DAVOS -- This is Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper's first Davos. He paid his own way. Even though the big sport in these parts is skiing, Hickenlooper says the fishing at the World Economic Forum is great.

Fishing for business, anyway.

"We're trying to create jobs in Colorado. Not just make jobs, but create what we call sustainable jobs that will be there in 10 years. That requires you have customers. You are either creating a product or providing a service. There are so many wonderful executives here who are trying to grow their companies. They want to be in a place that is relentlessly pro-business and has high standards," he said. 

Hickenlooper said while companies don't want excessive regulation, they don't mind being held to high standards, particularly when it comes to the environment. So he's been trying to paint Colorado as a great place for investment, one that ticks all the boxes.

And there's been some serendipity in the snow. He met lots of people here who are planning ski trips to Aspen and Vail in the not-too-distant future. "That's an asset I never utilized before," he said. He said he plans to try to visit some of them when they head to Colorado, and give them a little guidance and whatever assistance he can. "It's about building relationships." He said trust leads to commitments.

Davos is known as a jet-setters mecca. But it is a lot more diverse than many people think. (read more)

Texas Governor Rick Perry has no intention of paying the estimated $2.7M security costs he piled up running for President.

Democratic state congresswoman Jessica Farrar's office hand delivered the Governor a letter demanding that Perry pay back the state funds Perry she says he "squandered" during his failed presidential bid.

But Texas policy dictates the Governor's security is provided by the Department of Public Safety.

Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan insists, "The Texas Department of Public Safety is responsible for providing the Governor's security, as they have been for every governor in recent years. The security is a state police expense, and it's being treated this year as it was when George W. Bush ran for president."

The amount Farrar, an outspoken Perry opponent, uses in her letter was provided by a group called Progress Texas. It is based on a breakdown of the figures released by the Department of Public Safety that covers Perry's first months on the campaign trail. But the number is merely an estimate, because the cost of security for Perry's entire campaign stint hasn't been released yet. (read more)

If there were ever any warm feelings between former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, they were clearly extinguished in an icy abyss in the late '90s.

In an open letter, Dole, who endorsed Romney right before the Iowa caucuses, accused Gingrich of being a "one-man band" who regularly generated "off the wall" ideas and demanded "his way or the highway."

"In my run for the presidency in 1996 the Democrats greeted me with a number of negative TV ads and in every one of them Newt was in the ad," he wrote. Dole, who waged an unsuccessful bid for the presidency against President Clinton and was relentlessly attacked for his association with the former House speaker," Dole continued. "He was very unpopular and I am not only certain that this did not help me, but that it also cost House seats that year."

The charge flies in the face of Gingrich consistent talking point on the stump that his Republican coattails would be long if he were to secure the nomination.

To convey Gingrich's baffling behavior, Dole said, "Newt would show up at the campaign headquarters with an empty ice-bucket in his hand -- that was a symbol of some sort for him -- and I never did know what he was doing or why he was doing it." (read more)

Following his long-awaited announcement detailing a proposal for massive defense spending cuts and an overall reduction in military personnel, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta revealed his list of the risks and the most pressing threats to America's security.

"This is going to be tough," Panetta told reporters Thursday. "Obviously it will be a smaller force, and when you have a smaller force there are risks associated with that in terms of our capability to respond."

So in the near future where will the world’s strongest military need to respond?

Panetta says there's a long list of potential problems. Among his top concerns, he says, are: the ongoing war in Afghanistan; the threat of terrorism; the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan; Yemen; a nuclear-capable Iran; a nuclear-capable North Korea; proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; turmoil in the Middle East, and the potential for cyber warfare.

The U.S. military's ground forces, specifically the Army and Marines are slated to lose nearly 100,000 troops. The Army will shrink to 490,000 troops down from the current 562,000. The Marines will shrink by 20,000, down to 182,000.

But retired Maj. Gen. Bob Scales says the Pentagon is ignoring the lessons of history. (read more)

The Romney Campaign circulated what it called an “open letter” penned by Bob Dole in which the  former Senate Majority Leader and GOP Presidential Nominee attacks Newt Gingrich.

“I have not been critical of Newt Gingrich but it is now time to take a stand before it is too late,” said Dole. "If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices. Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway.” (read more)

As Senate Republicans struggle to craft a collective response to President Obama's recent controversial recess appointments, which included Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, some are striking out on their own.

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., announced he will boycott Tuesday's Banking Committee hearing with Cordray, the appointee's first appearance before a Senate panel.

Charging that Cordray is not "the duly constituted director of the CFPB," Wicker said, "I will not provide the Administration with the appearance of legitimacy," adding, "This may seem to be a small step, but I hope it is the first of what will become a debate in this Senate by both parties about the constitutional checks and balance."

Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a former Supreme Court clerk, called the president's appointments "deeply flawed" and said he will throw up road blocks for future nominees "unless and until (Obama) rescinds his unconstitutional recess appointments." (read more)

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the nation's longest serving openly-gay member of the House of Representatives plans to marry his partner, Jim Ready, in a Massachusets ceremony. A date for the event has not been set.

If he marries while in Congress, he'll be the first openly-gay member to be married while in office.

Frank, 71, announced that he would not seek reelection in November 2011 after an unusually close race against Republican Sean Bielat for the normally safe Bay State seat.

Same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts after a state Supreme Court decision in 2004.

MT. DORA, Fl - In a fiery speech before a crowd of tea partiers, Newt Gingrich unloaded on Mitt Romney, accusing his GOP rival of outright hypocrisy for the negative ads now running the Sunshine state.

"You're watching ads paid for with the money taken from the people of Florida by companies like Goldman's Sachs, recycled back into ads to try to stop you from having a choice in this election. That's what this is all about," Gingrich said.

"The question you have to ask yourself is, what level of gall does it take to think that we collectively are so stupid that somebody who owns lots of stock in Fannie and Freddie Mac, somebody who owns lots of stock in Goldman Sachs, who is insistently foreclosing on Floridians, who is surrounded by lobbyists who are already protecting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, can then build his entire negative campaign in Florida around a series of ads that are just plain false."

Gingrich went on to call the ads "junk," and admitted they are now getting under his skin.

"I am angry. But I think I'm angry and every American should be angry. How can somebody run a campaign this dishonest and think he's going to have any credibility running for president?," Gingrich told reporters after his speech.

"I mean at some level there ought to be a sense of shame for someone being this fundamentally dishonest." (read more)

Only six steps separate the top of the rostrum in the House of Representatives' chamber where the Speaker presides over Congressional proceedings and the hollowed-out cavity below where rank-and-file lawmakers verbally spar over the nation's business.

In fact, the wood-paneled dais is divided into three levels. The lowest tier is just a single step up from the floor and where the House's floor operations staff toils. Go up another two steps to the second level and you're where the House Reading Clerk elocutes bills and other communications to the membership. One must scale three additional steps to peak at the rostrum's highest point. That's where's House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) or others wield the gavel, make proclamations and control the ebb and flow of House debate. (read more)

MIAMI -- Flanked by his squad of powerful Cuban-American supporters, including Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and former Sen. Mel Martinez, presidential aspirant Mitt Romney made an appeal to Hispanic voters in Florida that if elected president, he would take a much more aggressive stance against the Communist regime in Cuba than the current Obama administration.

"If I'm fortunate to become the next president of the United States it is my expectation that Fidel Castro will finally be taken off this planet," Romney said to emphatic applause from the crowd of 500 gathered at the Magic City's landmark building, the Freedom Tower. "I doubt he'll take any time in the sky. He'll find a nether region to be more to his comfort."

Romney also criticized President Obama's "appeasement" of a U.S. trade embargo and travel restrictions that have been opposed by the majority of Cuban-American Republicans. (read more)