OVERNIGHT FINANCE: Trade fight brewing

HAPPENING NOW… SLEDGATE… CAPITOL HILL POLICE ENFORCE SLED BAN ON CAPITOL GROUNDS… POLICE: “For security reasons, the Capitol grounds are not your typical neighborhood hill or playground.” Lydia Wheeler for the hometown paper: http://bit.ly/1aNRldK 

FLASHBACK – – WINTER 1925, PHOTO: Senate Pages host a snowball fight on Capitol Hill’s lawn: http://bit.ly/1aNRKgi

{mosads}TOMORROW STARTS TONIGHT: THE STORM AHEAD – – > TRADE. President Obama’s push for fast-tracking trade agreements will likely be one his final legislative efforts before the nation’s attention fully turns to 2016. It will be filled with wonky ideological clashes over inside-the-Beltway political mines like currency manipulation and foreign panels. It will be influenced by conservative anger at Speaker Boehner following the Department of Homeland Security funding fight, with Tea Party groups believing him to be politically weaker. And it will expose a growing tension between Moderate Democrats and the so-called Elizabeth Warren-wing of the Democratic Party, which vehemently opposes Obama’s bipartisan trade policies. 

— BERNANKE, GREENSPAN BACK TRADE, via me: Former Federal Reserve Chairmen Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke joined a group of bipartisan former chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers on Thursday in urging congressional leaders to approve fast-track trade agreements. My piece: http://bit.ly/1AMjkzj

THIS IS OVERNIGHT FINANCE. Be careful in this weather. Don’t slip on the ice. Tweet: @kevcirilli; email: kcirilli@digital-staging.thehill.com; and subscribe: http://digital-staging.thehill.com/signup/48. Happy almost Friday. Thank you for the San Fran eatery tips. Keep ’em coming. I’m looking forward to escaping this winter snow and running across the Golden Gate bridge on Saturday. Never been.

JOBS REPORT TOMORROW. Dashiell Bennett for Bloomberg: “The February jobs reports comes out tomorrow and forecasters are predicting about 235,000 new jobs for the month, down just slightly from January’s 257,000.” http://bloom.bg/1wJYLJc

SHE’S GOT MAIL: HILLARY CLINTON’S EMAIL A BIG DEAL FOR DEMS. Martin Matishak for The Hill: “Democrats are scrambling to try and limit the damage from the escalating controversy over Hillary Clinton’s use of personal email accounts while she was secretary of State. With their likely presidential nominee now facing congressional subpoenas, Democrats began to circle the wagons Thursday, seizing on Clinton’s statement late Wednesday that she wants her emails released to the public as soon as possible… While Democrats are rallying to Clinton’s defense, some in the party are faulting her slow-footed response, with some questioning whether she has learned the lessons from her failed presidential run in 2008. http://bit.ly/1DYPWe3

— DAVID AXELROD, Obama’s former campaign manager, on MSNBC last night: “I think the real issue here … however this turns out, this problem is being exacerbated by the lack of answers from the Clinton campaign, or the nascent campaign, and it would be good to get out there and answer these questions… Why did she use a separate email? How did she secure that email? Was there another email through which she communicated with people?”

— CNN’s Deirdre Walsh: “When CNN tried to ask Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who some liberals are hoping will challenge Clinton for the 2016 nomination, a staffer shielded her and deliberately blocked the senator from answering. Warren climbed into an elevator without looking up.” http://cnn.it/1wWnrsp

— MORE FROM AXELROD, last night on MSNBC: “By not answering… questions, they are allowing this story to fester in ways that are unhelpful. So lack of speed kills in this case.”

QUICK Q – – > IS CALLING ELIZABETH WARREN ‘ANGRY’ SEXIST? The president of the National Organization for Women (NOW) tells me, ‘Yes.’ NOW president Terry O’Neil weighed-in on billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s criticism of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Buffett told CNBC on Tuesday that Warren would be more successful if she were “less angry.” “I do find Warren Buffett’s comment sexist… Calling a woman angry is often a way to shut her down when she is being assertive and powerful,” O’Neill told me. More: http://bit.ly/1EqT5EA

— THE BOTTOM LINE: The crux of Buffett’s criticisms of Warren match with what an increasing number of Democrats are starting to more publicly discuss: whether the Warren-wing’s rhetoric on businesses is the right political tone to grow the party heading into 2016. You already know: Democracy For America founder Howard Dean told me earlier this week that Warren’s “rhetoric needs to be toned down” and that “the rhetoric about wealth creation needs to be scaled back because Americans like wealth creation.”

RT WARREN BUFFETT, who praised Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” efforts on Thursday to get more men to support workplace equality: “Mary Rhinehart, a Berkshire CEO, is successfully running a $2.5B company in a male-dominated field #LeanInTogether.”

POLL: MIDDLE CLASS NOT FEELING ECONOMIC HELP. Rebecca Shabad on the latest from Pew: “Seventy-two percent said the government’s policies have done little or nothing to help middle-class people. Sixty-five percent said they have done little or nothing to help the poor, and 68 percent said they have done little or nothing to help small businesses.

“Seventy-three percent of Democrats said wealthy people have benefited a fair amount from the government’s policies, while 55 percent of Republicans said the same. Only 16 percent of Republicans and 36 percent of Democrats, meanwhile, said the policies have helped the middle class.” http://bit.ly/1GongOS

THE SHIFTING STRUCTURE AT THE FEDERAL RESERVE, via Jon Hilsenrath for WSJ: “The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, once the most feared banking regulator on Wall Street, has lost power in a behind-the-scenes reorganization at the nation’s central bank. The Fed’s center of regulatory authority is now a little-known committee run by Fed governor Daniel Tarullo, which is calling the shots in oversight of banking titans such as Goldman Sachs GroupInc. and Citigroup Inc.

“The new structure was enshrined in a previously undisclosed paper written in 2010 known as the Triangle Document. Under the new system, Washington is at the center of bank supervision, exercising control over the Fed’s 12 reserve banks, much as the State Department exerts control over embassies. The power shift, initiated after the financial crisis and slowly put in place over the past five years, is more than a bureaucratic change. It influences how the biggest banks on Wall Street are overseen and has begun to affect regulation in unanticipated ways across the Fed system.” http://on.wsj.com/1M7Qd02

— Meanwhile, outgoing-Dallas Fed Chairman Richard Fisher said last night that some in Congress (he didn’t specify) are weighing his proposal to shift more power to the regional bank presidents, reports The Wall Street Journal: http://on.wsj.com/1Gor4zP

BUDGET BATTLE, via Shabad: “House Republican Policy Committee Chairman Luke Messer (R-Ind.) has reintroduced legislation that would require presidential budget requests to include the cost per taxpayer of the deficit for each year the budget is projected to have a shortfall.” http://bit.ly/1aNS6nh

FIDUCIARY FIGHT: GOP POUNCES IN AGENCY TURF WAR. Pete Schroeder breaks it down: “Republican lawmakers are pushing back against President Obama’s latest effort to impose stricter rules on retirement investment advisers… Republicans are trying to throw a wrench in the effort, accusing regulators of failing to properly work together or urging the government to go as slowly as possible in drafting the rules… Top GOP lawmakers sent a pair of letters to the administration this week, criticizing the latest effort to establish what is known as a ‘fiduciary duty’ on more investment advisers, overhauling the way they are compensated. On Thursday, top lawmakers on the House Education and Workforce Committee accused the Labor Department of circumventing financial regulators in their efforts to write the rule. GOP lawmakers have long insisted that the Securities and Exchange Commission must play a critical role in drafting any new rules.

“Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), chairman of committee, and a subcommittee chief, Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.), argued the SEC was being overlooked. The SEC’s work on that front has been slow-going ‘it is clear coordination … is vital to ensure a functioning regulatory framework; it is unfortunately far less clear that such coordination is occurring,’ the lawmakers wrote to Labor Secretary Thomas Perez.” http://bit.ly/1NlZ162

STRESSED? COULD BE WORSE – – YOU COULD BE A BIG BANK. Peter Eavis for The New York Times: “Wall Street is on edge as it awaits the release of the results of the Federal Reserve’s stress tests, starting on Thursday. The tests, which occur annually, and were mandated by the Dodd Frank Act of 2010, aim to assess whether large banks can withstand a deep recession, a severe market shock – and, in the case of some large institutions, a default by another Wall Street firm. In all, 31 banks, including giants like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, will be subject to the stress tests this year.” http://nyti.ms/18munZp

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