Barney Frank Will Not Seek Re-Election

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) announced Monday that he will not seek re-election, citing the recent redistricting in Massachusetts as a major factor in his decision. 

Frank, 71, will end a 32-year career serving the 4th District of Massachusetts. Frank told members of the media at a press conference that the new district lines weighed heavily on his decision to leave Congress. In 2010, Frank won Massachusetts’ 4th District with 53 percent support from a largely Democratic district. Following redistricting, however, Frank lost some major Democratic strongholds near his home and picked up others that include people he’s never represented before.

Frank said the past four years have been “busy and stressful” in dealing with the financial crisis and he admitted he missed the “inside” work he used to be a part of. 

“Leverage you have in the government has substantially diminished,” Frank said. “A funny thing happened on my way to retirement. A very conservative Republican majority took over the House… [and] the things I fought hardest for could be in jeopardy.”

Frank added that he wants to become a more diligent writer and plans to begin this endeavour by finishing a long overdue thesis at Harvard University that he’d been putting off for years. 

“I’m easily distracted,” Frank said referring to his thesis. 

Frank is currently the ranking member on the House Financial Services Committee and will leave behind a legacy embodied by his work for America’s gay community and his role in the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill that passed in 2010. 

“This country has never had a Congressman like Barney Frank, and the House of Representatives will not be the same without him,” Obama said in statement. 

Top New Hampshire Paper Endorses Gingrich

GOP hopeful Newt Gingrich gained an endorsement Sunday from New Hampshire’s largest paper.

In a front page announcement, the New Hampshire Union Leader’s publisher Joseph W. McQuaid described the former Speaker of the House as a candidate who may not be perfect but has “the experience, the leadership qualities and the vision to lead this country in these trying times.”

“A lot of candidates say they’re going to improve Washington,” the endorsement reads. “Newt Gingrich has actually done that, and in this race he offers the best shot of doing it again.”

After a rocky entrance into the 2012 race, Gingrich has surged to become GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney’s chief rival. In a recent poll from the University of New Hampshire and local radio station WMUR shows the former Massachusetts Governor leading Gingrich in the granite state 42 to 15 percent.

In 2008, the Union Leader endorsed John McCain, who ended up winning the state. The full endorsement can be read here.

The New Hampshire primary, the second nomination battle in 2012, will take place on January 10^th.

Romney Wins Support From Senator Thune

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has picked up another key endorsement to contribute to his campaign for president. 

Romney won the support of Republican Senator John Thune (S.D.), who has gained popularity among Senate Republicans for taking the seat of former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle. 

“Mitt Romney has shown throughout his life in the private sector, as leader of the Olympics, as governor, and in this campaign that he will not back down from difficult challenges,” Thune said. “His plans to revitalize the private sector and restore our country’s fiscal health are drawn from his 25 year career as a conservative businessman. Washington could use these commonsense principles at such a critical time.”

Thune will contribute to the Romney campaign by serving as co-chairman of his national advisory committee.

“Senator Thune has been a leading voice in the Senate,” Romney said. “He will be a trusted advisor as I bring this message to voters, work to reverse President Obama’s failed policies and reform Washington.”

Thune will join Romney in Iowa Wednesday where the two will hold a telephone conference call with Iowa voters. The South Dakota senator’s support comes just days after Romney picked up an endorsement from the conservative New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte. 

Gingrich's Past Support Of Amnesty Called Into Question

Republican candidates at last night’s presidential debate tried casting current GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich as being out of touch with fierce opponents of illegal immigration.

Though Gingrich received applause from the audience for his answers on whether to extend the PATRIOT Act (he would) and how best to weaken Iran (produce more domestic energy), the former House Speaker found himself sandwiched on the issue of what to do with the milions of undocumented immigrations currently living in the U.S.

When asked to explain his 1986 vote in favor of the Immigration Reform and Control Act — also known as Simpson-Mazzoli — which granted amnesty to roughly three million illegal immigrants, Gingrich said he and other supporters of the bill were promised a set of goods that never materialized.

“We were going to get two things in return,” he said. “We were going to get control of the border and we were going to get a guest worker program with employer enforcement. We got neither.”

Gingrich said he’d now force some illegals to leave this country, but would let stay those that have been here for years.

“If you’ve come here recently, you have no ties to this country, you ought to go home. period. If you’ve been here 25 years and you got three kids and two grandkids, you’ve been paying taxes and obeying the law, you belong to a local church, I don’t think we’re going to separate you from your family, uproot you forcefully and kick you out.”

Though he never used the word, “amnesty,” Gingrich was immediately attacked for being weak on immigration.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, whom Gingrich has overtaken in the polls, pounced on the opportunity to distance himself from the former congressman.

“Amnesty is a magnet,” Romney said. “When we have had in the past, programs that have said that if people who come here illegally are going to get to stay illegally for the rest of their life, that’s going to only encourage more people to come here illegally.”

Moderator Wolf Blitzer of CNN followed by asking, “Are you saying that what he’s proposing, giving amnesty in effect, or allowing some of these illegal immigrants to stay, is a magnet that would entice others to come to this country illegally?”

“There’s no question,” replied Romney.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) joined in the onslaught against Gingrich.

“If I understood correctly, I think the speaker just said that that would make 11 people — 11 million people who are here illegally now legal.  That’s really the issue that we’re dealing with. And also, it would be the DREAM Act, the federal DREAM Act, which would offer taxpayer-subsidized benefits to illegal aliens.  We need to move away from magnets (ph), not offer more.”

As a tie-breaker, Texas Governor Rick Perry was also asked to weigh in. He sided with Romney and Bachmann.

“That’s one of the things that we obviously have to do is to stop those magnets for individuals to come in here.”

Later in the evening, an advisor to Gingrich suggested to me that his opponents looked weak for disagreeing with his more moderate views on illegal immigration.

“A lot of what you saw was the candidates on the defensive trying to step away or create some distance from his plans because his plans were so specific and so well-thought out,” said Ilan Berman, who serves as Vice President of the American Foreign Policy Council.

However, Eric Ferhnstrom, a spokesperson for Romney, told me that Gingrich’s position should serve as a red-flag to conservatives who do not support providing pathways to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

“Newt Gingrich supported the 1986 amnesty, and even though he conceded it was a mistake he’s willing to repeat that mistake by granting amnesty to today’s illegal immigrants.”

Paul Pounces On Lagging Super Committee

By Adrianna McGinley

Presidential hopeful Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) blasted the so-called super committee for failing to produce a plan to reduce the national deficit by $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years, an amount Paul called “laughably small.”

In a statement released Monday, Paul said the super committee “merely needs to cut about $120 billion annually from the federal budget over the next 10 years to meet its modest goals, but even this paltry amount has produced hand-wringing and hysteria on Capitol Hill.”

Paul said the cuts the 12-member panel was tasked with making were from previously proposed increases, and nothing substantial would have emerged even if a deal was made. The fact that they did not accomplish that goal, Paul said, “shows how unserious politicians are about our very serious debt problems.”

The Texas congressman accused the federal government of “lying” when promising to provide Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits to future generations while simultaneously “maintaining our wildly interventionist foreign policy.”

To eliminate new debt and create a balanced budget, Paul proposed returning to the $2.3 trillion federal budget of 2004, a figure he estimates will match that of the national GDP.

“Was the federal government really too small just seven years ago, in 2004? Of course not,” Paul said. “Only Washington hysteria would have us believe otherwise.”

The super committee is expected to announce Monday that no deal has been reached.