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Longtime clean water advocate and liberal firebrand James Ehlers is running for governor in 2018, when he hopes to unseat Republican incumbent Phil Scott in a race that will feature stark ideological contrasts between the two candidates.

Ehlers, whos running as a Democrat, says its too early to outline the key planks of his campaign platform. But the executive director of Lake Champlain International, whos long called for greater public investments in government programs, says the differences between him and the first-term incumbent will soon become readily apparent.

The attitude and the culture of the campaign will be one that offers people a fundamentally different choice in philosophy, Ehlers said in a telephone interview Thursday.

Ehlers has most recently criticized Scott for failing to identify a long-term source of public revenues for a water quality initiative expected to cost more than $1 billion over the next 20 years.

Ehlers says his campaign will try to galvanize the public buy-in he thinks is needed to improve environmental and economic conditions in the state.

I guess I would say its a modern day barn raising of sorts, where we all come together to invest in our homes, our forests, our rivers, our lakes, as well as Main Street, Ehlers says.

Ehlers has never before run for political office, but he says its time to expand his advocacy beyond the environmental issues hes been working on for 20 years.

It seems like its time for me to take my skills and leadership ability and advocate for Vermonters on all the issues that are impacting us and our children, Ehlers says.

Asked about Ehlers announcement Thursday, Scott said he intends to seek a second term in office, but isnt ready to begin talking about the campaign.

Its a long time between now and then, Scott said.

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Water Quality Advocate James Ehlers To Run For Governor, As Democrat - Vermont Public Radio

Protest against U.S. President Donald Trump in New York. Credit: Caitlin Ochs/Sputnik via AP

For me, and I imagine most Americans, the election of Donald Trump raised a host of disturbing questions. Now, six months into this new political era, all the questions but one have been answered: How are we going to rebuild ourpolitical system?

To say that I have been an outspoken Trump opponent would be an understatement. As a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, I came out against him early on. Still, immediately after the election I did say that I was willing to give him a chance.

By early February, however, any hope that Trump would become presidential had lapsed. Trump meant every word he said during the campaign. He is a protectionist, an isolationist and a nativist. He has the instincts of an authoritarian who would silence the mainstream media with new libel laws if he could.

I urged Republicans to directly oppose Trump, but to little avail. Today, there are two types of Republican politicians: enthusiastic Trump supporters, and those who submit through their silence. If you dare oppose Trump you are attackedand threatened with a primary opponent.

Republicans have abandoned traditional Reaganite policies such as free trade because their base voters agree with Trump. I have come to accept that I am now the one out of step with Republican voters. It truly is Trumps party now.

Even my hopes that Washington state Republicans could maintain their traditional moderate identity and work with Democrats to get big things done have largely been dashed.

To be sure, the gridlock and dysfunction in Olympia is not nearly as bad as it is in Washington, D.C. Significant bills were passed this year, including bills on paid family leave and greater protections for victims of sexual assault. But by Olympia standards, the 2017 session was a disaster. After three special sessions, the longest legislative meeting in state history, Olympia melted down in partisan rancor.

Republicans demanded that Democrats pass a bill on water rights in rural areas. When Democrats refused, Republicans retaliated by not passing the capital construction budget for the first time in state history. Republicans and Democrats had six months to make a deal on water rights. Because they failed, rural residents face the loss of their property values, and $4 billion in needed projects, including $1 billion in school construction projects, are now on hold.

And what about the agreement they reached on school funding in response to the McCleary case? The legislature did deal with one of the major issues by capping school levies, thus eliminating the inequity between rich school districts and poor school districts. But they failed to fund the salaries of thousands of school staff, and instead gave districts the authority to continue to use levy dollars to pay staff. This is a clear violation of the Supreme Courts 2012 order in this case.

Everywhere you look, our political system is breaking down. No major legislation has passed in Washington, D.C. The debt is still rising. Social Security and Medicare are still going broke. The government will run out of cash in October. Every year sees interminable special sessions in Olympia and vicious mudslinging campaigns.

A recent poll showed that only half of Americans have faith in American democracy. Horrifying as this is, its no great surprise: Why should anyone have faith in a system that is clearly failing to produce results?

But there are glimmers of hope. Not long ago I received an email from a respected, bipartisan national group thatis working to create an offshoot to focus on the brokenness of our political system one which will examine and elevate a discussion as to the causes of, and possible solutions to address, the deteriorating state of our politics.

And there are efforts afoot to reclaim the political center.For the past 160 years, the Republican and Democratic parties have monopolized political power because one was a center-right coalition, and the other was center-left. Third parties espoused fringe ideas and attracted little support. Today it is the major parties that are pushing fringe ideas, and that creates an opportunity.

In Washington, D.C., recently,a new group promoting the election of Centrist Independents met with the national media. The Centrist Projectaims to appeal to the voters Rs and Ds have left behind: fiscally conservative, but socially moderate.

Where does this all lead? Frankly, I dont know. Perhaps one or both parties will regain their sanity and move back toward the center, although that seems increasingly unlikely. Perhaps a centrist third party will form. Perhaps one of our two major parties will fade away as the Federalist and Whig parties did in the 1800s. Perhaps more and more candidates will choose to run as independents.

Whatever happens, I believe we are at one of those moments in American history when our political system is beginning to go through major realignment.

Like the shifting of tectonic plates, these changes happen gradually. It took elevenyears of British abuses before our founders finally agreed on independence. It took 14 years of agitation over slavery to finally cause the creation of the Republican Party. It took several elections for the South to go from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican.

New political movements take time to mature, so dont expect the end of the current party system to happen overnight. But something is stirring. The last six months were just the beginning: 2018 and 2020 are going to be transformational.

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I'm not sure I'm a Republican anymore - Crosscut

Many Republicans on Capitol Hill are praying President Trump doesn't brashly fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions or special counsel Robert Mueller, who's heading up the Trump campaign-Russia investigation.

The House is set to leave Washington Friday for a month-long August recess, while the Senate is slated to take off two weeks later. There's fear that while the nation's lawmakers are away, the president will do more than mess around on Twitter: They're worried he may take advantage of their absence to reshuffle the decks at the Justice Department in an attempt to kill the Russia probe that has enveloped his presidency from day one.

The president's repeated interviews and continued, petty tweets lambasting the attorney general for recusing himself from the Russia investigation have angered Democrats including many who despise Sessions but especially Sessions' former Republican Senate colleagues who say he did the right thing.

"Under the guidelines, the attorney general really had no other choice" than to recuse, Republican Sen. Susan Collins recently told reporters. "His job as chief law enforcement officer of the country is to abide by the guidelines of the Department of Justice when it comes to cases where he may have a real or perceived conflict of interest, and that's what the attorney general did."

If the president did fire Sessions which would be legal, but would strongly suggest the president is trying to bury the investigation the Senate would have to confirm whoever the president picks to replace him. Democrats would cry bloody murder, fearing the president would only tap a loyalist who would try to end the Russia probe altogether.

Democrats opposed Sessions' nomination, citing his history of racism and how he lied under oath, and arguing that he's out of touch for trying to revive the tough-on-crime stance that has American's prisons bursting at the seams and his desire to crack down on marijuana business owners. But now some prominent Democrats are defending him against Trump's attacks.

"All Americans should be wondering: Why is the president publicly publicly demeaning and humiliating such a close friend and supporter, a member of his own cabinet? They should wonder if the president is trying to pry open the office of attorney general to appoint someone during the August recess who will fire special counsel Mueller and shut down the Russia investigation," Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a Senate floor speech this week. "Let me say, if such a situation arises, Democrats would use every tool in our toolbox to stymie such a recess appointment."

But even for most Republicans, there doesn't seem to be any appetite to approve a new attorney general. The chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley, told rreporters he's got enough on his plate with the plethora of judicial nominations before his committee and that he has no plans to hold hearings this fall on a new AG. He said Sessions has his full support and that it's odd the president is tormenting one of his closest ideological allies in his cabinet.

"I've been very clear ... that Sessions is probably the one person in the cabinet who is doing more of the president's agenda than anyone else, and one of the big things that the president wants to accomplish is getting strict constructionists on the courts in the United States and I don't need to spend any more time doing nominations," a gruff Grassley said.

While the president tweets, Republicans on Capitol Hill usually send out gentle nudges to try to keep him in line with his own agenda. But they're becoming blunt as they recognize the immediate political consequences that would likely overwhelm this sporadic freshman president.

"Well it's the president's prerogative, but he is then going to jeopardize, potentially, his ability to get anything else done here," the Senate's number-two Republican, John Cornyn, told reporters. "I don't think that should be his desire or preference."

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham is going a step further than his colleagues. He said there will be "holy hell to pay" if Trump cans Sessions. He's preparing legislation that he plans to introduce next week to protect Mueller from being fired by the very president he's investigating, unless there's a judicial review that finds good cause.

"Any effort to go after Mueller could be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency, unless Mueller did something wrong," Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters on Capitol Hill. "This is not draining the swamp. What he's interjecting is turning democracy upside down."

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Republicans Are Not Thrilled Trump's Toying With Firing Jeff Sessions - RollingStone.com

CARACAS, Venezuela Government opponents are begging Venezuelans to sit out a vote on Sunday forwhat they see as a puppet congress and the last step toward dictatorship in this South American country. But Jos, a Caracas bus driver, said he and other public transit employees were given an ultimatum by their bosses.

Turn out and vote for the new congress, in an election in which nearly every candidate is a supporter of President Nicols Maduro.

Or else.

Theyre obliging us to vote, said the young father of two, who declined to give his last name, fearing repercussions.If not, theyll fire us, and what are we going to do without a job?

Venezuela is not yet the kind of dictatorship that once proliferated in Latin America with rulers who disappeared opponents, banned books and movies, and ran mass torture centers.Government pressure and violence against journalists have drastically curbed the press, but digital media outlets thrive. Hundreds of political prisoners are in jail, according to human rights groups, but opposition leaders continue to forcefully speak out. This month, the government allowed one major critic Leopoldo Lpez, the former mayor of Caracas to exchange his jail cell for house arrest.

Yet on Sunday, critics say, an authoritarian system long in the making will be formalized, reviving memories of an era that the region had hoped was over. In defiance of international warnings, the socialist government is pushing forward with a vote to elect a constituent assembly that will have the authority to change the 1999 constitution, supplant the opposition-controlled legislature and potentially keep Maduro in power indefinitely.

The opposition on Thursday called for three days of massive, nationwide protests as the government showed no willingness to back down and following the slaying of seven more demonstrators in two days. Responding to the spiraling tensions, the U.S. State Department ordered the departure of family members of American staff at its embassy in Caracas. It also authorized voluntary departures for American staff, and issued a broad travel warning for U.S. citizens.

Maduro the anointed successor of firebrand leader Hugo Chvez, who died in 2013 strongly defends the new assembly, saying it will fortify what he hails as the communal state. While its unclear exactly what he is seeking in a new constitution, it would likely give more power to communal councils in poor neighborhoods. Leaders of those councils, critics say, are government loyalists who in practice would sideline elected politicians and win direct pipelines to government funds.

On the surface, the assembly vote, along with the governments pseudo-Soviet speak, hark back to old-school Marxist regimes. But many here see something perhaps more sinister emerging a 21st-century thugocracy that rules by coercion, extortion and violence.

About 100 people have died in three months of anti-government street protests. Arrests of political activists have accelerated. Bands of pro-government toughs known as colectivos roam poor neighborhoods, waving guns, intimidating protesters and journalists, beating opposition politicians, and warning locals to toe the government line.

[How a new kind of protest movement has arisen in Venezuela]

More than 7 million people voted against the establishment of the new assembly in an informal referendum July 16. Opposition parties are boycotting the election.

In a country where the government is the largest employer, state workers say they are being ordered to vote Sunday, at the risk of losing their jobs. HIV patients say officials have threatened to cut off their supplies of antiretroviral drugs if they do not turn out for the election. Families risk being scratched off government food distribution rosters for not showing up a dire outcome in a country where a socialist experiment and economic mismanagement have sparked hyperinflation and food shortages.

Such threats are not idle, either. Yanelis Banco, 36 years old and nearly nine months pregnant, said her boss at thegovernment postal service called her in along with other department heads for a talk last week. He ordered them, she said, to sign a form pledging to vote Sunday.

She and five other senior staffers refused. All of them lost their jobs, she said.

Im a pregnant woman who has been working in the company for 10 years and four months, so I didnt think theyd fire me, she said. Why do I have to sign if I dont agree? I thought the law protected me!

She added: All the other employees are terrified. Now theyre sure that if they dont vote, theyll be fired. None of them can afford that.

[Stuck in a death spiral, Venezuela is borrowing money at any cost]

Maduro has acknowledged that the government is pressuring public employees to vote. At a rally with public energy workers this month, he said: Take the lists of workers from all the state institutions and businesses to create a constituent committee. For each business, call all the workers and organize how theyll vote on July 30th. At the end of the day, check the list. If there are 15,000 workers, there have to be 15,000 votes, with no excuses.

Venezuelas political protests have been fueled by the disastrous state of the economy, growing authoritarian rule and the governments resistance to early elections. The countrys electoral council ruled against the opposition when it soughta referendum in 2016 that could have cut short Maduros six-year term. The council also pushed back elections for governors, scheduled for 2016, to December of this year. Critics fear that the new assembly will cancel those, as well as the presidential election in 2018.

The U.S. Treasury Department in February froze Vice President Tareck El Aissamis American assets over his alleged involvement in narcotics trafficking and took similar action against eight justices of the pro-government supreme court after it tried to strip power from the opposition-led legislature. On Wednesday, the Trump administration targeted 13 more Venezuelan officials, alleging violations of human rights and corruption.

[Trump administration hits 13 Venezuelans with sanctions in advance of vote]

Once the richest country per capita in South America due toits vast oil reserves, Venezuela was also cursed with vast disparities that kept an elite in luxury while the poor languished in slums. The result was Chvez, who used the petroleum wealth to launch massive social programs, even as he concentrated power. He remains much beloved by millions of Venezuelans, although many others especially in the middle and upper classes loathe him.

Maduros approval rating, on the other hand, is hovering around 20 percent, with opponents calling this weekends vote the only way for him to remain in the presidentialpalace.

He has promised Venezuelans that the assembly will herald a new era of security and stability.

July 30th will be the birth of a historic trigger of the homeland for a new phase of peace and advancement, Maduro told a campaign rally this week.

Yet many Venezuelans fear just the opposite a deepening of official repression. It is already starting, they say.

Take, for instance, 51-year-old Lisbeth Aez, or Mama Lis. For years, shewas known for aiding anti-government protesters, bringing them blankets and cooking them fresh arepas, or cornmeal cakes.

In May, she was arrested and charged with treason.

Her case is in the hands of amilitary tribunal. In recent months, scores of civilians who have taken part in demonstrations or other perceived anti-government acts have been sent into the military court system, where they can face lengthy prison sentences.

I cant sleep, I cant eat, even if we had enough food, said her son, Luis Gonzlez Aez, 23, who said he was refused entry to her trial. I have nightmares, thinking about her in jail ... I didnt think things could get worse, but they have.

Gabriela Ramrez, Venezuelas former public ombudsman and a longtime Chvez supporter, said she feared the government would become worse than a dictatorship.We will have a narco-authoritarian regime, she said.

Ramrez, who carries around a pocket version of Chvezs 1999 constitution in her purse, is among the ranks of former Chavistas or Chvez backers who have turned against Maduro. She has paid for it with harassment, she said, including a recent hackin which intimate photos of her and her husband were leaked on social media.

There will no longer be any check on their power, she said. They will control everything.

Following an opposition-called 48-hour strike, the government on Thursday issued a ban on public gatherings and protests lasting from Friday through Tuesday. The opposition responded by calling for nationwide mobilization, asking citizens to take to the streets from the Caribbean Sea to the Andes Mountains.

In an interview, Freddy Guevara, an opposition leader and vice president of the National Assembly, played down the chances of any deal to suspend or cancel the vote. Former Spanish prime minister Jos Luis Rodrguez Zapatero is in Caracas, and has served as an intermediary between the government and opposition. Guevara denied reports that a deal had been offered to suspend the vote.

It is wishful thinking, he said. I am sure they are going forward with this scam, and that we are going to respond with pressure.

But even leading members of the opposition appear to be losing hope that Maduro will back down.

Scenarios for what happens next range widely. Some observers suggest that social unrest and international sanctions will worsen, prompting, perhaps, a military coup or fueling an anti-government guerrilla movement. Others say the government, likely with the aid of Russia and China, will somehow manage to hold on as the country becomes an international pariah.

Still others see a worst-case scenario of social implosion and anarchy.

Somalia, said Henrique Capriles, an opposition leader and governor of the state of Miranda.

We could become a failed state.

Mariana Zuiga contributed to this report.

Read more

Things are so bad in Venezuela that people are rationing toothpaste

Venezuelas paradox: people are hungry, but farmers cant feed them

Maduro wants to rewrite the constitution. Thats rocket fuel on the fire.

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Venezuela's vote for a constitutional assembly could destroy democracy, critics warn - Washington Post

Barron's

Venezuela Vote: Pain For Democracy, Citgo, Refiners & Summer Vacation? Barron's If the Venezuelan government proceeds with a referendum Sunday that is likely to squelch any hope of democracy, the United States says it will impose harsh economic sanctions. Venezuela's vote on a new constituent assembly is designed to create a new ... and more »

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Venezuela Vote: Pain For Democracy, Citgo, Refiners & Summer Vacation? - Barron's