(swong@politico.com or @scottwongDC)
BREAKING: AFTER VIOLENT NIGHT, ONE BOSTON BOMBING SUSPECT DEAD, THE OTHER AT LARGE – Shelley Murphy, Milton J. Valencia, Wesley Lowery, Akilah Johnson, Eric Moskowitz, Lisa Wangsness and John R. Ellement report for the Boston Globe: “A massive manhunt is underway this morning in Boston and several surrounding communities for one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon terror bombing attacks. A second suspect has died in a confrontation with police, while one police officer has been killed and another wounded. The search has led to the sudden shutdown of the MBTA’s entire network of commuter rail, bus, and subway services. … Authorities are searching for the man they dubbed Suspect No. 2 at a Thursday news conference — the man wearing a white baseball cap. Suspect No. 1 — the man wearing the black hat — is dead.
– “Most of the region’s universities – including Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Boston College, Northeastern, and Suffolk — announced that they would be closed for the day. The MBTA’s announcement that it was suspending service left people stranded at T stops and stations across Eastern Massachusetts. Highways were jammed with commuters. …
—“Boston Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis this morning said Suspect No. 2 is the person being sought by a massive collection of federal, state, and municipal police. He is believed to be the suspect who actually dropped the bombs at the race finish line. ‘We believe this to be a terrorist,’ Davis told reporters about 4:30 a.m. today. ‘We believe this to be a man here to kill people.’
– “[T]he night’s outbreak of violence began when police received reports of a robbery of a convenience store in Kendall Square near MIT. A few minutes later, an MIT police officer, who has not been identified, was shot multiple times while in his cruiser at Main and Vassar streets, near Building 32, better known as the renowned Stata Center on the MIT campus. The officer was pronounced dead at Massachusetts General Hospital. A short time later, two men carjacked a Mercedes SUV at gunpoint, and the owner of that car was able to flee at a gas station on Memorial Drive. The SUV proceeded out Memorial Drive toward Watertown followed by a long train of police vehicles in pursuit. At one point during the pursuit, the two suspects opened fire on Watertown police and a Transit Police officer, who was shot and who remains in critical condition at a Boston-area hospital this morning.
– “During the gunfight, the man known as Marathon suspect No. 1 was wounded and was taken into custody. This morning, Dr. Richard Wolfe said the man was brought to the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center emergency room about 1:10 a.m. with multiple traumatic injuries. … Wolfe said it looked like the man had been hurt by an ‘explosive device’ and that the man was struck by ‘shrapnel.’ The man was pronounced dead at 1:35 a.m. The hospital officials said they did not know his name. The night’s chaos began about six hours after law enforcement released images of suspects in Monday’s Boston Marathon bombings that left three people dead and more than 170 wounded. http://b.globe.com/17KMjZJ
AP NEWS ALERT: AP sources: Boston bomb suspects from Russia region near Chechnya, lived in US at least 1 year.
THE VIOLENCE OCCURED JUST SIX HOURS after the FBI released surveillance photos and videos of the two suspects believed to be responsible for Monday’s attacks. The Atlantic: http://bit.ly/Yz9WgU They’re also online at www.FBI.gov.
PRESIDENT OBAMA received an overnight briefing about the events by Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Lisa Monaco.
OBAMA: BOSTON ‘WILL RUN AGAIN’ – Earlier in the day, the president and First Lady Michelle Obama traveled to Boston to attend a memorial service for the victims. POLITICO’s Reid Epstein reports: “Obama has plenty of practice as consoler-in-chief. He’s had commander-in-chief moments. But faced with a threat that’s still unknown and could strike anyone, Obama returned to this city where his national political career began with a mission unlike any he’s faced before as president. And — as aides to his predecessors point out —he’s got to manage the tricky balance between leadership and politicized aggrandizement. At least for Thursday, he roused the people gathered at the interfaith memorial service held at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, in a spillover crowd location across the street and the people recovering at the hospitals he and the first lady visited after the speech. Delivering a message of healing and hope, he modulated between reassuring and rallying the crowd in a speech to the memorial service here Thursday. And they responded — in tears, applause and even cheers.
– “His response to modern terrorism: pride, resilience and an insistent assurance that Americans will stand strong against the ‘small, stunted individuals’ behind the explosions that killed three and injured over 170. ‘As you begin this long journey of recovery, your city is with you. Your commonwealth is with you. Your country is with you,’ Obama said ‘We will all be with you as you learn to stand and walk, and yes, run again.’ ‘I have no doubt,’ Obama continued, ‘you will run again.’” http://politi.co/17st6J6
CONCERNED WOMEN: VOTE JENNY SANFORD AS WRITE-IN – With national Republicans abandoning Mark Sanford campaign for a House seat, the Concerned Women Political Action Committee says South Carolina voters might have to get creative to beat Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch. CWPAC President Penny Nance said in a statement: “We are considering a write-in campaign. It really depends on whether there is local support. I have been clear on where I stand. Colbert Busch’s view on same-sex ‘marriage’ and abortion are out of sync with South Carolina’s more conservative voters, and Sanford’s candidacy is flawed, obviously. Character counts. And the people of South Carolina have no good options right now. We are only considering it … but I have to say, ‘Congresswoman Jenny Sanford’ has a nice ring to it.”
REID YANKS GUN CONTROL LEGISLATION: ‘PAUSE AND FREEZE’ – Tarini Parti reports for POLITICO: “President Barack Obama and Democrats have decided to ‘hit a pause and freeze’ on gun control legislation, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday afternoon. Reid officially pulled gun legislation from the floor, but pledged to bring the Manchin-Toomey agreement to expand background checks, which was defeated in the Senate Wednesday, back to the floor for a vote. ‘I’ve spoken with the president. He and I agree that the best way to keep working towards passing a background check bill is to hit a pause and freeze the background check bill where it is.’He said that would give gun control advocates more time to lobby Republican senators who voted against the legislation. … The Manchin-Toomey legislation failed in the Senate by a 54-46 vote.” http://politi.co/13qBtbD
NRA DUSTS OFF OLD PLAYBOOK IN VICTORY – Anna Palmer and John Bresnahan report for the hometown paper: “New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Rep. Gabby Giffords took on gun reform with the best of modern campaign tactics – spend millions on new groups, air slick TV ads and tap into social media. The gun lobby dusted off the playbook it’s used since the 1980s: yield no ground in negotiations, focus on a few targeted senators, galvanize 4 million NRA members with direct mail, and hold up the NRA scorecard as a thinly veiled threat ahead of the 2014 midterms. The winner: the NRA’s playbook. When the Senate voted down a bipartisan bill to expand background checks Wednesday, it was a stark reminder that big money groups are still no match for the NRA’s ability to get what it wants by playing retail politics — or delivering payback.” http://politi.co/17uUrKQ
FLAKE TO GIFFORDS: I’M SORRY – The NYT’s Jennifer Steinhauer writes on A1 in a piece titled: “For Gun Bill Born in Tragedy, a Tangled Path to Defeat”: “Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona was in an empty hallway in the Capitol on Tuesday when he bumped into Gabrielle Giffords, the former Democratic member of Congress from his home state who was critically wounded in a mass shooting. Both froze in anticipation of the painful minute about to unfold. Ms. Giffords, who had been fiercely promoting a background check bill for gun buyers, knew that Mr. Flake, a Republican and an old friend, had announced on his Facebook page the night before that he would not support the bill. So Ms. Giffords, who still struggles to speak because of the damage that a bullet did to her brain, grabbed Mr. Flake’s arm and tried — furiously and with difficulty — to say that she had needed his vote. The best she could get out was the word ‘need.’ Mr. Flake looked at the ground. ‘I said I was sorry,’ Mr. Flake recalled Thursday, looking despondent. ‘I didn’t know what else to say. It’s very hard.’
– “In the end, Mr. Flake’s rebuff of Ms. Giffords and his decision to vote with many of his Senate colleagues against the gun measure helped doom a search among a small group of Republicans and Democrats to find consensus around gun regulations. Their efforts were largely trounced by the intense lobbying of gun rights groups, which declined to support a modest initiative to expand criminal background checks for gun buyers.” http://nyti.ms/ZBJcNd
MARK KELLY TWEETS, TWEAKS FLAKE: @ShuttleCDRKelly: @JeffFlake heard u say on FOX “I think all of us want to keep guns out of the hand of criminals & those with mental illness. We can do it.”
@ShuttleCDRKelly: @JeffFlake I’m confused, friend. You had that chance yesterday. Want to rethink and join me and Gabby in making Arizona safer?
SESSIONS: SOME IN GOP DOUBTED ROBY AS ‘YOUNG MOTHER’ – Shane Goldmacher writes a massive National Journal magazine story on how parties get ordinary citizens to run for office. Former NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions tells him some GOP colleagues had concerns about a young mother named Martha Roby. “In fact, some elements of Roby’s male-dominated Republican Conference weren’t so keen on her candidacy initially, according to Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, the man who recruited her. The former NRCC chairman said that ‘people in the delegation’ were worried about fielding her in a 2010 Alabama race seen as a political must-win.
– “‘Martha Roby had a lot of people who, quite honestly, saw her as a young mother. They weren’t sure that that’s what they wanted to see,’ Sessions said. They worried, ‘That’s a seat we’ve got to win—why would we necessarily go and be for somebody who has a lot of family needs?’ he said. ‘We could lose the seat. Maybe she—you know the issues. It’s not second-guessing her; it’s saying that, ‘Does she have, you know, what it takes.’ Sessions pushed for Roby anyway and was vindicated when she won. But such resistance is symptomatic of a white- and male-dominated party that has struggled to appeal to women, youth, and minorities.” http://bit.ly/17KTPUn
GOOD FRIDAY MORNING, APRIL 19, 2013, and welcome to The Huddle, your play-by-play preview of the day’s congressional news. Send tips, suggestions, comments, complaints and corrections to swong@politico.com. If you don’t already, please follow me on Twitter @scottwongDC.
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TODAY IN CONGRESS – Both the House and Senate are out today.
AROUND THE HILL – Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson discuss their $ 2.4 trillion deficit reduction plan on a panel hosted by Bloomberg Government and The Moment of Truth Project at 8:30 to 10 a.m. at the Newseum, 555 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. At 8:45 a.m., Sen. Joe Manchin will speak about his failed gun legislation and other issues at an Inside Politics press breakfast at Third Way, 1025 Connecticut Ave. NW.
WICKER ONCE HIRED RICIN SUSPECT AS ELVIS IMPERSONATOR – Scott Wong reports for POLITICO: “Sen. Roger Wicker said he had once hired and met the Elvis impersonator who was charged Thursday with sending poison-laced letters to President Barack Obama and the senator. Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, told reporters the suspect, Paul Kevin Curtis of Corinth, lived not far from his hometown of Tupelo. The senator had briefly spoken with Curtis a decade ago at a social gathering he and other friends had hosted back when Wicker was serving in the House. ‘He’s an entertainer. He’s an Elvis impersonator. He entertained at a party that my wife and I helped give for a young couple that was getting married. He was quite entertaining,’ Wicker told reporters at the Capitol on Thursday. ‘A number of couples gave a party and he was the entertainer and we kicked in on our share.’ … Curtis, 45, was charged Thursday with making threats to Obama, Wicker and a local Mississippi judge, a day after the FBI arrested him. He is accused of mailing letters containing the poison ricin, and faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.” http://politi.co/17s7611
– WaPo, A1, below the fold, “Poison case’s troubled suspect,” By Aaron C. Davis and Stephanie McCrummen in Corinth, Miss.: “The Mississippi man charged with threatening the lives of President Obama, a U.S. senator and a Mississippi judge by mailing them poison-laced letters had grandiose ambitions as an Elvis impersonator, believed that government drones were spying on him and harbored conspiracy theories about black-market trafficking in human body parts, according to court documents and people who know him.” http://wapo.st/177Pqtp
OBAMA’S ODE TO COBURN – The president celebrates his friend in the Senate, Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn, in TIME’s 2013 list of 100 most influential people: “But after we entered the Senate at the same time, our wives, Michelle and Carolyn, hit it off at an orientation dinner. Pretty soon, we did too. Since then, we’ve bonded over family and faith. And we’ve harnessed our friendship and mutual respect to find places where we can agree and work together to move this country forward. We co-sponsored the “Google for Government” act, which made government more transparent and more accountable to the American people. We worked together to cut down on earmarks. And we continue to agree on the need to reduce wasteful spending and close tax loopholes that benefit only the well-off and well connected.
– “The people of Oklahoma are lucky to have someone like Tom representing them in Washington — someone who speaks his mind, sticks to his principles and is committed to the people he was elected to serve. After I took office, Tom received dozens of letters from Oklahomans complaining that we looked too close on TV. Tom’s response was ‘How better to influence somebody than to love them?’ Each of us still hopes the other will see the light. But in the meantime, we’ll settle for being friends.” http://ti.me/ZDyqVE (h/t: Donovan Slack)
DEMS FIND MUCH TO LIKE IN IMMIGRATION BILL – Carrie Budoff Brown reports for POLITICO: “The Senate’s Gang of Eight delivered an immigration overhaul bill this week that was far more generous to their constituencies than Democrats and Hispanic activists expected. The pre-bill marketing campaign — driven by leaks that seemed to come from Republican negotiators — focused on stringent new border-control measures and a long, difficult path to citizenship. The goal was to minimize conservative opposition by creating a first impression of the bill as a tough solution to the country’s illegal immigration problem. But when Democrats got a look at the 844-page measure, they discovered that their negotiators extracted more concessions than they thought possible. Those include an expansive version of the DREAM Act and subtle but meaningful tradeoffs on all the major pieces of the system, from family reunification to legalization and border security.
– “The compromises raise a potential stumbling block for the bill as it starts what could be an arduous process through Congress. Conservatives could balk at signing on to something that has the stamp of approval from liberal lawmakers and progressive groups. And liberals may have a hard time accepting something that Republicans may argue is a clear-cut victory for them. So far, negotiators seem to have quieted dissension on both sides. But that could change as lawmakers and activists give the bill a close look — and assess the reactions of the other side.” http://politi.co/17uUIxw
– The House Small Business Committee is jumping into the immigration debate. Small Business Subcommittee on Contracting and Workforce Chairman Richard Hanna (R-NY) will lead a previously unannounced hearing titled, “Help Wanted: The Small Business STEM Workforce Shortage and Immigration Reform” at 10 a.m. April 25. The hearing will focus on how the impending STEM workforce shortage is affecting the viability of small businesses, and what changes to existing immigration laws for temporary and permanent legal resident aliens are necessary to help small businesses meet their STEM workforce needs.
HOUSE PASSES CYBERSECURITY BILL – Josh Hicks reports for the Washington Post: “The House on Thursday passed controversial legislation that would allow businesses to share data with each other and the federal government for cybersecurity purposes. Lawmakers voted 288-127 in favor of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act despite a veto threat from the White House and opposition from civil liberties groups and privacy advocates. … Ninety-two Democrats supported the measure, compared to 42 who backed similar legislation last year. The Senate didn’t take up the issue in 2012, so the bill that year stalled after passing through the House.” http://wapo.st/13uCek2
ERNEST MONIZ, President Obama’s pick for Energy secretary, easily cleared the Energy Committee on a 21-1 vote, POLITICO’s Andrew Restuccia reports. Only Sen. Tim Scott voted no. http://politi.co/17uVpGY
THURSDAY’S TRIVIA WINNER – Jim Casto was first to correctly answer that former President William Howard Taft, as chief justice of the Supreme Court, swore in two of his successors, Calvin Coolidge on March 4, 1925, and Herbert Hoover on March 4, 1929.
TODAY’S TRIVIA – Claude Marx has today’s question: Which presidential daughter had a child with a member of the Senate to whom she was not married, and who was the senator? First to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day’s Huddle. Email me at swong@politico.com.
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