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Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) “looked to be a top GOP pickoff target next year after his agonizing seven-month recount and legal battle put him in the Senate in 2009 by a mere 312 votes,” Politico reports.
“Yet, in a turnabout few could’ve predicted, Franken has yet to draw a Republican opponent. The GOP looks likely to choose between relatively unknown state legislators, inexperienced businessmen or a conservative radio host with a history of controversial statements.”
“The leader of the powerful Lebanese militant group Hezbollah decisively committed his followers on Saturday to an all-out battle in Syria to defeat the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad,” the New York Times reports.
“He said the organization, founded to defend Lebanon and fight Israel, was entering ‘a completely new phase,’ sending troops abroad to protect its interests.”
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) “sent five bills to the scrap heap in a pointed gesture intended to prod lawmakers into a deal on the budget and her plan to expand Medicaid,” the Arizona Republic reports.
“The five vetoes, follow-through on Brewer’s promise to block legislation until her top priorities move forward, capped a tense day that saw some lawmakers receive threats over their support for the plan to provide health care for more of the state’s poor.”
Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman (R) will not seek Sen. Mike Johanns’ (R-NE) seat in 2014, the Omaha World Herald reports.
Said Heineman: “After careful consideration of all of the issues involved in a race for the United States Senate, I have decided to keep my focus on being the best governor that I can for the citizens of Nebraska. Every day, I enjoy the challenges and opportunities of being the governor of the best state in America.”
The Week: “A bill called the Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act recently sailed through the House Financial Services Committee. But when the New York Times went through emails from a lobbyist to the congressmen who wrote it, the paper discovered an unofficial co-author: Citigroup.”
“It turns out that recommendations from Citigroup made up 70 of the bill’s 85 lines, with two important paragraphs copied almost verbatim — save for two words that were changed to make them plural.”
“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.
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.
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.