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WASHINGTON The congressional midterm elections are still 16 months away, but that hasnt stopped a growing number of Democratic candidates with military experience from starting their bids for office.

So many veterans are reaching out to us now, we have to start early, said Jon Soltz, chairman of the left-leaning VoteVets.org. In the past, we might get moving after the primaries. But this cycle, were setting the pace early.

At least 15 veterans have already announced their intention to run against Republican incumbents in 2018, a sizable number for the minority party this early in the election cycle.

While Democrats have boasted several high-profile veteran wins in recent years including Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts roughly three quarters of the 100-plus veterans in Congress are Republicans. Of the 27 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans in Congress, 20 are Republicans.

That image of military members as conservative lawmakers is one Democrats would like to change in coming cycles, especially as issues of national security remain at the forefront of voters priorities.

We need to build up that piece of the party, Soltz said. When people talk about Democrats, they talk about labor, they talk about womens groups, they talk about environmentalists. We need them to talk about veterans that way, too.

Were looking for that respect.

Earlier this year, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced plans to work closely with Soltzs group to help identify and promote those left-leaning veteran candidates.

Of the 11 veterans VoteVets.org is backing for the 2018 cycle already, eight are in districts that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has identified as winnable swing districts. Soltz said the next step is to help those individuals gain money, recognition and experience before the new years intensifying campaign arrives.

Meanwhile, Moulton (who VoteVets.org endorsed in his 2014 and 2016 bids for Congress) drew more attention to the issue last month when he announced plans to early endorse eight veteran Democrats, saying that his party needs a genuinely new message and a new generation of leadership.

His Serve America political action committee has a stated goal of supporting veteran candidates who will put country ahead of politics and bring new perspective to gridlocked Capitol Hill.

Thats a theme that has been echoed on both sides of the aisle in recent years. In April, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. and arguably Congress most well-known veteran, said in a CNN interview that he believes younger veterans could help restore civility in politics, because of a common bond and respect thats lacking among many lawmakers today.

The overall number of veterans in Congress has dropped steadily for decades, with only about 19 percent of elected lawmakers having military experience today. That figure was more than 70 percent in the 1970s.

Still, only about 9 percent of the American population ever served in the ranks, making veterans overrepresented in Congress compared to the voting public.

How many of the early-entry candidates can even survive their own party primaries remains unclear.

Last month, Army veteran Randy Bryce drew headlines when he announced plans to challenge House Speaker Paul Ryan for Wisconsins 1st Congressional District. The steelworker and former military policeman has ample support among his party base but faces a long-shot bid to unseat one of the best-known and most powerful members of Congress.

Marine Corps veteran Doug Applegate narrowly missed upsetting longtime California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa in 2016, and has rolled last years campaign into one continuous run for 2018.

Soltz said hes also closely watching (and supporting) Navy veteran Mikie Sherrills bid for New Jerseys 11th district (retirement rumors have swirled around incumbent Republican Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen) and Marine Corps veteran Dan McCreadys bid for North Carolinas 9th district (where Rep. Robert Pittenger easily won in 2016 but presidential candidate Hillary Clinton performed well).

VoteVets.org officials said to expect more names of endorsed veteran candidates in coming months.

Leo Shane III covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He can be reached at lshane@militarytimes.com.

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Veteran Democrats already targeting the 2018 elections - Military Times

Democrats can take advantage of the unpopularity of Donald Trump and the Republican Congress to win midterms in 2018.

First, replace Nancy Pelosi as the House Democratic leader. She has become a symbol of her party's poor showing at the polls.

Get more candidates out in "red" states and rural areas where Republicans have succeeded in recent years. Democrats have failed to connect with these voters. One exception is U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos of Illinois, who won her district by more than 20 points when Trump beat Clinton in the same area by the same margin. She spent time with voters, and it paid off.

Next, show some courage to support liberal causes. One very important issue is single-payer health insurance. Another is national paid family leave. Rejoin the fight against global warming. Support raising taxes on the top 1 percent. With some exceptions, the super rich are money hoarders, not "job creators," as Republicans claim. They park trillions in offshore banks to avoid taxes.

Democrats have to vote in greater numbers. Their failure in the last election was a major reason Trump won. Progressives often don't vote if they don't get the exact candidate they want. This has to change. Republicans vote in greater numbers, which is why they win.

Democrats can succeed in the 2018 midterms, but they must show backbone and determination to do so.

Larry L. Brown Glen Carbon

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Democrats have opportunity to regain seats in midterm elections - STLtoday.com

President Trump has performed a service of sorts to our debate over how the United States views itself and its role in the world. He has reminded the democratic left and the democratic right note the small d that they share more common ground than they often realize about the importance of democracy, the gifts of modernity, and the value of pluralism.

Trump has done this by articulating, fitfully and inconsistently, a dark worldview rooted in nationalism, authoritarianism, discomfort with ethnic and religious differences, and a skepticism about the modern project. He did this again during a European visit that was disconcerting both for what Trump said and for the isolation of the United States within the very West whose cause the president claims to champion.

His lack of constancy makes it difficult to judge exactly what he believes. We commonly describe his contradictions as the product of administration power struggles between Stephen K. Bannon and Stephen Miller, the populist nationalists, and Jim Mattis and H.R. McMaster, the representatives of a more conventional approach to foreign policy.

On the days when Trump pledges allegiance to NATO and our allies, we see Defense Secretary Mattis and national security adviser McMaster as winning. When Trump veers off this course by dissing allies and going rhetorically apocalyptic, we declare senior White House aides Bannon and Miller triumphant.

Optimists about Trump insist that the grown-ups, as Mattis and McMaster are often somewhat obnoxiously described by old foreign policy hands, will eventually limit the damage the president can cause us. The last several days should push them toward reappraising their hopefulness.

Trumps European trip, including his meeting with Vladimir Putin, was always going to be a high-wire act, given the presidents unpredictability and his allergy to briefing books. For Trump, everything is personal, which means hes subject to being easily played. Foreign leaders know that flattering him is the way to his heart - the Chinese and Saudis seemed to have understood this well and that his deepest commitments appear to be to his business interests.

But to the extent that Trump does have a gut instinct about the world, it seems closer to Bannons. The presidents spontaneous outbursts, his Twitter revelations, and his reactions to individual foreign leaders point Bannons way.

Trump has spoken with far greater affection for Putin, Saudi princes and the right-wing nationalists now in power in Poland than for democratic pluralists such as Germanys Angela Merkel and Frances Emmanuel Macron. At the Group of 20 summit, in fact, both Merkel and Macron sounded more like post-World War II American presidents than Trump did.

And the ambiguity about what Trump said during his two-hour meeting with Putin about Russian meddling in the 2016 election (the administration denied that Trump had accepted Putins denials, as Russia claimed, but its own account of what Trump actually did tell him was hardly reassuring) only underscored the presidents reluctance to confront the Russian leader on anything. Trump gave Putin exactly what he wanted was the headline on a commentary in the New York Times by Russian writer and dissident Masha Gessen. It was hard to deny its truth.

In his speech in Poland on Thursday, Trump did commit himself to the Western alliance, but in an otherwise gloomy, backward-looking and Manichaean address.

The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive, Trump said. Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it? If we fail to defend what our ancestors passed down to us, Trump warned, it will never, ever exist again.

To which one might respond: Yikes! Trumps words were remarkably similar to Bannons pronouncements in a speech to a traditionalist Catholic group in Rome in 2014. Bannon spoke of a Judeo-Christian West that finds itself in a crisis and confronts a new barbarity that will completely eradicate everything that weve been bequeathed over the last 2,000, 2,500 years.

This dire view should remind the democratic left and the democratic right that while they have disagreed on many aspects of American foreign policy over the past two decades, they share some deep allegiances. These include a largely positive assessment of what the modern world has achieved; a hopeful vision of what could lie before us; a commitment to democratic norms as the basis of our thinking about the kind of world we seek; and a belief that ethnic pluralism and religious pluralism are to be celebrated, not feared.

They also see alliances with fellow democracies as serving us better than pacts with autocratic regimes that cynically tout their devotion to traditional values as cover for old-fashioned repression and expansionism.

Democrats have many incentives for opposing Trump. But its Republicans who have the power that comes from controlling Congress. Their willingness to stand up to a president of their own party could determine the future of democracy and pluralism. He is, alas, a man whose commitment to these values we have reason to doubt, and his European jaunt did nothing to calm those fears.

Read more from E.J. Dionnes archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.

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Trump has done a big favor for small-d democrats left and right - Washington Post

Only in Washington, D.C., will you find politicians so wrapped up in themselves, their party, crazed ideology, or something that they will not come together to pass legislation for the sake and safety of the American people.

Even though the House managed to pass two common sense, safety-focused bills on June 29, it is beyond comprehension that most Democrats voted against Kate's Law and the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act. The GOP did have a handful of rogue nays, but very few in comparison.

Whatever they were thinking, it had little to do with safety and security of Americans. Leftists do their best to hoodwink normal Americans into accepting their San Francisco-style values like the absurd presumption that it is moral to break federal immigration law and shelter those who illegally cross our borders instead of following the rule of law to protect U.S. citizens.

A little background on the two bills. Lawmakers introduced Kate's Law after an illegal immigrant killed a beautiful, young San Francisco woman named Kate Steinle. Although her killer, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, had a lengthy list of felony convictions and multiple deportations, sanctuary city policies meant the San Francisco Sheriff's Department would not honor a detainer issued by U.S. Immigration and Customs. Sheriff officials said they found no active warrant for his arrest, so rather than contacting ICE to pick him up, they released him and the rest is history.

The San Francisco which Lopez-Sanchez found sanctuary in, Miss Steinle did not. Kate's Law serves to enforce immigration laws already on the books, imposing mandatory minimum prison sentences for lawbreakers like Lopez-Sanchez should they re-enter the U.S. after deportation.

The No Sanctuary for Criminals Act cuts off federal grant money to safe harbor cities and forces sanctuary city leadership to take responsibility for their actions, opening the way for victims of illegal immigrant crimes to sue.

You would never know it from the uproar by the left, but we are only talking about illegal immigration, not legal immigration, albeit Washington Democrats and their corporate media sidekicks have an astonishingly tough time differentiating between the two.

The left's obsession with protecting lawbreakers at taxpayers' expense is baffling.Taxpayers in San Francisco are set to foot the bill for a $190,000 lawsuit brought by an illegal immigrant who sued because a police officer had the audacity to obey federal immigration laws and report his whereabouts to ICE, reports CBS's KPIX-TV.

It comes as no surprise that a Harvard-Harris Poll survey taken earlier this year found that 80 percent of voters surveyed reject sanctuary cities because they believe "local authorities should have to comply with the law by reporting to federal agents the illegal immigrants they come into contact with."

Regardless of surveys or polls or public opinion, Senate Democrats will try to defeat these two bills using the lame excuse they have already raised that supporting this legislation might somehow ramp up fear in the immigrant community.

Apparently, there is nothing more petrifying than obeying the law.

Democrats' fear of ramping up fear in the immigrant community is misdirected. They should instead focus on the fact that besides the Almighty, the only thing Democrats should fear is themselves. They alone are responsible for the mess they are in and the chaos they have created.

It would be nice to believe Senate Democrats will set aside their partisanship and emotions long enough to do what's right by the American people to vote "yes" on this legislation. But, if history is a prognosticator, don't hold your breath.

So, with countenances drawn and somber defeat on their faces, Democrats will march lockstep into the 2018 midterm elections as weak on crime and weedy on principles as ever.

2017 Susan Stamper Brown Susan lives in Alaska and writes about culture, politics and current events. She is a regular contributor to Townhall, The Christian Post and Right Wing News. Susan's nationally syndicated column is published in scores of newspapers and publications across the U.S.She writes about politics, culture and media and was selected as one of America's 50 Best Conservative writers for 2015 and 2016. Contact her by Facebook or at writestamper@gmail.com.

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Susan Stamper Brown: Lefty Democrats won't vote to protect America - Tulsa World

For six months now, the Trump administration has been required to notify Congress within 48 hours any time Iran conducts a ballistic missile launch.

That requirement will expire at the end of 2019. But even though that's more than two years away, Democrats are already thinking about extending it for another three years.

Reps. Ruben Kihuen, D-Nev., and Seth Moulton, D-Mass., proposed legislation last week to extend the requirement all the way through 2022. The bill is a sign that even Democrats are worried, like Trump, about Iran's ongoing missile testing.

Members of both parties say those tests are a possible violation of the language related to the Iran nuclear agreement and something that Congress needs to know about as they happen, something Kihuen made clear when his bill came out.

"Despite condemnation from Congress, the administration and the U.N. Security Council, Iran has continued to expand its ballistic missile program, posing a threat to our national security and that of one of our closest [allies] in the region, Israel," he said last week.

But it's also a sign that lawmakers are still wary about President Trump's national security posture. Moulton offered the language last year as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, and believes it's a good idea to extend it now in the midst of a new administration.

"As this provision expires at the end of 2019, Rep. Kihuen's bipartisan bill provides a necessary extension of this requirement at a time when the new administration has yet to release their national security strategy as required by law," he said.

In addition to a few other Democrats, the bill is also cosponsored by two Republicans: Reps. Doug Lamborn of Colorado and Randy Weber of Texas.

The idea of an extension was proposed after several Iranian missile tests, and nearly two years into the implementation of the nuclear agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The JCPOA itself dealt with Iran's nuclear capability, but the United Nations resolution endorsing that agreement also included language on missile testing.

That language says Iran is "called upon" not to undertake activities related to ballistic missile, a weakening of a 2010 U.N. resolution that says Iran "shall not" participate in those activities.

Iran has since held a series of missile tests since the JCPOA was signed, which has led to complaints from both parties that Iran is trampling over the spirit of the new U.N. resolution.

Those tests, in October and November of 2015, March 2016 and January of this year, have been a constant source of tension among Republicans in particular, who didn't like the deal to begin with.

The Trump administration so far has indicated it will let the agreement stand, although Trump warned as a candidate that he may choose to push Iran hard to implement the agreement strictly. Iran's missile tests could be the issue that eventually tests that pledge, especially if they continue.

In the meantime, Congress, which historically has been quick to act to sanction Iran or hold votes to express its displeasure with Iran, wants to know everything the Trump administration knows.

"Our legislation will help ensure a long-term strategy and aid in deterring Iran's ballistic missile program and simply extends an existing requirement that the president notify Congress on Iranian ballistic missile launches or tests until December 2022," Kihuen said.

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When Iran launches missiles, Democrats want transparency from Trump - Washington Examiner