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GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. The voter identified himself as a cancer survivor, and he had something to say to Republican Rep. Justin Amash: I am scared to death that I will not have health insurance in the future.

The comment earned 61-year-old retiree Paul Bonis a standing ovation from the crowd packed into a school auditorium in Amashs Michigan district Thursday night. And the congressman was booed for his response: That the Affordable Care Act has hurt a lot of people, and he supports his partys plans to repeal and replace it, even though Republicansstill havent united around an alternative.

Its a scene thats played out around the country over the past several weeks as Republicans and President Donald Trump have assumed control of Washington and begun moving forward on their long-held promise to undo former President Obamas health care law. In an echo of the raucous complaints that confronted Democrats back in 2009 as they worked to pass Obamacare in the first place, Republicans who want to repeal it now are facing angry pushback of their own at constituent gatherings from Utah to Michigan to Tennessee and elsewhere, even in solidly Republican districts.

And just as the protests in 2009 focused on health care but reflected broader concerns over an increasingly divisive new president and Democrats monopoly control over Washington, now, too, constituent complaints at town hall meetings appear to reflect more general fears about the Trump administration and the implications of one-party GOP rule of the nations capital.

In a Salt Lake City suburb on Thursday night, Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz faced irate constituents chanting Do your job! as they pressed the House Oversight Committee chairman to investigate Trump. Chaffetz struggled to be heard as he faced a litany of sharp questions and screams from a crowd of people who grilled him on everything from Obamacare to Chaffetzs desire to overturn a new national monument in southern Utah.

Come on, were better than this, Chaffetz protested over the hubbub at one point, practically pleading with the deafening crowd to let him speak.

In Tennessee, Rep. Diane Black faced questions from impassioned and well-informed constituents defending the Affordable Care Act, including one man who told her that he and others with health conditions might die without insurance. And you want to take away this coverage, and have nothing to replace it with, the man said. Black argued that the Affordable Care Act has been ineffective because although 20 million people gave gained coverage under the law, millions more have chosen to pay a fine and remain uninsured.

And in southern Wisconsin, RepublicanRep. James Sensenbrenner faced a voter who asked him: Whos going to be the check and balance on Donald Trump? Like others interviewed at town halls around the country, the woman asking the question, Barbara Kresse, said she has not been politically active, another similarity to 2009 when the advent of the Obama administration seemed to cause enough anxiety to awaken groups of voters who had never previously gotten involved.

Indeed the recent protests are being amplified by liberal activists modeling their opposition to Trump on the tea party groups that sprang up to oppose Obama and the Democrats. Calling itself Indivisible, a non-profit group that grew out of a how-to guide written by former Democratic congressional staffers has advertised town hall gatherings nationally, suggesting at least some level of coordination, which was the case with the anti-Obamacare protests as well.

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Angry voters flood Republican lawmakers' town hall meetings - Press Herald

George Kennan concluded his famous 1947 article, The Sources of Soviet Conduct," which laid the groundwork for the doctrine of containment at the beginning of the Cold War, with this peroration:

Surely, there was never a fairer test of national quality than this. In the light of these circumstances, the thoughtful observer of Russian-American relations will find no cause for complaint in the Kremlin's challenge to American society. He will rather experience a certain gratitude to a Providence which, by providing the American people with this implacable challenge, has made their entire security as a nation dependent on their pulling themselves together and accepting the responsibilities of moral and political leadership that history plainly intended them to bear.

Almost half a century later, notwithstanding many stumbles, errors, and reversals along the way, America had won the Cold War. The American people, under nine presidents of both parties, had pulled themselves together, met the challenge, and accepted the responsibilities of moral and political leadership.

This should be a source of American prideeven if in certain respects we staggered to our Cold War victory. No one could stand up in 1992 and say of the United States and our allies what Winston Churchill felt compelled to say in 1938: "that the terrible words have for the time being been pronounced against the Western democracies: 'Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting.'"

Nations have their historic tests. We passed at least one of ours. So too do political parties. Will the Republicans pass theirs?

Edmund Burke, the founder of the modern party system, described a political party as "a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed." In foreign policy, the particular principle upon which Republicans agreed, for the entire Cold War and the period since, could be summarized as American global leadership. From nominee Thomas Dewey to nominee Mitt Romney, from President Dwight D. Eisenhower to President George W. Bush, from the Goldwater wing of the party to the Rockefeller wing, and allowing for many differences in emphasis and interpretation, Republicans agreed on the principle not of America first but of American leadership. Republicans embraced the obligation of America to accept "the responsibilities of moral and political leadership that history plainly intended them to bear."

Meanwhile, in domestic policy, Republicans, for all their differences, did share a broad agreement on respect for the constitutional order, limited government, free markets, and a free society under the rule of law. A commitment to this vague but not totally amorphous set of views, held of course by various leaders with differing shades of conviction and emphasis, has tied together the modern Republican party over the past three-quarters of a century.

And Republicans have also tended to unite on one other conviction: Character matters. This is a social doctrine, so to speakbut also one of relevance to the party itself. Republicans have generally tried to uphold certain standards of behavior. Republicans, after all, did not merely impeach Bill Clinton. It was Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott and John Rhodes who in 1974 went to their fellow Republican, Richard Nixon, and told him he had to go.

In 2016, through a series of failures and flukes, thanks to the accidents of politics and the arts of demagoguery, the Republican party nominated as its presidential candidate a man of bad character who has no interest in American leadership in the world or limited government at home. In the general election, he eked out a victory over a weak Democratic nominee. He is now our presidenta Republican president.

This imposes on the Republican party a peculiar obligation: to guide him when possible, to check him when advisable, to rebuke and oppose him when necessary. And, of course, to support him when he does the right thing, as in the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. But support of a president of one's own party is, as it were, natural. It's opposition that will be difficult.

Republicans need not act precipitously in looking for excuses to oppose the president. But they need to be prepared to do so. And they need to be aware of the kind of moral corruption and personal humiliation that comes from bending over too far backward to the obligation of opposing what needs to be opposed.

This obligation falls most obviously on Republican members of Congress. But it also applies to senior members of the president's own administration and to the Republican rank-and-file. Much of this guiding and checking and opposing can be done in private. But some of it will have to be public. And, judging from the president's first three weeks in office, some of it will have to come sooner rather than later.

Will there be tension between the peculiar GOP obligation of this time and place and the more normal activity of battling Democrats? Certainly. But a serious party can both struggle against adversaries and uphold its own standards. This latter challenge will be the more difficult of the two. But if Republicans do not rise to that challenge, the terrible words will be pronounced against them: "Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting."

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The Republican Challenge - The Weekly Standard

WASHINGTON

More than any other elected official, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama laid the intellectual foundation for President Donald Trumps brand of nationalist politics, agitating for a hard line on immigration and trade while most other Republicans were in thrall to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Trump was still firing contestants on The Apprentice.

Sessions, who was sworn in as attorney general Thursday, was succeeded on the same day in the Senate by the attorney general of Alabama, Luther Strange, a former Washington lobbyist and onetime partner at a white-shoe Birmingham law firm with deep ties to the establishment wing of the Republican Party.

Hes going to be a mainstream conservative Republican, Karl Rove, former strategist for George W. Bush, predicted of Strange, whom he met in the 1990s when the two worked together on the ferocious campaign for Republican control of the Alabama Supreme Court. Hes very smart, really hardworking.

The ascension of Strange to the seat Sessions held for 20 years offers a vivid illustration of how, even as Trump tries to steer the Republican Party toward a more populist orientation on some issues, the institutional party still largely comprises business-aligned Republicans.

Strange, whose appointment was enthusiastically welcomed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is no stranger to the swamp, Trumps derisive term for the nations capital. After playing in the low post on a basketball scholarship at Tulane University, the towering Strange whose nickname, Big Luther, eventually ended up in campaign television advertisements found his way to Washington to run the government affairs office for Sonat Offshore, then an influential gas utility based in Alabama.

He knows how legislation gets done and doesnt get done, and that gives him a leg up on others who may have a steeper learning curve, said Clay Ryan, vice chancellor for government affairs at the University of Alabama System.

A Birmingham native reared in the citys comfortable suburbs, Strange eventually made his way home from Washington and became a partner at a powerhouse law firm that represents many of Alabamas muscular corporate interests.

After working in politics on the outside, including his efforts with Rove to tilt the states judicial system toward business and away from trial lawyers, Strange entered a race of his own in 2006. He defeated one political scion for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, George Wallace Jr., but narrowly lost to another, Jim Folsom Jr., a Democrat and former governor, in the general election.

Four years later, Strange found success, defeating the incumbent attorney general, a Republican, in the primary and easily winning election that fall. He has cut a prominent profile in Montgomery, the state capital, raising considerable money for the national Republican attorneys general association and making no secret of his ambition to run for higher office. As attorney general, he helped to negotiate a landmark settlement with BP after the catastrophic 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

He has also made some enemies in a state with one-party rule, where the most consequential rivalries are between warring Republican factions. Michael G. Hubbard, speaker of the House, who engineered the Republican takeover of Montgomery, was convicted last year of ethics charges and removed from office.

Hubbard blamed political vendettas for his prosecution, which was handled by lawyers from Stranges office. (Strange appointed an acting attorney general to oversee the investigation and trial.)

But by the time Hubbard was found guilty in June, Gov. Robert Bentley, who appointed Strange to his Senate seat, was embroiled in his own controversy after a recording of a sexually charged conversation with a top aide became public.

Bentley, who divorced his wife of 50 years in the months before the recording shocked Alabama, denied that he had a physical relationship with the woman who was his senior political adviser or that he had committed a crime. Still, the scandal left him politically weak, widely mocked and prone to scrutiny, including an impeachment inquiry in the Legislature.

Strange proved a central, if quiet, figure in the fallout, and the Legislature suspended its inquiry at his request when he said his office was doing related work.

On Thursday, Strange noted that he had never said specifically that Bentley was a target of his office, and the governor, who will name Stranges successor as attorney general, denied any impropriety in his selection.

Although many Republicans in Alabama cheered Stranges appointment, his action in connection with the governors scandal led to some skepticism in Montgomery before a special election for the Senate seat that Bentleys office said would be held in 2018.

Its grimly problematic that the attorney general who blocked the impeachment investigation and who has not gone forward with the Bentley criminal investigation is rewarded with the U.S. Senate appointment, said the state auditor, Jim Zeigler, a Republican who is a frequent critic of the governor. There will be a challenger to Luther Strange in the special Senate election, and this will be an issue. His manipulation against any Bentley investigation will be an issue.

But Strange will probably have strong support from many senior Republicans.

On Thursday, just before a flood of questions about his own scandal and Stranges connection to its aftermath, Bentley said that McConnell had sent a clear signal in recent months.

I went by his office, and the first person that he actually mentioned was Luther Strange, the governor said. He named several people, but the first one that he mentioned was Luther Strange.

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Successor to Sessions has deep ties to Republican establishment - MyStatesman.com

WASHINGTON Republican Congressman Will Hurd - whose district spans 800 miles (1,290 km) of the Texas-Mexico border - on Friday criticized plans under consideration by the Trump administration to build walls and fences costing an estimated $21.6 billion to deter illegal immigration.

Reuters on Thursday revealed details of an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that estimated the cost of covering the entire border. It called for the first phase of construction to begin in San Diego, California; El Paso, Texas and the Rio Grande Valley.

"Building a wall is the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border," Hurd, whose district includes El Paso, said in an email. He said his district includes rough terrain where "it is impossible to build a physical wall."

The estimated price tag in the report is much higher than a $12 billion figure cited by Republican President Donald Trump in his campaign and estimates as high as $15 billion from Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The border wall was one of Trump's main campaign promises. Trump, who took office on Jan. 20, has vowed to make Mexico pay for it, but the United States' southern neighbor has repeatedly said it will not fund its construction.

Many congressional Democrats reacted strongly to the news of plans for the wall and its estimated price.

Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a telephone interview that he welcomed the debate in his committee over funding the wall.

"Instead of funding this costly and ineffective proxy for real action on immigration reform, we should be directing our resources toward finding cures for cancer, building schools for our children, feeding the hungry and rebuilding our bridges and our roads," Leahy said.

Five Democratic senators on Friday wrote a letter to Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly claiming that the money would be misspent.

The letter was signed by Senators Kamala Harris of California, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Tom Udall of New Mexico, Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Warren, a star of the political left, was silenced in the Republican-controlled Senate on Tuesday evening for speaking out against Trump's attorney general nominee, Republican Senator Jeff Sessions. Sessions was confirmed on Wednesday.

The senators wrote, "We are extraordinarily concerned that President Trump's executive order appears to require that you divert DHS funds meant for critical security priorities to instead fund the border wall."

They asked that Kelly respond to a series of questions, including how much funding will be diverted to cover costs for building the wall.

Hurd said he had seen estimates as high as $40 billion for the barrier's construction, citing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study released in October.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

PALM BEACH, Fla./WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump is considering issuing a new executive order banning citizens of certain countries traveling to the United States after his initial attempt to clamp down on immigration and refugees snarled to a halt amid political and judicial chaos.

NEW YORK Anti-abortion groups have called demonstrations at more than 200 Planned Parenthood locations throughout the United States on Saturday to urge Congress and President Donald Trump to strip the women's health provider of federal funding.

BEIJING Combining public bluster with behind-the-scenes diplomacy, China wrested a concession from the United States as the two presidents spoke for the first time this week, but Beijing may not be able to derive much comfort from the win on U.S. policy toward Taiwan.

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Skepticism over Trump's 'wall' cost simmers among Democrats, border Republican - Reuters

WASHINGTON (JTA) President Donald Trump reportedly decided against nominating Elliott Abrams as deputy secretary of state because of Abrams opposition last year to Trumps nomination.

CNN cited three anonymous Republican sources on Friday as saying Abrams, known for his closeness to the Israeli establishment and the pro-Israel community, was out of the running.

Abrams, a veteran of several Republican administrations in senior State Department and National Security Council positions, reportedly was a favorite for the job because Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, formerly the CEO of Exxon, wanted someone with extensive diplomatic experience advising him.

Trump interviewed Abrams on Tuesday and was favorably impressed. According to CNN, also lobbying for Abrams was Jared Kushner, Trumps Jewish son-in-law. Trump wants Kushner, who is serving as a top non-paid aide to the president,to spearhead Israeli-Arab peacemaking.

Abrams is close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is meeting with Trump at the White House next week.

However, it came to Trumps attention after the interview, CNN reported, that Abrams had criticized Trump during the campaign although he had never joined the Never Trump movement among disaffected Republicans and had not forsworn serving in a Trump administration.

In May Abrams wrote a column in The Weekly Standard that likened Trump to the failed Democratic nominee in 1972, George McGovern. It was titled When You Cant Stand Your Candidate.

As a prominent member of the neoconservative movement, whose followers favor aninterventionist foreign policy, Abrams would have been a counter to many in Trumps circle who favor pulling back from American involvement overseas.

Trump would have made the third Republican administration for which Abrams worked. He was assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration, as a result ofwhich he agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges of withholding evidence related to the Iran-Contra arms sale scandal, and was deputy assistant to George W. Bush and his deputy national security adviser.

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CNN Reports Trump Nixed Senior Jewish Republican for State Department Job - Forward