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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.

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Once hawkish Republican senators are now walking a fine line on Russia and Trump - Quartz

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

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

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"I think that might be excessive. It looks like the President has handled the situation, and unless there's some kind of other evidence of malfeasance, this sounds like something that was internal White House politics and it looks like the President's handled it," Paul told the "Kilmeade and Friends" radio show.

Flynn resigned Monday evening amid revelations that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about conversations he had in December with Russia's ambassador to the US about sanctions placed on Russia. Pence had defended Flynn on television and denied he discussed sanctions after initial reports of the conversations.

And while several other Republican senators have called for investigation of the incident, Paul said it would not make sense to have more investigations, especially of fellow Republicans.

"I just don't think it's useful to be doing investigation after investigation, particularly of your own party. We'll never even get started with doing the things we need to do, like repealing Obamacare, if we're spending our whole time having Republicans investigate Republicans. I think it makes no sense."

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Rand Paul on Flynn: 'Makes no sense' to investigate fellow Republicans - CNN

Since President Donald Trump's inauguration, fired-up constituents who oppose the dismantling of former President Barack Obama's initiatives, including the Affordable Care Act, have aggressively confronted congressional Republicans at town halls. One congressman had to be escorted out of a town hall by police recently, while other representatives have been shouted down and interrupted by rowdy audience members.

Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York canceled an appearance at an event in April hosted by the Rogers Memorial Library in Southhampton. His spokeswoman, Jennifer DiSiena, told CNN that the event was "co-opted, renamed and rebranded by a group of liberal obstructionists."

Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee is scheduled to appear at an event labeled as a "town hall" at the Fairview City Hall on February 21. But local activists noticed that details of the event recently disappeared from the Fairview website -- a change that Fairview Mayor Patti Carroll confirmed to CNN in an email Monday morning.

Carroll said the event will still take place but that she requested that the announcement be removed from the Fairview website because she "felt the wording placed too much emphasis on town hall."

Carroll explained that the "community meeting" is "not a Marsha Blackburn event," and rather a "low key" gathering that other local elected officials were also invited to.

In a phone call with CNN, a Blackburn spokesperson said the congresswoman never intended to pull out of the event and that she will be in attendance as scheduled. But the spokesperson declined to characterize the event as a town hall.

"I think that we're playing with semantics here -- you can characterize it however you want," the spokesperson said when pressed on whether Blackburn's office ever intended the event to be called a town hall. "The event has always been on our end what it will be -- and that is that she's showing up, she's going to talk to the mayor, give them a legislative update, talk to some other officials."

Blackburn's office, the spokesperson added, is not advertising the event and is only listed on their "internal schedule" as: "She's stopping by Fairview" to meet with local official and constituents.

Mike Shields, former chief of staff at the Republican National Committee, is advising members to hold telephone-town halls rather than physical ones. Giving protestors the opportunity to disrupt a public gathering, Shields said, is not politically "wise."

"There are some members of Congress who feel pressure to hold a traditional town hall meeting because it has always been done that way," said Shields, a CNN commentator. "They're holding on to this antiquated, quaint notion of a Norman Rockwell painting of citizens interacting with elected officials. .... That simply does not fit into the modern context of how politics in a divided country operate and what you wind up instead is doing a huge disservice to those who show up thinking they'd get to ask questions."

The increased interest and pressure is also leading some lawmakers to change their regularly scheduled meetings.

Zeldin's office has changed the congressman's office hours policy amid threats from protesters. In part because of the possibility of disruptions, the office hours at one of Zeldin's satellite offices on Long Island are now by appointment only, DiSiena said, and the congressman is also preparing to meet with constituents in smaller group settings and continue hosting telephone town halls.

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Republican lawmakers grow wary of 'town hall' events - CNNPolitics ... - CNN