-Election Bid
A new EPIC-MRA poll in Michigan finds Gov. Rick Snyder (R), fresh off a successful push for Medicaid expansion, is out-polling challenger Mark Schauer (D) by eight points, 44% to 36%.
In the U.S. Senate race, Rep. Gary Peters (D) barely edges Terri Lynn Land (R), 39% to 38%.
Inside de Blasio’s Quick Rise
Newsweek has a must-read profile of Bill de Blasio’s efforts to become the left-wing standard-bearer in the New York City mayoral race.
“But de Blasio’s most important maneuver has been to capitalize on liberal frustration with Mayor Mike Bloomberg–and with Quinn, who set herself up as his ideological heir and was long the presumed frontrunner in the race. Quinn’s campaign platform was essentially a reassuring message to centrist voters that the gains of the Bloomberg years–in a city where crime and grime have been replaced by bike lanes and beach access on the waterfront–would not be lost. Unfortunately for her, it turned out that many liberals were sick of Bloomberg and wanted someone more, well, liberal.”
U.N. Chief Admits Failure
Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, said that the organization was responsible for a “collective failure” to halt more than two years of atrocious violence in Syria, the New York Times reports, “and he expressed hope that the crisis over that country’s chemical weapons stockpile would be a catalyst toward a diplomatic solution.”
Secret Effort to Help Clinton in 2008 Alleged
“The D.C. businessman at the center of an ongoing city corruption investigation secretly spent more than a half-million dollars on get-out-the-vote efforts for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign,” the Washington Post reports.
“For the first time, the investigation has connected Thompson to a major national political figure. The investigation could have implications for Clinton, who is weighing a second run for president in 2016 and is seen as an overwhelming favorite for the Democratic nomination.”
Paul Mocks Booker’s ‘Imaginary Friend’
Explaining his decision to campaign for Steve Lonegan (R) in New Jersey, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) jabbed at Cory Booker (D) as a politician with “an imaginary friend with imaginary problems” — an allusion to stories Booker has told about a Newark drug lord named “T-Bone,” whom he has said he befriended, Politico reports.
Quote of the Day
“I almost wanted to vomit. I worry when someone who came up through the KGB tells us what is in our national interests, and what is not. It really raises the question of how serious the Russian proposal is.”
— Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), quoted by CNN, on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s op-ed this morning.
GOP Fears Fundraising Disaster in 2014
“GOP outside groups are struggling to keep up with the breakneck fundraising pace necessary ahead of the high-stakes election. Next year will be the Republican Party’s best shot at taking the Senate for years to come, since they would need to net six seats, while Democrats have seven seats to defend in states that Mitt Romney won last year,” Politico reports.
“While the underlying reason for the weak fundraising is lingering frustration from 2012, when the Republican Party persuaded deep-pocketed donors to dump in millions, only to see their party lose seats in the House and Senate and Barack Obama take the White House again, there are new concerns, too.”
“In interviews with fundraisers, bundlers and GOP operatives, a perception emerged that the National Republican Senatorial Committee has its own problems — notably a leadership vacuum — that is making the already difficult fundraising environment that much worse.”
Aide to Pope Suggests Priests Could Marry
“The Vatican’s new secretary of state has said that priestly celibacy is not church dogma and therefore open to discussion, marking a significant change in approach towards one of the thorniest issues facing the Roman Catholic Church,” NBC News reports.
NYC Democrats Push Thompson to Stand Down
New York City’s Democratic power brokers moved “to prevent a combative sequel to the party’s primary for mayor, as union officials and political leaders rallied around the front-runner, Bill de Blasio, and urged the second-place finisher, William Thompson to end his quest for a runoff election,” the New York Times reports.
“On a day of back-room maneuvering and deal-making, Mr. Thompson’s own inner circle appeared divided over how, or even whether, to proceed.”
Bonus Quote of the Day
“Recent events surrounding Syria have prompted me to speak directly to the American people and their political leaders. It is important to do so at a time of insufficient communication between our societies.”
— Russian President Vladimir Putin, writing in the New York Times.
The Koch Brothers’ Secret Bank
Freedom Partners, “whose existence until now was unknown to almost everyone in politics, raised and spent $250 million in 2012 to shape political and policy debate nationwide,” Politico reports.
The group serves “as an outlet for the ideas and funds of the mysterious Koch brothers, cutting checks as large as $63 million to groups promoting conservative causes, according to an IRS document to be filed shortly. The 38-page IRS filing amounts to the Rosetta Stone of the vast web of conservative groups — some prominent, some obscure — that spend time, money and resources to influence public debate, especially over Obamacare.”
House GOP Leaders Forced to Delay Budget Vote
House GOP leaders decided “to delay until next week a contentious vote on keeping government funding going,” the Washington Post reports.
“Rank-and-file Republicans had not fully come aboard their leadership’s complicated plan to keep federal agencies operating at current austerity levels while forcing a Senate vote on whether to defund President Obama’s health-care initiative. Under that plan the Senate– with it’s 55-seat Democratic majority– would surely dismiss the Obamacare rider and keep the government running, a scenario that outside conservative groups have lambasted in the last 24 hours.”
Wonk Wire: Debt ceiling could be one month away.
