The Golden Report

10 DAYS UNTIL SOUTH CAROLINA (25 delegates)
13 DAYS UNTIL THE STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS
20 DAYS UNTIL FLORIDA (50 delegates)

TOP STORY: US TO RESUME PEACE TALKS WITH TALIBAN- previous talks had collapsed in December- from The Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung

“A tentative U.S.-Taliban deal, including the transfer of five Afghan detainees from the Guantanamo Bay prison to Qatar and an insurgent renunciation of international terrorism, collapsed in December when Karzai refused to go along with it.

There have been no meetings with the insurgents since then. Although all parties have publicly said that they agree to one element of the deal — the opening of a Taliban office in Qatar — “we need now to make it real,” one official said.

Prime Minister Hamad bin Jasim al-Thani, for the first time acknowledging Qatar’s support for the arrangement, said Wednesday that his government welcomed “any opportunity” to defuse tension in the region. Thani spoke after a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The administration, which has said that negotiations must be “Afghan-led,” insists that its talks with the Taliban are only a preliminary effort to build confidence before actual negotiations over Afghanistan’s future can begin between the insurgents and the Karzai government.

One hurdle is that the Taliban prefers to talk to the United States and is “not willing to sit down with the Afghan government’,” one official said. “Our job is to see if we can break through that door.” Karzai has been under pressure from domestic opponents of negotiations to stand firm against the talks.

IN MISSISSIPPI TONIGHT-  a judge has ordered the halt to the release of any further prisoners pardoned by Governor Haley Barbour, in his final days in office. Barbour has pardoned 200 prisoners, including 14 convicted murderers. Today, the Mississippi Attorney General said that the Governor’s actions threatened public safety. From CNN-

“He’s tried to rule the state like Boss Hogg and he didn’t think the law applied to him,” Hood told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Wednesday night, referring to a character in the 1980s TV series “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

“These families are afraid out here,” Hood said of relatives of crime victims.

Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Tomie Green issued the injunction, saying it appeared some pardons, including those for the four murderers, did not meet the 30-day requirement. Any inmates released in the future must meet the standard, Green ruled.

On his way out the door, the Republican governor approved full pardons for nearly 200 people, including 14 convicted murderers, according to documents the Mississippi secretary of state’s office released Tuesday.

The four murderers who received full pardons last week — David Gatlin, Joseph Ozment, Charles Hooker and Anthony McCray — were cited in Green’s order.

They were all serving life sentences and worked as inmate trusties at the governor’s mansion, said Suzanne Singletary, spokeswoman for the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Trusties are inmates who can receive additional rights through good behavior.

ROMNEY RAISED $24 MILLION IN THE FOURTH QUARTER- from Reuters-

“The campaign has raised more than $56 million so far in the primary election season and has $19 million in cash on hand.

The strong fundraising means Romney has a substantial warchest as he strives for a third consecutive victory in the state-by-state race for the Republican nomination to oppose President Barack Obama, a Democrat, in the general election in November.”

RON PAUL’S CAMPAIGN IS CALLING ON THE REST OF THE FIELD- EXCEPT MITT- TO DROP OUT- from a statement released by the campaign after the results from New Hampshire last night:

“Ron Paul and Mitt Romney have been shown in national polls to be the only two candidates who can defeat Barack Obama.

“And Ron Paul and Mitt Romney are the only two candidates who can run a full, national campaign, competing in state after state over the coming weeks and months. Ron Paul’s fundraising numbers — over $13 million this quarter — also prove he will be able to compete with Mitt Romney. No other candidate can do all of these things.

“Ron Paul is clearly the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney as the campaign goes forward.

“We urge Ron Paul’s opponents who have been unsuccessfully trying to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney to unite by getting out of the race and uniting behind Paul’s candidacy.

“Ron Paul is in this race for the long haul. And he is ready to fight.”

“See you on the campaign trail.”

TODD PALIN GOES ROGUE- endorses Gingrich without consulting wife, Sarah- Here’s the former Alaska Governor on FOX News last night

“First dude went rogue. I respect him for doing that, Todd is all about hardhats and steel-toed boots and getting people to work, that’s what he represented and worked verry hard for as First Gentleman in our state.”

VIDEO 

SUPER PACS BLANKETING SOUTH CAROLINA- from National Journal’s Reid Wilson

“After decades at the head of the primary calendar, South Carolina voters won’t be surprised when they turn on their televisions this morning and see wall-to-wall campaign advertisements. And while a super PAC backing Newt Gingrich has said it will spend $3.4 million on negative ads blasting front-runner Mitt Romney, it’s actually Romney and his allies who are spending the most on television time this week and next.

Restore Our Future, a super PAC backing Romney’s campaign, has purchased more television advertisements than every other entity playing on South Carolina television, our sources in the ad buying community tell us. Restore Our Future has purchased more than $1.7 million in advertising over the next 10 days in South Carolina alone.

The pro-Romney group is spending nearly twice what any other candidate or PAC has purchased in the Greenville/Spartanburg, Columbia, Charleston and Myrtle Beach/Florence markets. And Restore Our Future is going head-to-head with the Gingrich-friendly super PAC, Winning Our Future, in the Charlotte, Augusta and Savannah markets, too.

Romney’s campaign dropped an additional $300,000 into South Carolina television time on Tuesday, reserving a total of $418,000 this week and $187,000 next week in total statewide spending.

Romney’s campaign will outspend his rivals this week, according to our sources. Rep. Ron Paul is spending $237,000 on television advertisements, with Texas Gov. Rick Perry spending $339,000 this week. Former Sen. Rick Santorum, who raised more than $2 million after nearly winning the Iowa caucuses, is starting to spend, too, reserving $337,000 in advertisements this week and another $52,000 next week. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is up with $149,000 spread across broadcast and cable.”

ROMNEY READIES HIS COUNTER ATTACK- POLITICO’S REID EPSTEIN

“Campaign advisers are polishing new messaging, tailored to rebut Republican and Democratic attacks separately. They’re cueing up new commercials.

And they’re rolling out a more aggressive approach from the candidate himself, even as the candidates who’d been waging the Bain battle appeared to be retreating from the rhetoric on Wednesday.

The change comes following three days of stumbling responses from Romney and campaign aides, who admit they were caught unprepared for the explosion of Bain as the dominant topic of the Republican race – “out of nowhere,” one adviser said. And it comes as Romney is aiming to turn his polling lead into a primary win — an early-state hat trick they hope will quickly establish him as the presumptive GOP nominee.

They’ll start with advertisements featuring employees of companies started and rescued by Bain to tell their stories — a direct response to the documentary released by the pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC that features employees of four companies closed by Bain that brutally slams Romney as a job killer. That documentary is set to be parceled out into shorter commercials which will air in South Carolina with a $3.4 million ad buy.

Romney adviser Kevin Madden says they’re confident they’ll quash those attacks with their new rebuttal.

REALITY FROM GINGRICH: THE PATH TO THE REPUBLICAN NOMINATION COULD END IN SOUTH CAROLINA
from an interview on MSNBC this morning

“If Romney can win South Carolina, he’s probably going to be the nominee. This is his big test,” Gingrich said of his rival for the Republican presidential nomination. “He has so much money that if he also has the advantage of momentum, it’s going to be very hard to stop him,” Gingrich said of Romney.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR: There is growing chorus of Republicans who are urging- privately & publicly- for candidates to stop the attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital, believing that it ultimately will hurt the party and the man they see as the inevitable front runner. Watch, especially, for Newt Gingrich’s reaction.

WALL STREET TODAY- from CNBC-: Stocks ended near session highs Wednesday, but still closed narrowly mixed, as worries over the euro zone and declines in the energy sector limited gains.

• DOW down 13
• NASDAQ up 8
• S&P 500 up 0.4

FINALLY: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie visited President Obama today at The White House, to update the President on Jolie’s recent work on preventing mass atrocities and combating sexual violence to women, according to an Administration official. Pitt was using a cane, the result of a recent skiing accident.

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HAPPENING NOW: On NBC, the first interview with Former Penn State Assistant Football Coach Gary Sandusky- who agreed to a brief telephone interview with Bob Costas today. The full interview is airing on Rock Center with Brian Williams tonight.

From the conversation:

Sandusky: “I say that I am innocent of those charges.”

Costas: “Are you a pedophile?” 

Sandusky: “No.”

Sandusky: “I could say that I have done some of those things. I have horsed around with kids I have showered after workouts. I have hugged them and I have touched their legs without intent of sexual contact.”

“I shouldn’t have showered with those kids.”

“I enjoy being around children. I enjoy their enthusiasm. I just have a good time with them”

HAPPENING NOW: On ABC, the first interview with Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly. The interview, with ABC’s Diane Sawyer, is airing on a special edition of 20/20 tonight. From the interview:

Sawyer: “How do you feel?”

Giffords: “Pretty good.”

Sawyer: “Is it painful?”

Giffords: “It’s difficult, difficult.”

The special will also contain home videos that Mark Kelly made through Gifford’s recovery which show her soon after the shooting at the hospital, and during rehabilitation and speech therapy.

TOP STORY: The Supreme Court of the United States today agreed to hear oral arguments on cases challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement.

With its decision today, the Court is setting itself up to inject its ruling, which could come in the summer of 2012, in the midst of a highly charged political season. Its decision, whether to uphold or strike down the constitutionality of the Act’s individual mandate provision will become a major decision point for voters in the final months of the election. However, there is a possibility that the Court could punt in its ruling and decline to issue a definitive yes or no to the constitutionality question.

NPR’s Nina Totenberg described the Court’s decision today in a report on the broadcast All Things Considered:

“In an apparent effort to be as comprehensive as possible, the court certified four questions for review. First, and most important: Did Congress exceed its constitutional authority in requiring virtually all Americans to have basic health care coverage?

The second: If the individual mandate is unconstitutional, does the rest of the law stand? Even the government now says there would be no way to provide the goodies everyone likes in this law without the expanded pool of people paying into the system.

The third question: Does the law impose unconstitutional conditions on the states by requiring them to pay 5 percent more into Medicaid by 2017 to cover the increased number of people under the program?

And the last question: Is it is premature to decide the first three?”

As if to underline the significance of the case, the court allocated 5 1/2 hours for oral argument, the longest argument in modern times.

Were the court to invalidate the statute in its entirety, it would roll back many of the provisions already benefiting millions of Americans.

FOR BRET- a soon-to-be lawyer…

“The length of the oral argument set by the court for the health care challenge is a recognition of the case’s importance. At 5 1/2 hours, the argument will be the longest in more than 45 years.

Time set aside for argument has changed markedly over the course of American legal history. Before 1849, there was no time limit at all, and counsel would often go on for days. In 1849, the increased caseload caused the justices to set a two-hour limit per side, which was reduced to one hour in 1925, and a half-hour per side in 1970, which is where it remains for most cases today.

But big cases, with many parties and complexities, sometimes get more time. The 1974 Nixon tapes case lasted three hours. Bush v. Gore went 90 minutes. The 1971 Pentagon Papers took two hours; the challenge to the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law in 2003 was four hours.”

DRIVING THE 2012 CAMPAIGN TONIGHT- “Rambling Cain has an ‘Oops’ Moment” by Alexander Burns in POLITICO.

Today, Herman Cain gave an editorial board interview to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, but he gave less than a clear answer on his opinion on the US military operation in Libya. From the transcript:

“OK, Libya. President Obama supported the uprising, correct? President Obama called for the removal of Qadhafi. Just want to make sure we’re talking about the same thing before I say, ‘yes I agree,’ or ‘no I didn’t agree.’ I do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reason – nope, that’s a different one. I gotta go back to, see … Got all this stuff twirling around in my head. Specifically, what are you asking me, did I agree or not disagree with Obama on?”

AND THEN [After the question- on whether Cain supported Pres. Obama’s decision to intervene in Libya-was rephrased and asked again]…

“Here’s what I would have – I would have done a better job of determining who the opposition is and I’m sure that our intelligence people have some of that information. Based upon who made up that opposition, OK, based upon who made up that opposition, might have caused me to make some different decisions about how we participated.

“Secondly, no, I did not agree with Qadhafi killing his citizens. Absolutely not. So something would have had to been – I would have supported many of the things they did in order to help stop that. It’s not a simple yes-no, because there are different pieces and I would have gone about assessing the situation differently, which might have caused us to end up in the same place. But where I think more could have been done was, what’s the nature of the opposition?”

It’s a rambling response, for sure. Watch the full video:

THE LATEST POLLS- out today-

POLITICO/Battleground States:

• Cain 27%
• Romney 25%
• Gingrich 14%
• Perry 14%
• Paul 5%
• Santorum 2%
• Bachmann 2%

OBAMA 41%, GENERIC REPUBLICAN, 41%, Undecided 13%

CNN Poll (with difference from October):

• Romney 24% (-2%)
• Gingrich 22% (+14%)
• Cain 14% (-11%)
• Perry 12% (-1%)
• Paul 8% (-1%)
• Bachmann 6% (-)
• Huntsman 3% (+2%)
• Santorum 3% (+1%)

The big story coming out of the CNN poll is the surge in support for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has now eclipsed Herman Cain and is statistically-tied with Mitt Romney for front-runner status.

WALL STREET

• Dow down 75
• Nasdaq down 22
• S&P 500 down 12

DRIVING WASHINGTON TONIGHT: “Supercommittee could punt on tough calls” as Manu Raju & Jake Sherman write tonight in POLITICO

“There’s increasing talk of punting some of the toughest issues to the congressional committees charged with doing this job in the first place. That could mean giving the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance panels an order to come up with a specific amount of savings and a broad directive to rewrite the Tax Code.

This potential abdication of power from a special committee that was granted sweeping authority to tackle the staggering deficit shows just how badly gridlocked Congress remains.

To some, it sounds like the supercommittee is trying to figure out how to maximize political cover if it fails — a far cry from the mandate to achieve major deficit reductions where the rest of Congress has fallen short.

PRESIDENT OBAMA departs Hawaii in a few hours en route to Australia, where he will be on a State Visit as part of a 9-day Asian-Pacific tour

FINALLY…Brad Pitt today announced that he would be retiring from acting when he turns 50, in 3 years. In an interview with an Australian news program, Pitt hinted at what may be next:

“I am really enjoying the producing side and development of stories and putting those pieces together … getting stories to the plate that might have had a tougher time otherwise.

“You know, I don’t know that we’re finished” adopting or conceiving more tots with Angelina Jolie. “Those late nights are so fun when one of them’s up or those mornings when they get up and make pancakes or something. That’s what it’s about.”