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Whether its leaders and members realize it, the Republican Party is at risk of becoming the Vladimir Putin-aligned party in the United States. It can be convincingly argued that its already similar to Putin-supported parties in Europe, given Donald Trumps presidency, the Republican bases increasingly favorable views of Moscow, and the House GOP leaderships disinterest in investigating and preventing Russian interference.

Increasingly sophisticated Russian influence and cyberoperations threaten Americans ability to choose their own leaders. This isnt hyperbole. In fact, its hard to overstate just how serious this issue is. Yet, President Trump continues to sow doubt about whether Moscow even interfered in the 2016 presidential elections and to suggest the questions insignificance by ignoring it all together.

Our commander in chief seems more interested in protecting Moscow than he does in deterring its future attacks. The Washington Post reported that the administration is actually considering allowing the Russian government to reopen the two spy compounds that President Barack Obama closed in late December in response to Russias election attack. There are also reports that the White House plans to step up lobbying efforts against a new Russia sanctions bill that the Senate passed with overwhelming bipartisan support this month. The measure would add new financial sanctions and require congressional review before Trump could lift these or other retaliatory measures currently levied against Moscow, including the closing of the two compounds.

Worse, Trump appears to have some support in this from Republican leaders in the House. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wisconsin, and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California, have delayed the bill, citing the constitutional requirement that such bills originate in the House.

This is little more than a red herring. Nothing prevents them from inserting the text of the Senate bill into a House measure, passing it and sending it back to the Senate for final approval, which it would likely grant under expedited procedures. Instead, Ryan and McCarthy appear to be more interested in delaying and weakening the bill.

Behind their neglect are changing Republican voter opinions, which are becoming alarmingly more pro-Russian. According to a Morning Consult-Politico poll conducted in May, 49 percent of Republican voters consider Russia to be either an ally or friendly. Only 12 percent consider it an enemy. In 2015, only 12 percent of Republicans held a favorable view of Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Gallup. As of February, that figure had jumped to 32 percent.

These dangerous trends impair the nations will to protect itself, and they are entirely the result of Republican leaderships failure to oppose Trump from the beginning. Republican voters had long held a healthy distrust of Putin, but Trumps persistent affinity for Moscow and other Republican leaders silence are changing Republican voters minds, now making it politically costly for GOP leaders to defend the nation from this foreign adversary.

Because they control the executive and legislative branches, it is ultimately up to Republican leaders to prevent future Russian attacks on American democracy, even if such attacks may benefit the party electorally. Deterrence is an indispensable part of this equation. It cannot be accomplished without punishing Moscow for its violations of our sovereignty and threatening harsher responses for future trespasses.

In passing the Russia sanctions bill, Senate Republicans have shown they understand this. GOP leaders in the House must work with their Senate colleagues to pass a strong sanctions package that requires a congressional review of changes to Russia sanctions implementation desired by the president. He simply cannot be trusted to protect the integrity of Americas democracy on his own.

Republican leaders and the party are at a crossroads. They will either choose liberty in an independent America or to serve a distant, foreign master who seeks no more than to enrich and empower himself at the expense of free society everywhere. If Republican leaders choose the latter, the majority of Americans will have no choice but to hold them accountable as opponents to the cause of freedom.

Evan McMullin is a former CIA operations officer who ran as an independent candidate in the 2016 presidential election. He is co-founder of the nonprofit Stand Up Republic.

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Republicans are risking becoming the party of Putin - Bangor Daily News

Why are Republicans on Capitol Hill having so much trouble repealing and replacing Obamacare? There are reasons all over the place: subsidies, tax credits, tax cuts, Medicaid, essential health benefits, and many others. But there is one fundamental obstacle to getting rid of Obamacare, and it is very simple: Once the government starts giving away, it can't take back.

Go back to October 2013, when Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz was leading an effort to defund Obamacare. It was an impossible goal; the GOP was in the minority in the Senate and a Democrat was in the White House. Under those circumstances, defunding President Obama's signature achievement simply wasn't going to happen. Establishment Republicans were angry at Cruz for raising the hopes of the party's base before certain disappointment.

But there was one sense in which Cruz was right and the words he spoke four years ago are resonating today in the GOP's struggle to repeal, or, more accurately, rewrite Obamacare.

Cruz based the defund effort on his contention that once Obamacare was fully in place and subsidies began to flow that was scheduled to begin on Jan. 1, 2014 there would be no stopping it.

"The Obama strategy, I believe, is that on January 1, subsidies kick in," Cruz told a meeting of the Kingwood, Texas tea party in August 2013. "And his strategy is very simple: He knows that in modern times no major entitlement has ever gone into effect and been unwound. Never been done. His strategy is to get as many Americans as possible hooked on the subsidies, addicted to the sugar."

"I think if we're going to stop Obamacare, we have to do it now," Cruz continued. "If we get to January 1, this thing is here forever."

Of course, Republicans did not defund Obamacare there was never any chance they could and the subsidies began. And now, exactly as Cruz (and others) predicted, the entitlement program is proving extremely difficult to repeal. That is because, as Obama and the Democrats who passed it knew, Republicans trying to repeal Obamacare would be taking back something the government had already given to millions of Americans. Once the giving started, Cruz knew, there's no taking back.

And that's where Republicans are now. They've come up with a different way to provide subsidies, but regardless of name, they are trying to reduce those subsidies and make them available to fewer people. They are trying to cut back on the subsidized benefits insurance companies are required to provide to customers. They are trying to reduce the predicted number of people on Medicaid. They are trying to take back, not give. And it is proving very, very hard.

Other Republicans said similar things during the defunding battle back in 2013. Sen. Mike Lee said, "Before this law kicks in in full force on January 1, 2014, we have one last shot." Sen. Marco Rubio said, "This is our last chance and our last best chance to do something about this." Sen. David Vitter said, "Once (Obamacare) gets into law and starts to put down roots, it's going to be difficult to disrupt."

And now it is.

What the 2013 fight showed, and what the current fight is showing again, is that the Republicans' actual last chance to get rid of Obamacare was the 2012 election. That was before the health care law went into effect, before it touched millions of American lives, and when it could still be repealed without great disruption. But when Barack Obama won re-election and could safeguard (and prop up) Obamacare through its early years, the Republican chance to repeal was gone.

Now Republicans are fighting among themselves over a bill that would make substantial changes in Obamacare but leave the structure of the law intact. And several GOP lawmakers enough to scuttle any final agreement are still afraid of cuts in subsidies, in coverage, and in the Medicaid expansion.

Maybe Republicans will succeed. But whatever they do, it won't resemble the root-and-branch repeal they attempted when Obama was president when they knew he would veto any repeal effort that got to his desk. The Republican effort that passes Congress today will be a much-scaled-back measure that could more accurately be called an Obamacare fix.

It all shows that Cruz was right back in 2013. Once Obamacare's subsidies and benefits began to flow, he reminded us, "this thing is here forever."

Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.

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When Republicans saw the troubled future of Obamacare repeal - Meridian Star

Nationals senator John Williams also says Tony Abbott needs to just fit into the team and be a team player. Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian

National party senator John Williams has warned the Liberal party that a plebiscite on marriage equality is part of the Coalition agreement, signed by Malcolm Turnbull and Barnaby Joyce.

The agreement was signed when Turnbull took the leadership from Tony Abbott in September 2015 and Williams said it was part of the deal for National party support.

I know that it is in the Coalition agreement, a signed agreement between Nats and Liberals by Barnaby Joyce and Malcolm Turnbull, Williams said.

The Coalition agreement is signed by every incoming Liberal and National party leader. In the last agreement, Turnbull agreed for the water portfolio to go back to the agriculture portfolio with Joyce as minister, which happened immediately. The agreement also states there will be no policy move to a carbon price and no change to the definition of marriage without a plebiscite.

Williams chastised the defence industry minister and leader of the government, Christopher Pyne, for telling his moderate Liberal colleagues that marriage equality might be resolved sooner than you think, a boast soon scotched by Turnbull.

Williams said if the Nick Xenophon team or Labor had supported the plebiscite, the issue of same-sex marriage could have been resolved by now.

But instead these issues keep bubbling along and get so much media attention and Chris Pyne shouldnt say those things, Williams said.

He was worried the ongoing Liberal division would risk marginal seat holders such as fellow National MP Michelle Landry in Capricornia in Queensland. Landry holds the seat by a margin of just 0.8% and Williams said her seat creates the one-seat majority that keeps the Coalition in power.

Im annoyed with the Liberals because everyone knows division is death and they are so divided every time Tony Abbott makes a statement publicly, he said.

We need to concentrate on their job, which is to work for betterment of all Australia.

Williams reminded Abbott that Coalition MPs had been team players when he was prime minister but he would not give advice about whether Abbott should leave parliament after the Guardian Essential poll found 43% thought Abbott should resign.

I think what Tony needs to do is just simply be more of a team player, as we were with Tony when he was prime minister, Williams told ABC earlier.

I certainly was. We had a couple of disagreements on the odd occasion but I think Tony needs to just fit into the team and be a team player. What he does in the future is his decision.

He said the continual division made it impossible for the government to talk about its positive messages such as budget commitments on inland rail, roads and education.

These things cant get any light of day because of this division, Williams said.

Originally posted here:
Nationals senator reminds Liberals same-sex marriage plebiscite part of their deal - The Guardian

By Rob Gillies

TORONTO The Canadian government is going to apologize and give millions to a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who pleaded guilty to killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan when he was 15, with Canadas Supreme Court later ruling that officials had interrogated him under oppressive circumstances.

An official familiar with the deal said Tuesday that Omar Khadr will receive $10.5 million. The official was not authorized to discuss the deal publicly before the announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity. The government and Khadrs lawyers negotiated the deal last month.

The Canadian-born Khadr was 15 when he was captured by U.S. troops following a firefight at a suspected al-Qaida compound in Afghanistan that resulted in the death of an American special forces medic, U.S. Army Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer. Khadr, who was suspected of throwing the grenade that killed Speer, was taken to Guantanamo and ultimately charged with war crimes by a military commission.

He pleaded guilty in 2010 to charges that included murder and was sentenced to eight years plus the time he had already spent in custody. He returned to Canada two years later to serve the remainder of his sentence and was released in May 2015 pending an appeal of his guilty plea, which he said was made under duress.

Omar Khadr spent 10 years in Guantanamo Bay. His case received international attention after some dubbed him a child soldier.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 2010 that Canadian intelligence officials obtained evidence from Khadr under oppressive circumstances, such as sleep deprivation, during interrogations at Guantanamo Bay in 2003, and then shared that evidence with U.S officials.

Khadr was the youngest and last Western detainee held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

His lawyers filed a $20 million wrongful imprisonment lawsuit against the Canadian government, arguing the government violated international law by not protecting its own citizen and conspired with the U.S. in its abuse of Khadr. A spokesman for the justice minister and the prime ministers office didnt immediately respond to requests for comment.

The widow of Speer and another American soldier blinded by the grenade in Afghanistan filed a wrongful death and injury lawsuit against Khadr in 2014 fearing Khadr might get his hands on money from his $20 million wrongful imprisonment lawsuit. A U.S. judge granted $134.2 million in damages in 2015, but the plaintiffs acknowledged then that there was little chance they would collect any of the money from Khadr because he lives in Canada.

Khadrs lawyers have long said he was pushed into war by his father, Ahmed Said Khadr, whose family stayed with Osama bin Laden briefly when Omar Khadr was a boy. Khadrs Egyptian-born father was killed in 2003 when a Pakistani military helicopter shelled the house where he was staying with senior al-Qaida operatives.

After his 2015 release from prison in Alberta, Omar Khadr apologized to the families of the victims. He said he rejects violent jihad and wants a fresh start to finish his education and work in health care. He currently resides in an apartment in Edmonton, Alberta.

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Trudeau Liberals to pay Omar Khadr $10.5M for suffering at Guantanamo - National Post

As Republicans return to their home districts to sell a flailing health-care bill, liberal groups are using the congressional recess to build opposition. They believe tens of thousands of phone calls, emails and in-person pushes will force on-the-fence senators to reject the legislation for good.

The fresh activism is coming with encouragement from Democratic lawmakers who are mired in the minority and have been mostly left to watch as Republicans struggle to reshape the nations laws to their liking. After starting the year on the defensive with their own base, party leaders and House and Senate Democrats are finally taking cues from these groups, believing that tactics honed far outside Washington could help scare Republicans into abandoning long-standing promises to upend Obamacare.

Ahead of the recess, while Republican senators toiled over details of their health-care overhaul behind closed doors, Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, did whats become natural for Democrats lately: He lashed out on Twitter.

This thing is a %#$@ sandwich, he tweeted shortly after the release of the Congressional Budget Offices report that estimated 22 million more Americans be uninsured under the Senate GOPs plan. He tweeted later that the lefts fight against the legislation is a test of the morality of our country. We have to win this one.

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Democrats can see with their eyes where the energy is in American politics right now, said Ben Wikler, the Washington director of MoveOn.org, a liberal group initially launched to oppose the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

Its to abandon politics as usual and put up a bare-fisted fight. Thats really sinking in.

Schatz won re-election last year with more than 70 percent of the vote and acknowledges he did so by airing really pretty ads and taking advice from expensive consultants. It might have worked for him in Hawaii, but Donald Trump won the White House and Democrats failed to win back control of the House or Senate.

So now he admits to being a recent convert to the tactics used by Wiklers group and other organizations such as CREDO Mobile, the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, and the fast-growing Indivisible movement. The groups have organized protests or sit-ins at congressional district offices and urged followers to flood Capitol Hill phone lines in opposition to Education Secretary Betsy DeVoss confirmation or President Trumps travel ban. Neither pressure campaign stopped DeVos or the Trump ban, but Schatz said they signaled to Democratic lawmakers that the groups could quickly mobilize Americans against Trump.

Our playbook needs a refresh. Its predictable and its stale, Schatz said. That refresh is not just new language or a new standard-bearer, but a recognition that for Democrats to win, we need to fight for Democrats - and then theyll fight for us.

For Schatz, that has meant firing off quick stream-of-consciousness tweets that have earned him headlines and 30,000 more followers so far this year. Its also meant marching in the streets for the first time in his life as he did last week with activists who opposed the GOP health-care plan. And it means providing counsel to constituents or activists who still want a little guidance from an elected official.

The senator who once chastised Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Twitter for calling Hawaii an island in the Pacific said his change in tone is a recognition that people dont want to be sold soap.

They dont want a prepackaged product, they want to know that were people and that we respond to outrages in the same way that they do.

Democrats willingness to fight, particularly on health care, has not gone unnoticed by progressive activists who say they deserve credit for drawing in even wary moderates.

Sens. Joe Manchin III, W. Va., Heidi Heitkamp, N.D., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. - who are all up for re-election in states Trump handily won - have all been eager to speak out. They joined a protest-turned-photo-op on the Senate steps with Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and other Democrats, with each senator holding a portrait of a constituent who had benefited from Medicaid.

The way theyve coalesced around the health-care issue has been better than expected; theyve done so because of how many people were demanding it, said Winnie Wong, the co-founder of People for Bernie and an Occupy Wall Street veteran.

Schatz was one of only a handful of Democratic lawmakers to actually march in last weeks health-care rally - other party leaders just showed up to give speeches. He waited restlessly as Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Schumer addressed the crowd.

They have lots of powerful wealthy people on their side, Schumer said of Republicans. Who do we have? You!

Schumer especially has seen his fortunes change with the far left. In February, hundreds of protesters marched to Schumers Brooklyn home to demand resistance to Trumps Cabinet nominees; some chanted What the f ---, Chuck.

The infighting has largely stopped since then. Schumer has been a regular presence at protests, thanking activists for having Senate Democrats back. Theyve returned the praise. Schumer is both speaking out at every opportunity and keeping the caucus aggressive, said Wikler, whose group helped organize the Capitol protest.

After Schumer spoke, Schatz stepped on stage and called the GOP health-care bill literally an $800 billion cut in Medicaid and literally an $800 billion wealth transfer to people who dont need it.

He offered some advice for the recess: Dont wait for instructions from any organization. Whatever you think you can do in that moment, just do it.

Six months ago, everyone in that building thought that repeal of the Affordable Care Act was a done deal, Wilker said, pointing to the Capitol. Since then, he said, Democrats had learned to take some cues from the resistance.

Weve mobilized hundreds of thousands of people to participate in our democracy, and thats taught us something crucial about the resistance to Trump: its working, said Faiz Shakir, national political director for the ACLU.

In many ways, Schatz is an ideological counterweight to conservative foot soldiers such as Sens. Mike Lee. R-Utah, James Lankford, R-Neb., or Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, other senators in their 40s with no obvious White House dreams, who could find themselves in the Senate for decades to come. While many of his Democratic colleagues ponder a run for president, Schatz said he intends to stay in the Senate.

Somebody has to not run for president, Schatz quipped.

Schatz came to the U.S. Senate in late 2012 as the appointed successor of the late Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, who died after 49 years in the Senate just as Congress was in the throes of the fiscal cliff fight. The day after Christmas, Schatz flew to Washington aboard Air Force One with then-President Barack Obama, who cut his annual Hawaiian vacation short to avert a financial disaster.

As he prepared to travel from Washington to Honolulu Thursday, a trip he makes nearly every weekend to see his wife and two young children, Schatz admitted that despite doling out advice on how progressives should pressure Republicans during the upcoming recess, he hadnt determined what he will do. Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have urged Democrats to hold news conference, rallies with progressive groups and submit op-eds to newspapers.

Schatz said thats not good enough.

You cant fill a calendar and think thats a plan, he explained, meaning that he will avoid a strategy that dictates, Im going to use Facebook on Tuesday and use Twitter on Wednesday and then Im going to send an op-ed in and hold a news conference on Friday.

Its a pretty chaotic environment out there, he said. We need to be a little more flexible.

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AS GOP struggles with health care, Democrats forge ties with 'resistence' - The Morning Sun