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(1 of ) Water trickles down as workers inspect part of the Lake Oroville spillway failure on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017 in Oroville, Calif. The Department of Water Resources said the erosion at Lake Oroville does not pose a threat to the earthen dam or public safety, and the reservoir has plenty of capacity to handle the continuing rain. (Randy Pench/The Sacramento Bee via AP) (2 of ) Water flows through break in the wall of the Oroville Dam spillway, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, in Oroville, Calif. The torrent chewed up trees and soil alongside the concrete spillway before rejoining the main channel below. Engineers don't know what caused what state Department of Water Resources spokesman Eric See called a "massive" cave-in that is expected to keep growing until it reaches bedrock. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) (3 of ) Water flows through break in the wall of the Oroville Dam spillway, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, in Oroville, Calif. The torrent chewed up trees and soil alongside the concrete spillway before rejoining the main channel below. Engineers don't know what caused what state Department of Water Resources spokesman Eric See called a "massive" cave-in that is expected to keep growing until it reaches bedrock. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) (4 of ) Water flows through break in the wall of the Oroville Dam spillway, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2017, in Oroville, Calif. Engineers don't know what caused what state Department of Water Resources spokesman Eric See called a "massive" cave-in that is expected to keep growing until it reaches bedrock. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) (5 of ) The Pee Wee Golf course is inundated by floodwaters Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, in Guerneville, Calif. The Russian River rose above its flood stage again on Friday due to excessive rain in the area causing minor flooding. (AP Photo/Ben Margot) (6 of ) Part of the River Bend recreation area are submerged under floodwater Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, near Guerneville, Calif. The Russian River rose above its flood stage again on Friday due to excessive rain in the area causing minor flooding. (AP Photo/Ben Margot) (7 of ) The Pee Wee Golf course is seen under floodwaters Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, in Guerneville, Calif. The Russian River rose above its flood stage again on Friday due to excessive rain in the area causing minor flooding. (AP Photo/Ben Margot) (8 of ) A man operates a motor boat in a flooded area Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, in Guerneville, Calif. The Russian River rose above its flood stage again on Friday due to excessive rain in the area causing minor flooding. (AP Photo/Ben Margot) (9 of ) Grape vines at Korbel vineyards are submerged under floodwater Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, near Guerneville, Calif. The Russian River rose above its flood stage again on Friday due to excessive rain in the area causing minor flooding. (AP Photo/Ben Margot) (10 of ) A man takes a photo of a flooded street on Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, in Guerneville, Calif. The Russian River rose above its flood stage again on Friday due to excessive rain in the area causing minor flooding. (AP Photo/Ben Margot) (11 of ) Residents traverse a flooded street by rowboat, Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, in Guerneville, Calif. The Russian River rose above its flood stage again on Friday due to excessive rain in the area causing minor flooding. (AP Photo/Ben Margot) (12 of ) Grape vines at Korbel vineyards are flooded Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, near Guerneville, Calif. The Russian River rose above its flood stage again on Friday due to excessive rain in the area causing minor flooding. (AP Photo/Ben Margot) (13 of ) A mudslide reaches a home after a series of storms Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, in Orinda, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) (14 of ) A mudslide damages as home after series of storms Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, in Orinda, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) (15 of ) A contractor flies a drone over a property damaged by a mudslide after series of storms Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, in Orinda, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) (16 of ) A contractor flies a drone over a property damaged by a mudslide after series of storms Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, in Orinda, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) (17 of ) A mudslide covers a hillside after series of storms Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, in Orinda, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) (18 of ) A mudslide damages as home after series of storms Friday, Feb. 10, 2017, in Orinda, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

JOHN ANTCZAK

ASSOCIATED PRESS | February 10, 2017, 8:17PM

| Updated 10 hours ago.

LOS ANGELES California Gov. Jerry Brown asked President Trump on Friday to declare a major disaster in the state because of damage from a month of storms as more rain hit the south.

Browns letter said a powerful series of January storms brought relentless rain and high winds that caused flooding, mudslides, evacuations, erosion, power outages and at least eight deaths. Northern California was hardest hit.

Brown said the storm system was so severe and widespread that state and local governments need federal assistance to continue dealing with the problems it created.

In a separate action, the governor added Amador, Mono and Riverside to the 49 counties included in an emergency proclamation Brown issued last month.

A so-called atmospheric river weather system continued to pummel the upper two-thirds of the state this week but it weakened as if moved south down the coast on Friday.

The region from Ventura County to the Mexican border generally saw less than a half-inch of rain, although the National Weather Service said rain could continue to fall into Saturday, particularly in the mountains.

Thanks to a wet winter, downtown Los Angeles already has recorded 15.7 inches of rain since the Oct. 1 start of the water year, exceeding its annual rainfall total with the season far from over.

In the north, which reeled this week from fierce downpours, rising water and damaging mudslides, the rain tapered off. But problems persisted.

In Butte County, workers scrambled to rescue millions of baby salmon from a hatchery being buried in mud from the crumbling spillway of the Lake Oroville Dam. The fish were evacuated by tanker trucks.

Damage to the spillway could approach $100 million, officials said.

On Friday, state officials said they may be able to avoid emergency releases from the rain-choked reservoir by further sacrificing the concrete spillway.

Basically its going to be a triage situation. We know were going to have erosion going on but its in the best interest of the lake right now to be able to keep using the spillway to evacuate water, California Department of Water Resources spokesman Eric See.

A vast swatch of Californias northern interior and areas of the Central Valley remained under flood advisories or warnings into Saturday.

In the Sierra Nevada, winter storm warnings were to remain in effect until early Saturday in the greater Lake Tahoe area and Mono County.

Link:
Gov. Brown seeks disaster declaration for California flooding - Santa Rosa Press Democrat

Rep Brandon Dillon, D-Grand Rapids.(Photo: Dale G. Young / The Detroit News)Buy Photo

Lansing Theyre fed up with the establishment, they believe a key election was rigged and theyre plotting to reshape their party from the grassroots up.

No, theyre not tea party Republicans. Theyre liberal Democrats, and theyre planning a show of force Saturday at the Michigan Democratic Partys state convention in Detroit, where activists and elites alike will try to chart a new course for a party reeling from electoral losses.

Two separate groups inspired by Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a 2016 presidential candidate and self-described democratic socialist, have spent months organizing ahead of the convention, where Democrats will elect officials to congressional district and statewide party posts.

One youth-powered group, Michigan for Revolution, is working to bus in Democrats from around the state in hopes of electing a slate of candidates to caucus positions and the central committee, the partys main leadership and decision-making board.

The Democratic Party doesnt really listen to anyone but the establishment, and I think thats the biggest problem, said organizer Kelly Collison, 28, of Bath. They dont pay attention to the rural areas. They think theyve already won over people of color because theyre Democrats.

Sanders, who focused on closing income and wealth gaps in his bid for the White House, scored a surprise win in Michigans primary but ultimately lost the Democratic nomination to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Collison and other Sanders supporters argue hacked emails released by WikiLeaks prove the Democratic National Committee inappropriately aided Clinton.

President Donald Trump went on to defeat Clinton in the general election, becoming the first Republican to win Michigan since 1988. Progressive Democrats, as they prefer to be called, blame that loss and others on out-of-touch establishment leadership.

Right now its a party thats dominated by elite stakeholders and donors, and thats not the way it should be, said Michigan for Revolution organizer Sam Pernick, 24, of Huntington Woods.

Pernick and other young activists stormed a closed-door party meeting late last year in Westland, and he ended up pressing charges against a longtime Democrat and labor leader for alleged assault. He moved to drop those charges last week and said his group is not planning any similar demonstrations this weekend.

What we have asked is that elections be conducted in a fair and democratic way thats inclusive of all groups that want to participate, Pernick said.

A second group, Michigan to Believe In, is forming alliances with traditional party leaders. It has helped register Democrats in time to vote at the convention and is preparing its own list of recommended convention candidates, including Flint water activist Melissa Mays, who is aiming for a seat on the partys environmental caucus.

I think its pretty clear the Democratic Party on all levels needs to take a hard look at what its doing and rethink its strategy and platform, said Michelle Deatrick of Superior Township, a former Sanders campaign organizer recently elected as a Washtenaw County commissioner.

We need to be connecting and reaching out to people and listening to voters year-round, not just a month before elections, she said.

Dillon a lock for re-election

Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Brandon Dillon is unlikely to face a serious challenge for re-election. This is happening even though Republicans retained their majority in the state House, shocking observers who predicted Democratic gains, and unexpectedly won a handful of education posts long coveted by party leaders.

At this point we dont have anyone to run against him, Collison said. Its not the most glamorous job, and I know Brandon has had a tough time as it is. He took over a failing party when he came in.

As of Tuesday, Dillon remained the only announced candidate in the race. While party rules would still allow a challenger to declare ahead of Saturdays convention at Cobo Center, he or she would be at a huge organizational disadvantage.

Ive been campaigning as if I have an opponent and been really talking about what I think is the way to move the party forward, Dillon said.

The Grand Rapids Democrat took over the post in July 2015 after his predecessor, Lon Johnson, stepped down to run for an open U.S. House in Michigans 1st Congressional District, a race Johnson lost to political novice and now-U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet.

Trumps unexpected win in Michigan proved a boon for other Republicans. The party maintained its 9-5 advantage in the U.S. House and even flipped traditionally Democratic local offices in Macomb County.

Shortly after the election we started putting a plan together to reform what we do within the party, to rebuild power from the grassroots up and increasingly to activate people to resist the really incredible things that are going on with the Trump administration, Dillon said.

Pernick has been rumored as a possible challenger to Dillon, but he denied any interest in running.

I think he walked into a tough situation, Pernick said, noting Dillon has served only a partial term as chair.

Dillon has attempted to embrace the grassroots insurgency, which recalls the Republican tea party movement that began eight years ago in opposition to Democratic President Barack Obama.

The tea party was certainly successful in some of their efforts, but the comparisons stop I think at the level of energy and activism, he said. The (progressive) policy positions are in the mainstream of where Democrats have been for a long time. I think theyre just focused more on being bolder, stronger and giving people a reason to believe the Democratic Party can actually fight back and win.

Other establishment Democrats have also extended olive branches to former Sanders supporters. U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell of Dearborn, for instance, declined to seek re-election to the Democratic National Committee in December.

I dont think she stepped down specifically for me, but she stepped down specifically so a progressive could get a spot, said Deatrick, who was elected to the DNC post.

Michigan AFL-CIO leader Ron Bieber said the new wave of liberal activists have a lot in common with the labor movement, which has long advocated for fair pay and workers rights.

Im a progressive, Bieber said. Im with them on their issues. It was a matter of difference in candidates, and we can get past that.

Looking to 2018

Despite Trumps win, Democrats argue Michigan cannot yet be considered a red state. They remain optimistic they can regain at least some power in the 2018 elections.

Trumps pledge to fight for blue-collar workers was nonsense, said David Hecker, Michigan president of the American Federation of Teachers, arguing Democrats must continue to focus on fighting for economic equality.

Its the Democrats who have always stood for that, he said. Trump talked about it because he knew it was a way to get votes.

Deatrick, who has endorsed Dillon for re-election, questioned the Clinton campaigns tactics and said she thinks poor performance at the top of the ticket dragged down other Democratic candidates in Michigan.

They made a lot of big mistakes, and there was a lot of frustration here in Michigan from state party leadership on down about how the campaign was run, she said.

Motivated by Trump

Party leaders say Trumps election and early presidential actions have energized the grassroots in ways they havent seen in years. They point to massive womens marches across the country and protests over the presidents executive order limiting immigration and refugee immigration.

The Trump administration is doing everything it can to unite Democrats Dillon said.

Ive never seen this type of energy and enthusiasm in an off-year, Bieber said, and that represents a huge opportunity, but also new organizing challenges. How do we bring all these new folks into the fold?

Every seat in Michigans state House and Senate will be up for grabs next year, in addition to the governors office and the states 14 congressional seats. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, will also defend her post.

I think 2018 is likely to be not only a referendum on the Trump administration, but on eight years of total Republican dominance in state government, Dillon said.

joosting@detroitnews.com

Read or Share this story: http://detne.ws/2ka5xlJ

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Democrats face liberal revolt at Michigan convention - The Detroit News

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. The voter identified himself as a cancer survivor, and he had something to say to Republican Rep. Justin Amash: I am scared to death that I will not have health insurance in the future.

The comment earned 61-year-old retiree Paul Bonis a standing ovation from the crowd packed into a school auditorium in Amashs Michigan district Thursday night. And the congressman was booed for his response: That the Affordable Care Act has hurt a lot of people, and he supports his partys plans to repeal and replace it, even though Republicansstill havent united around an alternative.

Its a scene thats played out around the country over the past several weeks as Republicans and President Donald Trump have assumed control of Washington and begun moving forward on their long-held promise to undo former President Obamas health care law. In an echo of the raucous complaints that confronted Democrats back in 2009 as they worked to pass Obamacare in the first place, Republicans who want to repeal it now are facing angry pushback of their own at constituent gatherings from Utah to Michigan to Tennessee and elsewhere, even in solidly Republican districts.

And just as the protests in 2009 focused on health care but reflected broader concerns over an increasingly divisive new president and Democrats monopoly control over Washington, now, too, constituent complaints at town hall meetings appear to reflect more general fears about the Trump administration and the implications of one-party GOP rule of the nations capital.

In a Salt Lake City suburb on Thursday night, Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz faced irate constituents chanting Do your job! as they pressed the House Oversight Committee chairman to investigate Trump. Chaffetz struggled to be heard as he faced a litany of sharp questions and screams from a crowd of people who grilled him on everything from Obamacare to Chaffetzs desire to overturn a new national monument in southern Utah.

Come on, were better than this, Chaffetz protested over the hubbub at one point, practically pleading with the deafening crowd to let him speak.

In Tennessee, Rep. Diane Black faced questions from impassioned and well-informed constituents defending the Affordable Care Act, including one man who told her that he and others with health conditions might die without insurance. And you want to take away this coverage, and have nothing to replace it with, the man said. Black argued that the Affordable Care Act has been ineffective because although 20 million people gave gained coverage under the law, millions more have chosen to pay a fine and remain uninsured.

And in southern Wisconsin, RepublicanRep. James Sensenbrenner faced a voter who asked him: Whos going to be the check and balance on Donald Trump? Like others interviewed at town halls around the country, the woman asking the question, Barbara Kresse, said she has not been politically active, another similarity to 2009 when the advent of the Obama administration seemed to cause enough anxiety to awaken groups of voters who had never previously gotten involved.

Indeed the recent protests are being amplified by liberal activists modeling their opposition to Trump on the tea party groups that sprang up to oppose Obama and the Democrats. Calling itself Indivisible, a non-profit group that grew out of a how-to guide written by former Democratic congressional staffers has advertised town hall gatherings nationally, suggesting at least some level of coordination, which was the case with the anti-Obamacare protests as well.

Go here to read the rest:
Angry voters flood Republican lawmakers' town hall meetings - Press Herald

WASHINGTON

More than any other elected official, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama laid the intellectual foundation for President Donald Trumps brand of nationalist politics, agitating for a hard line on immigration and trade while most other Republicans were in thrall to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Trump was still firing contestants on The Apprentice.

Sessions, who was sworn in as attorney general Thursday, was succeeded on the same day in the Senate by the attorney general of Alabama, Luther Strange, a former Washington lobbyist and onetime partner at a white-shoe Birmingham law firm with deep ties to the establishment wing of the Republican Party.

Hes going to be a mainstream conservative Republican, Karl Rove, former strategist for George W. Bush, predicted of Strange, whom he met in the 1990s when the two worked together on the ferocious campaign for Republican control of the Alabama Supreme Court. Hes very smart, really hardworking.

The ascension of Strange to the seat Sessions held for 20 years offers a vivid illustration of how, even as Trump tries to steer the Republican Party toward a more populist orientation on some issues, the institutional party still largely comprises business-aligned Republicans.

Strange, whose appointment was enthusiastically welcomed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is no stranger to the swamp, Trumps derisive term for the nations capital. After playing in the low post on a basketball scholarship at Tulane University, the towering Strange whose nickname, Big Luther, eventually ended up in campaign television advertisements found his way to Washington to run the government affairs office for Sonat Offshore, then an influential gas utility based in Alabama.

He knows how legislation gets done and doesnt get done, and that gives him a leg up on others who may have a steeper learning curve, said Clay Ryan, vice chancellor for government affairs at the University of Alabama System.

A Birmingham native reared in the citys comfortable suburbs, Strange eventually made his way home from Washington and became a partner at a powerhouse law firm that represents many of Alabamas muscular corporate interests.

After working in politics on the outside, including his efforts with Rove to tilt the states judicial system toward business and away from trial lawyers, Strange entered a race of his own in 2006. He defeated one political scion for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, George Wallace Jr., but narrowly lost to another, Jim Folsom Jr., a Democrat and former governor, in the general election.

Four years later, Strange found success, defeating the incumbent attorney general, a Republican, in the primary and easily winning election that fall. He has cut a prominent profile in Montgomery, the state capital, raising considerable money for the national Republican attorneys general association and making no secret of his ambition to run for higher office. As attorney general, he helped to negotiate a landmark settlement with BP after the catastrophic 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

He has also made some enemies in a state with one-party rule, where the most consequential rivalries are between warring Republican factions. Michael G. Hubbard, speaker of the House, who engineered the Republican takeover of Montgomery, was convicted last year of ethics charges and removed from office.

Hubbard blamed political vendettas for his prosecution, which was handled by lawyers from Stranges office. (Strange appointed an acting attorney general to oversee the investigation and trial.)

But by the time Hubbard was found guilty in June, Gov. Robert Bentley, who appointed Strange to his Senate seat, was embroiled in his own controversy after a recording of a sexually charged conversation with a top aide became public.

Bentley, who divorced his wife of 50 years in the months before the recording shocked Alabama, denied that he had a physical relationship with the woman who was his senior political adviser or that he had committed a crime. Still, the scandal left him politically weak, widely mocked and prone to scrutiny, including an impeachment inquiry in the Legislature.

Strange proved a central, if quiet, figure in the fallout, and the Legislature suspended its inquiry at his request when he said his office was doing related work.

On Thursday, Strange noted that he had never said specifically that Bentley was a target of his office, and the governor, who will name Stranges successor as attorney general, denied any impropriety in his selection.

Although many Republicans in Alabama cheered Stranges appointment, his action in connection with the governors scandal led to some skepticism in Montgomery before a special election for the Senate seat that Bentleys office said would be held in 2018.

Its grimly problematic that the attorney general who blocked the impeachment investigation and who has not gone forward with the Bentley criminal investigation is rewarded with the U.S. Senate appointment, said the state auditor, Jim Zeigler, a Republican who is a frequent critic of the governor. There will be a challenger to Luther Strange in the special Senate election, and this will be an issue. His manipulation against any Bentley investigation will be an issue.

But Strange will probably have strong support from many senior Republicans.

On Thursday, just before a flood of questions about his own scandal and Stranges connection to its aftermath, Bentley said that McConnell had sent a clear signal in recent months.

I went by his office, and the first person that he actually mentioned was Luther Strange, the governor said. He named several people, but the first one that he mentioned was Luther Strange.

Read the rest here:
Successor to Sessions has deep ties to Republican establishment - MyStatesman.com

George Kennan concluded his famous 1947 article, The Sources of Soviet Conduct," which laid the groundwork for the doctrine of containment at the beginning of the Cold War, with this peroration:

Surely, there was never a fairer test of national quality than this. In the light of these circumstances, the thoughtful observer of Russian-American relations will find no cause for complaint in the Kremlin's challenge to American society. He will rather experience a certain gratitude to a Providence which, by providing the American people with this implacable challenge, has made their entire security as a nation dependent on their pulling themselves together and accepting the responsibilities of moral and political leadership that history plainly intended them to bear.

Almost half a century later, notwithstanding many stumbles, errors, and reversals along the way, America had won the Cold War. The American people, under nine presidents of both parties, had pulled themselves together, met the challenge, and accepted the responsibilities of moral and political leadership.

This should be a source of American prideeven if in certain respects we staggered to our Cold War victory. No one could stand up in 1992 and say of the United States and our allies what Winston Churchill felt compelled to say in 1938: "that the terrible words have for the time being been pronounced against the Western democracies: 'Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting.'"

Nations have their historic tests. We passed at least one of ours. So too do political parties. Will the Republicans pass theirs?

Edmund Burke, the founder of the modern party system, described a political party as "a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed." In foreign policy, the particular principle upon which Republicans agreed, for the entire Cold War and the period since, could be summarized as American global leadership. From nominee Thomas Dewey to nominee Mitt Romney, from President Dwight D. Eisenhower to President George W. Bush, from the Goldwater wing of the party to the Rockefeller wing, and allowing for many differences in emphasis and interpretation, Republicans agreed on the principle not of America first but of American leadership. Republicans embraced the obligation of America to accept "the responsibilities of moral and political leadership that history plainly intended them to bear."

Meanwhile, in domestic policy, Republicans, for all their differences, did share a broad agreement on respect for the constitutional order, limited government, free markets, and a free society under the rule of law. A commitment to this vague but not totally amorphous set of views, held of course by various leaders with differing shades of conviction and emphasis, has tied together the modern Republican party over the past three-quarters of a century.

And Republicans have also tended to unite on one other conviction: Character matters. This is a social doctrine, so to speakbut also one of relevance to the party itself. Republicans have generally tried to uphold certain standards of behavior. Republicans, after all, did not merely impeach Bill Clinton. It was Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott and John Rhodes who in 1974 went to their fellow Republican, Richard Nixon, and told him he had to go.

In 2016, through a series of failures and flukes, thanks to the accidents of politics and the arts of demagoguery, the Republican party nominated as its presidential candidate a man of bad character who has no interest in American leadership in the world or limited government at home. In the general election, he eked out a victory over a weak Democratic nominee. He is now our presidenta Republican president.

This imposes on the Republican party a peculiar obligation: to guide him when possible, to check him when advisable, to rebuke and oppose him when necessary. And, of course, to support him when he does the right thing, as in the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. But support of a president of one's own party is, as it were, natural. It's opposition that will be difficult.

Republicans need not act precipitously in looking for excuses to oppose the president. But they need to be prepared to do so. And they need to be aware of the kind of moral corruption and personal humiliation that comes from bending over too far backward to the obligation of opposing what needs to be opposed.

This obligation falls most obviously on Republican members of Congress. But it also applies to senior members of the president's own administration and to the Republican rank-and-file. Much of this guiding and checking and opposing can be done in private. But some of it will have to be public. And, judging from the president's first three weeks in office, some of it will have to come sooner rather than later.

Will there be tension between the peculiar GOP obligation of this time and place and the more normal activity of battling Democrats? Certainly. But a serious party can both struggle against adversaries and uphold its own standards. This latter challenge will be the more difficult of the two. But if Republicans do not rise to that challenge, the terrible words will be pronounced against them: "Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting."

Read more from the original source:
The Republican Challenge - The Weekly Standard