W hat in the world is the matter with the Republican Party? This is an election year when pretty much everything should be going the GOP’s way. A Democratic president is facing the worst reelection environment in a generation. The conservative base is fired up to defeat him and should be riding high after securing the largest GOP House majority since the 1940s. Looser campaign finance restrictions have unleashed the ability of the party’s wealthiest donors to spend unlimited amounts. Read full article > >

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Election 2012: Republicans united on goal — beat Obama — divided on how to get there

Twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, one thing is increasingly clear: Boy, do the Republicans miss communism. For Republicans, being anti-communist didn’t merely mean opposition to the Soviets and their ideology. That kind of anti-communism was all but universal in the United States, from the Republican right to the small, democratic socialist left (and encompassing European socialists as well). For the 45 years after World War II, however, anti-communism was also the Republicans’ ultimate wedge issue in U.S. politics. Read full article > >

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The GOP scrambles for a bogeyman

Fearing a tide of spending by outside conservative groups, President Obama is giving his blessing to a pro-Democratic Party “super PAC” that will work to help his reelection, his campaign said late Monday. Read full article > >

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Obama gives blessing to a super PAC

Before unleashing Democratic super PACs.

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Obama Feared Koch Onslaught

The first Washington sex scandal I remember following involved Daniel Crane, a Republican congressman from my home state of Illinois, who was censured in the (first) House page scandal in 1983. In July of that year, the House Ethics Committee announced that Crane and his Democratic colleague Gerry Studds (Mass.) had been accused of having sex with teenagers in the congressional page program — Crane with a young woman who was 17, and Studds with a young man the same age. The committee originally voted to reprimand both men, but a little-known congressman from Georgia argued that a mere reprimand wasn’t punishment enough. Read full article > >

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‘Family values’ still matter — when it’s the other party’s indiscretions

As our minivan rounded a mountain pass, a gaggle of giggling teenagers appeared at the fringe of a thatched-roof village. Hey, I thought, what’s with the buckets and the water guns? Splash! Ah. I’d traveled to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic to ring in the Lao New Year, but I had only a vague notion of how wet things were about to get. Read full article > >

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In Luang Prabang, Laos, Lao New Year is drenched in color — and water

The opening session of Egypt’s first democratically elected parliament erupted in chaos Monday as the Islamist dominating the chamber struggled to keep order.

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Chaotic Start to Egypt’s First Democratically Elected Parliament

THURSDAY NIGHT’S Republican presidential debate produced more equivocation from former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney about when he would release his tax returns and how many he would release. He was asked by moderator John King if he would follow the standard set by his own father, George, the former Michigan governor who was the first presidential candidate to release his tax returns . He put out 12 years’ worth in November 1967, as he prepared to run for the White House in 1968 — a point also being made in a Democratic National Committee video. All Mr. Romney could muster was an awkward “Maybe.” Wait until April, he said. Read full article > >

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Editorial Board: Republicans are falling short of the Romney standard

In late 2010, on the eve of the Arab Spring uprisings, a Tunisian blogger asked Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah what democratic nations should do to help cyber­activists in the Middle East. Abdel Fattah, who had spent time in jail under Hosni Mubarak’s regime, argued that if Western democracies wanted to support the region’s Internet activists, they should put their own houses in order. He called on the world’s democracies to “fight the troubling trends emerging in your own backyards” that “give our own regimes great excuses for their own actions.” Read full article > >

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Why doesn’t Washington understand the Internet?

President Obama ’s campaign announced Thursday that it raised $42 million for his re-election campaign and another $24 million for the Democratic National Committee over the final three months of 2011. “That’s a pretty good start,” said Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager, in a web video sent to supporters announcing the numbers. He added that the campaign has received donations from 1.3 million people last year — including 583,000 in the final three months of 2011. Read full article > >

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President Obama raised $68 million in fourth quarter

CAIRO — Leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s most powerful political force, say they want to offer the country’s ruling generals immunity from prosecution for alleged crimes committed since they took power in February, an attempt to ensure that the military returns to its barracks and allows a peaceful transition to democratic rule. Read full article > >

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Brotherhood floats immunity for generals in post-Mubarak Egypt

Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.) is retiring in 2012 after 12 terms in Congress, he announced Saturday morning. A new congressional map drawn up by the state’s independent redistricting commission significantly diminished Gallegly’s chances of reelection. His 24th district was drawn into the new 25th district held by the better-funded Rep. Buck McKeon (R), and his only other option was the 26th, which included part of his old territory but becomes more Democratic under the new map. Read full article > >

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California Republican Rep. Elton Gallegly retiring

At least 26 people have been killed in recent attacks by Rwandan FDLR rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the Congolese army says.

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Rwandan rebels ‘kill 26 in DRC’

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the French term délestage is used to describe power cutoffs, but when applied to food shortages, it illustrates a stark reality.

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Kinshasa Journal: In Congolese Capital, ‘Power Cut’ Applies to Food

Democratic Senator Ben Nelson will not seek re-election next year – in a blow to efforts by President Barack Obama’s party to keep control of the chamber.

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Democratic Senator Nelson to quit