MEETING MUSLIMS at CPAC.

IN THE MAIL: From Michele Pistone and John Hoeffner, Stepping Out of the Brain Drain: Applying Catholic Social Teaching in a New Era of Migration.

STARTING TODAY ON WESTWOOD ONE: The Fred Thompson Show. 125 stations coast to coast, so there’s probably one near you.

IT’S NOT JUST JOHN MURTHA: Visclosky’s ties to troubled PMA Group run deep.

WASHINGTON – He represents an area known for its rampant corruption, but Rep. Pete Visclosky has always had a reputation for staying above the fray.

That consensus is being challenged by revelations about the northwest Indiana Democrat’s ties to a troubled defense lobbying firm.

PMA Group was once one of the biggest lobbying firms in Washington, specializing in securing defense earmarks for its clients. Now, the firm is disintegrating amid a federal investigation into allegations that its founder, Paul Magliochetti, a former top aide to Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., steered donations to lawmakers through sham donors.

PMA Group’s top beneficiaries include Murtha, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds defense programs, and Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., who also sits on the defense appropriations subcommittee. But few lawmakers have stronger ties to the firm than Visclosky. His former congressional chief of staff worked as a lobbyist for the firm, and he received at least $100,000 in contributions from donors tied to PMA Group between 2006 and 2008, according to Federal Election Commission reports. PMA Group was the top donor to Visclosky’s 2008 re-election campaign.

From his seat on the House Appropriations Committee and its defense funding subcommittee, Visclosky has also reciprocated — helping to secure more than $23 million in earmarks in 2008 for clients of PMA Group.

Read the whole thing.

LAURA GOLDMAN: Is Sir Allen Stanford the New Bernie Madoff?

While the MSM is castigating the SEC and FINRA, they should also be casting blame on themselves. Since Forbes knew enough to place Stanford number 205 on their list of richest 400 Americans, they should have been able to discern how he was making his fortune.

Besides the depositors in Stanford’s Antigua bank, Beau Biden, the vice president’s other son, might be a big loser. Is the questionable business deal between the Biden family and Stanford enough to derail his presumptive bid to follow his father into the Senate?

We’ll see.

THE MARKETS ARE STILL voting No Confidence.

A “SEARCH-AND-DESTROY MISSION” aimed at Bobby Jindal?

MICKEY KAUS: “Is ‘having no help’ the new sign of political ambition? Democracy works to produce social equality in mysterious ways.”

DARREN HUTCHINSON: No Kicking And Screaming Yet. “At this point, it is unclear whether even solid prose and policy could alter the power of lobbyists and the impulse for members of Congress to secure earmarks. It is abundantly clear, however, that the wave of excitement that shaped the 2008 election has not transformed Washington into a place that welcomes substantive reform.”

AN “IRON CURTAIN” splitting the E.U.’s rich and poor.

WHAT WILL SAVE NEWSPAPERS: Howard Kurtz writes about the newspaper industry’s problems. He’s right that a lot of them are self-inflicted — including, in my opinion, the shortchanging of hard-news reporting.

But what might save newspapers? Well, I’ve been reading the Financial Times on the Kindle 2, and I’ve found it quite enjoyable, and, surprisingly, have found myself reading the paper in depth in spite of the Kindle’s okay-but-not-great newspaper navigation setup. It’s easy to read, you don’t get ink on your fingers, and there’s nothing to throw away or recycle when you’re done. Driving back from DC yesterday, I let the Insta-Wife drive a good deal and spent several hours happily reading things on the Kindle and I like it a lot. And it lasted the whole trip with plenty of battery power left, though I really didn’t use it much while in DC. I’m planning on subscribing to some other newspapers, as I find the experience of reading news on the Kindle better than I expected.

Meanwhile, for Kindle users, here’s a tip: When you go to the section list, all you get is the number of stories in each section. But if you click on the number, it will open up in to a list of titles with a sentence or so from the lede. That makes the navigation easier, but it’s not obvious unless you read the manual.

THIS DISCUSSION OF GAY MARRIAGE from a PJTV program at CPAC is kind of interesting. Points of agreement: Civil unions at a minimum, lots of support for separating marriage and state, even the designated Religious Conservative is sounding pretty progressive — and the audience (a couple of hundred) seems to like the progressive points.

UPDATE: Reader Matt Knowles emails: “I followed the link to the PJTV segment and saw that y’all had significantly lowered the subscription cost to $5/mo. I signed up right away. I’ve wanted to support PJ as much as I can, but $30/mo was too much when I first looked.” Well, I have nothing to do with those decisions, but I’ll take credit anyway!

LEE STRANAHAN: “You’re damn right I wanted the Iraq war to fail.”

ANDREW BREITBART: Rush to judgment: A media hopelessly divided.

KNOXVILLE NEWS-SENTINEL: Memphis newspaper under fire for posting handgun permits.

THE GORE EFFECT STRIKES AGAIN: “That’s right, folks: the Left’s day of civil disobedience in D.C. to protest global warming looks to be snowed out — just as I predicted back in December.”

ROGER SIMON ON THE Washington Tea Party and related CPAC matters.

HMM: Voters skeptical of Dems’ leftward lurch.

POLITICO: Obama faces test on gay military ban.

PALMETTO SCOOP says there were more than 2000 people at the Greenville Tea Party making it the largest in the country. So far, anyway.

OH, GOODY: Fox News: Iran has the plans to Obama’s helicopter.

MORE ON THE STANFORD FINANCIAL SCANDAL, including an appearance by some familiar faces:

Like rats deserting a sinking ship, in the wake of the SEC’s fraud charges against Stanford on the 17th, Senator after Senator and Congressman after Congressman has come out saying they are returning the money Stanford gave them. Senators Chris Dodd (Chairman, Senate Banking Committee, $27,500), Bill Nelson ($45,900), John McCain ($28,150), and even President Barack Obama ($4,600, but $31,750 firmwide) have all announced that they will be donating the money that Stanford gave them to charity. On the House side, Representative Charles Rangel, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and who sponsored legislation that limited IRS audits in the Caribbean – where Stanford was having $100 million IRS back-taxes problems — said he would be donating the $10,800 he received to charity.

Even the family of Vice President Joe Biden has been forced to offer to return $2.7 million to the receiver that Stanford had invested in a co-branded investment fund owned by Biden’s son and brother. The fund has offered to turn over the $2.7 million investment it received from Mr. Stanford’s firm in 2007 to a court-appointed receiver in the SEC’s civil fraud case involving Mr. Stanford, according to Paradigm’s attorney, Marc X. LoPresti. The $50 million fund was jointly branded between the Bidens’ Paradigm Global Advisors LLC and a Stanford Financial Group entity and was known as the Paradigm Stanford Capital Management Core Alternative Fund.

For all the condemnation aimed at finance types, these guys don’t seem to mind being in bed with them. And as I’ve mentioned before, returning the money doesn’t mean you weren’t in bed with them, it’s just laundering the sheets, after.

Plus, I note that Stanford’s receiver wants the money back, not donated to charity. And I’d like to know more about the “charities” that this money is donated to.

FROM TAXPROF, a roundup on Obama’s tax plan.