Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a darling of the Tea Party and conservative movement, has agreed to write a memoir about his controversial days in Washington for HarperCollins, according to publishing sources.
The first-term Cruz is expected to receive an advance close to $1.5 million after a four-day book auction late last month, easily winning the authorship primary over several others penning pre-presidential primary books, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
The advance would be the biggest for a conservative politician in years, even more than the $1.25 million that former 2008 GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin received after her sensational rise in Republican politics.
The book, still untitled and unwritten, will be partially memoir, partially Cruz’s view of how to get Washington working again and partially his vision of the future.
The outspoken 43-year-old has quite a story to tell, being the first Hispanic person to serve as Texas’ senator. Elected in 2012, he has been in the middle of several major fights in Washington, including last year’s government shutdown and the continued efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare.
ABORTIONIST KERMIT GOSNELL GETTING A TV MOVIE
The mainstream media largely ignored the horrific abortion case, but a project to make a TV movie about Kermit Gosnell is moving ahead with a public campaign to raise $2.1 million to fund production.
“I think Americans will step up,” filmmaker Phelim McAleer told Secrets about “Gosnell.”
The movie about the Philadelphia abortionist convicted last year of murder and performing an illegal late-term abortion almost stumbled at the last minute when internet fundraiser Kickstarter imposed restrictions on the explicit language that the moviemakers planned to use to describe the killer. As a result, the moviemakers shifted to another crowd-funding site, Indiegogo.com.
“Hollywood and the mainstream media have been very reluctant to cover this serial killer, but we think it’s time Gosnell’s story was told,” said Ann McElhinney, McAleer’s wife and co-filmmaker.
LAZY JUDGES: 16,000 CASES ARE 3 YEARS OLD
There’s one problem with the lifetime appointment of federal judges. What can be done about lazy judges, like some of those sitting on about 16,000 civil cases that are three years old or older?
According to court administrators: Not much.
At a House hearing, Julia S. Gibbons, a top official with the Judicial Conference of the United States, said judges are first offered help. When that doesn’t work, they turn to plain old embarrassment.
She said appellate judges have to fill out an internally distributed report about their activity — and inactivity. “The embarrassment factor figures there,” she said.
TOP MARINE WARY OF QUICK AFGHAN EXIT
The commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps is warning Washington that there “will be no peace dividend” from withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, and he’s cautioning against a hasty retreat.
“We can’t afford to simply pack up and go home,” said Gen. James F. Amos.
President Obama ordered the Pentagon to withdraw by the end of the year after outgoing President Hamid Karzai blocked a deal to keep a small U.S. force there.
But Amos, addressing the Atlantic Council’s Commanders Series, said a quick exit could lead to the type of violence and terrorism seen in Iraq after troops left.
“We must remember what brought us there in Afghanistan in 2001. We went there to Afghanistan to keep Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for al Qaeda and international terrorism,” he said.
HILLARY COULD WIN BIGGER THAN BILL
With her overwhelming lead repeated polls, Democrat Hillary Clinton is on a path to do something her husband and two-term president never achieved: win more than 50 percent of the presidential vote.
Zogby Analytics confirmed the trend showing the former secretary of state beating Sen. Rand Paul, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie by more than 50 percent.
If she ran and won that big, it would give her substantial bragging rights over her husband, who won in 1992 with just 43 percent of the vote and re-election in 1996 with 49 percent. In each year, Clinton and his Republican opponents lost votes to independent H. Ross Perot.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
