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House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer blasted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Saturday for failing to sign off on an event the U.S. was slated to host on supporting global democracy, saying the action sends a "dangerous signal" to the nation's adversaries.

"By stalling and scaling back this event -- in addition to removing just' and democratic' from the State Department's mission -- Secretary Tillerson is sending a dangerous signal to the world about the priorities of the United States," the top Democrat from Maryland said in a statement. "Congress must send a strong signal to this Administration that we stand united in the promotion of democracy here at home and around the world."

The event is called the Community of Democracies ministerial conference that the U.S. had been slated to host this year. The organization was established in 2000 by then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as an intergovernmental coalition to work with civil society groups to promote and protect democratic freedoms and human rights.

Washington Post opinion writer Josh Rogin reported that the State Department was expected to host the event in September, but no one at State Department can say definitely if it will actually take place.

"Administration officials and organizers told me the planning is stalled because Tillerson's office hasn't responded to his own building's months-old proposals about the event," Rogin wrote on Thursday. "As planning time runs short, many see the State Department under Tillerson as shirking the U.S. commitment as current president of the coalition."

Every two years, the coalition hosts a foreign ministerial meeting and this year it is the U.S.'s turn to host.

"I am deeply concerned by Secretary Tillerson's unwillingness to sign off on the Community of Democracies event that the United States is expected to hold this year," Hoyer added in his Saturday statement.

"At a time when foreign adversaries are working to undermine democracies, we ought to be joining with our allies to examine how we can safeguard democratic institutions and confront those who threaten them," he said.

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Top Democrat Steny Hoyer blasts Rex Tillerson for stalling global democracy event - Washington Examiner

Do you believe in mermaids, unicorns and fairies?

If so, you may have taken interest in a new mythical creature that appeared during the 2016 election: the Trump Democrat.

It has become an article of faith that an unusually large number of people who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 or 2012 switched sides and voted for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. It follows that Democrats, to win in the future, need to get these lost partisans to come home.

But new data, and an analysis by AFL-CIO political director Michael Podhorzer that he shared with me, puts all this into question. The number of Obama-to-Trump voters turns out to be smaller than thought. And those Obama voters who did switch to Trump were largely Republican voters to start with. The aberration wasnt their votes for Trump but their votes for Obama.

It follows for Democrats that most of these Obama-Trump voters arent going to be persuaded to vote Democratic in future; the party would do better to go after disaffected Democrats who didnt vote in 2016 or who voted for third parties.

(McKenna Ewen,Whitney Leaming,Whitney Shefte/The Washington Post)

In the aftermath of Trumps surprise win, the commentary quickly focused on the Obama-Trump voter. Nate Cohn of the New York Times said, Democrats have to grapple with the importance of the Obama-Trump voter. NBCs Chuck Todd said one of the big surprises of this election was the emergence of the Obama-Trump voter. Priorities USA, the super PAC that backed Clinton, concluded that Democrats must win back Obama-Trump voters.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) asserted that Trump is expanding the Republican tent. We used to call them Reagan Democrats. Now theyre Trump Democrats. Donald Trump Jr. embraced the Trump Democrats claim at a rally. And many Democrats have bought into this thinking. Not long ago, according to McClatchy News, the Democratic political firm Global Strategy Group concluded that Obama-Trump voters effectively accounted for more than two-thirds of the reason Clinton lost.

There was some justification for thinking this. Data from the American National Election Study survey found that about 13.4 percent of Trump voters had backed Obama in 2012. A University of Virginia poll found that 20 percent of Trump voters had supported Obama at least once.

But such polls have a flaw: People tend to forget how they voted in previous elections, with more recalling they voted for the winner than actually did. A poll released in June by the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group, a nonpartisan collaboration of analysts and scholars, avoided this problem because it re-interviewed the same respondents queried in 2012; they were asked who they voted for in real time.

Democracy Fund found a fairly ordinary crossover vote in 2016: 9.2 percent of Obama voters supported Trump and 5.4 percent of Mitt Romney voters supported Clinton. That was a typical and unsurprising degree of partisan loyalty. The 2016 election did not create more instability, in the aggregate, than others, it reported.

And those Obama voters who did cross to Trump look a lot like Republicans. The AFL-CIOs Podhorzer analyzed raw data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study , out in the spring, and found that Obama-Trump voters voted for Republican congressional candidates by a 31-point margin, Republican Senate candidates by a 15-point margin and Republican gubernatorial candidates by a 27-point margin. Their views on immigration and Obamacare also put them solidly in the GOP camp.

Democratic analysts who are looking to solve the partys problem by appealing to this small group of Obama-Trump voters are pointing themselves to a group that by and large is a Republican group now, Podhorzer told me. The bulk of Obama-Trump voters are not fed-up Democratic voters; they are Republican voters who chose Obama in 2012. As such, few are available in 2018 or 2020. Democrats should instead appeal broadly to working-class voters, he said.

(Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

In 2008, a larger-than-usual number of Republican voters went with Obama during an extraordinary time, when the economy was in free fall and an incumbent Republican president was deeply unpopular. ANES polling found that 17 percent of Obama voters in 2008 had been for George W. Bush in 2004, compared with the 13 percent of Trump voters, the same survey found, who supported Obama at least once. These people arent Obama-Trump voters as much as they were Bush-Obama voters.

This is important, because it means Democrats dont have to contort themselves to appeal to the mythical Trump Democrats by toughening their position on immigration, or weakening their support for universal health care, or embracing small government and low taxes. What Democrats have to do is be Democrats.

Twitter: @Milbank

Read more from Dana Milbanks archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.

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There's no such thing as a Trump Democrat - The Washington Post - Washington Post

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) this week blasted Attorney General Jeff SessionsJefferson (Jeff) SessionsKelly called Sessions to assure him job is safe: report Overnight Regulation: Senate confirms Trump pick to labor board | Court lets states defend ozone rule | Regulator seeks input on changing 'Volcker Rule' US attorney fired by Trump sends well-wishes to new FBI director MORE announcement that the Department of Justice is considering stricter measures to prevent leaks, saying the leaks would stop if there were no lies, crimes and stupid stuff.

Dear Lyin Sessions: Leaks are interesting if they expose lies, crimes & stupid stuff, Lieu tweeted Friday. Stop the lies, crimes & stupid stuff and leaks go away.

Dear Lyin Sessions: Leaks are interesting if they expose lies, crimes & stupid stuff. Stop the lies, crimes & stupid stuff and leaks go away https://t.co/axWgxNX4Vs

We respect the important role the press plays and well give them respect, but its not unlimited, Sessions said. They cannot place lives at risk with impunity. We must balance the press role with protecting our national security and the lives of those who serve in the intelligence community, the Armed Forces and all law-abiding Americans.

Sessions said there has been dramatic growth in the number of leaks since President Trump took office in January and issued a warning again potential leakers in the federal government.

"I have this message for our friends in the intelligence community: The Justice Department is open for business, Sessions said. And I have this warning for potential leakers: Dont do it.

Sessions announcement drew sharp criticism from members of the media. NBCs Chuck Todd said he would ignore any subpoena issued to him in an investigation of leaks.

"If DoJ media source threat is real (I assume it's not; just a show presser to please WH) then I look forward to ignoring that subpoena," the host of Meet the Press tweeted Friday.

The Justice Department announcement follows the leak of transcripts of two calls between Trump and two foreign leaders, Mexican President Enrique Pea Nieto and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Originally posted here:
Democrat to 'Lyin Sessions': Stop the lies and the leaks will go away - The Hill

Gazette-Mail file photo

Former Senate president and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jeff Kessler called out the partys leadership Friday, saying it never should have recruited Gov. Jim Justice, who jumped to the Republican Party just seven months into his term.

Former West Virginia Senate president and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jeff Kessler called out the partys leadership Friday, saying it never should have recruited Gov. Jim Justice, who jumped to the Republican Party on Friday just seven months into his term.

Its time for a change at the top, particularly when you have someone who embraced someone who turned on the Democratic Party, Kessler said. They need some new leadership at the Democrat chair.

Democratic Party Chairwoman Belinda Biafore said Justice duped her. She called Justices switch a slap in the face to all of us who believed in what he was promising. She gave no indication she would step down.

The leadership of the West Virginia Democratic Party will continue to be committed, as we have always been, to do whats best for the people of West Virginia, Biafore said late Friday. We will stand strong together and move forward. We can now say, with 100 percent certainty, that the leaders of our party will do whats best for the people, not personal political motivations.

Kessler said Biafore, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and former Democratic Party Chairman Larry Puccio party leaders who helped recruit Justice to run for governor as a Democrat should have known better than to trust Justices promises of moonshots and magic carpet rides.

I thought Jim was a creation of the Manchin machine, and now hes turned into Frankenstein, said Kessler, who lost to Justice in the 2016 Democratic primary. Hes turned on the party that put him in power.

Delegate Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio, said state party leaders hitched their wagon to the wrong guy. Justice, a former Republican, became a Democrat days before entering the gubernatorial race.

What are we getting out of the top of the party now? Fluharty asked. This is good self-reflection time for the Democratic Party. Theyve been trying to be Republican-light, but voters want authenticity.

Justices recent criticism of Democrats in the House of Delegates hasnt sat well with House Democrats.

Some expressed relief Friday that Justice left the party: They no longer feel compelled to defend him just because he was a governor who shared the same party registration, they said.

Muzzles are off.

His ego, his know-it-all attitude he wore out his welcome, said Delegate Isaac Sponaugle, D-Pendleton.

At a news conference Friday, Justice criticized House Democrats, saying they had dropped the ball and drove into the ditch his budget proposals from earlier this year.

Democrats shot back that they werent going to blindly follow Justice no matter that he was a registered Democrat at the time.

He expected us to follow him into the abyss, Fluharty said.

Kessler said Democratic Party leaders became enamored by Justice because hes a billionaire and expected him to shower down-ticket candidates with campaign donations. Kessler called Justice a Democrat by convenience, not conviction, who used the party after he was pursued and coaxed by party leaders.

When I asked, What does he stand for? nobody knew, other than he had a lot of money, Kessler said. Once he got into the race, all he cared about was getting himself elected, and we ended up losing seats. Now, hes turned his back on them and stuck a sharp stick in their eye. Im sure its embarrassing to them.

Reach Eric Eyre at ericeyre@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4869 or follow @ericeyre on Twitter.

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WV Democrats lash out at Justice, party leadership - Charleston Gazette-Mail (subscription)

For the first time in Illinois history, according to the Illinois comptroller, the state might miss its first August payment to public schools. Possibly the second payment, too.

The reason for the delay is familiar. The Democrat-controlled General Assembly and the Republican governor, Bruce Rauner, cannot agree on a path forward. This time, it's over school funding.

Not even the possibility of schools unable to keep their doors open galvanizes lawmakers in this deadbeat state to act with urgency. Rauner issued an amendatory veto of the Democrats' school funding bill on Tuesday, starting a 15-day clock during which the Senate has to act. But the Senate has not even set a date to reconvene. Its schedule for the month of August is blank. Same with the House, outside of one committee hearing.

That doesn't mean lawmakers won't at some point return to Springfield to address the governor's veto. But they sure seem determined to run down the clock. To build pressure. To stoke panic. To fuel disunity. That's how governing, if you call it that, takes place in this state always in a pressure cooker and often with lousy results.

Some senators aren't even in Illinois. They're in Boston with the National Conference of State Legislatures. Sen. Toi Hutchinson, D-Olympia Fields, will be sworn in as an officer of the organization. The trip was planned months ago, she tells us, and she'll fly back "on a moment's notice" if Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, calls members back to Springfield.

So far, that hasn't happened.

Since Rauner's veto, a handful of lawmakers have been negotiating to find middle ground between the bill the General Assembly passed and the changes Rauner demands. Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, who sponsored the bill in the Senate, has been on the phone with Democrats and Republicans, trying to wade toward a new version that both parties would accept. But time is running out.

Also holding up progress is a lack of data. The Illinois State Board of Education is expected to release numbers Monday that show how each school district would be affected by the changes Rauner is seeking. We too are waiting on those numbers.

But no Illinois taxpayer, especially those with kids in public schools, should have been forced into this predicament in the first place. It's another black mark on Illinois' sorry scorecard.

Remember, Democrats passed the funding bill on May 31, stuffing into it extra money for Chicago Public Schools at the last minute. Then Cullerton sat on the bill for two months instead of sending it to Rauner, knowing the governor was poised with his veto pen. And for what, that two-month delay? A purposeful running-down of the clock. A way to foster turmoil.

Democrats knew the state owes schools their first payment on Aug. 10. They stalled anyway.

Now they continue to run down the clock, playing chicken with that 15-day, constitutionally mandated deadline to act on Rauner's veto in the Senate. There, senators could accept Rauner's changes, which is unlikely. They could pass a new version of school funding reform. They could override the veto. Or they could let the whole thing collapse by doing nothing.

If the Senate takes action, the issue shifts to the House, which passed the original bill with the bare minimum of 60 votes. Republicans would need to join forces with Democrats to override the governor's veto, if it comes to that. And Republicans might be more willing to crack by then if schools in their districts could not open or stay open.

See how this works? Whatever it takes for my side to squeeze yours.

Governing in this state is a cynical gamble of brinkmanship, forcing those who actually depend on help to accept chaos and uncertainty. In this case, the captives are schools and the kids they serve. Crisis after crisis, only the pawns' names change. You can fill in the blank.

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Running down the clock: Illinois school funding rests in the Democrat-controlled and empty Senate chamber - Chicago Tribune