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Liberals are losing their minds over Trump's climate decision - Conservative Review

As Massachusetts Democrats converge for their annual convention in Worcester this weekend, party leaders, activists, and operatives face a dispiriting challenge: blocking Governor Charlie Bakers reelection in 2018.

As Massachusetts Democrats converge for their annual convention in Worcester this weekend, party leaders, activists, and operatives face a dispiriting challenge: blocking Governor Charlie Bakers reelection in 2018.

To eject Baker, the party will have to channel fury from a new wave of party activists, emboldened by their opposition to President Trump, into a campaign to defeat a Republican governor. Baker has distanced himself from the president and a host of his most controversial policies, from climate change and immigration bans to health care and budget cuts.

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Whats more, the governors consistent record-breaking popularity in opinion polls, unprecedented fund-raising prowess, and effective use of his bully pulpit on Beacon Hill have positioned him as an affable Republican moderate and created serious political complications for the Democrats, according to Globe interviews with longtime activists, leaders, and party operatives.

But the rank and files focus on Trump and the turmoil in Washington, while ignoring the governors race, might be their toughest obstacle.

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I see much more enthusiasm among activists in getting rid of Donald Trump than in the governors race, said Janet Beyer, a veteran Democratic state committeewoman from Concord. A lot of Democrats here are more concerned about electing people around the country who can override Trump than whos running for governor, she said.

Another longtime state committee member, Tom Larkin of Bedford, said he sees that as the biggest challenge facing Democrats to harness the passion brought into the party this year by a surge of new anti-Trump activists into a campaign against a moderate Baker.

It is hard enough to get a handle on Baker as a problem, but Trump is boiling the pot, helping us keep the activists in the field, he said. Our challenge is to translate that to a Democratic race to beat Baker. I dont see how we can take advantage of it. Its tricky.

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Other party leaders and the candidates are apparently sensing that, too. Trump is the first name out of their mouths when asked about the Massachusetts gubernatorial race and the strategies to beat Baker.

Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe/File 2017

Our focus has to be on Trump and what Charlie Baker, as the leader of his party, is going to do to stand up for the people of Massachusetts, Massachusetts Democratic Party Chairman Gus Bickford said.

Trump is an albatross around his neck, Massachusetts Democratic Party Chairman Gus Bickford said. Our focus has to be on Trump and what Charlie Baker, as the leader of his party, is going to do to stand up for the people of Massachusetts.

The announced candidates former Patrick administration fiscal chief Jay Gonzalez, Newton mayor Setti Warren, and environmental activist and 1994 lieutenant governor nominee Robert K. Massie strongly dismiss reports that the nascent gubernatorial race is failing to generate much interest or enthusiasm at the grass roots.

While they are not creating much excitement, they are seen for the most part as credible candidates, with the beginning assemblage of campaign organizations, the development of broad themes for their candidacies, and claims of growing lists of volunteers.

But none of the three has yet to create the kind of spark that Deval Patrick had at this stage of the 2006 race. By 2005s off-year convention, he was creating a visible buzz among the grass roots.

Warren argues that it is too early to make that assessment. But his comments again highlight the point that Trump is the political bugbear at the center of the 2018 state election.

This is where we can actually push back against Trumps policies, Warren said of the race. It is going to take time to build up the grass roots, but we will get there.

The candidates are also nervously looking at a shadow boxer at the edge of the race Attorney General Maura Healey, who has a healthy $1 million in her campaign account and a strong political profile just halfway through her first term.

A Healey candidacy is the Baker camps worst fear and many Democratic leaders greatest wish, according to Republican insiders. But she is showing no signs of jumping into the race at this point. However, Democrats say that if Bakers poll numbers were to crater this fall, she would face strong and tempting urgings for her to get in the race.

Another problem for the gubernatorial contenders is the importance the party is expected to put on the US Senate race. Elizabeth Warrens reelection is the partys priority, particularly with the national Republicans threatening to pour resources into Massachusetts next year to damage her national reputation.

She needs to be our No. 1 priority going into 2018, one of the states top Democrats said. The governor race is an afterthought.

But perhaps the most difficult challenge for Democrats to unravel Bakers candidacy is his public image. Since his hard-fought election, he has crafted a profile that few dispute an affable governor who seems more focused on governing and is not banging the partisan drum or looking for battles with Democrats.

He has cultivated Democrats and set a tone that appeals to moderate voters a swing bloc that often decides gubernatorial elections, particularly for Republicans.

He never uses excitable language, said US Representative Richard Neal, a Springfield Democrat and the dean of states congressional delegation. Its very reassuring. Every word he utters is aimed at suburban independent voters.

Veterans of state politics said they see a parallel to 1994, when a very popular Republican incumbent an affable and moderate William F. Weld cruised to reelection. He crushed Mark Roosevelt, a state representative with historic political roots and a legislative record. He is Theodore Roosevelts great-grandson.

J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press/File 2017

Even Elizabeth Warrens ability to generate turnout of Democrats, political veterans argue, might not necessarily help the Democratic gubernatorial nominee.

Even Elizabeth Warrens ability to generate turnout of Democrats, they argue, might not necessarily help the Democratic gubernatorial nominee. The state has a deep history of ticket splitting. That same year, while Weld won in a record landslide, Senator Edward M. Kennedy handily beat back what at first appeared to be a serious challenge from first-time candidate Mitt Romney.

Some veterans of past campaigns dismiss the notion that partys rank and file, who rallied to Patrick and gave him a landslide victory in the Democratic primary and general election in 2006, are not ready to mount a spirited challenge to Baker. They argue that the anti-Trump fervor that is bringing overflow crowds to party conclaves and local meetings will spill into the state elections next year.

The Democrats have a much more favorable environment than 1994, says Doug Rubin, a Democratic strategist who guided Patrick from obscurity to the governors office in less that two years and in a come-from-behind reelection to beat Baker in 2010.

There is a real grass-roots excitement since the Trump election, which will carry over to the state elections in 2018, Rubin predicts. They are looking for an opportunity to push back. And Democrats win when our base is engaged and motivated.

Originally posted here:
Charlie who? Democrats focus ire toward Trump - The Boston Globe

The White House is telling federal agencies to blow off Democratic lawmakers' oversight requests, as Republicans fear the information could be weaponized against President Donald Trump.

At meetings with top officials for various government departments this spring, Uttam Dhillon, a White House lawyer, told agencies not to cooperate with such requests from Democrats, according to Republican sources inside and outside the administration.

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It appears to be a formalization of a practice that had already taken hold, as Democrats have complained that their oversight letters requesting information from agencies have gone unanswered since January, and the Trump administration has not yet explained the rationale.

The declaration amounts to a new level of partisanship in Washington, where the president and his administration already feels besieged by media reports and attacks from Democrats. The idea, Republicans said, is to choke off the Democratic congressional minorities from gaining new information that could be used to attack the president.

"You have Republicans leading the House, the Senate and the White House," a White House official said. "I don't think you'd have the Democrats responding to every minority member request if they were in the same position."

A White House spokeswoman said the policy of the administration is to accommodate the requests of chairmen, regardless of their political party. There are no Democratic chairmen, as Congress is controlled by Republicans.

The administration also responds to all non-oversight inquiries, including the Senates inquiries for purposes of providing advice and consent on nominees, without regard to the political party of the requester, the spokeswoman said. Multiple agencies have, in fact, responded to minority member requests. No agencies have been directed not to respond to minority requests.

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Republicans said that President Barack Obamas administration was not always quick to respond to them and sometimes ignored them. However, the Obama White House never ordered agencies to stop cooperating with Republican oversight requests altogether, making the marching orders from Trumps aides that much more unusual.

What I do not remember is a blanket request from the Obama administration not to respond to Republicans, said a former longtime senior Republican staffer.

There are some exceptions to the Trump administration order, particularly from national security agencies, Democrats and Republicans said. Agencies will also comply if a Republican committee chairman joins the Democratic requests, but ranking members oversight requests are spurned.

Congressional minorities frequently ask questions of the administration intended to embarrass the president or garner a quick headline. And Democrats have fired off requests they surely knew the administration would not answer, such as asking the White House in March to make visitor logs of Trump Tower and Mar-A-Lago publicly available.

But House and Senate lawmakers also routinely fire off much more obscure requests not intended to generate news coverage. And the Trump administrations plans to stonewall Democrats is in many ways unprecedented and could lead to a worsening of the gridlock in Washington.

Austin Evers, a former Obama administration lawyer in the State Department who runs a watchdog group called American Oversight, said the Trump administration has instituted a dramatic change in policy from Reagan-era congressional standards in which the government provided more information to committee chairman but also consistently engaged in oversight with rank-and-file minority members.

Instructing agencies not to communicate with members of the minority party will poison the well. It will damage relationships between career staffers at agencies and subject matter experts in Congress, Evers said. One of the reasons you respond to letters from the minority party is to explain yourself. It is to put on the record that even accusations that you find unreasonable are not accurate.

One month ago, Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) and other Democrats sent a letter to the Office of Personnel Management asking for cybersecurity information after it was revealed that millions of people had their identities compromised. The letterasked questions about how cybersecurity officials were hired, and in Rices view, it was not a political letter at all.

"The answer we got back is, We only speak to the chair people of committees. We said, That's absurd, what are you talking about? Rice said in an interview. I was dumbfounded at their response. I had never gotten anything like that The administration has installed loyalists at every agency to keep tabs on what information people can get.

At a House Appropriations hearing in May, Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) asked acting General Services Administrator Tim Horne about a briefing House Oversight Committee staffers had received from the GSA, in which they were informed that the GSA has a new policy only to respond to Republican committee chairmen.

The administration has instituted a new policy that matters of oversight need to be requested by the committee chair, Horne responded.

In February, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked for information on changes to healthcare.gov from the Health and Human Services Department. Theyre still waiting for an answer. In early May, Murray and six other senators asked the president about why Vivek Murthy was dismissed as surgeon general. There was no response, and her staff said those are just a couple of the requests that have gone unanswered.

Its no surprise that they would try to prevent Congress from getting the information we need to make sure government is working for the people we represent, Murray said when asked about the lack of cooperation.

The Senates Homeland Security and Government Accountability Committee, the primary investigator in that chamber, has received some responses from the Trump administration but has seen several letters only signed by Democrats ignored. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) wrote Education Secretary Betsy DeVos asking for help addressing the challenges of rural schools and joined with Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) to question the security of Trumps use of a personal cell phone as president. Neither was answered, an aide said.

A senior Democratic aide said that of the Senate Democrats 225 oversight letters sent to the Trump administration since January asking for information, the vast majority have received no response.

When it comes to almost anything weve done at a federal agency, very close to 100 percent of those we havent heard anything back. And at the White House its definitely 100 percent, said a second senior Democratic aide. This is rampant all over committee land.

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White House orders agencies to ignore Democrats' oversight requests - Politico

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif, seen here during a May 3 hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is one of the Democratic lawmakers and rights groups criticizing the Republican head of the Senate intelligence committee for seeking the return of copies of a report on CIA treatment of detainees after 9/11. Photo by REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque.

WASHINGTON Democratic lawmakers and rights groups criticized the Republican head of the Senate intelligence committee on Friday for seeking the return of copies of a report on CIA treatment of detainees after 9/11. The critics claimed Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, the committee chairman, is trying to erase history by making it harder for the public to ever see the classified document.

Burr said federal courts have ruled the report is a congressional document and asked for copies held by intelligence bodies and other executive branch agencies to be returned. If the report remained in the hands of executive branch officials, it would be subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Congressional materials are not.

The CIA and the agencys inspector generals office, as well as the national intelligence directors office, have returned their copies. The FBI and the State, Justice and Defense departments also have copies of the 6,770-page report.

READ MORE: What to know about the CIA interrogation report

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, a former Democratic chairman of the committee, called Burrs move alarming and concerning.

This creates a dangerous precedent, she said, warning that countless historical reports and records could be nullified under the same procedure. No senator chairman or not has the authority to erase history. I believe that is the intent of the chairman.

The so-called torture report has a long history.

The Senate intelligence committee spent years investigating the CIAs detention and harsh interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists captured by the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack. The techniques authorized by the Bush administration included waterboarding. Interrogations were conducted in clandestine prisons around the world that were not in the jurisdiction of U.S. courts or the military justice system.

In December 2014, the committee published a declassified summary of the report. The full report remained classified, but it was sent to several government agencies.

Democrats and Republicans fought bitterly over the contents.

This creates a dangerous precedent No senator chairman or not has the authority to erase history. I believe that is the intent of the chairman. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

In 2015, Burr asked government agencies under the Obama administration to send report copies back. They didnt. The American Civil Liberties Union sued the CIA for the entire classified report, but hasnt received it.

After more than two years of litigation, the federal courts have ruled that the Senate intelligence committees 2014 full report on the CIAs detention and interrogation program is a congressional document, Burr said in a statement Friday. I have directed my staff to retrieve copies of the congressional study that remain with the executive branch agencies and, as the committee does with all classified and compartmented information, will enact the necessary measures to protect the sensitive sources and methods contained within the report.

There are certain copies of the report, however, that might not be returned.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Attorney General Jeff Sessions told Feinstein in a written response to questions that he would not return the Justice Departments copy of the report to the Senate.

Katherine Hawkins, senior counsel at the Constitution Project, an advocacy group, said another copy is included in Obamas presidential papers, which are being handled by the National Archives. That copy is subject to the Presidential Records Act, and getting that declassified could take years and might never happen.

Hawkins said the Defense Departments copy also is particularly important because it provides evidence that could be used in the military commission trials of Guantanamo Bay detainees. A military commission judge this week ordered the Defense Department to preserve its copy so it could possibly be used in the trial of Majid Khan, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents the detainee.

The Senate report details the horrors of the CIA torture program, including the rape and sexual assault of (our) client Majid Khan and the ways the agency misled Congress, the courts and the public about the program, the center said in a statement.

Democratic senators and rights groups were unanimous in their opposition to Burrs move.

The Defense Departments copy is particularly important because it provides evidence that could be used in the military commission trials of Guantanamo Bay detainees

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the committee, tweeted that the report must be preserved so we can learn from past mistakes and ensure that abuses are never repeated.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the report was a historical record that belongs to all Americans.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., a former member of the intelligence committee, said, The report contains difficult facts to face, but they must be aired.

Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLUs National Security Project, said agencies shouldnt return the CIA torture report to Congress but should read and learn from it. This critically important investigation should have been made public and must not be buried or destroyed, Shamsi said.

Physicians for Human Rights called the report the most comprehensive accounting of the CIAs torture program. Its findings are critical to understanding how so many mistakes were made and how to avoid making such grievous, harmful errors in the future, Sarah Dougherty with the New York-based group said.

Read more:
Democrats say GOP is trying to bury torture report - PBS NewsHour

Jesse Ferguson, in an extraordinarily timely piece, writes:

Romney-Clinton voters are, generally speaking, college-educated suburban professionals: lawyers, doctors and businesspeople. They voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, but switched to Hillary Clinton in 2016. They abhor xenophobia, the alt-right and racists, but they also mostly socialize within their own race and theyre mostly white. Theyre socially liberal but not obsessed with a political agenda. They value fiscal responsibility but also believe in investing in the future, especially education. They remain deeply worried about Trumps qualifications, scared about his temperament and alienated by his misogyny and ties to extremists. For the first time in a long time, theyre willing to hear about and vote for Democrats.

Oh boy, are they.

Who are these people, and what do they want? Some used to call them Country Club Republicans or Main Street Republicans. After 2001, female voters in this group were the soccer moms. They desire ordered liberty, a dependable and rule-based system that allows them to thrive. The party that theyve called home once upon a time featured smart Republicans (William F. Buckley Jr., Irving Kristol, etc.),responsible legislators (e.g. Sen. Bob Dole, Sen. Howard Baker) and constructive reforms (e.g. welfare reform, charter schools). It was the party that finally helped bury the Soviet Union. Now the party asks them to buy into alternative facts and take Sean Hannity seriously. It advances stunning falsehoods about economics, cities, crime, immigration, science, budgets and most every public policy topic.

The GOP asks them to denounce elites Hey, thats voters like them! and requires them not to believe in climate change. To be a real Republican now means to be economically illiterate on trade and immigration. These voters know immigrants arent stealing their jobs and that crime is substantially down in most American cities. (After all they workin increasingly diverse workplaces and live in diversifying suburbs or have returned to gentrified cities.)

In sum, the GOP offends their intelligence and runs headlong into their hard-earned educational accomplishments and life experiences. These educated voters live in 21st-century America, but the loudest voices in the GOP including the president and elected congressional leaders do not. The latter believe government is evil, the world can be shut out, climate change is debatable and white Christian America is under assault (because we say Happy Holidays?!).

In controversy after controversy, Republican lawmakers have defended President Trump's actions. But with his disclosure of highly classified information to Russian diplomats, they've floundered to explain the decision. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

If the GOP were going to be the party of fiscal sobriety, international leadership and free markets, these Romney-Clinton voters were willing to put up with a lot. Theyve gotten by for years saying, Well its not like Sean Hannityis the partyor by self-identifying as Jack Kemp Republicans. Unfortunately, Sean Hannity is very much the GOP these days, and Jack Kemp, R.I.P., has been dead for eight years.

However, along with reason, science and respect for democratic norms, the GOP jettisoned much of the real-world agenda such voters had come to associate with their party. If they are going to be asked to associate with the flock of know-nothings who now populate the GOP and theyre not going to get a functional government, then why stick with the party?Many are not. They just do not know where to go.

There exists an opportunity, as Ferguson pointed out, for center-left Democrats to poach these voters. (They might vote in 2020 for a Joe Biden, but never for a Sen. Bernie Sanders.) A new party or sub-party of the old GOP may also work for these voters if the Democratic Party veers too far left.

What do Romney-Clinton voters want? Look at successful GOP governors whom these voters supported over the past decade. They chose governors perceived as inclusive and enlightened problem-solvers (John Kasich of Ohio, Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, Mitch Daniels of Indiana, etc.). These voters want agood education system, college tuition that does not break the bank, investment in R &D, a dynamic economy (which requires trade, immigration and U.S. leadership in the world), fiscal sanity and a spirit of sensible compromise. They want the U.S. to be respected in the world and not to bask in the approval of tyrants. Theydont want the government doing everything, but they know we arent going back to the pre-New Deal era. They support a safety net but want programs to work (meaning, result in fewer impoverished people). These are people who navigate in their daily lives by persuasion and compromise, not bullying and insults. They want, in short, some semblance of civil and effective government and international leadership grounded in American values.

The GOP used to give such voters these agenda items and embody their zeitgeist.It doesnt remotely do so now. Now its the Republican Party that looks irresponsible, irrational, clueless and afraid of the modern world. Romney-Clintonvoters are dismayed and conflicted. They will have to decide if they should vote Democratic in 2018 elections because the darned Republicans sit there like lumps on a log while President Trump and his kin run wild. Whos going to appeal to these voters? Well get a hint in Georgias 6th Congressional District, which is filled with Romney-Clinton voters.

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Yes, Democrats have a real shot to win Romney Republicans - Washington Post (blog)