Subject: Israeli charm offensive falls flat – How Rand Paul is trolling his critics – Republicans clash on immigration path
From: "POLITICO Huddle" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2015 07:09:53 -0600

By Lauren French (
mailto:[email-masked] 
[email-masked]  and @laurennfrench)

Alex Guillen contributed to this report.

ISRAELI CHARM OFFENSIVE FALLS FLAT. Edward-Isaac Dovere reports, "Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer and Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein rushed to meetings on Capitol Hill on Wednesday trying to calm a furor created by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned speech to Congress next month and quell a Democratic revolt that has dozens threatening a boycott. It didn't work. If anything, Democrats finished the day more frustrated. According to a source in the room, one Jewish Democratic member of Congress even accused Dermer of being insincere when he claimed not to have anticipated the partisan uproar he'd ignite when he skirted protocol and went around the White House and scheduled the speech
 only with House Speaker John Boehner." 
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PAUL, A MODERN DAY TROLL. Katie Glueck writes, "[Sen. Rand] Paul doesn't write the tweets himself: Roughly a half-dozen staffers have access to the account, and they post without getting sign-off from the the senator, according to Doug Stafford, Paul's senior political adviser. But he is deeply involved with his Twitter feed, driven by the sense that he wants to be a different kind of Republican candidate who reaches out to new constituencies - and he sees social media as key part of that engagement. It's all part of a broader strategy to run a tech-savvy, 'crowd-sourced' presidential campaign, where online communication is the first messaging priority and edginess is essential to cut
 through the clutter. 
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HOUSE, SENATE REPUBLICANS CLASS ON IMMIGRATION. Seung Min Kim and Burhess Everett report, "House and Senate Republicans have spent years training their ire on Sen. Harry Reid and President Barack Obama. But now they're clashing with each other. And that poses a challenge for GOP senators' initial strategy for escaping their immigration dilemma, which involves convincing their House counterparts that their aggressive attacks on Obama's policies stand no chance of becoming law....House Republicans so far aren't buying it, saying Republican senators need to fight harder. The back-and-forth speaks to the growing tension between House and Senate Republicans over their attempts to push back
 against Obama's executive actions deferring deportations for millions of undocumented immigrants. Even before this week, House GOP lawmakers were worried that Senate Republicans would move too slowly, give up on fights too easily and fail to stand up to Obama's White House - even with the long-sought majority in their hands." 
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HAPPY THURSDAY, FEB. 05, 2015, and welcome to The Huddle. Both Charlie Rangel and Cory Gardner pulled off funny (and mercifully short) speeches last night at the congressional correspondents' dinner - a sign that all of Washington may be able to finally move past last year's affair. Please send your tips, suggestions, comments, complaints, and corrections to
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[email-masked]  and please follow along on Twitter at @laurennfrench.

TODAY IN CONGRESS - The House will vote between 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The Senate will hold a roll call vote at 11:30 a.m.

AROUND THE HILL: Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will hold her weekly press conference at 10:45 a.m. in Studio A. Speaker John Boehner will follow with his media avail at 11:30 a.m. Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham will discuss Ukraine at 11:30 a.m. in the Senate studio. At 1 p.m. Sens. Bob Menendez, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy will join House Democrats on gun safety. The Senate Finance Committee will hear from Treasury Secretary Jack Lew at 10 a.m. on the FY 2016 budget.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Michael Steel!

TRANSITIONS. Lauren Hammond is joining Sen. John Thune's Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation staff as press secretary. She currently works for House Judiciary Committee.

BUDGET SHORTFALL FOR LOAN PROGRAM. Michael Grunwald writes, "In obscure data tables buried deep in its 2016 budget proposal, the Obama administration revealed this week that its student loan program had a $21.8 billion shortfall last year, apparently the largest ever recorded for any government credit program. The main cause of the shortfall was President Barack Obama's recent efforts to provide relief for borrowers drowning in student debt, reforms that have already begun to reduce loan payments to the government. For more than two decades, budget analysts have recalculated the projected costs of about 120 credit programs every year, but they have never lowered their expectations of
 repayments this dramatically. The $21.8 billion revision-larger than the annual budget for NASA, or the Interior Department and EPA combined-will be tacked onto the federal deficit." 
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THE OBAMA SALES PITCH ON TRADE. Victoria Guida reports, "President Barack Obama is stepping up his effort to push his trade agenda within his party, reaching out personally to House freshmen who have expressed opposition and calling the chamber's Democratic trade leaders to the White House for some face time. The president invited Democrats from the powerful House Ways and Means Committee to the White House on Wednesday so they could air their trade-related worries just days after he made the case for new trade deals in a letter to freshman Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona." 
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CRUZ STYMIED FROM BLOCKING LYNCH. SMK and Burgess have the story, "Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's strategy of blocking a vote on President Barack Obama's attorney general nominee until the White House relents on immigration executive actions ran into a brick wall Wednesday: his own GOP colleagues. Republican senators dismissed Cruz's proposal for denying Loretta Lynch a confirmation vote in the Judiciary Committee and on the Senate floor as part of the Texas firebrand's strategy to use "every procedural tool" at the Senate's disposal to override Obama's actions, which could affect nearly 5 million undocumented immigrants." 
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WHITE HOUSE FINDS CONGRESSIONAL ALLIES ON BIG DATA. Reuters has the story, "The White House is working with bipartisan sponsors on a bill to protect data collected from students through educational apps - the first of President Barack Obama&#39;s 'Big Data' privacy plans to gain traction in the Republican-controlled Congress. Obama has pushed to do more to protect privacy in an age when consumers leave a trail of digital footprints through smart phones, personal devices and social media - information that can be collected, analyzed and sold. He has proposed action on a series of laws to address 'Big Data' concerns, but most have yet to find momentum." 
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ON NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND, STARK REMINDER FOR DEMOCRATS ON WHAT LIFE IS LIKE IN MINORITY. Sarah Mimms reports for the National Journal, "Democrats and Republicans joined together this year to reform the law, led by two of the most well respected members of their conferences, potentially offering the only significant policy change that could clear the president&#39;s desk this year. What Democrats got instead was a reminder of what it&#39;s like to be in the minority. Almost immediately, Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander released a conservative draft of the legislation without any Democratic input. And he issued a schedule that will give committee
 members just until the end of February-around the same time the House plans to pass its own version of the bill-to enact some of the most significant policy changes the Senate has dealt with in years." 
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SCHOCK: &#39;HATERS ARE GONNA HATE.&#39; The Illinois Republican tells a local TV station he plans to pay for the lavish decoration to his congressional office. 
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REPUBLICANS MAKE PUSH FOR HEMP. Jenny Hopkinson reports, "Two of the most powerful Republicans in the Senate believe there's a much stronger chance to legalize growing hemp in the U.S., opening up an entirely new market for crops, health food, oil, shirts, towels and even dog toys. Kentucky's Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul and Rep. Thomas Massie are pushing legislation in both chambers of Congress that would remove the less-potent member of the cannabis family from the federal list of controlled substances, allowing its return to America's farmland after more than 40 years." 
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THE NUMBER OF THE BARTON: Turns out H.R. 666 is just too hot to handle. When Rep. Joe Barton introduced his bill repealing the crude oil export ban this week, it just happened to be assigned the number H.R. 666. But after blasting out the news about the bill on Tuesday, the Texas Republican decided it was best to get a bill number not related to the Book of Revelations. "It quickly became clear that the original bill number carried many different negative connotations," spokesman Sean Brown told ME. "We decided it was best to change it so people will focus on the content of the legislation, not the bill number." Barton simply reintroduced the bill on Wednesday, landing lucky number H.R.
 702. Bill text: 
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In case you were wondering: H.R. 13 is marked as reserved for Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

WEDNESDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER - Kirtan Mehta, a legislative director with Sen. Joe Manchin, was the first to correctly answer that Rwanda has the highest perfect of females elected to its government.

TODAY'S TRIVIA - The internet was abuzz this week with the news that a second book by famed author Harper Lee may be published. Today's question, from me, is about a literary genius who heavily influenced a character in Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. What author did Lee pay homage to by basing Dill on? The first person to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day&#39;s Huddle. Email 
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