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Villagers crowded the meeting room at Panera on Monday morning, passionate about protecting President Donald Trump.

The crowd was so large,they were fortunate a fire marshal didnt stop for coffee at the Lake Sumter Landing eatery.

Their size was dwarfed by their passion.

Tony Ledbetter speaks Monday morning at Panera.

Volusia County GOP Committee leader Tony Ledbetter revved up thegroup and offered a playbook for protecting Trump and pushing his agenda.

He said the president is under attackfrom the media, Democrats and even fellow Republicans.

He encouraged the people in the room to take Trumps revolution to the next leveltheir local Republican party.

Ledbetter was a Tea Partier who took over his local Republican Party. Volusia County had been dominated by Democrats.

Now we are a red county. We have more Republicans than Democrats, he said.

If youre not inside your local Republican Party, youre not going to change it, Ledbetter said.

There was plenty of dissatisfaction with the Republican status quo.

Those in the room described their unhappinessas a groundswell of growing anger.

They bared their teeth at the mention Marco Rubio, John McCain, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, all United States senators who have been at odds with Trump.

Even Adam Putnam,the states agriculture commissioner eyeing the Governors Mansion,got a few boos.

Hes a squishyRepublican, Ledbetter said.

The only Republican other than Trump who won cheers was Congressman Ron DeSantis, who has visited The Villages.

Last year, loud and rowdy Trumpersshouted down more traditional Republicans at aGOP straw poll conducted at Savannah Center.

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Trumpers encouraged to set sights on takeover of local Republican Party - Villages-News

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. Southern Gothic is a literary genre and, occasionally, a political style that, like the genre, blends strangeness and irony. Consider the current primary campaign to pick the Republican nominee for the US Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions. It illuminates, however, not a regional peculiarity but a national perversity, that of the Republican Party.

In 1985, Jeff Sessions was nominated for a federal judgeship. Democrats blocked him, calling him racially insensitive. In 1996, he got even by getting elected to the Senate. Twenty years later, he was the first senator to endorse Donald Trump, who carried Alabama by 27.7 points.

Sessions, the most beloved Alabaman who isnt a football coach, became attorney general for Trump, who soon began denouncing Sessions as beleaguered, which Sessions was because Trump was ridiculing him as weak because he followed Justice Department policy in recusing himself from the investigation of Russian involvement in Trumps election.

On Aug. 15, Alabamas bewildered and conflicted Republicans will begin picking a Senate nominee. (If no one achieves 50 percent, there will be a Sept. 26 runoff between the top two.) Of the nine candidates, only three matter Luther Strange, Roy Moore and Rep. Mo Brooks.

Strange was Alabamas attorney general until he was appointed by then-Gov. Robert Bentley to Sessions seat. Bentley subsequently resigned in the wake of several scandals that Stranges office was investigating or so Stranges successor as attorney general suggests when Bentley appointed him. The state Ethics Commission recently postponed a hearing into campaign-finance violations until Aug. 16, the day after the first round of voting.

Twice Roy Moore has been removed as chief justice of the state Supreme Court. In 2003, removal was for defiance of the US Supreme Court regarding religious displays in government buildings. Re-elected, he was suspended last year for defiance of the US Supreme Courts decision regarding same-sex marriages.

Yet Brooks is the focus of ferocious attacks on behalf of Strange, financed by a Washington-based PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

They stress some anti-Trump statements Brooks made while chairman of Ted Cruzs 2016 Alabama campaign. For example, Brooks criticized Trumps serial adultery, about which Trump has boasted. The PAC identifies Brooks, a conservative stalwart of the House Freedom Caucus, as an ally of Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren. Another uses Brooks support for Congress replacing the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force with an updated one, and his opposition to interventions in Libya and Syria, to suggest that Brooks supports ISIS.

Brooks contributed to Trumps general-election effort, and says he supports Trumps agenda, including potentially its most consequential item ending Senate filibuster rules that enable 41 senators to stymie 59. Strange sides with McConnell against Trump in supporting current rules.

Yet the PACs theme is that Brooks support of Trump is insufficiently ardent. Such ardor is becoming the partys sovereign litmus test.

A recent poll had the three in the 20s, with Moore leading: The PACs attacks are driving some Brooks voters to him. Among voters who say theyre familiar with all three, Strange is third. A runoff seems certain, and if Moore (sometimes called the Ayatollah of Alabama) is in it and wins, a Democrat could win the Dec. 12 general election.

Anything that comes out of the South, said writer Flannery OConnor, a sometime exemplar of Southern Gothic, is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.

But, realistically, Alabamas primary says more about Republicans than about this region. A Michigan poll shows rocker-cum-rapper Kid Rock a strong potential Republican Senate candidate against incumbent Debbie Stabenow. Rock says Democrats are shattin in their pantaloons because if he runs it will be game on mthrfkrs.

Is this Northern Gothic? No, it is Republican Gothic, the grotesque becoming normal in a national party whose dishonest and, one hopes, futile assault on Brooks is shredding the remnants of its dignity.

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The Republican Party turns grotesque - New York Post

A Republican senator on the Senate Judiciary Committee told ABC News on Sunday that he is not sure he agrees with President Donald Trump's dismissal of the Russia investigation as a "witch hunt."

ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Sen. Thom Tillis on "This Week" Sunday if he agrees with the presidents recent statement that "the entire Russia story [is] a fabrication, a witch hunt and a hoax."

I'm not sure that I agree with the witch hunt, and we'll let the facts lead us to whether or not it was a hoax, the North Carolina senator said. But we are where we are, and I want to see this investigation concluded so that we can get onto doing the good work the president has already started with regulatory reform, health care and tax reform.

Tillis and a Democratic colleague on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chris Coons of Delaware, have introduced legislation aimed at protecting the role of Special Counsel Robert Mueller in leading the Russia investigation. The bill, called the Special Counsel Integrity Act, would allow any special counsel terminated from their position to challenge the firing before a three-judge panel.

It is in everyone's best interest for Bob Mueller to be able to carry forward this investigation to its conclusion, so that we can get back to working in a responsible and bipartisan way. Tillis said.

Coons added, "If the president should fire Robert Mueller abruptly, that would be crossing a big line."

The Delaware Democrat said that if Mueller was terminated, "I think you would see strong bipartisan action from the Senate, which might include our reinstating him or our rehiring him to continue to conduct that investigation on behalf of Congress."

We've already heard strong interest from colleagues on both sides of the aisle in supporting this legislation, said Coons. I think this is also an important bipartisan effort that may shore up the rule of law and the separation of powers, and may ultimately get passed.

Tillis said the bill is important for protecting the long-term independence of the Department of Justice. This is something that lives beyond this special counsel, he said.

Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., also introduced a bipartisan bill aimed at protecting Muellers job as special counsel. Their legislation would block the president from firing a special counsel without approval from a federal judge.

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Republican senator unsure he agrees with Trump that Russia probe is 'witch hunt' - ABC News

ST. LOUIS Sgt. Brad Sevier usually patrols an area of Missouri where there is one farm for every 20 residents. Now the Missouri state trooper commutes an hour to patrol the big city.

On orders from Republican Gov. Eric Greitens, Sevier and about two dozen troopers have laid claim to St. Louis highways that slice through some of Americas most dangerous neighborhoods, a move that has sparked concern among residents wary of heavy policing. Its the first time in decades that state troopers have patrolled the city, Greitens said.

We are looking for anything, Sevier said shortly before pulling over a motorist for an expired license plate near downtown. I dont see how it can be detrimental having more law enforcement in an area that really needs more policing.

Greitens dispatched the Missouri Highway Patrol last month amid a surge in shootings and assaults in St. Louis, part of a nationwide trend of rising violence in some large cities. The killings have rattled neighborhoods and embarrassed city officials, who tend to be Democrats. But now governors who tend to be Republicans are sending in their troops to fight urban crime, reopening historical tensions.

The governors actions mirror President Trumps vow to send in federal agents to curb crime in Chicago, which he said in June had reached epic proportions.

Today, we declare that the days of ignoring this problem are done, said Greitens, a former Navy SEAL and competitive boxer, announcing his plan last month to send in state patrolmen to look for criminals in St. Louis. We are rolling up our sleeves and taking strong action to protect people.

Lyda Krewson, the new Democratic mayor of St. Louis, has fierce political disagreements with Greitens on many issues, including gun control and the funding of social services. But Krewson also has an intimate perspective of the citys crime problem: In 1995, she saw her husband fatally shot during an attempted carjacking in front of their home in the citys West End.

Krewson supports Greitenss plan.

There are a lot of guns on these highways. There are a lot of drugs on these highways, Krewson said. As long as its done in a responsible way and I dont have any reason to believe it wont be I think its a good help.

But in an era of increasingly polarized views on policing, Missouris intervention is unsettling some local residents who question the governors strategies and tone. How elected leaders define a gang, use the word criminal and deputize outside law enforcement agencies are emerging as flash points. The debate threatens to drive another wedge between some officials in heavily Democratic cities and GOP leaders in statehouses and in Washington.

He was heard saying ... Lets go get them, said state Rep. Michael Butler, a St. Louis Democrat who was referring to an offhand, salutatory remark Greitens made while rallying Missouri troopers. A lot of folks wonder who them is, and what exactly did he mean.

St. Louis has recorded more than 110 homicides so far this year, which, as of late July, put 2017 on pace to be the citys deadliest year in more than two decades. The trends have been similar in big cities from Baltimore and Nashville to Tulsa and Little Rock, and in response, governors are reviving a role many had embraced from the 1960s through the early 1990s but pulled back from as homicide rates declined.

Last month, after 25 people were shot in a nightclub not far from the governors mansion in Little Rock, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson organized state troopers and FBI agents to respond to a looming cloud of violence in that city.

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott pledged in spring to use all lawful means to snuff out what he called a serious gang problem in Houston, the states largest city.

In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster even used warlike language when announcing his plan for more state resources in Myrtle Beach, where homicides in June threatened the citys reputation as a family-friendly beach destination.

There will be a lot more boots on the ground, McMaster said in deploying state troopers.

The governors are all Republicans, and their actions come as Trump has used tough-on-crime rhetoric in response to law enforcement concerns, most recently telling officers in a speech not to be too nice to suspects. Jim Pasco, past executive director and current senior adviser to the president of the National Fraternal Order of Police, said GOP governors know that crime has been a good issue for Trump.

It resonates with the people who elected him, said Pasco. The governors see the reaction he is getting, and it spurs them to action.

But the implementation of the state response can clash with local policing strategies. Some on the left fear a shift away from Obama-era initiatives such as community policing, fewer mandatory minimum sentences and limits on the militarization of police units.

The tension is particularly pronounced in St. Louis, where the 311,000 residents are still navigating the aftermath of the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., a close-in suburb.

For now, Greitenss proposal is fairly limited. For the first time in decades, Missouri state troopers will patrol four major highways in St. Louis, freeing up city police to focus on violent crime that has driven up the homicide rate.

After seven people were fatally shot here over Fathers Day weekend, Greitens decided it was time to act, despite accusations from the community that he is grandstanding to bolster his macho political image.

During his campaign last year, Greitens shocked pundits by airing television commercials showing him firing military-style assault rifles. His ads included him saying he was going to take back Missouri and fire away for reforms.

Shortly after he was elected, Greitens experienced St. Louiss crime woes personally when his wife was robbed at gunpoint as she left a restaurant.

We go out and do what is necessary to save lives, Greitens, an Iraq War veteran and Purple Heart recipient, said in an interview. This is tearing cities apart.

His critics, however, accuse Greitens of using St. Louis as a punching bag by vilifying a city that is about 50 percent African American and has a 25 percent poverty rate.

You got a governor who is probably looking to his next move, so he has got to play to his base, said Sarah Wood Martin, a St. Louis alderwoman. And to them, it looks nice sending in the state troopers to get control of what is made to look like an out-of-control urban area.

Beside politics, activists say there is real fear that Greitenss plan could lead to more racial profiling. African Americans in Missouri are already 75 percent more likely to be stopped while driving than white motorists, according to the data compiled by the state attorney generals office.

Until and unless we start talking about that, there is a concern we are going to get more of the same, said Jeffrey A. Mittman, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri, which is seeking state records clarifying how the enhanced state patrols will be carried out.

While looking for expired license plates, unregistered vehicles or speed violators, Sevier stopped a white woman who was arrested for an outstanding warrant for failure to appear in court on a previous traffic citation.

Traffic enforcement is a good tool in finding criminals, said Sevier, who had been assigned to Perry County in Missouris southern river delta. That lady was wanted for expired registration but it just as easily could have been a murder warrant or a robbery warrant.

During the first 11 days of the state patrols on about 16 miles of interstate highways that had been only lightly patrolled before, troopers issued more than 900 traffic tickets and made 220 arrests, according to Missouri Highway Patrol data.

St. Louis resident Danielle Shanklin panned Greitenss plan. Her 25-year-old sister, Sigaria, was fatally shot in the head last summer when gunmen opened fire on a car she was in. Shanklins 3-year-old son, who was riding in the back seat, was unharmed.

Greitenss initiative, she said, is nothing more than a way to give out more tickets for speeding.

What they need do is add more funding to do things in the community, Shanklin said, reflecting a widely held view in St. Louis that Greitens cant fight crime and cut spending on social programs at the same time.

That community reaction, both here and in other cities targeted by governors, is putting mayors in a bind as they decide whether to embrace the help and, if so, how publicly.

In Arkansas, Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola (D) supported Hutchinsons plan but followed up on the governors announcement with his own one-hour news conference to call for more investment in inmate reentry programs, job training and neighborhood redevelopment.

We know we cannot arrest our way out of this problem, Stodola said.

Darrel Stephens, executive director of the Major Police Chiefs Association, said the true test of the governors initiatives will come in a few months.

The real problem with this is usually the states cant stay very long, said Stephens, noting states limited budgets as well. And to be effective at policing locally, you just cant jump in and then take off two or three months later.

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With rising homicides in big cities, Republican governors intensify police patrols - Washington Post

DENVER A free market guy like the Independence Institutes Jon Caldara normally doesnt have much in common with progressives, except when it comes to ballot measures.

Liberal activists are furious after spending millions of dollars to pass left-wing ballot initiatives in November in states such as Oklahoma, Maine and South Dakota, only to see Republican lawmakers use their legislative muscle to gut, modify or outright repeal them this year.

Mr. Caldara feels their pain. A frequent sponsor of right-tilting ballot measures in Colorado, he has watched for years as Democratic state legislators chip away at a conservative favorite: the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, passed by voters in 1992.

The coup de grace came in June, when the Colorado state legislature voted to levy a charge on hospitals without putting the issue on the ballot, even though the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, also known as TABOR, requires all tax increases to go before the voters.

There is no better poster child for the political system destroying an initiative by the citizenry, said Mr. Caldara. Let me say it really clear: TABOR is dead. The Taxpayer Bill of Rights, for all intents and purposes, is dead in Colorado.

In other words, the left now is learning the hard way what the right has long known: Just because the voters pass a ballot proposal doesnt mean the state legislature wont fight it.

For years, state ballot measures were the go-to mechanism for conservatives shut out of the lawmaking process by Democrats. But with Republicans in control of 32 state legislatures 33 with the nonpartisan Nebraska unicameral the citizen initiative process increasingly has morphed into a tool of the left.

Seventy-six initiatives appeared on U.S. ballots in November, the highest number in more than a decade, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts Stateline blog, and many were from the left, including minimum wage increases, tax hikes and criminal justice reforms.

Justine Sarver, executive director of the liberal Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, cited 2016 progressive ballot triumphs on raising the minimum wage in four states, increasing taxes in two and providing workers with mandatory sick leave in two states. She predicted those wins are only the beginning.

At BISC we are already more than one year into a multi-year, multi-state, proactive strategy, Roadmap to 2020, which will put measures on the ballot to address economic inequalities and expand access to democracy nationwide, Ms. Sarver said in a January press release.

In Maine, voters approved a marijuana legalization initiative as well as three left-wing measures an overhaul of the election system, a tipped minimum wage hike and a 3 percent income tax increase for top earners but the euphoria for the winners was short-lived.

No sooner had the Legislature convened than Republicans took on the measures, repealing the income tax hike, watering down the minimum wage law with the support of restaurant servers who feared it would reduce their incomes and securing a statement from the Maine Supreme Court indicating that swaths of the ranked-choice voting system were unconstitutional.

Ironically, the progressive ballot victories came even as Republicans gained ground in the Maine Legislature.

Its a result of the frustration that they have that they cant get these bad policies through the Legislature because we have a governor who will veto destructive policies, said Jason Savage, Maine Republican Party executive director. Instead, theyre just going directly to the ballot to pass their utopian ideas and not even trying anymore.

Will of the voters

The Republican Partys dismantling came at a price. In July, Maine Gov. Paul LePage briefly declared a partial government shutdown as lawmakers wrestled with headaches triggered by the passage of the measures, which dominated the legislative session.

It puts us in a defensive posture defending taxpayers, defending peoples freedom, defending the Constitution, said Mr. Savage. It would be a lot nicer for Republicans to talk about the policies that they think would help people instead of undoing policies that are hurting the economy or violating the Constitution.

There is no end in sight: Maine progressives already have placed an initiative on the November ballot to fund an expansion of Medicaid.

While Maine may represent the most extreme example of progressive ballot activism in Republican-dominated political territory, the Pine Tree State isnt alone.

In South Dakota, Republican Gov. Dennis Daugaard signed in January a repeal of Initiated Measure 22, a campaign finance proposal passed two months earlier with pressure from a liberal Massachusetts advocacy group, after a court found it unconstitutional.

In Oklahoma, two ballot measures backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and approved in November were promptly met by Republican-sponsored repeal legislation. The bills failed, and the initiatives to reduce certain drug and property crimes to misdemeanors took effect July 1.

Progressives who have rallied behind efforts to shift their focus to the ballot initiative have decried Republican efforts to derail the measures, which include moves by state legislatures to make qualifying for the ballot more difficult.

What all these attacks have in common is a blatant contempt for the will of the voters, said Ms. Sarver. Conservatives disregard for ballot measures is especially hypocritical because they were once an important political tool for them.

Of course, conservatives also have had their best-laid ballot measures upended by Democrats. Exhibit A is same-sex marriage.

Voters in California approved same-sex marriage bans twice, in 2000 and 2008. The first time, the Democrat-controlled State Legislature voted to repeal the measure, only to have Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger veto it.

As attorney general, Jerry Brown refused to defend the traditional marriage initiative in response to a lawsuit, forcing the measures sponsors to hire private counsel. The legal challenge ultimately prevailed.

In the case of marijuana legalization, Democratic and Republican legislators in several states essentially have deferred the decision to voters. But on other issues, there is often a reason a proposal has not cleared the legislative process.

Generally speaking, its true that if the legislature thought it was a good idea, they would have done it already, said Craig Burnett, Hofstra University political science professor. Almost every policy proposed by initiative is almost by construction out of sync with what the legislature wants. If they really wanted it, they could have done it already.

That means passing the ballot initiative is only the first step. The real work begins afterward, Mr. Caldara said.

It all goes back to [Thomas] Jefferson saying the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Thats what this is, he said. Its not a victory until you secure and defend it year after year. Because they will find a way.

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With Republican turnaround, state legislatures now foil liberal ballot measures - Washington Times