First Door on the Left

Why do we even bother? It’s not like they have a functioning government, anyway.

BAGHDAD, July 30 — Iraq’s Parliament headed into a monthlong summer recess on Monday, halting work despite calls from the United States and the prime minister for lawmakers to shorten their break to push through important legislation.

The decision to take off the month of August almost surely eliminates hopes that the 275-member Council of Representatives will pass laws sought by American officials as evidence that the country is making progress toward stability.

The United States was hoping for movement on measures meant to reduce sectarian strife. One would divide revenue from Iraq’s vast oil wealth equitably among the country’s factions; another would promote reconciliation with Iraq’s once-ruling Sunni minority by allowing some former members of the Baath Party of Saddam Hussein back into senior jobs.

President Bush has been among those who have pressed the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, to ask lawmakers to take a shorter vacation, according to the president’s aides. And critics of the Iraqi government have noted that while Parliament is in recess, American and Iraqi troops will continue fighting and patrolling the streets despite the 120-degree summer temperatures.

Republicans: If they can’t win with the current rules, they’ll just change the rules…

A Republican-backed ballot proposal could split left-leaning California between the Democratic and GOP nominees, tilting the 2008 presidential election in favor of the Republicans.

California awards its cache of 55 electoral votes to the statewide winner in presidential elections _ the largest single prize in the nation. But a prominent Republican lawyer wants to put a proposal on the ballot that would award the statewide winner only two electoral votes.

The rest would be distributed to the winning candidate in each of the state’s congressional districts. In effect, that would create 53 races, each with one electoral vote up for grabs.

California has voted Democratic in the last four presidential elections. But the change _ if it qualifies for one of two primary ballots next year and is approved by voters _ would mean that a Republican would be positioned the following November to snatch 20 or more electoral votes in GOP-leaning districts.

That’s a number equal to winning Ohio.