Romney has a comfortable lead in Nevada (Caucus this Saturday) This one was done for The Las Vegas Review-Journal and 8NewsNow (CBS affiliate)
Romney 45
Gingrich 25
Santorum 11
Paul 9
Gingrich Camp Errs; Trump to Back Romney The campaign of Newt Gingrich suffered an awkward embarrassment Thursday after telling reporters sotto voce that Donald Trump planned to endorse them, and then finding out that the real estate mogul and reality TV star had flown into Las Vegas the night before to back Mr. Gingrich’s arch rival, Mitt Romney. The alleged Gingrich endorsement was confirmed Wednesday night by two people within the Gingrich campaign, but Mr. Trump’s own aides wouldn’t discuss the matter. Now a senior Romney aide confirms the flashy Mr. Trump plans to throw his publicity wattage behind Mr. Romney, making Mr. Trump one of the first populist-infused Republicans to back the former Massachusetts governor. Mr. Trump plans to make the endorsement this afternoon inside his golden Trump Hotel tower at the north end of the Strip. The on-then-off Gingrich endorsement–which very likely simply reflects confusion within the Gingrich camp–comes as the campaign continues to reel from its setback in Florida. (WSJ)
Trump could do a candidate more harm than good 27 percent would be less likely to vote for someone he endorsed. That’s nearly three times as many as would be more likely to do so (10 percent) according to Fox News polling.
More Likely To Vote For Candidate Endorsed By Donald Trump
Jan. 2012 Sept. 2011
More Likely 10% 6%
Less Likely 27% 31%
No Difference 62% 62%
Among Republicans, 13 percent would be more likely to vote for a Trump-endorsed candidate and 15 percent less likely (72 percent no difference).
For independents, 15 percent would be more likely to vote for someone he endorses, 26 percent less likely and 56 percent say it wouldn’t make a difference to their vote.
New report released by GOP lawmakers suggests top Justice officials had extensive knowledge of Operation Fast and Furious Top Department of Justice officials had extensive knowledge of and involvement in Operation Fast and Furious, claims a new report released Thursday, hours before Attorney General Eric Holder's scheduled testimony to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The report released by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, top lawmakers investigating the botched gunrunning operation, claims Justice Department officials in Washington and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were involved in the coordination in the early stages of the operation. Republican lawmakers Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) released a new report suggesting top Department of Justice officials had extensive knowledge of and involvement in Operation Fast and Furious. The memo, which contradicts claims by the Justice Department, is based upon interviews, documents and emails involving key players of the operation run by the ATF. The operation allowed some 2,000 weapons cross the border into Mexico and into the hands of cartel members. (Fox News)
Family of slain Border Patrol agent files $25M wrongful death claim against federal government The family of a slain U.S. Border Patrol agent filed a $25 million wrongful death claim against the federal government on Wednesday. The 65-page document that’s a precursor to a lawsuit was filed in Phoenix and claims Brian Terry was killed because U.S. investigators allowed murder weapons into the hands of criminals, The Arizona Republic reported. Terry died Dec. 14, 2010, when his special-operations unit got into a shootout with border bandits in a remote canyon area in southern Arizona near Rio Rico. Investigators found two AK-47s at the scene that were traced back to a gun-smuggling probe by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Congressional investigations and Department of Justice records have since revealed that ATF agents allowed as many as 1,400 guns to be transported into Mexico and the AK-47s were purchased by a known firearms trafficker. The so-called “gun-walking” strategy used in Operation Fast and Furious remains the subject of inquiries by Congress and the Department of Justice’s inspector general. Terry’s family claims federal agents were negligent and acted “in violation of ATF’s own policies and procedures.” The claim was filed on behalf of Terry’s parents as well as surviving siblings. In it, family members criticize federal authorities for attempting to cover up the flawed strategy in Fast and Furious and its connection with Terry’s death. (Washington Post)
74 People Die in Egyptian Soccer Riots, 1,000 Injured Seventy-four people were killed when supporters clashed at an Egyptian soccer match, prompting fans and politicians on Thursday to turn on the ruling army for failing to prevent the deadliest incident since Hosni Mubarak was ousted. At least 1,000 people were injured in the violence on Wednesday when soccer fans staged a pitch invasion in the Mediterranean city of Port Said, even though local team al-Masry beat visitors from Cairo, Al Ahli, Egypt’s most successful club. (Reuters)
Ted Olson: Obama's Enemies List Olson is a lawyer in Washington, D.C., and a former solicitor general of the United States, represents Koch Industries. He wrote in The Wall Street Journal:
How would you feel if aides to the president of the United States singled you out by name for attack, and if you were featured prominently in the president's re-election campaign as an enemy of the people? What would you do if the White House engaged in derogatory speculative innuendo about the integrity of your tax returns? Suppose also that the president's surrogates and allies in the media regularly attacked you, sullied your reputation and questioned your integrity. On top of all of that, what if a leading member of the president's party in Congress demanded your appearance before a congressional committee this week so that you could be interrogated about the Keystone XL oil pipeline project in which you have repeatedly—and accurately—stated that you have no involvement?
Consider that all this is happening because you have been selected as an attractive political punching bag by the president's re-election team. This is precisely what has happened to Charles and David Koch, even though they are private citizens, and neither is a candidate for the president's or anyone else's office.
What Messrs. Koch do, in fact, is manage businesses that provide employment to more than 50,000 people in North America in legitimate, productive industries. They also give millions of dollars to medical researchers, hospitals and cultural institutions. Their biggest offense, apparently, is that they also contribute generously to nonprofit organizations that promote personal liberty and free enterprise, and some of those organizations oppose policies advocated by the president. Richard Nixon maintained an"enemies list" that singled out private citizens for investigation and abuse by agencies of government, including the Internal Revenue Service. When that was revealed, the press and public were outraged. That conduct will forever remain one of the indelible stains on Nixon's presidency and legacy.
Panetta: U.S., NATO will seek to end Afghan combat mission next year The United States hopes to end its combat mission in Afghanistan by the middle of next year, more than a year earlier than scheduled, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Wednesday. His remarks reflected a growing sentiment within the Obama administration that its approach to Iraq, where the official end of U.S. combat operations came 16 months before the final U.S. troop withdrawal in December, may provide a useful model for winding down operations in Afghanistan. Current NATO strategy, agreed to at a summit in Lisbon in November 2010, calls for coalition forces to gradually shift to a training, advisory and assistance role with the Afghan military on the way to withdrawing all combat troops by the end of 2014. (Washington Post)
To hear Democrats (and much of the media) tell it, President Barack Obama is a man on the rebound. The president turned in a strong State of the Union speech, picked a smart political fight over taxing the rich and authorized another heroic Navy SEAL mission in terrorist territory. Sounds like a recipe for reelection, they say. There is a big problem with this Pollyanna punditry: There are a bunch of real-time numbers coming in that tell a much different tale. In short, there’s a new Congressional Budget Office report that shows unemployment likely to climb to nearly 9 percent by the election, there’s polling data showing Obama tied or trailing Mitt Romney in the most important swing states (and doing only marginally better against Ron Paul), and there is mounting evidence that the assumption of a decisive Obama fundraising advantage for the fall might be flat wrong. All of this is happening while Republicans are at their worst, with Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich spending millions of dollars and using all of their air time explaining why the other is untrustworthy, deeply flawed and eminently beatable by Obama.
Jobs: The CBO projects unemployment will rise, hitting 8.8 percent in the third quarter of the year, the heart of the campaign. That’s terrible politics. Obama advisers have told us repeatedly on background that if unemployment is above 8.5 percent in the final months of the campaign, it will be extremely hard, if not impossible, to win. The advisers say independents will not return to Obama if it looks like economic growth is anemic and uncertain and it looks like his policies did little, if anything, to create new jobs under his watch.
Rolling Stone journo says, yeah, most journalists are liberal Journalist Michael Hastings was speaking on C-SPAN. Hastings covered the war in Afghanistan for Rolling Stone and wrote an article in June 2010 that led to the firing of General Stanley McChrystal. Since then, he’s won the Polk Award for investigative journalism and authored a book that expands upon the article that led to the firing of the general. (Hot Air)
HOST: Is it fair to say that the Polk Award winners are usually liberal journalists?
HASTINGS: Umm, probably. I mean, most journalists I know are liberal.
HOST: Activist journalists? I mean, activist people? Would you consider yourself an activist?
HASTINGS: Any journalist worth his salt often has a real moralistic kind of righteousness to them, somewhere in their soul.
Proposed jobs bill would target foreign outsourcing by U.S. companies Rep. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) will introduce a bill Wednesday requiring large U.S. companies to disclose how many of their jobs are based on U.S. soil and how many are based abroad, an attempt to shed light on the number of American jobs being outsourced. Such data is closely guarded by some of the country’s biggest multinationals, including Pfizer, Apple and IBM. Public filings by these firms disclose their total number of employees, but don’t specify where those jobs are located. Meanwhile, other data shows that multinationals overall cut 2.9 million jobs in the United States and added 2.4 million overseas between 2000 and 2009. (Washington Post)
Student cell phones confiscated in school's probe of drug selling Stevenson High School in north suburban Lincolnshire, Illinois, is in the midst of a drug investigation that has relied on confiscated student cell phones to identify suspects, a school spokesman said today. Jim Conrey said school officials have looked at the phones’ text messages to assist in their investigation into drug sales on campus. “That’s perfectly within our rights within the school,” he said. “If schools have credible evidence that cell phones are being used in some kind of trafficking … we have every right to take the phones.” One student has been arrested and others have been suspended, he said, although he would not say how many, saying that could harm student privacy.
The school has not shared information about the investigation with parents, and a robust rumor mill is cranking away online. Conrey said the school normally does not alert parents about misconduct investigations. But Cathy Belmonte, whose son is a senior at the school, said the information vacuum has proven harmful. "Parents and students alike are searching the Internet and Twitter feeds for information and spreading gossip and misinformation,” she said. “With a school this large, it is dangerous to think that this could be contained and not result in gossip. Parents and students alike should be informed.” (Chicago Tribune)
Laura Ingraham: The tea party hits a wall Posted on LauraIngraham.com:
“In 2010 the tea party showed impressive strength with its anti-establishment, anti-big spending message. Senators and congressmen who pledged allegiance to those aims rode into power and for at a least a millisecond, the GOP establishment was worried. But Mitt Romney's $15 million masterful takedown of Newt Gingrich, shows that tea party cred can only get you so far. Gingrich rode to victory in South Carolina with solid tea party support but even tea partiers with reservations about Romney abandoned him in Florida. One major lesson of this campaign stands out-- without organization, money, and a sophisticated media strategy, the tea party will enjoy only sporadic political success. They may be able to win a House seat in North Carolina but winning a presidential primary requires a breadth of support and financing that tea party groups have thus far been unable to muster.”
Florida Billionaire adopts girlfriend in ploy to protect assets A 48-year-old Florida polo mogul — about to go on trial for DUI manslaughter — adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend in a move that could shield much of his fortune from a wrongful-death lawsuit. Billionaire John Goodman’s adoption of Heather Hutchins, his girlfriend since 2009, is “surreal” and moves the case into “a legal twilight zone,” said Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Glenn Kelley. Goodman, founder of the International Polo Club and heir to a Texas air-conditioning fortune, was driving his $200,000 Bentley in February 2010 when he ran a stop sign in Wellington, Fla., and struck the Hyundai of Scott Patrick Wilson, authorities said. Wilson, 23, drowned when his car flipped over into a canal. Investigators said Goodman’s blood-alcohol level was twice the legal limit. Goodman goes to trial for DUI manslaughter and other charges on March 6 and faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted. But he also faces a civil trial, starting three weeks later, in a wrongful-death suit brought by William and Lili Wilson, the victim’s parents. Judge Kelley has ruled that a trust fund Goodman set up for his two children was off-limits if a jury awards money to the Wilsons. (NY Post)
Many singles looking for love, not marriage So many singles appear to be enjoying their unencumbered and unmarried state that two-thirds aren't even sure they want to marry, suggests a broad national survey of the dating habits, sexual behaviors and lifestyles of 5,541 single adults across the USA. Almost 40% of singles 21 and older surveyed were uncertain about wanting to marry; overall, 34.5% say they do want to marry, but 27% don't. This second annual Singles in America study, conducted online and completed in December by market research firm MarketTools for the Dallas-based dating website Match.com, was developed by the Institute for Evolutionary Studies at Binghamton University, along with biological anthropologist Helen Fisher and sex therapist Laura Berman. Attitudes about relationships also show decidely mixed views: 21.3% report they don't have time or prefer to stay unattached. Only 12.7% are actively seeking a relationship. Just under half (46.8%) are not actively looking for a relationship but say that if they met the right person they would consider it, and 16.9% are dating someone. Another 2.2% like to play the field. (USA Today)
A 48-year-old Florida polo mogul — about to go on trial for DUI manslaughter — adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend in a move that could shield much of his fortune from a wrongful-death lawsuit. Billionaire John Goodman’s adoption of Heather Hutchins, his girlfriend since 2009, is “surreal” and moves the case into “a legal twilight zone,” said Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Glenn Kelley. Goodman, founder of the International Polo Club and heir to a Texas air-conditioning fortune, was driving his $200,000 Bentley in February 2010 when he ran a stop sign in Wellington, Fla., and struck the Hyundai of Scott Patrick Wilson, authorities said. Wilson, 23, drowned when his car flipped over into a canal. Investigators said Goodman’s blood-alcohol level was twice the legal limit. Goodman goes to trial for DUI manslaughter and other charges on March 6 and faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted. But he also faces a civil trial, starting three weeks later, in a wrongful-death suit brought by William and Lili Wilson, the victim’s parents. Judge Kelley has ruled that a trust fund Goodman set up for his two children was off-limits if a jury awards money to the Wilsons. (
