Douglas Bloomfield's blog

Newt Gingrich's most generous backer may be losing faith in the former Speaker's survivability in the race for the GOP presidential nomination and preparing to bet on another horse.

Billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson is thinking of switching to Mitt Romney, according to the New York Times, which reports he has sent word to the former Massachusetts governor that "he will provide even more generous support" if Romney gets the GOP nomination.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has apparently decided he'd rather attend the AIPAC Policy Conference next month than make what his aides had billed as a "historic" visit to Kenya and Uganda.

​UPDATE -- ​Karen Handel, vice president for public policy at the Susan G. Komen Foundation, has resigned in the wake of the Planned Parenthood controversy, The Associated Press reports. Handel had supported cutting off funding to the organization.

Pedicide is the act of shooting one's self in the foot, and the shot is fired from the mouth at the other end of the same body.

An Egyptian military delegation is in Washington this week with a wish list of weapons to buy with their $1.3 billion in annual U.S. aid while back in Cairo the generals running the government are blocking seven Americans from returning home, threatening them with criminal prosecution and harassing congressionally funded pro-democracy non-governmental organizations.

Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas have much in common.  Both are pure of heart, noble of purpose and free of blame. Each man wants nothing more than peace between Israelis and Palestinians and would have it were it not for the other one's intransigence.

"The Palestinians have no interest in entering peace talks.  I'm ready to travel now to Ramallah to start peace talks with Abu Mazen (Abbas) without preconditions," Netanyahu has said.

When Newt Gingrich was fined $300,000 by the House of Representatives in 1997 for unethical behavior and lying to investigators, the Speaker, now a multi-millionaire, said he didn't have the money.  Sen. Bob Dole came to his rescue in what was called the first time in history that a politician saved an air bag. 

Dole helped establish a $150,000 line of credit for Gingrich. Ultimately, Dole said, the Speaker got the money from other sources.

When a woman told former Sen. Rick Santorum at a Florida campaign appearance this week that Barack Obama is "an avowed Muslim" who is not legally the President, the Republican presidential hopeful didn't disagree. As if to reinforce her attack, he told her he's just as anxious "to get him out of the government." 

President Obama spent little time on foreign policy during his State of the Union Address but much of what he did have to say was very reassuring for Israel and its friends.

To strong applause from both sides of the aisle, he declared, "Our ironclad commitment - and I mean ironclad - to Israel's security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history."

With the red-hot Republican president contest moving to Florida this week, Democrats made a pre-emptive strike to shore up support among Jewish voters, particularly stressing President Obama's support for Israel.  Republicans are trying to make Israel a wedge issue among Jewish voters and contributors this year, especially in Florida with its large Jewish population.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, 41, Arizona's first Jewish congresswoman, will resign from the Congress this week to focus on her recovery from an assassination attempt at a constituent meeting early last year. Her battle to recover from serious brain injury has been heroic and inspirational.