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SACRAMENTO In a leadership shakeup linked to last months bipartisan climate deal, Assembly Republicans on Thursday voted in a closed-door meeting to replace Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes with their colleague Brian Dahle, a farmer from Lassen County.

Mayes, a Yucca Valley lawmaker who has led the caucus since early 2016, withstood a leadership challenge this week by some members of his caucus, but said the group would hold an election on Tuesday. Instead, the 25-member caucus met Thursday and quickly emerged with a unanimous decision to elect Dahle. Mayes who supported Dahles bid will remain leader through the end of the legislative session, Sept. 15.

The Republican caucus just elected a new Republican leader, Mayes announced on the floor. That leader is from the major metropolis of Bieber in the North State. Please welcome Assembly Republican Leader, Assemblymember Brian Dahle.

Dahle represents a swath of rural Northern California, a district that includes parts of Lassen, Modoc, Klamath and Plumas national forests. He lives in Bieber, population 300, with his wife and three children.

Chad Mayes did an outstanding job as our leader, Dahle said Thursday in a statement from the caucus. I look forward to picking up where he left off and continuing the fight to articulate conservative principles in a way that resonates with everyday Californians.

The overthrow of Mayes is not shocking, said Bruce Cain, a political scientist and director of Stanford Universitys Bill Lane Center for the American West.

The problem for the California Republican Party, Cain said, is that pressure to adhere to party principles even at the expense of pragmatism and bipartisanship and align with the national GOP has forced it to be way more conservative than the California electorate.

As a result, they get in a deeper and deeper hole, Cain said. The Republican party has never been as marginalized since the Depression as it is right now.

Stephen Woolpert, a political science professor at St. Marys College, said the penalty Mayes paid for bipartisanship shows how politically risky compromise has become.

This is a bill that should have been seen as common ground in California, where there is strong support for climate change policies, Woolpert said.The party is in such a double-bind. If it tries to broaden its base, which in some ways it has to do, it risks alienating the Republican activists who think that bipartisanship is betrayal.

Dahle, a conservative, does have a reputation for working across the aisle. But, like most of his colleagues, he voted against the bill to extend cap-and-trade through 2030. The market-based program is designed to prod industry to emit less global-warming greenhouse gases by forcing them to acquire a steadily shrinking number of permits per ton of carbon released into the atmosphere.

Mayes has argued that embracing climate-change action and other issues important to Californians is the only way forward for a party that has watched its base grow ever smaller. He and six members of his caucus voted for the business-friendly deal they helped to negotiate and which Big Oil and other major industry groups supported pushing it to victory.

But, as Mayes discovered, helping Democrats on the controversial bill and celebrating its victory afterward was a bridge too far for party activists, who circulated chummy photos of him with Democratic Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and others. He said this week that he was surprised by the intensity of the backlash. But until Thursday morning, it appeared that he would try to keep his post.

State party leaders took the unusual step last week of calling for his replacement, a motion brought by Republican National Committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco lawyer who accused Mayes of trying to make the state party Democrat lite.

Im relieved I wont call it a victory or a celebration that the struggle has come to an end in a positive way, with a unanimous vote, Dhillon said Thursday afternoon.

Rendon, D-South Gate, injected a lighthearted note in his statement about the leadership change, alluding to his well-known, across-the-aisle friendship with Mayes.

Chad Mayes is a good man who worked hard to balance doing what was right for California and meeting the needs of his caucus. Personally, I will miss working with Chad as Republican leader, Rendon said. But make no mistake, the bromance will endure.

Gov. Jerry Brown, who spearheaded the cap-and-trade negotiations, bemoaned the Mayes ouster. Sad day, he tweeted Thursday, when the Grand Old Party punishes a leader whose only flaw was believing in science & cutting regs, costs & taxes for Californians.

Link:
California Republican lawmakers vote to oust Chad Mayes, elect new leader - The Mercury News

The president of a student Republican club at San Diego State University (SDSU) said he receivedanonymous threats of violence and calls for his resignation after he penned a letter asking for the schools Muslim association to condemn the recent terror attack in Barcelona.

The Republican club's president, Brandon Jones,posted the letter to Facebookon Aug. 17 addressed to the SDSU Muslim Student Association (MSA), calling for its leaders to condemn last weeks terror attack or resign.

The letter referred to as a formal request calls for the MSA to abide by its mission statement, which the letter claims reads: The Muslim Student Association is an organization dedicated to creating a sense of community and an inclusive environment for ALL students on campus

But the group lists adifferent mission statement online.

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS SAY THEY WERE HARASSED AT HOWARD UNIVERSITY FOR WEARING PRO-TRUMP GEAR

Jones letter stated that the campus community cannot move forward in creating an inclusive environment for all students on campus until the Muslim organization condemns the Barcelona attack.

The letter continued, stating that if leaders of the MSA dont condemn the attack and similar radical Islamic terrorist attacks, the College Republicans would ask for the resignations of the clubs president and other leaders.

I stand by the statement we made, Jones told Fox News. He said his letter has the support of SDSUs College Republicans, and that fellow college Republican organizations across the nation have come out in support.

The MSA didnt respond to a request for comment, butwrote on Facebookthat the MSA expresses its support for victims of white supremacy, nationalism, and terrorism. Our solidarity is what makes us strong and we must continue to work together to make our college campus a safe place for all students.

Other groups on campus the Young Democratic Socialists and Transfronterizo Alliance Student Organization, neither of which responded to requests for comment by Fox News have taken to Facebook to condemn the letter by College Republicans.

TheYoung Democratic Socialistscalled Jones letter a cruel and bigoted attack against the MSA, and claimed the College Republicans group was making Muslim students feel even more unsafe on their own campus by suggesting MSA members will be considered terrorist sympathizers unless they condemn an attack they had nothing to do with.

COLLEGE CLEARS PROFESSOR'S CONTROVERSIAL FACEBOOK POSTS

A statement bythe Transfronterizo Alliance Student Organization calls for the immediate removal of Jones as club president, because they claim he has shown an extremist nature in his leadership style. It also calls for the leadership of the College Republicans to be held under probation.

The group claims it aims to create an inclusive campus environment for SDSU students who live a transborder lifestyle, as noted byThe College Fix.

Jones said hes received threats of violence anonymously, and hes even heard he might be the subject of a protest at SDSU this week.

One alleged threat sent anonymously via text message stated, I hope you rot in hell (sic). Were coming for you this week ... Watch ur back every step u take. SDSU campus will be the war zone against u inhuman rats.

Anonymous email and text messages threats Brandon Jones claims to have received. (Brandon Jones)

You are obviously not fit to serve for requesting any such actions from the muslim community, please resign immediately. You sir are a racist, so please when convenient kill yourself, an email threat said.

Jones said he also received an anonymous phone call from somebody who vowed to protest this week for his resignation and expulsion.

Jones said he received a call Wednesday afternoon from campus police, as well the Dean of Students, Dr. Randy Timm, to offer him use of campus safety resources.

When asked to confirm if school officials contacted Jones, SDSU told Fox News that the school "takes seriously the well-being and safety of all our students, faculty, and staff. When alerted to any safety concerns from our campus community, university representatives have standard guidelines and procedures to proactively reach out to individuals and/or groups to discuss their safety and provide guidance as well as support."

SDSU also said there was no confirmation of a protest scheduled on campus this week.

In response to the calls for violence against him, Jones, via online correspondence, said, I think that again it just shows the hypocrisy of the left when it comes to vioelence (sic).

See the original post:
College Republican says he got violent threats after he asked Muslim group to condemn terror attacks - Fox News

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's fellow Republicans rebuked him on Wednesday after his threat to shut down the U.S. government over funding for a border wall rattled markets and cast a shadow over congressional efforts to raise the country's debt ceiling and pass spending bills.

"I don't think anyone's interested in having a shutdown," the top Republican in Congress, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, told reporters on Wednesday in Hillsboro, Oregon, where he visited an Intel factory.

Ryan said building a wall along the country's border with Mexico to deter illegal immigration was necessary, but added that the government did not have to choose between border security and shuttering operations.

Trump in a speech on Tuesday evening threatened a shutdown if Congress does not agree to fund constructing the wall, a signature promise of his presidential campaign, which added a new complication to Republicans' months-long struggle to reach a budget deal.

After Mexico rejected a chief part of Trump's promise - that it would pay for the wall - the president said the United States would fund it initially and be repaid by its southern neighbor. Lawmakers, including many Republicans, have not made that funding a top priority, as some question if a wall is necessary.

Congress will have about 12 working days when it returns on Sept. 5 from its summer break to approve spending measures to keep the government open, while also facing a looming deadline to raise the cap on the amount the government may borrow. Both are must-approve measures.

U.S. stocks and the dollar weakened and investors pivoted to the safety of U.S. Treasury securities on Wednesday after Trump's threat. The S&P 500 Index .SPX closed about 0.3 percent lower, the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI was down by 0.4 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC slid 0.3 percent.

Ryan suggested Congress would need to approve a short-term extension, or continuing resolution, of current funding levels so that the Senate could have more time to pass a full spending bill. That would push the budget battle to later in the year and could in turn delay attempts at tax reform, another signature Trump campaign issue.

Friction between Republicans and Trump has grown in recent months, with the president publicly castigating some party leaders, notably Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and expressing infuriation that Congress has not passed any significant legislation since his January inauguration.

McConnell did not take a stand on the border wall issue on Wednesday.

He said in a statement he and Trump were in regular contact and working together on a list of goals that included preventing a government default and funding government priorities "in the short and long terms."

"We have a lot of work ahead of us, and we are committed to advancing our shared agenda together and anyone who suggests otherwise is clearly not part of the conversation," he said.

A White House statement said Trump would hold "previously scheduled meetings" with McConnell once Congress returns to Washington and that Trump and McConnell "remain united on many shared priorities, including middle class tax relief, strengthening the military, constructing a southern border wall, and other important issues."

Congress frequently has to pass funding extensions for a few weeks or months while it hammers out a full budget. Occasionally lawmakers have enter a standoff over a single issue, delaying agreement and forcing a shutdown. The most recent closure, which spanned 15 days in October 2013, was over funding for the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.

In opinion polls during and after that shutdown, voters loudly disapproved of the Republican Party, which controlled the House of Representatives at the time.

Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the Republican chairman of a House Appropriations subcommittee, said Trump's threatened move could backfire on the party.

When you control the presidency, the Senate and the House, youre shutting down the government that youre running. I dont think its smart politically and I dont think it would succeed practically, he told Reuters in an interview.

The White House stressed on Wednesday that Trump would work with Congress to get funding for the wall.

"The president ran on it, won on it and plans to build it," said White House spokeswoman Natalie Strom.

The party's conservative wing backed the president's call for wall funding, with Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, telling Reuters any government shutdown would be caused by Senate Democrats.

Representative Adam Kinzinger, a Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said, however, the threat was "dangerous for our role in the world as we're talking to nations like Afghanistan to say: 'Here's how you govern yourself.'"

He added it could also hurt financial markets' confidence in the United States.

"Trump saying he would be willing to shut down the government over the wall obviously doesnt really inspire much confidence in anyone," said Michael O'Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading in Greenwich, Connecticut.

The House passed a spending bill late last month that included funding for the wall. Republicans' slim majority in the Senate means Democrats are needed to pass most legislation and they have opposed including border wall funding in any fiscal 2018 spending bill.

Congress also must periodically raise the debt limit to keep the U.S. government borrowing and operating. Politicians sometimes take advantage of that need to push through policy or spending changes.

The Treasury Department, already using "extraordinary measures" to remain current on its obligations, has said the debt limit must be raised by Sept. 29. Trump has asked Congress to extend the limit with a "clean" bill that excludes any other provisions.

Credit ratings agency Fitch said on Wednesday it would review the U.S. sovereign debt rating, "with potentially negative implications," if the debt limit is not raised in a timely manner.

Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak in New York and David Morgan in Washington; Additional reporting by Karen Brettell, Dion Rabouin, Sinead Carew, Sam Forgione and Richard Leong in New York and Doina Chiacu, Tim Ahmann, David Morgan, Susan Cornwell, Kevin Drawbaugh, Amanda Becker and Steve Holland in Washington; Writing by Dan Burns, Frances Kerry and Lisa Lambert; Editing by Bill Trott and Peter Cooney

See the rest here:
Fellow Republicans rebuke Trump over government shutdown threat - Reuters

To the casual observer, it certainly seems like the Republican Party is in an identity crisis. After years of consensus and sweeping the 2016 national elections on the promise of repeal and replace of Obamacare, Republicans in a stunning 11th-hour failure failed to pass even the so-called "skinny" repeal.

Amid this failure and the apparent chaos in Washington, many have drawn the conclusion that Republicans are in disarray and unable to govern. Others wonder if we are witnessing the end of the GOP. Many people I've met on the campaign trail have asked me why at a time like this I would choose to join the Republican party.

It's a fair question. For years, I was a big-L Libertarian, competing in a crowded field for the party's nomination for the presidency in 2016. Changing parties especially at this time might seem like a counterintuitive move.

But although turncoats like John McCain and Susan Collins have taken center stage and confused the party's image, several Republican leaders remain faithful to basic conservative principles. Leaders like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Mike Lee in the Senate and the Freedom Caucus in the House have refused to budge on Obamacare and have made their dedication to individual liberty and limited government clear.

I'm running for Senate from Missouri as a Republican in order to work alongside leaders like these. At its core, the Republican Party is supposed to be a liberty party that's why it was the party of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. For a Republican, so long as you are not violating the lives and liberties of other human beings and that includes the lives of human beings in the womb the government should give you the freedom to do as you see fit. The party strives to put the trust and the power back in the hands of the people instead of handing it over to unelected bureaucrats.

I believe in these core conservative principles. I've spent my whole career speaking on and fighting for freedom the freedom to spend as you see fit, worship as you see fit, study as you see fit, and speak as you see fit. And I'm eager to partner with liberty-loving Republicans and President Trump in restoring federalism, freedom of faith, and fiscal responsibility in this country.

Above all, however, I found that a move to the Republican Party was the move my fellow Missourians wanted me to make. Before launching my campaign, I called hundreds of Missourians to lay out the principles of liberty that form the bedrock of my political beliefs and to ask for their support. Not only did I receive a consistently positive response, but I also was asked by many to run as a Republican instead of as a Libertarian. They want to beat Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., as badly as I do, and what better than to replace a Democrat with a liberty-loving Republican?

Missourians want and deserve the kind of Republican who will stick to his guns, both literally and figuratively. They want a Republican in the model of the Freedom Caucus, Cruz, Paul, and Lee a Republican who has the grit to withstand the pressures of political gamesmanship and special interests and the gumption to vote by principle and for the people every time.

I know I can be this kind of leader, and I'm ready to represent my fellow Missourians faithfully from within the GOP. And I know that by working together, we can bring about real reform.

That's why I'm a Republican. And it's why I'm asking my fellow Missourians to join me in restoring the GOP and returning the country to the constitutional principles of justice and liberty for all.

Austin Petersen is a candidate for the United States Senate. Learn more at austinpetersen.com.

If you would like to write an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, please read our guidelines on submissions.

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Austin Petersen: Why I became a Republican - Washington Examiner

Last night I was in circumstances where I could hear only a few excerpts from Donald Trumps inflammatory speech in Phoenix. The parts I heard were remarkable enough.

They included Trumps wink-wink implied promise to pardon ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was first turned out of office by the voters of Maricopa County and then found guilty by a federal judge of criminal contempt-of-court. There was also Trumps threat to close down our government if the Congress wont provide funding for his border wallthe same one Mexico was going to pay for. Plus his flatly deceitful rendering of what he had said about the neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville, and why the press had criticized him for it. Plus his railing against Democratic obstructionism and the filibuster, when his biggest legislative failure, the repeal of Obamacare, was on a simple-majority vote.

Plus his explicit (without using their names) attacks on his host states two Republican senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake, and his implicit attacks on Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Republican Senate and House leadership on which his future legislative and political prospects so obviously depend. Plus his self-description as a member of the intellectual meritocracy he otherwise disdains: I was a good student. I always hear about the elite. You know, the elite. They're elite? I went to better schools than they did. I was a better student than they were. I live in a bigger, more beautiful apartment, and I live in the White House, too, which is really great. (Trump does indeed live in a bigger apartment than any reporter or policy person I know. He was not a better student than the vast majority of them.)

Based just on the parts Id heard, I did a multi-part Twitter-exegesis last night, trying to explain why Trumps hour-plus, nearly 9,000-word resentful rant stood alone in the history of presidential rhetoric.A Twitter user named Brent Schlottman graciously converted that into one Storify installment, which you can see here and which began:

The speech also included this surreal passage, from a president whose tally of significant bills passed stands at zero:

But I enjoy it [the job], because we've made so muchI don't believe that any presidentI don't believe that any president has accomplished as much as this president in the first six or seven months. I really don't believe it.

Just for the record: by this stage in his presidency, Franklin Roosevelt had pushed through and signed more than a dozen pieces of major New Deal legislation. By this point, Ronald Reagan had signed his big tax-cut bill. By this point, Barack Obama had signed the post-crash economic-stimulus program. By this point, Donald Trump has enacted no legislation of consequence.

* * *

But it was only when I read the full speech today that I saw the bad parts. They were Trumps extended denunciation of the legitimacy and motives of the press.

All presidents end up with grudges against reporters, editors, and commentators. It goes with the territory, and has from the time of George Washington onward. All presidents are tempted to let their private grudges spill out in public. Richard Nixon is most famous for having given in to the temptation, both on his own and via his nattering nabobs of negativism mouthpiece and vice president, Spiro Agnew.

But Trump broke new ground last night in attacking not just the missteps of reporters, or their assumptions, or their selective focus, or their process-mindedness, or any of the multiple other failings we reporters actually have. Instead he attacked theirourloyalty, patriotism, motivation, and honesty.

You have some very good reporters, he allowed in his speech last night, much as he stipulated back in 2015 that not all Mexicans were rapists. (Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. This was, again, the way he kicked off his campaign.)

Some reporters, like some Mexicans, are good. Which leads to the but:

But for the most part, honestly, these are really, really dishonest people, and they're bad people. And I really think they don't like our country. I really believe that. And I don't believe they're going to change

The only people giving a platform to these hate groups is the media itself, and the fake news.

For the most part, these are really, really dishonest people.

Theyre bad people.

They really dont like our country.

And not just that:

These are sick people.

You know the thing I don't understand? You would thinkyou would think they'd want to make our country great again, and I honestly believe they don't. I honestly believe it.

Sick people. Who dont want the best for our country. Not critics. Enemies.

* * *

Joe McCarthy said things like this, but he wasnt president. George Wallace did as well, but while he won election as governor of Alabama, of course he didnt reach the White House. The closest a previous president came to taking a similar tone in public was not even that close. The president wassurprise!Richard Nixon, who made a famously bitter crack in a press conference after the Saturday Night Massacre in 1973. First he complained about the imbalance of press coverage of the event. Then he said to the reporters, with an icy smile: Dont get the impression that you can arouse my anger. One can only be angry with those he respects.

Again, at one of his angriest moments, as one of the darkest figures in our national life, even Nixon stopped short of publicly calling reporters disloyal and dishonest.

* * *

This tone is destructive of democracy, which until now has been assumed to depend on independent scrutiny and criticism as one of many useful checks-and-balances. As part of pandering to a crowd, it can actually be dangerous. At last years Republican convention, the ugliest moments were when the audience chanted Lock her up! Lock her up! in lusty response to criticisms of Hillary Clinton from the podium. Try as he might, Donald Trump cant run against Crooked Hillary forever. But the Lock her up! passions are being transferred to the Crooked Media:

The media can attack me. But where I draw the line is when they attack you, which is what they do. When they attack the decency of our supporters.

[APPLAUSE]

You are honest, hard-working, taxpayingand by the way, you're overtaxed, but we're going to get your taxes down.

[APPLAUSE]

You're taxpaying Americans who love our nation, obey our laws, and care for our people. It's time to expose the crooked media deceptions, and to challenge the media for their role in fomenting divisions.

[APPLAUSE]

And yes, by the wayand yes, by the way, they are trying to take away our history and our heritage. You see that.

[BOOING]

In response, one of the founders of Politico and Axios, Jim Vandehei, noted:

***

Paul Ryan doesnt speak this way. Nor Mitch McConnell. Nor the great majority of Republican senators and representatives. They know this is dangerous. They know this is wrong. Increasing numbers of them wring their hands in concern.

But with every day that passes without their doing something about it, the stain and responsibility for Trumps ungoverned tone stick more lastingly to the Republican establishment that keeps looking the other way as he debases his office and divides his country.

The broadest conception of doing something would mean authorizing the investigations and hearings necessary to determine whether Donald Trump is fitfinancially, ethically, temperamentally, legallyto retain the powers of the presidency. Not even 20 years ago, Republicans in Congress were sure that Bill Clintons lie about extra-marital sex justified impeachment proceedings against him. Trump has given them 100 times greater grounds for action.

I understand that not even a hundred-fold difference may be sufficient to proceed against a president of ones own party. So how about this first step: a formal motion of censure, introduced by leaders of both parties, against a president who has challenged the patriotism and loyalty of fellow citizens, and failed to distinguish between neo-Nazis and the objects of their hate. It would be a start.

Read more:
The Republican Party Is Enabling an Increasingly Dangerous Demagogue - The Atlantic