Speaker Pelosi throws cold water on resolution to honor Michael Jackson

Even in death, Michael Jackson has the power to create controversy.

During the Monday memorial service in Los Angeles, Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee told the thousands of mourners in Staples Center (and the hundreds of millions of fans around the world, eagerly watching on television) that she would introduce a resolution in the hope of honoring the King of Pop for his humanitarian efforts around the world.

The Democratic congresswoman displayed a framed copy of the resolution she was proposing and insisted it would come to the floor.

On the face this would seem to be a no-brainer: iconic singer and long-time donor to charities gets a last recognition. Besides, anyone whose death can so monopolize the public arena should be a slam-dunk for a congressional resolution.

Not so fast, as The Ticket warned Wednesday in this item.

Some Republicans, including Long Island Rep. Peter King, said they had problems with the adulation pouring over Jackson. King, in a video posted on YouTube, called the....

Big Billy Mays' big heart gave out, coroner finds

Qwik update:

Sort of dueling autopsies on opposite sides of the country today: One case in LA possibly involving OxyContin and that famous singer what's-his-name, who died at 50 last week, and the other in Tampa involving OxiClean spokesman Billy Mays, who also died at 50. Hmmm.

We had our tribute to big Billy Sunday (click here to see the hilarious video of Billy having so much fun at his own expense), wishing he'd been in politics or his style of pitching had been in politics.

And we affectionately celebrated his big presence and big voice and big heart. Turns out today's autopsy results indicate it was that big heart that gave out.

The Hillsborough County Medical Examiner reports the exuberant TV pitchman died quietly in his sleep from hypertensive heart disease -- the left ventricle was enlarged, a key symptom.

The M.E. also said there was no evidence of head trauma. So the heart rate of U.S. Airways lawyers' is slowing down now. During a rough landing Saturday, something fell out of an overhead bin and hit Mays on the head, raising speculation of one of those silent brain injuries without symptoms that claimed Natasha Richardson after a skiing accident left her feeling fine for several hours.

The stocky Mays was taking painkillers for a bad hip, but the M.E. found the dosage was appropriate.

Check out the video here of the American insomniac's best friend.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: WireImage

Can Ted Kennedy save Chris Dodd? Video here

He is fighting brain cancer. He has not cast a vote in the Senate in three months. He is calling in plays on the healthcare debate, sometimes through his friend, Utah Republican Orrin Hatch.

But Ted Kennedy -- the lion of the Senate and the last surviving brother of President John F. Kennedy and New York Sen. Robert Kennedy, each felled by an assassin's bullet -- is still a player in Washington politics.

And now, the Massachusetts senator who passed the mantle of Camelot to Barack Obama at a key moment in last year's primaries is hoping to anoint Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd with the imprimatur of healthcare champion.

Widely viewed as the most vulnerable Democrat up for re-election next year, Dodd has a lot to recover from. Battered by reports that he received a favorable loan from Countrywide Financial, the current chairman of the Senate Banking Committee said he'd done nothing wrong. His poll numbers plummeted. And some voters were still grumbling that he deserted Connecticut during his run for the presidency, moving his family to Iowa for a year, enrolling his daughter in kindergarten there but, at the end of the day, not garnering enough votes for a single delegate.

Last month, a Quinnipiac University poll of registered voters showed Dodd with a 53% unfavorable rating -- and that was an improvement on his 58% unfavorable showing in March.

Can Kennedy's endorsement help? Dodd was savvy enough to release the ad now, about 18 months before the election. See what you think.

This is not the first time Dodd has rolled out a big name in hopes of recovering voter sympathy. Last month,  he posted an ad featuring the popular President Obama in the Rose Garden signing a credit card relief bill, giving "a special shout-out to Chris Dodd, who has been a relentless fighter to get this done.”

But this endorsement may actually say more about Kennedy than about Dodd, an indication that the man once viewed as the face of partisan liberalism in the Senate has become a respected figure to mainstream voters.

As the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza observed this morning, "That Dodd would use the once-controversial Kennedy in an ad is a testament to two things: He is worried about a primary challenge ... and that feelings toward the once-controversial Massachusetts senator have softened as he approaches the twilight of his days."

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Associated Press

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How to get a job in the Obama administration in a tough economy

First, get a lot of money.

Second, get a lot of friends with a lot of money.

Third, all of you give a lot of that money to Barack Obama's Democratic presidential campaign.

A new research study by the Center for Responsive Politics confirms what a lot of Washington watchers expected all along: All that Obama talk about changing the way Washington works is also a whole lot of hooey, at least insofar as it relates to United States ambassadors to other countries.

The capitol's decidedly bipartisan tradition for generations has been: Want to live in a foreign place for a couple of years, probably not all that important a place but still foreign, get a nice title for life, luxurious government housing, staff, car and driver and more use for your tuxedo than back home?

Then help the winning White House entrant finance his/her campaign.

And no one throughout American political history ever had a better-financed campaign than Obama with his $750 million.

The CRP has found 19 of Obama's new ambassadors and their families bundled at least $3.4 million for Obama's campaign and an additional $1.4 million just for his inauguration festivities. And you thought the campaigns don't keep track of such generosity? Even some of now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's donors are getting rewarded.

Yes, true, Obama did name Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman as ambassador to China. And Huntsman bundled $500,000 for Obama's defeated Republican opponent, old what's-his-name from Arizona who keeps popping up on the Sunday shows anyway.

But it's apparently worth at least a half-mil to Obama to get Huntsman tied to his Democratic administration, out of the country and far from Iowa in the run-up to 2012.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Hat Tip to Jake Tapper's must-read Political Punch blog.

Recognize the balding fellow on the $10,000 bill? We didn't either. Scroll down for his identity.

Kenneth Starr endorses Sotomayor. What will Rush Limbaugh say?

It happened just over 10 years ago.

Monica Lewinsky, a young White House intern, had an affair with President Bill Clinton.

And special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, the former solicitor general and judge charged with investigating whether Clinton lied to a grand jury about it, issued a report that sparked a personal and political crisis. First Lady Hillary Clinton wasn't speaking to her husband. Official Washington was paralyzed. Clinton's presidency effectively ended early.

Now dean of Pepperdine University Law School, Starr -- whose own hopes for the high court were dashed by his partisan and, some felt, needlessly salacious report on Clinton's meanderings -- is now endorsing Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court.

In a keynote address at Loyola Law School on Thursday, the man whose report was the basis for the Clinton impeachment trial said he "thinks very well" of Sotomayor.

The first Latina nominated to the court, Sotomayor has twice visited Pepperdine to participate in a program for judicial clerks, according to Mother Jones. "She was a huge hit with the students," Starr said.

As Sotomayor developments go, this one is kind of delicious. Will an endorsement by Starr, a member of the conservative Federalist Society, make it more difficult for Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh or any Republican in the U.S. Senate to oppose Sotomayor?

Watch this space. The Ticket will be chronicling the Sotomayor experience, from nomination to confirmation.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo credit: Dan Loh/Associated Press of Monica Lewinsky and her attorney, William Ginsburg.

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As California votes, Obama loves Gov. Schwarzenegger and says so

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gave up on his California ballot proposals today and flew off to Washington to talk about ground-based auto emissions.

The Ticket had an earlier item today here about his trip and the governor's political problems back home.

But now we know the Republican governor and California's congressional delegation and Californians in general were rewarded with some very kind and generous words from the Democratic president, whom the governor has often praised back.

Here's the video:

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Peter Grigsby / Office of the Governor

Polls open in a New York state of mind

They're calling it a referendum on President Obama's economic policies  and on the strength of his coattails. It's also a crucial marker for embattled Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who has called the race a priority and who needs a victory to steady his rocky start.

By whatever name, today's special election to replace Kirsten Gillibrand -- elevated to the U.S. Senate by Gov. David Paterson when Hillary Rodham Clinton left to become Obama's secretary of State -- in NY20 is shaping up as a hell of a contest.

This is a conservative, upstate, gun-loving district, where Republicans have a 70,000-voter registration advantage but where Obama won in November.

Democrat Scott Murphy  has embraced all things Obama, including the president's $787-billion stimulus plan. Republican James Tedisco has lashed out against deficit spending and welcomed helped from Steele, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and even robocall help from longtime crooner Pat Boone.

The latest Siena Research Institute poll shows Murphy ahead by four points (47% to 43%), a come-from-behind position after trailing Tedisco by 12 points in February (46% to 34%).

If Republicans win, look for them to champion the end of the Obama honeymoon and use the victory to energize their voters in upcoming gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia. If they lose, look for Democrats to crow about the president's continuing popularity and chances for Democrats to hold or boost their margins in the nation's gubernatorial races as well as the House and the Senate.

But Charlie Cook, whose Cook Political Report is a must-read for Washington's politicos, is dubious about how much the race means for the national landscape. In his CongressDaily column today, he writes:

Assuming that the margin in this upstate contest to fill the seat of newly-appointed Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is three or four points or less, my advice is to respond "that's nice," then yawn, and walk away. What is more important is if there is a uniform direction to several odd-year elections. If, for example, Republicans were to win tonight and knock off Gov. Jon Corzine in New Jersey in November, and pick up the open governor seat in Virginia, then it is fair to say that they will have exorcised the demons of 2006 and 2008.

And, he added, "if Democrats hold NY20 as well as New Jersey and Virginia, they can enter 2010 knowing that even if the wind isn't at their backs, there also isn't a headwind."

-- Johanna Neuman

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Photo (above left): James Tedisco. Credit: Reuters

Photo (above right): Scott Murphy. Credit: Reuters

Here comes card-check/EFCA: Another bipartisan bridge to nowhere

Big day today for heated controversy in D.C. Maybe you felt the heat on the side of your face facing East. And it's not going away for many months. Count on it.

Democrats, now obviously controlling Capitol Hill and the White House, introduced a long-promised, eagerly anticipated, much-dreaded, surely divisive, middle-class-encouraging, job-threatening piece of legislation in both houses to change the way American workers can opt for or against union representation at the plant.

Democrats call it the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA; store that one in your cranial RAM as you'll hear it often). Republicans and employers call it "card check." (Ditto.) Right now, in a vote to decide whether a plant will have a union, workers have the right to a secret ballot. (See amazing Teamsters news release below.) The unions and their supporters want a simple nonsecret card where workers could check "yes" or "no," likely in the presence of a persuasive union official.

Unions claim elections are costly and time-consuming, allowing employers to make a case against voting yes. Employers say two union officials showing up at a worker's door, asking him to....

Groundhog bites N.Y. Mayor Bloomberg, signals early arrival of pain

So everyone was gathered there on Staten Island for the annual Feb. 2 photo stupidity of whether the captive groundhog sees his shadow or not.

Good thing there's no economic or budgetary crisis in New York City or the nation to distract from such guff.

So Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the one-time-Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent, was presiding along with Charles G. Hogg, the zoo's live groundhog prop, party affiliation unknown.

Bloomberg picked up the groundhog and enthusiastically waved it on high for the crowd to see, which may not have been what the awakening creature had in mind.

Then, according to a report by Bloomberg's own Bloomberg news, Bloomberg teased the animal with a cob of corn, giving the groundhog a nibble and jerking it away, then offering it again and yanking it away. Lotsa fun.

That's when Charles G. Hogg bit the billionaire. On the left index finger. Right through the official mayoral glove. Drew blood.

Sporting a bandage later, the mayor described his furry attacker as "a terrorist rodent that might very well have been trained by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan." An embarrassed joke that may not seem as funny within New York City as without.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: Spencer T. Tucker / Mayor's Office via Associated Press

Yes, we can rip off President Obama's slogan and face

White House lawyers, apparently with few other pressing issues to press, are reportedly investigating ways of protecting use of President Obama's image all over the globe.

A whole lotta luck with that, guys.

Bloomberg News' Julianna Goldman quotes a White House spokeswoman: "Our lawyers are working on developing a policy that will protect the presidential image while being careful not to squelch the overwhelming enthusiasm that the public has for the president.”

As The Ticket documented here with copious photos around Inauguration Day, millions of articles bearing his image are already sold and worn virtually everywhere on the planet.

(See some sample photos by scrolling down or clicking on the "Read more" line below.)

Southwest Airlines had a "Yes You Can" ticket sale. Ben & Jerry's has a "Yes, Pecan" ice cream. And Ikea is pushing unassembled furniture out the door with its "Embrace Change" campaign.

Pepsi-Cola has the same old drink but a new symbol that looks remarkably similar to Obama's wiggly planet. Mark Silva reports over on the Swamp that some clean coal coalition is using the Great Change Agent's smiley face in one of its ads without White House complaint.

We haven't seen any ads yet showing the green Obama endorsing his favorite Honeywell thermostat that enables him to keep the Oval Office at Hawaiian beach temperatures. But J. Crew Group is advertising its clothes as worn by First Lady Michelle Obama, who's more concerned about some dollmaker naming a new line after daughters Malia and Sasha. Which the dollmaker said was just an amazing coincidence.

Here's another coincidence the new White House lawyers might not want to pursue. The widely used Spanish slogan -- "Si Se Puede" ("Yes We Can") -- was actually previously used by the recently reviled last president, George W. Bush, when he captured much of the Hispanic vote in his Texas gubernatorial campaigns.

So, who'll sue who?

-- Andrew Malcolm

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