From the midweek edition of the Morning Jolt:

Mother Jones Bugs a Lot of People.

Don’t read the Morning Jolt out loud, because for all we know, David Corn and Mother Jones could be listening to us right now.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) accused opponents Tuesday of bugging his headquarters and asked for an FBI investigation after a recording from an internal campaign meeting surfaced in a magazine report.

The 12-minute audiotape released by Mother Jones magazine reveals McConnell and his campaign staff at a Feb. 2 meeting lampooning actress Ashley Judd — then a potential Senate candidate — and comparing her to “a haystack of needles” because of her potential political liabilities. Judd has since decided not to run.

“We’ve always said the left will stop at nothing to attack Sen. McConnell, but Nixonian tactics to bug campaign headquarters is above and beyond,” campaign manager Jesse Benton said in a statement.

An FBI spokesman confirmed that the agency was investigating the incident following a report filed by McConnell’s office.

First of all, I had better audio quality holding up my cassette recorder to our home stereo to make mix tapes. In fact, I’m pretty sure Billy Joel is singing in the background.

I mean, right there on the tape, you can hear McConnell make really incriminating, scandalous statements, like, “Mmmrrrhg mmm rhgmmm rghmmm brmmm crm” and “mmmrgh hrrgnm mrrgh hrgmm rghghgrmm.”

David Corn posted this; he and Mother Jones posted the secretly-recorded video of Mitt Romney making his “47 percent” comment. Boy, he sure got past his Bush-era qualms about secret wiretapping, huh? Jeff Dunitz lays out Corn’s shock and horror at the violation of privacy presented by the government attempting to listen in on the conversations of terrorists… privacy that is apparently utterly irrelevant if you’re just some lawmaker that Mother Jones opposes speaking in a private meeting. Perhaps Corn resents the competition from the National Security Agency, or maybe he’s just jealous that they have better equipment. 

Of course, Mother Jones was particularly shocked and horrified that some unidentified presenter declared about Ashley Judd:

“She is emotionally unbalanced. I mean it’s been documented. Jesse can go in chapter and verse from her autobiography about, you know, she’s suffered some suicidal tendencies. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the ’90s.”

I’m sorry, is the argument from the shocked-and-horrified Mother Jones crowd that if a candidate had a mental breakdown, that was none of the electorate’s business?

Obvious joke: “Of course, it’s Congress, perhaps no one would notice.” Hey, a candidate’s mental illness never affects their ability to perform their duties, right? Just ask former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.

Congressman David Wu, do you have any thoughts on this?

“ROAR!”

Thank you, Congressman.

Kevin Williamson writes, “One sympathizes with people who suffer from mental illness. If you have ever been around somebody with psychological problems of the sort that necessitate hospitalization, you appreciate what a grim business that is. And if you breathe oxygen and possess a dozen or more functioning neurons, you also know that if Sarah Palin had spent a month and a half in a mental hospital, Mother Jones — which took a notably indulgent attitude toward Trig trutherism — would have led the chorus of jeers rather than write oh-so-sensitive headlines about the awfulness of using somebody’s mental health as “political ammo.” And as for the legitimacy of using somebody’s religious beliefs as a campaign issue, maybe we should ask Rick Santorum about that.”

But Judd isn’t running, so her mental health history and nuttier statements are all moot. Let’s hope she has a long, happy, and mentally healthy life, and that she and Morgan Freeman will finally uncover the conspiracy.

Our Dan Foster wonders what Mother Jones expected to hear at a strategy session, and puts the shoe on the other foot.

Where did Mother Jones get the tape? They’ll only say, “we were recently provided with the tape by a source who wishes to remain anonymous. We published the article on the tape due to its obvious newsworthiness. We were not involved in the making of the tape, but it is our understanding that the tape was not the product of any kind of bugging operation.”

My guess is that it was delivered to them by a woman named Lucy Ramirez,  who directed Bill Burkett to get them from a mysterious unidentified man at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

In her first television ad, Elizabeth Colbert Busch says she won’t take any special-interest pledges.

She’ll take their money, though. As of March 2013, Colbert Busch has taken $26,000 from unions:

She took $5,000 from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers PAC on Feb. 15, 2013.

She took $5,000 from the International Longshoremen’s Association AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education on Feb. 25, 2013.

She took $5,000 from the Communications Workers of America on Feb. 27, 2013.

She took $1,000 from the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental & Reinforcing Iron Workers on Feb. 27, 2013.

She took $2,500 from the United Transportation Union PAC on March 8, 2013.

She took $2,500 from the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association Political Action League on March 14, 2013.

She took $5,000 from the Machinists Non Partisan Political League of The International Association of Machinists on March 15, 2013.

The International Association of Machinists is the union that filed a complaint against Boeing with the National Labor Relations Board, attempting to prevent Boeing from building a $750 million Dreamliner factory in South Carolina, contending that the decision to locate the new factory there was retaliation against their Washington employees for a strike. The labor board had asked a judge to order Boeing to move its three-plane-a-month South Carolina production line to Washington State.

Remember how Elizabeth Sanford Busch, the Democrat running for Congress in South Carolina’s First Congressional District, seemed a little shaky in one of her first national television appearances?

It appears Mark Sanford’s campaign wants to get the two candidates in front of the cameras and microphones as often as possible:

Former Governor Mark Sanford today accepted invitations for the following debates and forums, and encouraged his Democratic opponent to accept these four invitations – and possibly even more – to give the voters of the First District a chance to see both candidates confront issues side by side.

The debates accepted by Governor Sanford are as follows:

·         AARP– April 17th

·         Patch/SC Radio Network – April 29th

·         Rotary Club of Charleston – April 30th

·         CNN – April 30th

“I look forward to meeting with my opponent to discuss issues that matter to folks across the First District, like what we’re going to do to get our fiscal house in order, what is the proper role of government when it comes to jobs and the economy, and how best to address the nation’s healthcare challenges,” Governor Sanford said. “During the last several months traveling the First District, what I’ve heard consistently is that people want to have a real, open, substantive exchange of ideas on these issues and a host of others. I would encourage my opponent to also accept these invitations.”

Four debates… or more!

In other news, Colbert Busch has released her first television ad, declaring, “as a single mom raising three young children, I had to be independent and do what’s right for them. Now, I’m going to take that lesson to Congress.”

By the way, her campaign did issue a statement in response to Sanford’s challenge yesterday, that the Clemson Wind Turbine Research reported to the government that it had created or saved only 134 jobs at about $320,000 per job.

“This is just another perfect example of Mark playing fast and loose with the facts.¹ The wind turbine project has, and will, create good-paying jobs right here at home for American workers.² The project is still under construction³ and studies show the wind power industry in South Carolina is projected to create as many as 20,000 jobs⁴. When it comes to our energy, we don’t need an ‘either/or’ policy,⁵ but a business-minded comprehensive approach in order for America to truly become energy independent from foreign oil.⁶ As a businesswoman, I’m proud of bringing together both the public and private sectors as partners that can invest in South Carolina not only today, but for generations to come.”

1. An accusation.

2. Does not contradict Sanford’s assertion.

3. An excuse; the project began work in spring 2010 and has, according to the federal government’s figures, never “created or saved” more than 35 jobs at any one time.

4. A big promise that blurs the scope of this project and the job creation of the entire wind power industry in the state.

5. A non sequitur.

6. Outdated rhetoric; the United States is currently exporting more gasoline, diesel and other fuels than we import.

The video of Terry McAuliffe’s appearance on the home-shopping channel QVC, hawking Inauguration knick-knacks, must be out there somewhere. The New York Times wrote about it at the time:

Eyes gleaming, the saleswoman leaned conspiratorially toward her television audience.

“You can’t find these things anywhere else unless you have inside connections,” she confided, “or you live in Washington, where maybe one or two stores are selling what we have.”

The oh-so-exclusive merchandise? Medallions featuring Bill Clinton’s face, pens featuring his name, envelopes featuring his hometown postmark, books featuring his ideas, and license plates emblazoned with a promise to build a bridge to . . . you know.

All of it is official inaugural memorabilia, and all of it is for sale for the first time to a national audience — for a special price, plus shipping and handling, if you act soon — on the QVC cable shopping network.

Eager to move more merchandise than four years ago to cover the budget for Clinton’s inauguration, the Presidential Inaugural Committee has turned to QVC, which is perhaps better known for hawking gold chains, “Brite Stik Tooth Whitening Pens,” and rear-end-tauteners than flogging items celebrating the inauguration of the president of the United States.

But there on Monday night, sandwiched between a program advertising National Football League merchandise and one pushing topaz jewelry, was Terry McAuliffe, the redoubtable Democratic fund-raiser and co-chairman of the inaugural committee.

One hopes he was either underselling the inauguration or overselling QVC when, standing on Pennsylvania Avenue in suit and tie, he invoked QVC’s favorite adjective to declare: “One of the more exciting aspects of this inauguration is the agreement that we have with QVC.”

McAuliffe’s appearance came in early January 1997.

Then again, McAuliffe told CNN that QVC sold “a quarter of a million dollars” of inaugural memorabilia. Maybe we’ll see him selling McAuliffe for Governor knick-knacks on the channel sometime before November.

UPDATE: Howard Mortman went into the archives and dug up the highlights of QVC’s coverage on Inauguration Day, which did not feature McAuliffe.

The Hotline

January 22, 1997

INAUGURATION: AN HOUR OF PATRIOTISM, HOME SHOPPING-STYLE   

As seen on QVC, between noon and 1 p.m. on Inauguration Day.

12:00     Bob, the host, displays the Official 1997 Presidential Inaugural Invitation Set (item L-47400, $240, shipped on 2/20), a”beautiful” invitation that comes in a “beautiful” blue binder.

Bob: “Of course, QVC is completely non-partisan.  It just so happens that he have a Democratic president and vice president going in.  But we ourselves are completely non-partisan.  We just want you to have some of the memorabilia of the democracy.  It’sa proud day to be an American.”12:02     The Official 1997 Presidential Inaugural Pin by AnnHand (item L-47392, $45, shipped on 1/21), the Official 1997Presidential Inaugural Plate (item L-47406, $48, shipped on1/31), and the Official 1997 Presidential Inaugural Medallion(item L-47385, $36 for bronze through $695 for gold, shipped on1/21) are displayed.

12:04     Bob announces QVC will show the swearing-in: “You’re going to be seeing history in the making.  As history continues on, our country is the only in history that has ever pre-planned the changing of power, and it is a ceremony that allows us to renew our democratic ideals.  It allows us to renew our visions. Maybe reminds us to maybe take a look at our goals and our dreams as well.”

12:05     QVC cuts to a live shot of the administering of theoath of office to President Clinton.

12:06     Bob: “I don’t know about you, but that was pretty electric here at QVC.  And really, when you think about taking us into the 21st century … we have some things to commemorate the electricity of that moment.”

12:08     Dee from California calls about the Invitation Set (item L-47400).  Bob: “What does it mean to you?”  Dee: “It just means so much to me.” 

Bob, later in the conversation: “And, you know, it’s a great day to be an American, too, because we’ve been able to maintain this for 200-some odd years, regularly, all the way down the line.  And it makes you feel good, doesn’t it?”Dee: “It just gives me such a great feeling, I mean, to be part of this, at least to watch it with QVC and C-SPAN.”  Dee, later on: “I’m so glad for QVC for having this thing because it’s never been done before.” 

Bob: “No, this is the very first time, sothere’s a lot of firsts, aren’t there?”  Dee: “Oh, and I’m soexcited. … Thank you a lot Bob, and I like your cooking shows,too.”  Bob: “Thank you, thank you very much.  We’re going to do one tomorrow, ten hours of cooking, starting at noon eastern.”

12:10    QVC cuts to Clinton delivering inaugural address.

12:14     Nancy from Nevada calls about the Pin (item L-47392).

Bob: “How do you plan to wear this?”  Nancy: “On a suit,probably, you know, when I go out for something nice.”

12:17     The Plate (item L-47406) is shown.  Bob: “Imagine, notonly picking up the inaugural plate, but picking up something byone of the great names in the world, Wedgewood.  Combine the twoand you have an heirloom.” 

Bob said the Plate “will give you a great deal of pride and a wonderful sense of being an American and being part of the history of America in this presidential year, this inauguration year.”  Later, Bob corrects himself: the plate is Woodmear china, not Wedgewood.

12:21     Melba from Washington state calls in about the Plate.Bob: “Do you feel good to be an American?”  Melba: “Of course.”

12:23     Helen from Texas calls about the Plate.  Bob: “What does it mean to you as an American?”  Helen: “I can’t really put it in words, what it means to me.”  Bob: “You can feel it though,you feel a sense of pride?”  Helen: “Oh, yes.”

12:24     QVC cuts to tape of Vice President Gore earlier being administered the oath.12:26     Bob shows the Medallions (item L-47385), which “may be the most collectible pieces of any inauguration.  They go back all the way to George Washington.”  Bob notes the Medallions can be purchased through “Easypay” installments.

12:32     The Official 1997 Presidential Inaugural Button Set(item L-47402, $9, shipped on 1/21) is displayed.  Bob shows a button portraying “Great Democratic Presidents of the United States.”  The button has Clinton at the center. 

Bob: “Mr.Clinton is the first Democratic President to be re-elected since Franklin Roosevelt, which makes this pin really quite unusual.”

12:36     QVC shows tape of Miller Williams delivering his poem.Bob later calls ‘93 Inaugural poet Maya Angelou “a great poet,nice lady, who read quite a poem.”

12:37     Bob shows the Official 1997 Presidential Inaugural License Plates (item L-47386, $25-$45, shipped on 1/25).

12:47     QVC cuts to a live wide shot of the Capitol.

12:48     Bob shows the Official 1997 Presidential Inaugural Tote Bag (item L-47412, $24, shipped 1/21).

12:56     Peggy from South Carolina calls and announces she has ordered the invitation set, the sweatshirt, the book, the plate,the mug, the buttons, the pearls, the pin, the pen, and the totebag.  Peggy: “QVC is just fantastic to bring us this opportunity.”

Remember when the Citizens United court case was the root of all evil? Well, now a Democratic super PAC is suing to allow unlimited donations in their effort to help Democratic candidates for the state legislature:

A Washington DC “super PAC” has sued New Jersey’s campaign finance watchdog agency, saying the state can’t limit how much it can raise from an individual donor.

The Fund for Jobs and Growth filed the complaint against the state Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) in federal district court on Friday.

The group, organized under Section 527 of the IRS code, plans to make independent expenditures on behalf of Democratic state legislative candidates in this year’s election. It argues that under the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC, it’s unconstitutional to limit how much money it can raise from an individual donor.

Last year, President Obama declared that the Citizens United decision was so harmful to society, that “I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United (assuming the Supreme Court doesn’t revisit it).”

Will he denounce an effort by allies within his own party to eliminate limits on donations to state campaigns?

Today is Election Day in Illinois’s second congressional district, in what is likely to be a minimal-turnout general election, selecting between Republican Paul McKinley and Democrat Robin Kelly.

Republicans would love to see their party make some noise in the districts where they’re not supposed to, like this one in inner-city Chicago and some of its southern suburbs. Having said that, there just doesn’t seem to be much of a pulse in this district. Yes, you’re never going to get high turnout in a special-election GOP primary in a district like this, and yes, the primary was held the day of a snowstorm, but . . . McKinley won the GOP nomination with 955 votes. There were 3,530 total votes in the GOP primary; Kelly won nearly 31,000 in the other side’s primary.

McKinley’s message has been against the Chicago machine; he offers a brief “Machine 101″ talk that refers to “Rahm ‘Caliglius’ Emanuel” (presumably comparing him to Caligula).

The Tuesday Morning Jolt features more ominous news out of North Korea (again), a look back at how people will remember Margaret Thatcher, and then this bit of overlooked news . . .

700 Special Ops Veterans: We Want a Full Accounting of Benghazi

Via Michelle Malkin, news you probably won’t be reading on the front page of your morning newspaper:

Via the Center for Security Policy, 700 Special Ops veterans sent a letter to Congress today calling on Congress to establish a select committee to investigate the Benghazi cover-up. “The SOF 700 letter was organized at the initiative of Lieutenant General William G. ‘Jerry’ Boykin USA (Ret.) by Special Operations Speaks (SOS),” Frank Gaffney writes. “This not-for-profit organization was established by special operation veterans in 2012 to illuminate the failed operational security environment of the Obama Administration and to restore accountability in government. These veterans have put their lives on the line for our country. The signers are determined to ensure than no one else needlessly loses theirs by establishing — and learning from — the lessons of the Benghazigate scandal.”

The statement notes, “To be sure, several congressional committees have tried to investigate separate aspects of the attack and the Obama administration’s handling of it after the fact. But, with each committee having different jurisdictions, their inquiries so far have been piecemeal and incomplete. The American people still do not have a definitive accounting of what went wrong.”

What can be done?

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Virginia) has introduced a congressional resolution, H. Res. 36, calling for the establishment of a special Congressional committee to investigate the Benghazi attack and the Obama administration’s handling of it in the weeks that followed. It’s an opportunity for a comprehensive investigation that connects all the dots, and holds people accountable.

You can join the petition movement here at EndTheCoverUp.com. Make your voice heard and keep the memory of the fallen Americans in Benghazi alive.

I hate to be a skeptic about such an obviously noble cause like this, but I’d like to know what a special committee would or could do that the existing committees haven’t or won’t.

If you’re wondering how Mark Sanford will attempt to shift the discussion in South Carolina’s first congressional district from you-know-what to actual policy issues, today his campaign offers its first example: whether the stimulus passed by the federal government back in 2009 represented a good use of taxpayer dollars.

You see, Elizabeth Colbert Busch has spent the last five years as director of business development at Clemson University’s Restoration Institute, which is heavily involved in wind-turbine research and development — and a big recipient of federal funds from the 2009 stimulus.

The release from the Sanford campaign:

Former Governor Mark Sanford today visited with a local small business owner to ask the “$320,000 question” of the Congressional campaign:

Could you create more than one job with $320,000?

For the past three years, Governor Sanford’s opponent, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, has helped advance the Wind Turbine Drivetrain Testing Facility, which has largely been funded via the 2009 stimulus — something Governor Sanford vehemently opposed all the way to the state Supreme Court. Colbert Busch is also on record calling the facility a good example of the kind of project the stimulus should have supported.

The problem?

After a $43 million stimulus infusion, according the Obama Administration’s own statistics the facility has “created or saved” only 134.12 jobs.

That equates to more than $320,000 per job, in fact if you were to include other public monies the number gets closer to $500,000 per job!

Governor Sanford has long argued that the stimulus would not have the desired effect of growing the economy, and in fact would impede economic recovery. In fact, in 2009 he wrote that as a nation we cannot, “solve a problem of too much debt with yet more debt.” Instead, Governor Sanford has argued for lower taxes and limited spending as keys to growing the economy.

Governor Sanford today visited Lyerly’s Cleaners in Mount Pleasant — as he will with other small businesses across the 1st District — to talk one-on-one with business owners about whether they would prefer more in the way of economic “stimulus” or more in the way of tax cuts and regulatory relief.

“I have no doubt they’re doing some great research over at the Drivetrain Institute, but to me it comes back to the ideas of return on investment, and the proper role of government in the economy,” Sanford said. “Some believe that it’s government’s role to try and drive the economy, but as we all saw back in 2009 it just didn’t work, and some would argue it actually prolonged our recovery because it froze would-be investors who wondered when the next bailout would take place. I believe a key difference in this race is going to be whether one believes it is small business that drives the economy, or whether one believes it is government borrowing that does so, and I look forward to having that debate with my opponent over the coming weeks.”

I asked Sanford’s folks how they came up with the $320,000 per job figure; they pointed to Recovery.gov.

According to the data, the program began “creating or saving” jobs sometime in spring 2010, when it somehow managed to “create or save” one-tenth of one job. The following quarter it “created or saved” 8.09 jobs, then down to 2.82, bouncing up and down, peaking at 34.78 jobs in spring 2012, and creating or saving 3.64 jobs in the most recent quarter from October to December 2012.

If you take all of the federal funds awarded so far, and divide that figure by the sum total of jobs “created or saved” in all of the quarters so far, you get $320,608.41.

(Perhaps defenders of the stimulus, or Colbert Busch, will attempt to help them by insisting that this is just a matter of the project managers reporting nonsensical numbers to the federal government as part of the Recovery.gov accountability efforts. Nothing to worry about!)

His opponent’s messaging is . . . different. Today, Colbert Busch’s Facebook page linked to her economic policy, declaring that the sequester cuts are “mindless” and that “We need to provide our entrepreneurs and innovators opportunities to succeed.”  Also, her Twitter feed has spent two days letting people know where they can pick up yard signs.

Virginia Democrats, you’re now stuck with him: Terry McAuliffe is now certifiable — er, certified as the Democrats’ candidate for governor of Virginia.

Undoubtedly, McAuliffe brings some advantages to the race; as perhaps the single biggest fundraiser in Democratic-party history, he will probably raise somewhere between $10 million and ∞ for his campaign this year. With the New Jersey governor’s race not looking competitive, McAuliffe is the only Democrat running statewide this year with a shot, and as a result, he’ll get plenty of support from the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Governors Association, and Organizing for America. Oh, and he’s telling donors and potential supporters that helping him is “a way to get in on the ground floor of Hillary Clinton 2016.”

Pete Snyder, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, is already hitting Terry McAuliffe for his company GreenTech’s October 2009 decision to build a plant in Mississippi instead of Virginia. McAuliffe contended that the state of Virginia’s business recruitment agency wasn’t interested in helping the company. PolitiFact looked at the paperwork and rated that assertion false.

“It’s political garbage and double talk like this that made me get off the sidelines and get into the arena to change things,” Snyder says. (It says something about McAuliffe that even the GOP’s lieutenant gubernatorial candidates are citing him as the poster boy for what’s wrong with politics.)

Late last week, Politico reported that McAuliffe formally left GreenTech back in December, a comment McAuliffe didn’t mention even as he discussed the firm for the past few months, including quite recently.

Make no mistake, Republican nominee Ken Cuccinelli will have a tough challenge ahead. But four months into his second bid for governor of Virginia, McAuliffe has surprisingly low name ID and a favorable rating of only 20 percent (Quinnipiac) or perhaps as low as 10 percent (Roanoke).

One good statewide ad campaign could define McAuliffe before this race even starts.

To elaborate a bit on what I’ve been saying on Twitter . . .

In Margaret Thatcher, we see a woman who achieved something that no British woman had done before or since, and that no woman in the United States has ever achieved. Only five women had been elected or appointed heads of government before her. She was probably the most influential woman of the second half of the 20th century, perhaps of the entire century. And yet she didn’t see herself as a feminist at all:

“I owe nothing to women’s lib,” Thatcher said, and at another point she remarked, “The feminists hate me, don’t they? And I don’t blame them. For I hate feminism. It is poison.”

One of the fundamental ideas of feminism is that most societies are full of male chauvinism and anti-women attitudes, views that demean and limit the power of women. And adherents to this belief contend that the only force that can overcome those attitudes is feminism. And here comes a woman who dismisses their arguments as “poison,” and she completely upends the idea that anti-women attitudes keep women out of power, proving that in 1979 — 34 years ago! — the people of Great Britain were ready to have a woman as their head of government. And in a time of crisis, no less — economic and societal breakdown, the IRA bombing things, the Soviet bear on the prowl . . .

So either Margaret Thatcher was a feminist and didn’t know it, or the feminist belief that sexist attitudes prevent women from being elected to positions of political power is fundamentally flawed and has been so for a long time.

Margaret Thatcher, R.I.P.

Here, in 1984, Prime Minister Thatcher meets with Minister of Administrative Affairs Jim Hacker and Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby, and discusses her proposal to abolish economists.

(This was actually a sketch written by Mrs. Thatcher, involving actors Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne, who were at that point starring in a television series, “Yes, Minister.” A few years later, they made a sequel series, “Yes, Prime Minister.”)

Today’s Morning Jolt points out that some sources contradict a Washington Post report on sequester cuts hurting cancer patients; discusses whether the term “entitlements” helps or hurts effort to reform those programs, and then has this bit of political news on the early talk of the 2014 House races:

Vote Democrats in 2014: They Have No Opinions on Anything!

Keep the lead of this Washington Post article in mind when you’re told about the great liberal ascendancy that will continue in the midterms:

Democratic Party officials believe that Kevin Strouse is exactly the kind of candidate who can help them retake the House next year.

He’s a smart, young former Army Ranger — good qualities for any aspiring politician. But what party leaders really like is that Strouse doesn’t have particularly strong views on the country’s hottest issues.

Immigration? Tax policy? “Certainly I have a lot of research to do,” Strouse acknowledged in an interview Thursday as he announced his candidacy in a suburban Philadelphia House district.

Strouse’s candidacy reflects an emerging Democratic strategy for taking back the House from Republicans after the tea party takeover of 2010.

Like Elizabeth Colbert Busch, he appears to be following a strategy of never taking a stance that anyone, anywhere, might disagree with. “I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside. Give them a sense of pride . . .”

Now, if liberalism were ascendant, and the electorate’s preferences were shifting strongly and dramatically to the left, why wouldn’t these folks be talking about the need for the government to do more, dismiss the claim that we need to dramatically reduce our spending, that President Obama is getting it right, again and again, and that they’ll eagerly return Nancy Pelosi to the Speakership?

You can argue that Colbert Busch is running in too Republican-leaning a district to give you a fair reading on that. But Kevin Strouse is running in Pennsylvania’s eighth district, basically Bucks County. It’s a D+1 district. With Barack Obama carrying the state by a healthy margin, and Bob Casey winning the Senate reelection handily, the GOP incumbent, Mike Fitzpatrick, won . . . 56 percent of the vote. Nearly 200,000 votes.

Also mentioned in the article: Sean Eldridge, husband of Facebook co-founder and New Republic owner Chris Hughes. Here are some of the highlights from the New York magazine writeup on his filing:

Yesterday Eldridge, 26, filed papers establishing a campaign organization that would enable him to compete for New York’s 19th congressional district seat in 2014 . . . 

Eldridge would be smart to stockpile more of that kind of credit in the local political favor bank. He was born in Canada and grew up in Ohio, and he and Hughes split time among a number of palatial residences — the kind of things that will help Gibson try to paint the novice candidate as a dilettante and carpetbagger. Gibson, 48, is a lifelong New Yorker and a talented campaigner with an appealing personal story, especially for a district that includes newly gentrified river towns like Hudson* but also covers a wide swath of depressed rural territory: He’s a former Army colonel who served four tours in Iraq and was awarded a Purple Heart…

November’s results showed that Gibson is formidable: He beat a Democratic challenger by six points even though Barack Obama carried the district by a substantial margin. Turnout is likely to be lower in 2014 — without a presidential campaign or a contested New York gubernatorial election — which could also hurt Eldridge’s chances.

There’s a lot of road between this moment and the 2014 midterms, but . . .  do Colbert Busch, Strouse, and Eldridge sound like the all-star team you would want to assemble to retake the House?

You may recall that when I wrote about Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe’s autobiography, I highlighted the candidate explaining, in his own words, the role of a governor: “Let me tell you, it’s a lot easier to raise money for a governor. They have all kinds of business to hand out, road contracts, construction jobs, you name it.”

After my piece on , What a Party! My Life Among Democrats: Presidents, Candidates, Donors, Activists, Alligators, and Other Wild Animals, a couple of Virginia Republicans told me, “he read the audiobook for that book, you know.”

Well, somebody found it and put it up on YouTube.

I know, I know, I’m being unfair. It’s not like the candidate ran around bragging that his political contacts helped his business career.

I mean, except for the time that he did: “McAuliffe has said that his work in politics has bolstered his business career. ‘I’ve met all of my business contacts through politics. It’s all interrelated,’ he told the New York Times in 1999.”

I’m not vehemently opposed to all foreign aid; targeted and administered correctly, it can do a lot of good.

But we live in an era of $16.7 trillion in national debt. Ideally, we would be contemplating cuts to low-priority taxpayer-funded programs to help Americans and cuts to low-priority taxpayer-funded programs to help foreign citizens. But between those two, the priority doesn’t seem that difficult. At the very least, I think we could use foreign aid as leverage with regimes that have been uncooperative in the recent past, like Egypt and Pakistan. Foreign aid is a gift, not an entitlement.

(As I’ve mentioned in the past, I wonder if the U.S. suspended all foreign aid to all countries for one year, whether other countries would be more appreciative when we reinstated it . . . or whether some countries would protest and/or riot outside U.S. embassies, believing they have a guaranteed right to financial assistance from American taxpayers.)

Non-disaster, non-crisis aid to help a country like the Philippines, which is usually on friendly terms with the U.S., seems like something nice to give, but not something we need to give. If we were running a surplus, this wouldn’t be much of an issue. But every dollar that is spent today is, theoretically, a higher priority than the Defense Department civilian employees getting furloughed, or the need to keep certain illegal immigrants in detention centers, or White House tours, or any of the other examples of spending cut under the sequester.

Today’s bit of federal spending “Spared by the Sequester” is $18,897,868 to the Asia Foundation to administer programs in the Philippines:

The COMPETE Project is intended to contribute to higher growth through the better provision of infrastructure, increased competitiveness of key industries, and increased access to credit. USAID will support measures that lower transport and logistics costs, reduce the cost of electricity, and promote the expansion of businesses in the priority sectors identified in the Philippine Development Plan, primarily in tourism and agribusiness.

This contract was awarded today, April 5.

The final Morning Jolt of the week offers a lengthy assessment of polls indicating that a majority of Americans support marijuana legalization, a bit of lighter thought on “Castle,” and then this bit of pitch-perfect presidential-rhetoric assessment:

‘We Need to Rebuild Trust,’ the President Lied

Yeah, I just can’t improve upon Tom Maguire’s quick assessment of Obama’s recent comments on guns:

The NY Times regales us with an account of Obama’s gun control speech in Denver:

He waved toward the assembled officers and local politicians and added, “We’ve got to get past some of the rhetoric that gets perpetuated, that breaks down trust, that’s so over the top that it just shuts down all discussion.”

In contrast to some of his earlier, more emotional remarks about the impact of gun violence, the president portrayed the debate as one of a principled difference that needs to be bridged.

If he really wants to rebuild trust he could take a step in that direction by dropping his phony stat about 40 percent of guns being obtained without a background check.

Nor does it bolster his credibility when he tells a room of California’s One Percenters that the Newton shooting was done with a semi-automatic weapon and then “corrects” himself to make it an automatic.

Jobless claims are up again, the poverty rate is at a 50-year high, North Korea is threatening to nuke us, Obamacare is turning into an unmanageable mess, and —

OMG OMG OMG JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE IS PERFORMING AT THE WHITE HOUSE!!! 11! OMG OMG

No, really:

The White House announced this week that the 32-year-old artist is slated to perform there on April 9 as part of an evening of celebration for Memphis Soul music.

Timberlake will join other artists like The Alabama Shakes; William Bell; Steve Cropper; Ben Harper; Queen Latifah; Cyndi Lauper; Joshua Ledet; Sam Moore; Charlie Musselwhite; Mavis Staples; and the artist who’s given President Obama some of his best karaoke material, Al Green. The evening is part of the President and First Lady’s “In Performance at the White House” series, and it’ll air on PBS April 16 at 8 p.m. ET.

Because when you think Memphis Soul music, you think Justin Timberlake.

The sound you hear is millions upon millions of low-information voters squealing with delight at their president. If Obama’s numbers go underwater again, they’ll have to unleash the Kraken Bieber.

Hey, can I get some bread with these circuses?

While I’m depressing grassroots conservatives because there’s no serious, well-funded challenge to South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham on the horizon, I might as well really bum them out by pointing out that there’s not much action going on in Kentucky, either.

Senator Mitch McConnell’s team recently announced that 64 out of the 68 Republicans in the state legislature have endorsed his reelection.

Perhaps more significantly, Senator Rand Paul is discouraging a tea-party challenge:

Sen. Rand Paul is discouraging a tea party challenge to McConnell’s reelection campaign. “No one has asked me about running, I have not had any conversation with anybody running on the Republican side,” Paul told WHAS11’s Joe Arnold, “and so I think it’s unlikely that there will be a Republican challenger.”

“And you’re right, I am supporting Senator McConnell,” Paul continued.

Two little-known figures have filed papers to run against McConnell as a Republican. One is Roger Thoney, who ran for the U.S. House and lieutenant governor in 2000, 2002, and 2003; he received 4,784 votes in his 2002 House bid, or 21 percent. The other is Joshua Pike Mather, a sculptor.

There are other names being mentioned as possibilities, but no one has pulled the trigger yet. David Adams, a tea-party activist who worked with Paul’s 2010 bid, said on MSNBC he’s not running himself, but that he’s still looking for a candidate. John Kemper, a spokesman for the United Kentucky Tea Party, said in late March he’s gauging support; he received more than 349,000 votes as the GOP candidate for state auditor in 2011. Matt Bevin, a Louisville businessman, was also mentioned as a possible candidate, although the talk has died down a bit in recent days.

As our Katrina Trinko noted, by reaching out to various Republican groups, McConnell “has thus far successfully prevented any challengers from emerging.” Whoever jumps in will have to go up against McConnell, all of the traditional advantages of incumbency, and about $7.3 million in cash on hand right now.

Sure, sometimes you catch lightning in a bottle, and a Ron Johnson type comes out of nowhere, and the filing deadline isn’t until January 2014. But you have to figure that almost every current conservative Republican lawmaker in Kentucky has looked at McConnell and concluded that he’s not bad enough to replace, or that a bid to beat him in the Senate primary wouldn’t succeed.

In the comments section, a reader laments:

I guess you guys are going to do nothing to stop Lindsey Graham from being reelected. Buckley Rule does not apply in Red South Carolina? Multiple jokey posts about Stephen Colbert’s sister instead?

(I tend to think highlighting her inability to specify how she’ll balance the budget besides eliminating “waste and fraud” is more than a “jokey post,” but then again, I’ve always been a big fan of my own work.)

You can’t beat someone with no one. At this point, the only Republican who has declared interest in running against Graham is Keith Blandford, who suspended his Senate bid to run in the special House election in South Carolina’s first district. Blandford received 195 votes in the primary, out of 53,793 cast. Blogger Bruce Carroll contemplated a bid, but decided against it.

Senator Lindsey Graham has $4.4 million in cash on hand right now. That doesn’t make him impossible to defeat in a Republican primary, but it does make it tough. A December poll showed him 47 percent approval and 39 percent disapproval among all voters, and a 66 percent approval among self-identified Republicans.

We may scoff that Obama writing a check to the U.S. Treasury for $1,666 a month is a meaningless gesture designed to fool those who can’t do math that he’s making a significant sacrifice in the Age of the Sequester . . . but I suppose there are more objectionable approaches for a lawmaker to take:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that she opposes a cut in congressional pay because it would diminish the dignity of lawmakers’ jobs.

“I don’t think we should do it; I think we should respect the work we do,” Pelosi told reporters in the Capitol. “I think it’s necessary for us to have the dignity of the job that we have rewarded.”

The comments were made in the context of the looming sequester, which would force across-the-board cuts affecting most federal offices, including Congress.

As House minority leader, Pelosi is slated to make $193,400 this year; most members of Congress make $174,000.

Pelosi’s net worth is estimated to be $26.4 million, which reflects her husband’s real-estate investments.

Also unmentioned in the coverage: will Vice President Joe Biden be writing a check for 5 percent of his salary as well?

Above, Nancy Pelosi at a May 2012 ceremony where Middle Drive East in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park was renamed “Nancy Pelosi Drive.” Naturally, the road heads south and bends to the left.

Potential 2014 House GOP candidates are starting to announce their intentions. In California . . .

Republican state Assemblyman Brian Nestande said Wednesday he is leaning toward running next year for the U.S. congressional seat now held by Democratic Rep. Raul Ruiz.

Nestande has been endorsed by former Republican Rep. Mary Bono Mack, and said he will announce whether he will run for Congress in the next two weeks.

“Yes, I lean towards running. Mary’s support is important to me, and I will make a decision very shortly,” Nestande said in a phone interview.

Ruiz defeated Bono Mack in the Coachella Valley’s most expensive congressional race. The two camps spent more than $6 million, including large amounts from national Democrat and Republican groups.

Fundraising will be important again next year as the Republicans attempt a comeback in a district that has become a key national battleground.

And in Georgia, one name familiar to the national scene . . .

In the decade since he left Congress, Bob Barr has gone from Republican to Libertarian and back to Republican again. He announced Thursday that he wants voters from his new party — same as the old party — to send him back to his old job in the U.S. House.

And one not so familiar . . .

Georgia State Senator Barry Loudermilk has said that he will run for the U.S. House of Representatives seat that is currently occupied by Phil Gingrey.