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WASHINGTON President Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey sent what was expected to be a relatively sleepy week in the nation's capital into a wild-eyed frenzy.

A succession of reports revealed a White House in chaos, Democratic indignation over Comey's ouster and Republican indignation over that indignation.

But the key concernon many minds is howthe federal government should move forward on an investigation intothe Russian cyberattack on last year's elections in this environment.

On Thursday, the Tribune asked all 38 members of the Texas congressional delegation the same questions we previously posed to them in February:

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"Is Congress currently performing its appropriate oversight over the relationships between Russia and members of the Trump administration/transition/campaign and the potential ramifications on foreign policy? If not, what should Congress be doing that it currently is not?"

Once again,mostTexas Republicans declined to respond. Most Democrats did and argued that the only way to handle this dilemma is to kick an investigation to an outside special prosecutor or to create an independent commission like the 9/11 Commission that examined the failures of U.S. intelligence leading up to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

At the time of the previous survey, there was debateover whether House and Senate Intelligence Committees were capable of launching adequate investigations or whether the GOP leaders of those committees would even be willing to subpoena key players.

But in the weeks that followed,the congressional investigations did move forward,and the public learned a great deal as a result including that the FBI is investigating whether Trump associates had ties with Russian intelligence.

But even as those investigations picked up steam, there was drama and acknowledgments that the U.S. Congress lacksthe investigative manpower of the executive branch.

As the Comey firing came down on Tuesday afternoon, reports indicated the president believes that federal law enforcement officials at the the Department of Justice should be personally loyal to him,shining an even brighter spotlight on Congress' oversight role over the executive branch.

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Several Texas Republicans who did respond to the Tribune's querycounseled to let the congressional committees complete their work, in a vote of confidence for the new lead House GOP investigator, U.S. Rep. Mike Conaway. The Midland Republican has done much to calm the waters with Democrats after U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes of California left that post in a storm of controversy.

But for the most part, Texas Republicans declined to weigh in on the issueconsuming Congress. But it is unlikely that this one will go away.

See more here:
Survey of Texas delegation finds few Republicans weighing in on Russia - Texas Tribune

Reporters question President Trump on Air Force One.

Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

Since 1985, the Pew Research Center has been asking American adults whether they support a watchdog role for the media. Specifically, its survey asks whether they believe that criticism from news organizations helps to hold political leaders accountable, or keeps our leaders from doing their jobs.

Over the years, respondents across the political spectrum have generally favored a critical press as an important check on politicians power. But the degree of that support has always varied somewhat between Democrats and Republicans, and the two parties stances have flip-flopped several times. These flip-flops are not random: Whichever party holds the presidency tends to hold a less favorable view of media criticism, while the party out of power rediscovers its thirst for hard-hitting investigations. Republicans were all for watchdog journalism during the Bill Clinton years, while Democrats tolerance for it dwindled. Then came George W. Bush, and Republicans lost their taste for media criticism while Democrats couldnt get enough of it.

During the Obama years, interestingly, the trend lines converged at last: A majority of both Republicans and Democrats agreed that a skeptical press was good for the country. As of last February, during the presidential primary campaign, 77 percent of Republicans and 74 percent of Democrats held this view.

This week, Pew released its 2017 findings, and the results were strikingly differentand maybe troubling.

Democratic support for oppositional journalism rocketed to 89 percent in the survey conducted this March, breaking the previous record for either party by some 15 percentage points. At the same time, Republican support plummeted to 42 percent, near a record lowresulting in a 47-percentage-point partisan split. Previously, the largest gap between the parties in the surveys history was 28 percent, shortly after the re-election of George W. Bush.

In other words, Democrats and Republicans arent just more divided than ever in terms of where they get their news. Theyre more divided than ever on the fundamental role of the press, with 56 percent of Republicans now feeling that watchdog journalism does more harm than good.

Image courtesy of Pew Research

Since Trumps election, the parties have also grown farther apart on other key indicators, including trust in media and perceptions of media bias.

Image courtesy of Pew Research

Directionally, none of these trends are shocking. Anyone paying attention knows liberals have been devouring critical coverage of the Trump administration, and its understandable that the presidents Republican supporters would have less patience for the media frenzy. You could call either side hypocritical, but that misses the point. Intellectual consistency and tribalism are always in tension, and the latter is not unique to any political party.

Whats noteworthy here is the magnitude of the partisan split relative to the historical context. Its not like the past 32 years have all been smooth political sailing: the 1990s gave us the Clinton crazies, the 2000s Bush Derangement Syndrome. Yet when it comes to how the public viewed the media, those years look positively harmonious compared with the dawn of the Trump era.

The survey cant tell us whats driving the disparity, but two obvious culprits come to mind. First, Trump is a uniquely polarizing figure in presidential history, one whose very election was viewed by Democrats not merely as a defeat but as an unthinkable travesty that threatened the fabric of the republic. Trumps actions so far have done little to dispel that view.

At the same time, theres been a change in the tenor of both liberal and conservative media. Perhaps fueled in part by the race for online traffic and social media shares, partisan outlets that reside outside the mainstream have both grown in stature and become more shrill. Many liberal websites have come to consider themselves part of the anti-Trump resistance. Meanwhile, conservative outlets have taken up Trumps attacks on the media as a wholeremember, Trump and some of his aides consider the Fourth Estate the opposition partyencouraging their audiences to regard even the nations largest journalistic institutions as purveyors of fake news.

Conservative charges of liberal bias in the media arent new, of coursebut theres a real leap between spinning the news and making it up. The more Trump lies, and the more the media call Trump a liar, the harder it becomes to achieve any kind of bipartisan consensus on whats true and what isnt. That undermines the premise on which investigative journalism operatesthe premise that you can build a case for official wrongdoing based on factual evidence, whose fundamental truth must be acknowledged even by those who dislike the political implications.

That hasnt stopped the media from doing investigative journalism in the Trump era, of course. On the contrary, the national political press has shown more watchdog spirit over the past year than it has in a long time. As Politicos Jack Shafer put it: Trump is making journalism great again.

Yet observers have marveled at Trumps apparent imperviousness to an unceasing string of revelations that were widely viewed as potential career-enders. This survey offers a clue as to why that is: The majority of his supporters now view investigative news reports, not as an important check on presidential power, but as just another form of partisan attack.

You can read the full Pew Research report here.

See more here:
Republicans Used to Support a Watchdog Role for the Press. Not Anymore. - Slate Magazine (blog)

President Donald Trumps pick for U.S. trade representative has drawn sharp opposition from his own party, highlighting the Republican schism over free trade that erupted during the election.

Trumps nominee, Robert Lighthizer, argues that modern free trade orthodoxy doesnt have deep roots in the conservative movement, and faults so-called free traders within his party for being too dogmatic.

Those views may endear him with Rust Belt voters who sent Trump to the White House, but they are coming back to haunt him as he awaits confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Ben Sasse of Nebraska announced Wednesday they will not vote for Lighthizer who is a veteran trade lawyer and Reagan-era deputy trade representative in a rare break in party unity over a cabinet nominee.

So far, no other Republicans have said they will oppose Lighthizer, who passed the Senate Finance Committee last month on a unanimous vote. And he is still expected to win confirmation by the full Senate as soon as Thursday in part because many Democrats applaud his support of heavy industry and get-tough approach on China.

Still, the mini-mutiny over his confirmation underscores the split between the Republican establishment and its voters over an issue that was until recently considered party doctrine. And it may be a harbinger of broader revolt among congressional Republicans over Trumps protectionist shift. Trump is going to need congressional approval for any new or renegotiated trade deals unless he just pulls out altogether and farm state Republicans wont support shifts that hurt agricultural exports.

During the campaign, Republican voters support for free trade plummeted as Trump bashed the North American Free Trade Agreement and painted the United States as being outplayed by China and other trade partners.

Last October, just 29percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said free trade agreements have been good for the United States, down from 56percent a year and a half earlier, according to polling by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. Support has rebounded somewhat since the election, with 36percent of Republicans viewing trade agreements positively in April, according to Pew.

But Democrats view trade agreements more favorably, with 67percent of Democrats and voters leaning Democratic saying free trade agreements have been good for the United States, up from 59 percent in October.

Regardless of the grassroots abdication of longtime party principles, McCain and Sasse are sticking to their guns. In pushing back against his confirmation, they cited Lighthizers vocal advocacy for protectionist policies and what they termed his failure to reassure lawmakers that he understood the economic benefits of NAFTA.

We fear that you do not have an appreciation for the millions of jobs created by this free trade deal, and that you would not champion agriculture, the senators wrote in a letter to Lighthizer that they released Wednesday.

They raised concerns about the administrations ongoing, incoherent, and inconsistent trade message and said it would be irresponsible to confirm Lighthizer under these circumstances. With its trade negotiator installed, the administration would have legal authority to negotiate trade deals that Congress must consider under accelerated procedures, they said.

Theres also the fact that Lighthizer singled out McCain, who had just won his partys nomination in the presidential race, in a 2008 op-ed published by the New York Times.

McCain, Lighthizer charged, was one of the Republican free traders who rely too often on the notion that we should change the country to suit their trade policy an approach that is not in the best traditions of American conservatism.

That also likely didnt sit well with McCain.

Photo credit: TASOS KATOPODIS/AFP/Getty Images

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Republican Opposition to Trump's Trade Pick Underscores GOP Divide Over Free Trade - Foreign Policy (blog)

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Republicans are not in good shape for the 2018 midterm elections. The party in general is at 53 percent disapproval in the polling averages, which has been getting steadily worse since the election. Democrats should be in a strong position to make large gains in the midterms, just as they did in 2006.

But that's only assuming there are free and fair elections.

There are already signs that Republicans might try to cheat their way to victory. Exhibit A is Thursday's announcement that the White House is setting up a commission to "investigate" voter fraud in the United States one helmed by the most notorious electoral cheater in the country, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

Cheating is going to be sorely tempting, given the depth of political problems Republicans face the party disapproval rating isn't the half of it. President Trump is only slightly more popular than the party as a whole making him the least popular recently elected president in the history of polling. Only 21 percent approve of the most recent Republican health-care bill, an already paltry number that will drop precipitously if the bill passes and the reality of throwing tens of millions off their insurance sinks in. And the Comey scandal is already tainting the party yet more.

While I have no doubt that the party's base will stick with Trump to the bitter end, even if he airholes a Supreme Court justice during a State of the Union address, there aren't enough of them to win national elections.

Indeed, that's part of the reason Republicans will cheat they likely would not have won the presidency in 2016 without doing so. A non-peer reviewed estimate conducted by a Democratic-aligned organization found that voter suppression reduced voting by 200,000 in Wisconsin alone, where the margin of victory was just under 23,000. A similar study by the Government Accountability Office found voter ID laws cut turnout by over 100,000 votes in Kansas and Tennessee in 2012. Felony disenfranchisement probably won them Florida.

Now, that sort of thing isn't quite the same thing as stealing an election outright.

Electoral fraud exists on a spectrum. On one pole, you have a full-blown dictatorship, where all parties but the ruling one are banned, journalists who criticize the dictator are locked up or killed, and any elections that happen are one-choice affairs where armed secret police look over your shoulder at the voting booth. On the other, you have the scrupulous parliamentary democracy, where citizens are free to vote for any party or form new ones, all adult citizens have the right to vote, electoral mechanics are non-partisan, and there is due process, freedom of the press, assembly, and so forth.

But there are quite a lot of intermediate options in between those two extremes. For one, you can set up voting qualifications to selectively disenfranchise opposition voters. Republicans do this with felony disenfranchisement, voter ID, and other onerous regulations most of them aimed squarely at black people. For another, you can gerrymander district boundaries to make it nearly impossible for the other side to win. Republicans have done this to give themselves a roughly 7-point advantage in the House of Representatives, and to a far greater extent in state legislatures.

There is a difference between a 7-point handicap and an "election" where men with guns tell you how to vote. But gerrymandering, partisan disenfranchisement, and vote suppression are without question an attempt to overturn the will of the people by rigging the electoral system. The fact that it doesn't disenfranchise everyone only makes it somewhat less horrible.

Gerrymandering obviously has to be done by state legislatures. But Kobach is the national champion at vote suppression:

Mr. Kobach has been the driving force behind a Kansas law requiring new voters to produce a passport, a birth certificate, or naturalization papers as proof of citizenship or be denied the ability to cast ballots. He worked last year to disqualify the state and local votes of thousands of people who did not meet the criteria. He has advocated the proof-of-citizenship requirement at the federal level as well, citing rampant voter fraud without producing proof of a widespread problem. [The New York Times]

He produces no proof because there is none. Large studies not to mention an investigation by Kobach himself have found, at most, a tiny handful of cases of possible in-person voter fraud thousands or millions of votes short of actually swinging an election. You steal an election by controlling the count, or by rigging the procedures, not by getting city-sized groups of people to commit serious felonies en masse. It is absolutely beyond question that the motivation here is partisan advantage for Republicans.

Kobach will almost certainly recommend national-level measures to suppress liberal votes, and will enable state-level efforts to roll back democracy as well. Whether there are meaningful elections next year may depend on whether such measures can be stopped.

Go here to read the rest:
Are Republicans going to try to steal the 2018 election? - The Week Magazine

New York Times

Special Election Fights Expose House Republicans' Squabbles With White House New York Times WASHINGTON The House Republican campaign arm is increasingly at odds with the White House over how best to retain the party's congressional majorities and, more broadly, who is in charge of the midterm campaign effort as Republicans spend ...

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Special Election Fights Expose House Republicans' Squabbles With White House - New York Times