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Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) tweeted that he thinks singer Cyndi Lauper is “hot” and then quickly deleted it 12 minutes later, the Washington Post reports.
Of course, the Sunlight Foundation tracks politicians’ deleted tweets and saved a copy.
Earlier this year Cohen unintentionally disclosed on Twitter that he had a 24 year old daughter that he only found out about three years ago.
Jack Abramoff: “Whether you’re a company, a union, or an individual, to get your bennie–your perk–into a bill, the first thing you need to do is find a bill that’s going to get signed by the president. Ninety-nine percent of what’s proposed in Congress doesn’t make it to the White House, so you’re looking for one of the few bills that’s going to make it all the way through the House, the Senate, the conference committees, and wind up on the president’s desk. We call that a moving train. If you’re a lobbyist pushing something like this, you want your moving train to be a 2,000-plus-page bill. You want to find a way to sneak your bennie into a teeny boxcar in the back that nobody’s going to notice.”
“When the Washington State Republican Party holds its annual fundraising dinner this weekend, one of the items up for auction will be an AR-15 style rifle — the type of semi-automatic weapon targeted by many gun-control advocates since Adam Lanza used one to rapidly kill 20 children and six adults at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school,” the Seattle Times reports.
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Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) finally admitted to the Baltimore Sun that he’s considering a presidential bid.
Said O’Malley: “I need to be spending a lot more energy and time giving serious consideration and preparation to what– if anything–I might have to offer should I decide to run for president in 2016.”
Harry Enten: “O’Malley will likely need progressives’ money to overcome his lack of national name recognition. He’s currently polling at 0% in an Iowa caucus ballot test, even when Clinton isn’t on the poll question. He’s also currently at 0% in a New Hampshire primary ballot test… [The problem is] O’Malley doesn’t have a history of attracting a liberal donor base.”
Daily Beast: “Weighing O’Malley’s chances is something of an academic exercise at this point because if Hillary Clinton enters the race, she will likely clear the field as, to a lesser degree, would Joe Biden, and the chances that both of them sit out ’16 is a decided long shot.”
Former Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) has sued a former top aide and an ex-intern, “saying they deliberately submitted forged nominating petitions in his name to keep him from seeking re-election,” the AP reports.
McCotter’s lawyer said the two men “purposefully submitted forged petitions in order to keep McCotter off the ballot and, thereby, denying him the opportunity to appear on the August 2012 Republican Primary ballot.” He also pledged to use subpoena power to “get to the bottom of what really happened to sabotage … McCotter.”
A new SurveyUSA poll in Los Angeles finds Eric Garcetti with nearly a double-digit lead over Wendy Greuel in the race for mayor, 49% to 40%. That’s a 2-percentage-point increase from two weeks ago.
Former South Carolina first lady Jenny Sanford told Roll Call she has no plans to endorse in the South Carolina special election that includes her ex-husband, former Gov. Mark Sanford (R).
Said Sanford: “I don’t have any thoughts on the race that I am currently interested in sharing with the public and I have no plans to endorse. I remain completely focused on the four wonderful men in my life and happily so.”
App of the day: Pocket Congress.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins “is calling on social conservatives to stop donating to national Republicans until the GOP stops going wobbly on gay marriage,” Politico reports.
Said Perkins: “Until the RNC and the other national Republican organizations grow a backbone and start defending core principles, don’t send them a dime of your hard-earned money.”
David Hawkings: “To their fans, the comeback drives of first Mark Sanford and now Anthony Weiner are happy signs that the American electorate is willing to embrace redemption. To their detractors, such ambitions are evidence that shame has lost its rightful place on the roster of politically effective motivators.”
“Either way, their stories are absolutely fascinating to the people who watched them launch their congressional careers in the 1990s, when their futures seemed almost limitless, then crash because they suffered from a pair of all-too-familiar politicians’ problems: believing in their own personal infallibility and not believing that the cover-up is almost always a bigger problem than the transgression.”
“Our critics say we should abandon our pro-life beliefs. But that would only demoralize our voters. It’s an odd strategy, I think: the cynical ploy followed by the thumping defeat.”
— Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), quoted by The Hill, on the GOP moderating its position on abortion.
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds support for gay marriage “now stands at 53%, up from 49% last March and 30% in 2004. For the first time, pollsters said, the survey found a majority of independent voters saying gays should be allowed to enter into same-sex marriages, with Democrats continuing to support gay marriage in large numbers and Republicans opposing it.”
Also interesting: “Half of all respondents believe people are born gay, with only 31% saying they choose to be gay. Fifteen years ago, views were split nearly evenly, with 41% saying people are born gay and 38% saying people choose to be gay.”
Roll Call: “With the Senate voting comfortably Thursday to take up its most ambitious gun control legislation in nearly two decades, all eyes turn to the “open amendment process” that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has promised.”
“A group of high-profile social conservatives warned Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus in a letter this week that their supporters could abandon the GOP if the party seeks to change its position on social issues, particularly same-sex marriage,” NBC News reports.
“Thirteen social conservatives, representing various influential groups, wrote Priebus ahead of the RNC’s quarterly meeting this week in Los Angeles to sternly rebuke the conclusions of a post-election report that advised Republican elected officials to adopt a softer tone toward social issues.”
BuzzFeed: “It’s probably possible for a political group to be worse at accomplishing its core mission than Progress Kentucky is, but it’s difficult to imagine how.”
“In its short lifespan, the super PAC focused solely on defeating Sen. Mitch McConnell has instead helped the Republican incumbent deflect his low approval rating and conservative critics by subjecting McConnell to comically incompetent political attacks.”
If you haven’t been following the story, The Week has a good recap.
Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) warned that “a national gun registry would be similar to a database used by the ruling Hutu tribe in Rwanda in the 1990s to locate and slaughter members of an opposing tribe in a genocide that killed up to one million people,” The Hill reports.
President Obama “urged North Korea to end its brazen nuclear threats against the U.S. and its allies, warning the unpredictable communist regime that his administration would ‘take all necessary steps’ to protect American citizens,” the Washington Post reports.
“Obama’s stern comments came as new U.S. intelligence was made public showing North Korea probably has advanced its nuclear knowhow to the point that it could arm a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead, though the weapon wouldn’t be very reliable.”
New York Times: “It is unclear whether other American intelligence agencies agree with the assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has primary responsibility for monitoring the missile capabilities of adversary nations. In the case of Iraq, a decade ago, the agency was among those that argued most vociferously that Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons.”
Michigan Republican National Committeeman Dave Agema continues to warn parents about the “filthy lifestyle” of homosexuals, saying that Christians should help people “get out of it,” MLive reports.
Said Agema: “What I’d like to have the homosexual community know is I don’t hate them. As a matter of fact when Jesus caught a woman in the act of adultery when they brought her to him he said I don’t condemn you but go and sin no more. That ought to be the church’s goal here. We ought to be saying to these people, ‘Hey, we don’t agree with your lifestyle and we’ll help you get out of it, but we want you to know the facts of what’s going to happen to you if you stay in this lifestyle.'”
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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