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Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), right, and Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), at a news conference on the American Health Care Act, the House Republican's plan to replace the Affordable Care Act, March 7, 2017. Tom Williams/Congressional Quarterly/Newscom/ZUMA

Democrats are mucking up the GOP's plans for a smooth, quick process of repealing Obamacareand their strategy seems to be to annoy Republicans as much as possible with legislative arcana.

Two House committees kicked off their hearings on the Republican replacement health care bill Wednesday morning, a quick turnaround given that Republicans didn't even release their bill until Monday evening, after keeping it under lock and key last week. At the House Energy & Commerce Committee, Democrats quickly derailed proceedings with objections and parliamentary inquiries. Rep. Frank Pallone (N.J.), the top Democrat on the committee, regularly interrupted the committee's chairman, Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), to object to the rushed legislative process.

Most of Pallone's proposals didn't go anywhere; they just dragged things out with arguments over procedure. His request to give members longer than a minute for their opening statements was turned down by Walden, and his motion for a 30-day delay on the hearing was rejected in a party-line vote.

Finally, an hour and a half into the hearing, the committee was all set to delve into the substance of the bill and begin debating its provisions and offering amendments. Not so fast, Rep. Ben Lujn (D-N.M.) objected. He wanted a full reading of the bill. While Republicans are fond of pointing out how much shorter their plan is than the Affordable Care Act, it's still a lengthy, technical document, and reading it out loud would take quite a while.

"We've been told to expect to be here through the weekend," Walden warned, saying there'd be many long nights of hearings thanks to the many amendments Democrats intend to propose.

While most of these legislative machinations seem intended solely to pester Republicans, they're not just empty maneuvering. Thanks to the fast turnaround from the bill's release to its markup, the Congressional Budget Office hasn't had time to calculate how much the bill will cost or how many people will lose their health insurance. If the Democrats can drag things out so that the committee doesn't vote on the bill until next week, that might buy the CBO enough time to offer an assessment before committee members cast their votes. And Democrats likely hope that they can prevent the bill from getting a full House vote before the Easter recess next month, forcing Republicans to confront their constituents before the bill gets a full vote.

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Democrats' Health Care Strategy: Annoy the Hell Out of Republicans - Mother Jones

When I was in grade school, an occasional deafening alarm prompted our teachers to usher us into the school basement where we would squat along a clammy, concrete inner wall until the all-clear bell rang. It was practice in case the Russian commies (then the Soviet Union) decided to annihilate Pittsburgh. As preteens, we did not realize that if our city did get nuked no school basement would have saved us.

Back then, we were taught that the Russians were our adversaries. For most of the past seven decades the Russians have been our adversaries. They competed with us in a dangerous Cold War nuclear arms race. They tried to sneak nuclear arms to our doorstep in Cuba until President John Kennedy stopped them. They provided weapons to kill American soldiers in Korea, Vietnam and elsewhere.

And last year, Russians hacked into the computers of the Democrats and worked to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election in favor of Republican Donald Trump. What does that say about Russia and Trump?

Republican leaders, including Trump, do not act like the Russians are adversaries any longer. In fact, it is well documented that Trump and people close to him have had business dealings with Russians. We dont know the extent of Trumps dealings with Russia, partly because he refuses to release his tax returns. But we know Trump has praised Russian billionaire, strongman, President Vladimir Putin. We know that Trumps son told a 2008 real estate conference that Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.

Republicans repeatedly castigated former President Barack Obama for not being tough on Russia. But these same tough-talkers were suddenly silent when government security experts verified that the Russians actively interfered with our presidential election. To many people, this was an act of aggression rivaling the Cuban missile crisis. Our longtime adversary was caught undermining a basic part of our democratic process.

But except for a few like Sen. John McCain, Republican patriotism took a back seat to political expediency. So what if the Russians interfered with the election? Their man had won.

A half-hearted investigation is under way in the Republican-controlled Congress. There probably would be no serious congressional investigation if Democrats were not pushing hard to learn more about the Russian hacking and about the Trump campaigns possible knowledge and complicity.

Thanks to investigative journalists, there are new revelations almost daily. We know that during the presidential campaign, Trump insiders were in regular communication with Russians, including the ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, considered to be a Russian spy by U.S. intelligence officials, according to CNN and other news outlets.

Michael Flynn lasted less than a month as Trumps national security advisor after communicating privately with Kislyak before Trumps inauguration. Flynn acknowledged the communications but apparently lied when he said they did not include discussion of sanctions that President Obama imposed against the Russians for interfering with the election.

Flynn changed his tune only when we learned via the media that U.S. intelligence personnel had listened to the conversations and knew otherwise. Now we have learned that Trumps attorney general, Jeff Sessions, met with Kislyak twice last year and failed to disclose it when asked under oath during his confirmation hearing.

Republicans may no longer think so, but secretly cozying up to the Russians and hiding or lying about it is a big deal. Russian interference with our election is a big deal. Republicans either need to start treating it like a big deal or explain why they are putting partisan politics ahead of their country.

Bill McCann is a Bastrop County resident and writes commentary columns for the Advertiser on matters of national and local interest.

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Commentary: Why are Republicans ignoring Trump's connection to Russia? - Austin American-Statesman

New York Times

No Wonder the Republicans Hid the Health Bill New York Times Republican House leaders have spent months dodging questions about how they would replace the Affordable Care Act with a better law, and went so far as to hide the draft of their plan from other lawmakers. No wonder. The bill they released on Monday ... Republicans' Obamacare Replacement Just Got A Powerful EnemyHuffington Post Some congressional Republicans speak out against "Trumpcare"CBS News Conservatives rebel against Trump-backed Republican healthcare planReuters Washington Post -NPR -New York Post -Energy and Commerce Committee all 2,155 news articles »

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No Wonder the Republicans Hid the Health Bill - New York Times

It would have been impossible to imagine a year ago that the Republican Party's leaders would be effectively serving as enablers of Russian interference in this country's political system. Yet, astonishingly, that is the role the Republican Party is playing.

U.S. intelligence services have stated that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election with the intention of swinging it to one side. Knowing how cautious the intelligence community is in making such judgments, and given the significance of this particular finding, the evidence must be compelling. At the very least, any reasonable person would have to conclude that there is enough evidence to warrant a serious, wide-ranging and open investigation. Polls suggest that a majority of Americans would like to see such an investigation carried out.

It's important at this time of intense political conflict to remain focused on the most critical issue. Whether certain individuals met with Russian officials, and whether those meetings were significant, is secondary and can eventually be sorted out. The most important question concerns Russia's ability to manipulate U.S. elections. That is not a political issue. It is a national security issue.

If the Russian government did interfere in the United States' electoral processes last year, then it has the capacity to do so in every election going forward. This is a powerful and dangerous weapon, more than warships or tanks or bombers. Neither Russia nor any potential adversary has the power to damage the U.S. political system with weapons of war. But by creating doubts about the validity, integrity and reliability of U.S. elections, it can shake that system to its foundations.

The United States has not been the only victim. The argument by at least one former Obama administration official and others that last year's interference was understandable payback for past American policies is undermined by the fact that Russia is also interfering in the coming elections in France and Germany, and it has already interfered in Italy's recent referendum and in numerous other elections across Europe. Russia is deploying this weapon against as many democracies as it can to sap public confidence in democratic institutions.

The democracies are going to have to figure out how to respond. With U.S. congressional elections just 20 months away, it is essential to get a full picture of what the Russians did do and can do here, and soon. The longer the American people remain in the dark about Russian manipulations, the longer they will remain vulnerable to them. The longer Congress fails to inform itself, the longer it will be before it can take steps to meet the threat. Unfortunately, the present administration cannot be counted on to do so on its own.

There's no need to ask what Republicans would be doing if the shoe were on the other foot if the Russians had intervened to help elect the Democratic nominee. They would be demanding a bipartisan select committee of Congress, or a congressionally mandated blue-ribbon panel of experts and senior statesmen with full subpoena powers to look into the matter. They would be insisting that, for reasons of national security alone, it was essential to determine what happened: what the Russians did, how they did it and how they could be prevented from doing it again. If that investigation found that certain American individuals had somehow participated in or facilitated the Russian operation, they would insist that such information be made public and that appropriate legal proceedings begin. And if the Democrats tried to slow-roll the investigations, to block the creation of select committees or outside panels, or to insist that investigations be confined to the intelligence committees whose inquiries and findings could be kept from the public, Republicans would accuse them of a coverup and of exposing the nation to further attacks. And they would be right.

But it is the Republicans who are covering up. The party's current leader, President Donald Trump, questions the intelligence community's findings, motives and integrity. Republican leaders in Congress have opposed the creation of any special investigating committee, either inside or outside Congress. They have insisted that inquiries be conducted by the two intelligence committees. Yet Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the Republican chairman of the committee in the House has indicated that he sees no great urgency to the investigation and has even questioned the seriousness and validity of the accusations. The Republican chairman of the committee in the Senate, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) has approached the task grudgingly. The result is that the investigations seem destined to move slowly, produce little information and provide even less to the public. It is hard not to conclude that this is precisely the intent of the Republican Party's leadership, both in the White House and Congress.

This approach is not only damaging to U.S. national security but also puts the Republican Party in an untenable position. When Republicans stand in the way of thorough, open and immediate investigations, they become Russia's accomplice after the fact. This is undoubtedly not their intent. No one in the party wants to help Russia harm the United States and its democratic institutions. But Republicans need to face the fact that by slowing down, limiting or otherwise hampering the fullest possible investigation into what happened, that is what they are doing.

It's time for the party to put national security above partisan interest. Republican leaders need to name a bipartisan select committee or create an outside panel, and they need to do so immediately. They must give that committee the mission and all the necessary means for getting to the bottom of what happened last year. And then they must begin to find ways to defend the nation against this new weapon that threatens to weaken American democracy. The stakes are far too high for politics as usual.

Washington Post

Robert Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing columnist for The Washington Post.

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Republicans are becoming Russia's accomplices - Chicago Tribune

Republicans took the first step toward reversing the Federal Communication Commissions internet privacy rules today, with 25 senators introducing legislation that would reverse the rules and forbid the commission from passing anything similar to them in the future.

The privacy rules were introduced last year as an addendum of sorts to the 2015 net neutrality order. That order required the FCC to take over enforcement of privacy protection from the Federal Trade Commission, but the FCC needed to pass clear rules in order to effectively do that.

This is largely about sharing your web browsing habits

The FCCs rules mostly align with the FTCs privacy framework, but they differ in two key ways: the FCC makes internet providers protect your web browsing history, and the FCC has much more leeway to actually enforce its rules.

Of course, neither of those distinctions are things that internet providers like. So theyve been fighting to overturn them.

For the most part, Republicans just want to see the FCC scale back its rules to more closely match the FTCs. At a minimum, thatll mean letting internet providers share your web browsing history so that they can make more ad money.

Its not clear how quickly Republicans intend to move on this, but, one way or another, these privacy rules are probably going down. Republicans can move forward with this legislation, which would require a majority vote in both houses and a signature from the president. Or they could wait around for the FCC to kill the rules on its own commission chairman Ajit Pai has already indicated his plans to do that.

Senator Flake wants the FCC to follow the FTC on privacy

In Congress, Republicans are relying on the Congressional Review Act to reverse the rules. The act allows recently enacted rules to be reviewed and reversed by a new Congress, and its getting thrown around regularly as a way for Republicans to quickly undo many Obama administration actions from last year.

The big question, if the privacy rules are overturned by Congress, is what the FCC will do next. The law would prevent the FCC from passing any rules that are substantially the same as the ones overturned, but its not clear whatll qualify as different enough to clear that bar, especially since the changes Republicans are pushing for arent very dramatic.

At the very least, Republicans have made it clear what they want the FCC to pass. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published earlier this month, Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who authored the resolution introduced today, said he wanted to scrap the current privacy rules in the hope that [the FCC] would follow the FTCs successful sensitivity-based framework.

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Republicans introduce resolution to kill FCC's internet privacy rules - The Verge