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Liberal activists are increasingly upset at what they see as too little opposition to President Trumps Supreme Court nominee and are even threatening to run primary challengers against Democrats in the Senate who end up supporting Judge Neil Gorsuch.

Nearly a dozen influential liberal groups fired off a letter this week calling Judge Gorsuch an ultra-conservative and demanding a more unified opposition.

We need you to do better, the groups said in the letter, which was organized by NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Several news outlets reported that the groups may even back primary opponents against Democrats who dont show enough opposition.

On Capitol Hill, liberal senators are looking for lines of attack against Judge Gorsuch, who until now has received glowing reviews from many of the senators including Democrats with whom he has met.

Three Democrats held a press conference Tuesday to question Judge Gorsuchs rulings on workers rights, saying some of his decisions as an appellate judge contradict Mr. Trumps promises to empower American workers.

Sen. Patty Murray, Washington Democrat, said Judge Gorsuch has a distinctly anti-worker record.

She pointed to a ruling against a woman who lost her job after a leukemia diagnosis, against a female employees discrimination case and against a truck driver who was fired for leaving his post because of health concerns.

Im very concerned that should he end up on the court, he would side with conservative justices in continuing to undermine worker protections, safety and ability to organize, Ms. Murray said.

Carrie Severino, chief counsel at the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, said Ms. Murray and her colleagues were cherry-picking cases to distort the judges record.

She said Judge Gorsuch, as a lawyer, won a major antitrust case against U.S. Tobacco Co. and, as a judge, wrote a ruling that restored multimillion-dollar penalties against Dow Chemical Co. and Rockwell International.

Early efforts to undermine Judge Gorsuch have fallen flat, leaving ardent Democrats looking for new angles of attack.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Democrat, requested documents from the Federalist Society and The Heritage Foundation, two conservative organizations that helped shape Mr. Trumps list of potential Supreme Court nominees.

The wholesale outsourcing of nominee selection to interest groups is without known precedent, especially for a position as important as associate justice of the Supreme Court, Mr. Blumenthal said.

Ms. Murray said liberal groups frustration should be aimed at Mr. Trump.

With all the chaos surrounding this new administration, I want to make it clear I have really serious concerns about moving forward with the nominee at this time, she said.

I think there is a lot going on that makes it very hard to look at anything that they are doing. The hide the ball campaign is real, and this is a serious nomination that should take serious consideration, Ms. Murray said.

Despite the liberal uprising, Judge Gorsuch made rounds Tuesday on Capitol Hill and met with four Senate Democrats.

Sen. Al Franken, Minnesota Democrat, told reporters that he wasnt satisfied with some of Judge Gorsuchs answers to his questions and thought he got into judgespeak.

Hes met with 70 senators, so I think hes probably gotten pretty good at speaking around some things, Mr. Franken said.

Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he doesnt expect Democrats to put aside politics because they are furious that the voters would dare vote for a Republican president and a Republican majority in both houses of Congress.

I have no doubt the Democrats will use whatever procedural tools they have to delay that confirmation, Mr. Cruz said.

Continued here:
Liberals threaten Democrats over support for Gorsuch - Washington Times

The executive committee of Buffalo County Democrats wants to clarify its role as the minority party after the last election. The Hartley Burr Alexander quotation above the main entrance of the Nebraska State Capitol serves as our guiding principle: The salvation of the state is watchfulness in the citizen.

Watchfulness, and our responsibility as citizens to work for a more noble life, directed Alexanders thoughts and guides our actions. We do not believe that we need to sit down and be quiet and accept the results of the last election. Instead we see our role as watchfulness.

The four major goals of our Buffalo County Democratic Party are:

- Be good stewards of the environment by working to promote clean, sustainable, and affordable energy.

- Provide excellent educational opportunities especially through our public education system for all Nebraskans.

- Maintain a fair wage for all hard working Nebraskans.

- Protect the civil rights of all Nebraskans.

Recent discussions at the local, state and national levels have caused local citizens to become concerned. As a result of these concerns, these citizens, from a wide spectrum of political affiliations Democrats, Republicans and non-partisans have organized demonstrations on womens rights, public education and immigration.

While Buffalo County Democrats were not instrumental in organizing these events, many of our members did participate. These demonstrators were local and unpaid and committed to positive change.

Buffalo County Democrats will continue to be watchful. When issues arise that we feel are against the best interests of Nebraskans, we, as the loyal opposition, will take action. We will do this by contacting our elected representatives by orchestrating and setting up phone banks and letter writing campaigns. We will also participate in peaceful public demonstrations to raise awareness.

The one thing we will not do is sit down and be quiet.

Buffalo County Democrats

Executive Committee

EDITORS NOTE: Signing this letter were Chairman Brady McDonald of Shelton, Vice Chairman Kit Alff of Kearney, Vice Chairman Caleb Rohrer of Kearney, Treasurer David Richardson of Kearney, Secretary Linda Liebig of Kearney and Immediate Past Chair John Turek of Gibbon.

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Democrats won't 'sit down' - Kearney Hub

The most famous special prosecutor remains the first one: Archibald Cox of Watergate fame. After Cox got sideways with President Richard Nixon in 1973, the president ordered Cox fired, which led to the Saturday Night Massacre and then to Leon Jaworski, and then to ... well, you remember.

Now, though, Democrats are lined up demanding a special prosecutor into Russias interference with our election. They may have visions of Cox and Jaworski dancing in their heads, but they should be careful what they wish for. Democrats assume only Republican oxen will get gored by a special prosecutor, but the record suggests they would get caught up too.

After Watergate, Congress got into the special prosecutors business, passing the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 to create the office of the independent counsel. But Capitol Hill soon found that special prosecutors investigations tend to expand beyond their original brief. After more than a dozen wild rides that included Lawrence Walshs endless inquiry into Iran-contra and Ken Starrs work that began with Whitewater and later metastasized into Monica-land, Congress let the office and its procedures to lapse in 1999. There is no law governing special prosecutors today despite what you may have heard some elected officials say on air in recent weeks. The attorney general can name a special prosecutor if he wants (or the deputy attorney general if Jeff Sessionss recusal extends to even considering whether a special prosecutor is needed). But if either Sessions or Rod Rosenstein, Trumps nominee for deputy attorney general, declares the need for a special prosecutor, the key will be: What is the scope of the investigation with which the special prosecutor is charged?

Republicans routinely demanded special prosecutors in the era of President Barack Obama and Attorneys General Eric H. Holder Jr. and Loretta E. Lynch. There were calls for one to investigate Hillary Clintons private email server, the Internal Revenue Services alleged abuse of power regarding tea party-named groups, and the gun walking scandal known as Fast and Furious. But there were no special prosecutors appointed during the Obama years. The Democrats knew better than to set a seasoned prosecutor with subpoena power loose when political intrigue is afoot.

So I would sound a note of caution to Democrats pounding the lectern for a special prosecutor. Still, if one is to be appointed to look into the election of 2016 and all illegal activity surrounding it, I am in favor of going for the cathartic approach and putting everything on the table.

Lets be clear: It seems obvious that Russia did in fact meddle with our process and used WikiLeaks to do so. I and other conservatives said as much repeatedly during the election. And if any American cooperated with that active measures campaign against us, he, she or they should be prosecuted under the appropriate espionage statutes.

But any special prosecutor appointed to look into the alleged Russian connection should also be given a scope of inquiry that includes the handing of the investigation into Clintons server, the slow-walking of document delivery to the Congress and the courts concerning Clintons administration of the State Department as well as alleged Obama administration leaks of classified information from the first campaign debate forward. I think the abuses at the IRS clearly have a nexus to shenanigans in 2016, so you can even add that to the list of appropriate subjects for the special prosecutor. (Everything is alleged, including Team Trump ties to Russia, until proven or abandoned.)

Of course that special prosecutor will have to look at every application for surveillance,e in connection with either candidate for the presidency made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Long ago I reviewed those applications from the FBIs counterintelligence pros before they went to the attorney general. Their contents are detailed and usually lengthy, and very classified, and so the new special prosecutor and his or her staff are going to need full FBI background investigations, which argues for a former prosecutor and/or a former federal judge who has already undergone the arduous process of clearance background investigations. That person will also need a reputation as a straight shooter, because when he or she begins to get close to touching Democratic nerves the politics of personal destruction will return with a vengeance.

Its certainly possible to find the right person for the job. Back when the independent counsel statute was in effect, I served for a year as clerk to the special panel of three judges who selected the counsel (because my judge, George MacKinnon, was the chair of the panel). When choosing an independent counsel to investigate allegations against Attorney General-designate Edwin Meese (allegations eventually proved false and cleared before Meeses confirmation), the judges debated how to find a lawyer who would move quickly and who would not fall in love with the spotlight. They succeeded when they selected Jacob Stein, who moved efficiently to an end product.

But the point is that special prosecutors are immune from any constraint. You may get a Stein, or you may get a Walsh. Either way, special prosecutors go where they want and when they want. Buyers beware.

If Sessions or Rosenstein decide on a special prosecutor, every big newspaper and network is going to have to assign a few reporters to a new beat one we ought to brand with hashtag #PutinsBigWin to describe its impact.

(Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

The new president isnt going to unleash the hounds on just his campaign. If the hunt is to be had, everyone connected to the election is the fox. The old KGB colonel at the top of the Kremlin must be smiling indeed. His campaign against the legitimacy of everyone and everything in American politics is bearing fruit every day.

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Democrats demanding a special prosecutor should be careful what they wish for - Washington Post

Theres a new rule in American politics: Whichever party owns healthcare will come to regret it.

Seven years ago, Barack Obamas Democrats passed a health insurance law that promised to cover almost everyone and make medical care more affordable. Best of all, Obama said, the new plan wouldnt inconvenience anybody except the high-income folks who got hit with a tax increase.

If you like your healthcare, you can keep it, he pledged. Big mistake.

Obama succeeded in his basic aims, but he couldnt keep all his promises especially that one.

Ever since, whenever anythings gone wrong in the health sector whenever prices rose, or an insurance company dropped a line of business Republicans have had an easy target: Obamacare.

As we all know, the same Republicans who said Obamacare was fatally flawed swore they would replace it with a better, cheaper system just as soon as they regained power. Now they have, and just like Obama, theyve overpromised.

Were going to have insurance for everybody, President Trump said in January. People can expect to have great healthcare. It will be in a much simplified form. Much less expensive and much better, with much lower deductibles.

But the healthcare bill House Republicans unveiled on Monday cant keep all those promises. It doesnt even pretend to.

And in a telling mirror image, Democrats immediately dubbed the new plan Trumpcare.

From now on, you can depend on them to hang that label on any part of the American health system that isnt working, just as Republicans did with Obamacare.

The Republican bill would undo much of Obamas expansion of insurance coverage, especially for low-income people.

It provides much lower subsidies, on average, for people who buy health coverage on the individual market. The cuts are deep for people just above the poverty line, individuals earning between $15,000 and $30,000 a year.

The bill ends Obamas expansion of Medicaid, the insurance program for very low-income people, three years from now. At that point, the GOP bill would change the funding formula for Medicaid, making it easier to cut the programs expenditures in future years.

Not everyone will suffer: The GOP bill includes a nice tax cut for the wealthy, canceling the taxes they paid to support Obamacare.

And it preserves the most broadly popular parts in the Obamacare law: the ban on insurance companies refusing coverage to anyone with a preexisting condition, the ban on lifetime benefit limits and the rule allowing parents to keep children on their plans up to age 26.

Bottom lines:

The bill does not seek universal coverage. Republicans say their goal is universal access, but this bill doesnt provide subsidies big enough to make that practical.

The bill rewards some Republican constituencies: High-income taxpayers get a tax cut, businesses are freed from coverage requirements, middle-income older voters get bigger subsidies.

But it does that by reducing subsidies for low-income people, including low-income workers.

The inevitable result is that fewer people will buy health insurance and many of those will opt for cheaper, bare-bones insurance policies with high deductibles (not the lower deductibles Trump promised).

Dont take me at my word. Heres what Robert Laszewski, a nonpartisan insurance expert (and flinty critic of Obamacare) wrote on Tuesday: It wont work.

Obamacares flaw, he wrote, was that it took care of the poorest people but gave a raw deal to middle-income workers who couldnt afford its premiums. That was because the Democrats who passed it took care of their political base first and didnt have enough money left to subsidize everyone.

Now the Republicans are making the same mistake: taking care of their base and giving the Democratic base a lousy deal, Laszewski wrote.

What good will it do a person making $15,000 a year to get a credit only large enough to buy a plan with a $3,000 or $5,000 deductible? he asked.

Half the country will hate it just a different half.

Or listen to Avik Roy, a Republican healthcare scholar, who has argued that his party should be more generous to the poor. The House bill suggests that the GOP has a stubborn desire to make health insurance unaffordable for millions of Americans, and trap millions more in poverty, he wrote.

In short, the GOP would replace one flawed plan with another and transfer most of the pain from high-income taxpayers and middle-income insurance-buyers to low-income families. Democrats wont let voters forget that.

If the bill passes, millions of people will discover that their Obamacare subsidies have been reduced and their health insurance is less affordable and Democrats will blame Trumpcare.

Millions who have coverage now will lose it. There will be heart-rending stories about people who had insurance but couldnt afford to keep it only to contract a life-threatening illness. Democrats will blame Trumpcare.

Health costs will go up; they always do. Democrats will blame Trumpcare.

Insurance forms will still be infuriating, and insurance companies will still hassle their customers. Democrats will blame Trumpcare.

And Trumps fatal promise Were going to have insurance for everybody will be repeated by his opponents as often as Obamas.

They broke it. Theyll own it.

doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com

Twitter: @DoyleMcManus

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook

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Obamacare overhaul faces resistance in Congress from right and left

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If you thought the Obamacare backlash was bad, Trumpcare will give Democrats a whipping boy for the ages - Los Angeles Times

One of the most bizarre aspects of the all-consuming Russia frenzy is the Democrats fixation on changes to the RNC platform concerning U.S. arming of Ukraine. The controversy began in July when the Washington Post reported that the Trump campaign worked behind the scenes last week to make sure the new Republican platform wont call for giving weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces.

Ever since then, Democrats have used this language change as evidence that Trump and his key advisers have sinister connections to Russians and corruptly do their bidding at the expense of American interests. Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke for many in his party when he lambasted the RNC change in a July letter to the New York Times, castigating it as dangerous thinking that shows Trump is controlled, or at least manipulated, by the Kremlin. Democrats resurrected this line of attack this weekend when Trump advisers acknowledged that campaign officials were behind the platform change.

This attempt to equate Trumpsopposition toarming Ukraine with some sort of treasonous allegiance to Putin masks a rather critical fact: namely, that the refusal to arm Ukraine with lethal weapons was one of Barack Obamas most steadfastly held policies. The original Post article that reported the RNC platform change noted this explicitly:

Of course, Trump is not the only politician to oppose sending lethal weapons to Ukraine. President Obama decided not to authorize it, despite recommendations to do so from his top Europe officials in the State Department and the military.

Early media reports about this controversy from outlets such as NPR also noted the irony at the heart of this debate: namely,that arming Ukraine was the long-time desireof hawks in the GOP such as John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio, but the Obama White House categorically resisted those pressures:

Republicans in Congress have approved providing arms to the Ukrainian government but the White House has resisted, saying that it would only encourage more bloodshed.

Its a rare Obama administration policy that the Trump campaign seems to agree with.

Indeed, the GOP ultimately joined with the hawkish wing of the Democratic Party to demand that Obama provide Ukraine with lethal weapons to fight Russia, but Obama steadfastly refused. As the New York Times reported in March, 2015, President Obama is coming under increasing pressure from both parties and more officials inside his own government to send arms to the country. But he remains unconvinced that they would help. When Obama kept refusing, leaders of the two partiesthreatened to enact legislation forcing Obama to arm Ukraine.

The general Russia approachthat Democrats now routinely depict as treasonous avoiding confrontation with and even accommodating Russian interests, not just in Ukraine but also in Syria was one of the defining traits of Obamas foreign policy. This fact shouldnt be overstated: Obama engaged in provocative acts such asmoves to further expand NATO, non-lethal aid to Ukraine, and deployingmissile defense weaponry in Romania. But he rejected most calls to confront Russia. Thatis one of the primary reasons the foreign policy elite which, recall, Obama came into office denouncing and vowing to repudiate was so dissatisfied with his presidency.

A new, long article by Politico foreign affairs correspondent Susan Glasser on the war being waged against Trump by Washingtons foreign policy elite makes this point very potently.Say what you will about Politico, but one thing they are very adept at doing is giving voice to cowardly Washington insidersby accommodating their cowardice and thusroutinely granting them anonymity toexpress themselves. As journalistically dubious as it is to shield the worlds most powerful people with anonymity, this practice sometimes ends up revealing what careerist denizens of Washington power really think but are too scared to say. Glassers article, which largely consists of conveying the views ofanonymous high-level Obama officials, contains this remarkable passage:

In other words, Democrats are now waging war on, and are depicting as treasonous, one of Barack Obamas central and most steadfastly held foreign policy positions, one that he clung to despite attacks from leading members of both parties as well as the DCNational Security Community.Thats not Noam Chomskydrawing that comparison; its an Obama appointee.

The destructive bipartisan Foreign Policy Community was furious with Obama for not confronting Russia more, and is now furious with Trump for the same reason (though they certainly loath and fear Trump for other reasons, including the threat they believe he poses to U.S. imperial management through a combination of ineptitude, instability, toxic PR, naked rather than prettified savagery, and ideology; Glasser writes: Everything Ive worked for for two decades is being destroyed, a senior Republican told me).

All of thisdemonstrates how fundamental a shift has taken place as a result of the Democrats election-related fixation on The Grave Russian Threat. To see how severe the shift is, just look at this new polling data from CNN this morning that shows Republicans and Democrats doing a complete reversal on Russia in the span of eight months:

The Democrats obsession with Russia has not just led them to want investigations into allegations of hacking and (thus far evidence-free) suspicionsof Trump campaign collusion investigations which everyone should want. Its done far more than that: its turned them into increasingly maniacal and militaristic hawks dangerous ones when it comes to confronting the only nation witha larger nuclear stockpile than the U.S., an arsenal accompanied by a sense of fear, if not outright encirclement, from NATO expansion.

Put another way, establishment Democrats with a largely political impetus but now as a matter of conviction have completely abandoned Obamas accommodationist approach to Russia and have fully embracedthe belligerent, hawkish mentality of John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Bill Kristol, the CIA and Evan McMullin. It should thus come as nosurprise that a bill proposed by supreme warmonger Lindsey Graham to bar Trump from removing sanctions against Russia has more Democratic co-sponsors than Republican ones.

This iswhy its so notable that Democrats, in the name of resistance, have aligned with neocons, CIA operatives and former Bush officials: not because coalitions should be avoided with the ideologically impure, but because it reveals much about the political and policy mindset theyve adopted in the name of stopping Trump. Theyre not resisting Trump from the left or with populist appeals by, for instance, devoting themselves toprotection ofWall Street and environmental regulations under attack, or supporting the revocation of jobs-killing free trade agreements,ordemandingthat Yemini civilians not be massacred.

Instead, theyre attacking him on the grounds of insufficient nationalism, militarism, and aggression: equating a desire to avoid confrontation with Moscow as a form of treason (just like they did when they were the leading Cold Warriors). This iswhy theyre finding such common cause with the nations most bloodthirsty militarists not becauseits an alliance of convenience but rather one of shared convictions (indeed, long before Trump, neocons were planning a re-alignment with Democrats under a Clinton presidency). And the most ironic and over-looked aspect of this whole volatile spectacle is how much Democratshave to repudiate and demonize one of Obamas core foreign policy legacies while pretending that theyre not doing that.

Read more from the original source:
Democrats Now Demonize the Same Russia Policies that Obama Long Championed - The Intercept