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President-elect Donald Trump walks Labor Secretary-designate Andrew Puzder from Trump National Golf Club Bedminster clubhouse in Bedminster, N.J., in November 2016.

The collapse Wednesday of Andrew Puzders nomination as US secretary of labor might turn out to be a historical footnote or it might mark a welcome turning point in the new Trump administration. Hopefully, its a sign that the Republican Senate is waking up to its responsibility to act as a check on an administration thats shown nothing but incompetence as it staggers through its first month.

Puzder, a fast-food baron, withdrew from consideration after Republican senators made it clear to the White House that he lacked the votes needed for confirmation. Hes the first, and so far only, Trump nominee turned aside by the Senate. Previously, the Republican-controlled body had rubber-stamped even obviously unqualified nominees like Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

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Is Puzder just that much worse than Trumps other picks? Or is the climate in Washington changing in just the days since the vote to confirm DeVos?

The Trump administration has careered from crisis to crisis, and on Monday night National Security Adviser Mike Flynn resigned over his conversations with the Russian ambassador. Trumps fellow Republicans are getting antsy. After trying to shield the new president from oversight, senators now seem to be leaning toward a more aggressive inquiry into the administrations Russian ties.

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There were certainly good reasons for the Senates refusal to approve Puzder. The head of the company that owns Hardees and Carls Jr., Puzder had come under criticism for his business record as well as allegations of domestic violence once lodged against him by his former wife. He also acknowledged hiring an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper, the sort of infraction that has sunk cabinet nominations in the past.

While I wont be serving in the administration, I fully support the President and his highly qualified team, Puzder wrote.

In the minds of Republican senators, the argument for approving bad Trump nominees and looking the other way at his scandals boils down to party loyalty. Senator Rand Paul said as much, in an astonishingly candid comment Tuesday: I just dont think its useful to be doing investigation after investigation, particularly of your own party. ... Well never even get started with doing the things we need to do. Plus, given Trumps thin skin, theres no guarantee that he wont retaliate against his fellow Republicans in some fashion if they exercise their oversight responsibilities.

But the consequences of letting Trump rampage through Washington appear graver every day. His erratic foreign policy pronouncements on China, the Middle East, and Mexico have thrown international relations into turmoil. Conflicts of interest have crept into official White House communications. Congressmen have the power to mitigate the damage Trump is doing, but only if they use it. Hopefully, having drawn the line on Puzder will embolden them to do so more often.

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Are Senate Republicans finally waking up? - The Boston Globe

Not a month into Donald Trump's presidency, Republican leaders in Congress have run up against just about every speed bump imaginable in their quest to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.

Deep ideological divisions have burst into the open over how much of the health care law to roll back and how quickly, as well as the fate of Medicaid expansion and federal funding for Planned Parenthood -- all as angry constituents who support Obamacare are hounding GOP lawmakers at town halls across the country.

In Republicans' telling, it was never supposed to be this difficult: No other issue has been more potent in uniting the party and galvanizing its base than gutting Obamacare, and GOP lawmakers kicked off the new Congress with a fresh thirst to exercise their newly gained power in Washington and kill the health care law once and for all.

Here are the major sticking points that have Republicans struggling on Obamacare repeal:

The House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative lawmakers, want Obamacare repealed -- and they're unhappy it's taken this long.

They signaled to party leaders this week that there's no excuse for the party to delay a repeal vote, and that any repeal bill that's less aggressive than what the GOP approved in the past is simply unacceptable.

GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has partnered with Sanford on a replacement bill, said conservatives adamantly oppose the notion of "keep part of Obamacare."

"Most of the conservatives are saying we ought to repeal the whole thing," Paul told CNN. "We did it once in 2015. That's what we feel like we ought to be voting on."

Republicans moved quickly last month to begin the process of repealing Obamacare. But before long, rank-and-file members started to ring the alarm bell, arguing that things were moving too fast.

Repealing the sweeping health care law in the absence of a replacement plan, lawmakers said, would be a huge political liability for Republicans and constituents would blame the party for any disruptions or loss in coverage.

To quell the widespread concerns, GOP leaders committed to simultaneously "repeal and replace" parts of the law, and got to work on inserting replacement measures into the repeal package. They've also said the replacement would happen in stages.

"A lot of the delay we're seeing now is based on a disagreement over what elements of replace get included in the bill," said Dan Holler, vice president of government relations at Heritage Action for America. "Because you have to build consensus over what those things are ... all of that takes a little time."

Trump has not made the Obamacare deliberations any easier -- in fact, he often adds to the confusion.

There has also been plenty of confusion about what health care plan Trump himself may be working on -- if he's working on one at all.

Angry town halls are back.

Reminiscent of President Barack Obama's first summer in office, constituents are showing up in droves at public forums across the country seven years after Obamacare's enactment, airing concerns about the GOP's efforts to repeal the law.

The chaotic scenes of protesters, disruptions and heightened security have rattled congressional Republicans and made them increasingly wary of potential confrontations.

The coming weekend and next week's recess are likely to produce more clashes, and put further pressure on Republicans to offer reassurances that millions of people won't suddenly lose their coverage.

A major gulf exists between Republicans who hail from states that expanded Medicaid under Obamacare and those who didn't.

There are more than a dozen Republican senators from expansion states and many of them are advocating to make sure that their constituents who benefited from the expansion don't lose coverage. Lawmakers must also take into consideration the 16 Republicans governors who lead states that have expanded -- several are pushing Congress to keep the provision.

The 2015 health care reconciliation bill called for phasing out Medicaid expansion, something that the House Freedom Caucus is now pushing for.

One option being laid out by the House Energy and Commerce Committee is to "freeze" Medicaid expansion -- not kick any one off but not allow new recipients to enroll. The hope is that over time, individuals will move off of Medicaid. To make it fair to states that didn't expand Medicaid, non-expansion states will continue to receive disproportionate share of payments, which the government pays hospitals for caring for people who don't have insurance.

"We don't want to just stop it, but how do you transition off that's fair to states that didn't expand?" said GOP Rep. Brett Guthrie, the vice chair for the subcommittee on health.

Conservatives have long targeted Medicaid for cuts. Many now want to overhaul the entire entitlement, turning it into a grant program that would provide a fixed level of federal funding to the states but give them more flexibility to run it.

Obamacare levied a bevy of taxes on higher-income Americans, insurers, employers with generous plans and others.

The latter is simply unacceptable to some Republicans.

"The burdens of the vast majority of these taxes are ultimately borne by patients and consumers in the form of higher costs, larger tax bills and reduced value in existing health plans and savings accounts," Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch said in a statement Wednesday.

But others, including some policy experts at the American Enterprise Institute, say not so fast.

Not only will killing the taxes immediately severely limit the funding for the tax credits Republicans want to use to help people afford coverage, but Congress also needs the money now to continue paying for Obamacare's subsidies and Medicaid expansion during the transition period.

Another potential non-starter for conservatives: a failure to defund Planned Parenthood.

Republicans voted in 2015 as a part of the legislation to repeal Obamacare to strip federal funding for the group. This year, some conservatives are beginning to worry that that provision could end up on the chopping block if the party starts to make any concessions on repeal.

Complicating matters is the fact that at least two pro-abortion rights senators across the Capitol -- Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska -- won't commit to supporting an Obamacare repeal bill if a provision to defund Planned Parenthood is included.

As if that weren't enough, Republicans are getting additional pressure from insurance companies. Their message to Congress: The clock is ticking.

This leaves Republicans with the tough task of reassuring insurance companies that Congress has a path forward on Obamacare. Insurers have to begin filing their 2018 plans and premiums in April.

GOP Rep. Kevin Brady, the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said Humana's exit is "another example of how Obamacare is not just sick -- it is in serious, serious trouble."

Republican Sen. John Barrasso pushed back on the suggestion that insurance companies are nervous because of the uncertainty created by GOP lawmakers.

"This is all the Democrats' problem. They voted for this disaster, it continues to collapse. This is their problem," Barrasso told CNN. "We're trying to repair the problem."

CNN's Tami Luhby contributed to this report.

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The many reasons Republicans are stuck on Obamacare repeal - CNN

Caltrain has a problem.

Passenger numbers are exploding thanks to the Bay Areas tech boom, and service has not kept up with demand. Peak trains are full, and it is difficult to find the capacity to run more. Service frequency is the same as it was in the late 2000s, but daily ridership has grownfrom 36,000 in 2009 to 62,000 in 2016.

Riding outside rush hour is no better: off-peak trains dont come frequently enough, and take more than an hour and a half to go between San Francisco and San Jose.

All of Caltrains problems have solutions. These involve smart investments in better service and one of the keys is the Caltrain electrification project. For $2 billion, it would wire the line between San Francisco and San Jose and buy new high-performance electric trains, reducing local travel time by twenty minutes.

And yet, the Republican Party is threatening to cancel the project.

Caltrain is seeking $647 million in federal funds, but the states entire Republican Congressional delegation sent Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao a letterdemanding that she freeze funding until California did a new audit of high-speed rail.

In effect, the Republican delegation wants the Trump administration to hold Caltrain hostage in order to force the state to cancel high-speed rail. Residents of the Bay Area and supporters of good government should be prepared to fight this move.

The Republicans do not have anything against Caltrain electrification. It is not as flashy as California High-Speed Rail, and up until now did not attract much attention from opponents of rail expansion. But it is a necessary step for bringing high-speed rail all the way to San Francisco since high-speed trains must be electric.

As a result, it is threatened with the chopping block. To the states Republican delegation, grandstanding about California High-Speed Rail is more important than solving the regional transportation woes of the Bay Area.

It is not just high-speed rail that requires Caltrain electrification. Two other regionally beneficial investments rely on the project as well.

The first is the Downtown Extension, which would bring trains from their current terminus at 4th and King to Transbay Terminal. Not many people work in Mission Bay near 4th and King; in contrast, based on analysis done by rail activist Clem Tillier, there are more than 100,000 middle- and high-income jobs within a half-mile radius of Transbay Terminal, more than within the same radius of every Caltrain station from 4th and King down to Gilroy, combined. The Downtown Extension tunnel would not be able to accommodate diesel trains because of the fumes.

Second, capacity upgrades require adding tracks. The Caltrain corridor has just two tracks, one in each direction. This means mixing express and local trains requirecarefully timing the schedules so that the fast trains dont get stuck behind the slow ones. Electric trains accelerate much faster than diesel trains, which reduces the speed difference between trains that make all stops and trains that only stop at Baby Bullet stations.

Even then, some infrastructure for timed overtakes is required for additional capacity. High-speed rail includes money for such overtakes, which is useful for Caltrain as well. Electrification reduces the required scope of investment into overtakes.

In addition to capital investment, electrification is necessary for solving Caltrains problem of poor frequency. To run the Baby Bullet express trains, Caltrain had to cut service to the local stations. Several stations have only hourly service even at rush hour, even stations that are close to many suburban homes and jobs and had high ridership until the Baby Bullet came], such as California Avenue.

Because electrification reduces the speed difference between local and express trains, it would permit Caltrain to run frequent rush hour service to these stations, in both directions, for both traditional and reverse commuters.

All of these benefits together add up. Caltrain expects 100,000 passengers per weekday by 2040. If local trains go between San Francisco Transbay Terminal and San Jose in an hour and twenty minutes, and Baby Bullets in fifty, then this ridership level is not hard to reach. Ridership is already growing, and is limited by capacity and by poor service, both of which become easy to solve if Caltrain is electrified.

There is room for making Caltrains modernization project better. Its cost per mile is very high, for technical reasons some of which can be fixed. For example, the masts holding up the catenary wires are spaced more closely than is standard, and this raises the cost of installation. However, the high benefits of the project ensure that even at the current cost, it is worth it. Per rider, the cost is only about $20,000, one of the lowest costs of any rail project in the US today; the cheapest on President Trumps wishlistis about $50,000.

The states Republican delegation is unlikely to be able to stop high-speed rail. Nor is it interested in reforming high-speed rail to be cheaper. The delegations request for an audit rings similar to rail cancellations in Ohio, Florida, and Wisconsin after the 2010 election brought Tea Party-supported Republican governors to this statecancellations that led the federal government to divert more high-speed rail stimulus money to California. Even with its $3.3 billion in federal funds, California High-Speed Rail is increasingly relying on state money, from the cap-and-trade fund in addition to the Prop 1A ballot money.

Instead, the Republican delegation is going after a rail extension that is much smaller in scope than high-speed rail and has less room for future cost overruns or ridership shortfalls. Its attempt to force the states hand to shrink the role of government is leading to bad government. Instead of fighting off government waste, it is fighting off worthwhile public investments in order to make a political point.

To call your elected representatives in Congress, you may use the following script:

Hi, I am [say your name] from [say where you live]. Im calling to urge you to voice your support of the Caltrain electrification project. It is more cost-effective than any mass transit project that the administration would like to fund, but Californias Republican delegation wants to choke federal funds to it, since it is a necessary component of California High-Speed Rail. Caltrain electrification has many benefits to local commuters who are stuck in traffic, regardless of what happens with high-speed rail, but the state Republicans want to hold it hostage until they get high-speed rail canceled. You owe it to your constituents to do what you can to make sure good public investments like Caltrain electrification get the funding that they need and are not held hostage to grandstanding.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committees phone number is 202-225-9446; the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committees number is 202-224-1251 for the Republican majority and 202-224-0411 for the Democratic minority.

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Congressional Republican threats to Caltrain funding could cripple Bay Area's growth - TechCrunch

Until US president Donald Trumps election, Republican lawmakers were hawkishsometimes to a faulton Russia, regularly hounding president Obama for his perceived weakness toward the Kremlin.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell epitomized this in 2014, when he lambasted Obamas passivity in the midst of the Ukraine crisis: Some leaders are going to exercise power [and] will push limits as far as they can if they think that theres no pushback, McConnell said. Its no wonder that Putin looks at the United States and sort of concludes that no matter what he does, he doesnt pay a price for it.

Since then, Moscow has made an unprecedented cyberattack on the US electoral process, and Trumps national security adviser, Michael Flynn, has just been fired over a scandal surrounding his contacts with the Kremlin. But McConnell and most of his fellow Republicans in Congress are walking a much finer line now.

Three Senate proposals aiming to hold the Russians feet to the fire have found a total of just six Republican co-sponsors between them. One of the bills would set up an independent, 9/11 style bipartisan investigation into Russian hacking and the Trump teams relations with the Kremlin; another proposes to counteract Russian hostilities through a broad swathe of actions; while another would give Congress considerable power to block the removal of sanctions on Russia.

The latter two have found support from a sprinkling of Republicans, including famed Russia hawks John McCain and Lindsey Graham. The one calling for the independent investigation is backed by 19 Democrats and zero Republicansclouding an issue that both Graham and McCain in the past have insisted should be non-partisan.

Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee and a key force behind the bills, says he believes there would be considerable Republican support if McConnell came on board. My guess is that if you put this up for a vote as a secret ballot, it would pass overwhelmingly in Congress, he said in a Feb. 14 talk at the Center for American Progress think tank. But we [Democrats] dont put things uponly the majority leader puts things up on the floor.

McConnells office did not reply to a request for a comment.

Republicans have largely fallen back on the idea of expanding an ongoing Senate intelligence committee investigation into Russias involvement in the 2016 election. After Flynns ouster, foreign relations committee chair Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, called for those efforts to be broadened to a fulsome investigation on all angles relative to nefarious activities that were taking place with Russia, beginning in March but even going back before that time.

As for an independent investigation, Corker stopped short of endorsing such an idea, the conservative Washington Examiner reported, arguing that these types of blue-ribbon commissions often take years to produce findings and may not have access to all the classified materials that a congressional panel would.

Cardin, however, argues that any Congressional investigation would be too narrow in scope since no one committee has jurisdiction over all of the legal, foreign affairs, intelligence, defense, and other angles the case encompasses. He also suggests an investigation should not be carried out by sitting members of Congress, but by independent experts in the aforementioned topics who can devote significant hours to the investigation: We need full-time attention to this issuethis is a matter of national security, he said.

As if to underscore whats at stake, the New York Times today (Feb. 14) reported (paywall) that Russia has deployed a cruise missile, in apparent violation of a nuclear-weapons treaty.

Read more from the original source:
Once hawkish Republican senators are now walking a fine line on Russia and Trump - Quartz

THOMAS D. ELIAS 12:00 a.m. PT Feb. 15, 2017

Tom Elias(Photo: Provided)

Prior to 1982, few Californians outside San Diego had heard of Pete Wilson, the moderate Republican mayor of that city and a former state assemblyman. But Wilson whipped the outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown that year to become a U.S. senator, sending Brown into almost 20 years of political exile during which he worked with Mother Teresa and conducted a radio talk show, among other activities.

Wilson later won the governors office in 1988, eventually turning to the right, especially on the issue of immigration, and along the way ushered in todays era of almost absolute Democrat rule in the state.

Now Kevin Faulconer, another moderate Republican San Diego mayor, mulls the idea of running for governor soon after allowing his citys professional football franchise to move 100 miles north to Los Angeles. Faulconer knows the states Top Two primary election system, adopted via Proposition 14 in 2010, could give him a leg up not enjoyed by any of the several strong on paper Democratic possibilities to succeed Brown when hes termed out of his second go-round as governor late next year.

This will be about party discipline. Republicans saw in 2016 what a lack of that quality can do: Because five at least seemingly credible Republicans ran in last years primary for the U.S. Senate seat later won by Democrat Kamala Harris, the party for the first time in memory did not field a runoff election candidate for a top-of-the-ticket California office.

This came about when former GOP state party chairmen George (Duf) Sundheim and Tom Del Beccaro, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Ron Unz, former legislator Phil Wyman and former state Treasurer nominee Greg Conlon all ran.

With a bare 26% of the electorate registered Republican, those five split a smallish pot of votes. Together they netted 21.1% in the primary, while Harris topped 39% and fellow Democrat Loretta Sanchez got 18.9%. Top Two then saw Harris oppose Sanchez in the runoff, where Harris won handily.

If just one Republican had run in the primary, that candidate might have topped the Sanchez vote, and no one would have been quite certain what might happen in a runoff. The GOP lacked the discipline to pull this off. But Republicans saw what happened when credible candidate Ashley Swearengin, then mayor of Fresno, made the runoff for state controller and nearly won.

Its Democrats who now face issues of party discipline in the just-begun run for governor. Their corps of candidates, declared and not, includes Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, state Treasurer John Chiang, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, financier Tom Steyer star of a plethora of liberal commercials during last falls presidential campaign and former state Schools Supt. Delaine Eastin.

If they all run, be sure only one Democrat will make the November 2018 ballot. A primary with so many major Democrats would likely splinter the partys vote.

Meanwhile, Faulconer today is the only major Republican officeholder seriously considering a run. He ran second behind Newsom in the first major survey on this contest. But hes not certain whether to run, perhaps because he knows that if one or two more other Republicans get in, he might not muster enough primary votes to make the runoff. Also contemplating a run is PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who has never run for any office but backed President Trump heavily last year.

One possibility: If Faulconer and just one other Republican possibly Thiel get in and no Democrats get out, the two Republicans could conceivably make the runoff over all Democrats, even in a state thoroughly dominated by Democrats.

So this time, the Democrats will need to make hard choices. Some current prospects will have to peel off and settle for another office, as Newsom did in 2010, after briefly opposing Brown for governor. Or else, the same thing could happen statewide as did twice in congressional races soon after the advent of Top Two so many Democrats entered primaries in strongly Democratic districts that they ended up being represented for awhile by Republicans because of a splintered Democratic primary vote.

So far, no Democrat now running or thinking about it appears to have given this much thought. But unless party officials bang a few inflated heads together, California could see a monumental political surprise.

Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com

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How California could get a Republican governor - The Salinas Californian