The Hollywood Liberal

The top 10 battles between Members of Congress in 2012

Some of the most memorable House campaigns in recent memory have been redistricting-forced contests in which two Members of Congress face off.

While House members typically do everything they can to avoid challenging one another, sometimes the way line-drawers craft the districts in the decennial redistricting process make such showdowns unavoidable.

The aggressive approach both parties have taken to redistricting so far in 2011 — maps in Texas, Illinois and North Carolina all push the limits — means that there will be member-versus-member matchups galore in 2012.

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Republican candidates lagging far behind 2007 fundraising numbers

Are Republicans suffering from an enthusiasm gap?

After taking the House last November in a wave of conservative opposition to President Obama, Republicans now appear to be struggling to match the financial muscle of Democrats heading into the contentious 2012 elections.

The six GOP presidential candidates who have announced results raised a combined $35 million through June 30, including about $18 million by presumed front-runner Mitt Romney. In 2007, Republican candidates had raised more than $118 million by the same stage of the race, according to a new analysis from the Center for Responsive Politics.

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Bachmann laughs off “sex appeal” comments

GOP candidate Michele Bachmann said she’s laughing off comments from a rival campaign that her “sex appeal” gives her an advantage in the primaries.

Bachmann discussed the inflammatory comments on the Scott Hennen radio show. “Listen, I’m 55 years old. I’ve given birth to five kids and I’ve raised 23 foster kids,” Bachmann said. “So that sounds like good news to me.”

On Wednesday, former Minnesota congressman Vin Weber, who advises Bachmann’s GOP rival Tim Pawlenty, came under fire for saying Bachmann would be hard to beat in Iowa, in part because of her looks.

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In Yemen, tribal militias flex muscles

TAIZ, Yemen — Sheik Hamoud al-Makhlafi is prepared for war. Inside his palatial house, overlooking this tense city, more than 20 of his tribesmen stand guard with Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades; hundreds of other armed fighters are hidden nearby in neighborhoods wrested from government control.

“We are here to protect the youth of the revolution,” declared Makhlafi, 46, slim with short, gray-speckled hair and a razor-thin mustache.

But the intervention of tribal militias in what had been a nonviolent revolution has added a combustible new dimension to the uprising in Yemen. Portions of Taiz, Yemen’s second-largest city, have turned into a war zone, and while the tribesmen say they are protecting the activists, the change appears likely to bring more upheaval to this fractured Middle Eastern nation.

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House votes to block same-sex marriages on military bases

Intent on delaying a new policy allowing gays to serve openly in the armed forces, the House voted Friday to prohibit military chaplains from performing same-sex marriages on the nation’s bases, regardless of state law.

In a 236 to 184 vote, the House attached the measure to the defense spending bill, one of several steps the Republican-controlled chamber has taken this year to delay President Obama’s new policy. Pentagon leaders have said they see no roadblocks to ending the 17-year ban, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is likely to certify the change for midsummer after military training ends. Still, opposition is strong in the House.

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Sorting the Real From Phony Spending Cut Options
Fred Barnes, WSJ
Simple lessons from the presidencies of Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan point to what's likely to be the only successful approach to containing government spending in the Barack Obama era.In FDR's time, a surge in spending by Washington was a cornerstone of New Deal efforts to lift the country out of the Depression. But unemployment never dropped below 14% in the 1930s and rose to 19% by the end of the decade. “Now, gentlemen, we have tried spending,” Henry Morgenthau, FDR's Treasury secretary, confessed to House leaders in 1939. “We are spending more than…

Budgeting for California’s Future

GOP Recklessness on the Debt Limit
Steve Benen, Washington Monthly
For two-and-a-half years, Republicans have cited “uncertainty” as one of the most serious issues facing the economy. It’s a shallow and painfully weak talking point, but they’ve stuck to it. Focus groups must love it.The irony, of course, is that these same Republicans are responsible for a debt-ceiling hostage strategy in which they’ve effectively proclaimed, “If we don’t get what we want, Republicans will crash the economy on purpose.” There’s arguably no better way to create uncertainty than by…

An Establishment in Panic
Pat Buchanan, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
By refusing to accept tax increases in a deal to raise the debt ceiling, Republicans are behaving like “fanatics,” writes David Brooks of The New York Times.Anti-tax Republicans “have no sense of moral decency,” he adds.They are “willing to stain their nation's honor” to “worship their idol.” If this “deal of the century” goes down, as he calls the Barack Obama offer, “Republican fanaticism” will be the cause.”The GOP has become a cult” that has replaced reason with “feverish” and “cockamamie…