I've been blogging a bit, of late, about the GOP push to unseat Congressman David Cicilline next year. One of the perpetual challenges for Rhode Island Republicans is attracting national money - and getting it early enough to make a difference. GOP activists say the party will have to fare better this time than it did in 2010 if the Republican nominee - be it former state Representative John J.

Chip Young, who teamed for years with Rudy Cheeks on their irascible, colorful, and always entertaining "Phillipe & Jorge" column for the Phoenix, is back in the saddle this week.

Young left the paper this spring for an editing gig at GoLocalProv.com. But thankfully, he has come to his senses and returned. We look forward to more of his biting political satire, enviromental reportage, and amusing pronouncements on the absurdities of the American sporting life.

All hail, P+J.

David Segal, former Rhode Island state representative and Congressional candidate, has an interesting project in the works.

He is organizing a Conference on the Constitutional Convention (ConConCon), starring liberal Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig and conservative Mark Meckler, co-founder and a national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, the largest grassroots tea party organization in the country.

Senator Reed's quirky housing fix lands on Time's web site:

There’s an old Lily Tomlin joke where she says, “Wouldn’t it be great if all the people in New York who talk to themselves were paired off, so it looks like they’re talking to each other?”

In a similar spirit, apparently, Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) has proposed a solution to America’s foreclosure problem (i.

Journalists and open-records advocates sharply criticized the state police last year and early this year for a new set of guidelines that, they argued, placed unwarranted limits on the information law enforcement is required to release to the public about alleged crimes and the arrests stemming from them.

The chief complaint was about new language requiring the state police's legal counsel to perform a "balancing test" upon receiving a request for information - weighing the public's right to know against arrestees', victims', or witnesses' right to privacy.

Colleague David S. Bernstein has a report on the Aug. 1 vote on an amendment to restore Bush-era restrictions on travel to Cuba -- which was supportted by Congressman David Cicilline:

//www.xpnonline.org/ucp.php?i=pm&mode=compose

And here's an excerpt from a Phoenix editorial on the subject:

¡CUBA, SI! ¡CICILLINE, NO!

I'm off on vacation next week. But a few media notes on the way out the door:

• AH Belo, the Providence Journal's parent company, said this week that it lost $6.8 million last quarter, down from a $171,000 loss in the same quarter last year. Intrepid WPRI blogger Ted Nesi was in on Belo's conference call with investors and reports that the ProJo will launch the beginnings of its long awaited paywall in August.

I was talking with former Brown University political science professor Darrell West a few days back when hopes for a grand debt-limit deal, if dimming, were still alive. He offered, perhaps, the best explanantion I'd heard to date for Washington's failure to go big. And now, with the capital's ambitions shrinking by the day, that explanation seems even more insightful.

The sniping continues between the camps of GOP Congressional rivals John J. Loughlin II and Brendan Doherty, vying for the chance to unseat Congressman David Cicilline - or defeat any Democrat who takes down Cicilline in a primary.

Loughlin lined up 16 city and town GOP chairs for a fundraiser in September. And Dante Bellini, a Doherty spokesman, issued this statement yesterday in reaction:

As N4N reported last week, Republican Congressional candidate John J. Loughlin II's campaign has organized a fundraiser in September that will feature 16 different city and town GOP chairs - from Burrillville to Newport - as sponsors, under the handle "city and town chairs for Loughlin."

Dante Bellini, a spokesman for Loughlin's Republican rival Brendan Doherty, has issued the following statement in response:

There's something about Brendan.

Filmmakers Peter and Bobby Farrelly, who hail from Cumberland, have agreed to host a fundraiser for Brendan Doherty, the retired police superintendent running for Congressman David Cicilline's seat.

Doherty, a Cumberland Republican, has long been friendly with the family. But sadly, he doesn't have any juicy Three Stooges gossip.

Republican Congressional candidate John J. Loughlin II, who is serving overseas in Iraq, has fallen behind GOP rival Brendan Doherty on the fundraising front. Doherty, the former state police superintendent, raised an impressive $250,000 in the last quarter.

But Loughlin's supporters are holding a fundraiser for him in September.

In a move that could have implications for the looming Republican Congressional primary between Brendan Doherty and John J. Loughlin II, the Rhode Island Republican State Central Committee is set to vote, in October, on a controversial proposal to close GOP primaries to all but registered Republican voters.

At present, the state's Democratic and Republican parties both allow independents to vote in their primaries.

The Rhode Island Democratic Party has hired Jonathan Boucher, a Warwick native who served as deputy field director for Frank Caprio's gubernatorial campaign, as its news field director.

Boucher, who was also a regional field director for the state party's coordinated campaign in 2010, last worked in New York on a campaign to eliminate budget cuts to education.