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It would have been impossible to imagine a year ago that the Republican Partys leaders would be effectively serving as enablers of Russian interference in this countrys 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.

Its 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 Russias 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 years 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 Italys 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.

Theres 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 partys current leader, the president, questions the intelligence communitys 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 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 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 Partys 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 Russias 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.

Its 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.

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Republicans are becoming Russia's accomplices - Washington Post

Congress is pushing to overturn as early as this week regulations that outline how states must carry out a federal law that holds public schools accountable for serving all students.

Leaders of the Republican majority claim that the rules, written during the Obama administration, represent an executive overreach. Democrats argue that rescinding the rules will open loopholes to hide or ignore schools that fail to adequately serve poor children, minorities, English-language learners and students with disabilities.

The debate comes as Republicans are making a sweeping effort to roll back regulations finalized in the last few months of Barack Obamas presidency. GOP lawmakers say that in this case they are targeting actions under Obamas Education Department that contradict legislative intent when the school accountability law was passed in 2015.

We said to the department, You cant tell states exactly what to do about fixing low-performing schools. Thats their decision. This rule does that, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said in a statement last week. And we said to the department, You cant tell states exactly how to rate the public schools in your state, but this rule does that.

Democrats say President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos appear to be giving states too much deference on education issues.

Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the ranking Democrat on the Education Committee who helped negotiate the 2015 law, said repealing the regulations would be a devastating blow to students across the country and would throw state and district planning into chaos at the very moment when they had started to settle into the new law.

The regulations are meant to outline what states must do to meet their obligations under the Every Student Succeeds Act, the successor to the 2002 No Child Left Behind law. The Republican-led House voted last month to undo the regulations via the Congressional Review Act, which allows lawmakers to veto a rule they dont like. But the CRA would also prohibit the Trump administration from issuing a rule that is substantially similar.

The Senate could vote on the measure as early as this week, and it needs only a simply majority to pass. Republicans are confident that they have that majority, according to a GOP aide. But at least one Republican, Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio), has said he plans to oppose the repeal, saying that the regulations provide important protections for students who have too often been forgotten.

If the bill reaches Trumps desk, he is expected to sign it, leaving a regulatory void and injecting uncertainty into state efforts to comply with federal law.

The current law is far less prescriptive than its predecessor and leaves states largely in charge of deciding how to evaluate elementary and secondary schools and what to do when they fail. But the law also includes important civil rights guardrails meant to ensure that subgroups of students such as those with disabilities, or those who are poor dont slip through the cracks.

Obamas regulations sought to provide more detail and clarity than the statutory language. They outline what information must be included on annual school report cards sent to parents and the public, define what it means for a group of students in a school to be consistently underperforming, and lay out a timeline for state interventions at struggling schools.

Republicans say the administration went too far, creating some rules that either had no basis in the law or conflicted directly with it.

We wrote a very specific law saying the states are in charge, said Rep. Todd Rokita (R-Ind.), speaking on the House floor after introducing the resolution to roll back the resolutions. Here we have a federal agency inserting itself, not just interpreting law, but actually making law and taking us in the exact opposite direction that all of us intended.

A coalition of civil rights advocates and business leaders, including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are urging Congress to leave the regulations in place, saying they provide important clarity and certainty for states.

One of the most-debated parts of the law says that schools must test at least 95 percent of eligible students each year, a provision meant to ensure that schools dont encourage low performers to stay home on test day as a way to inflate average scores.

The ascent of the opt-out movement, in which parents refuse to allow their children to take standardized tests as a way to protest the emphasis on testing, has created politically charged questions about how states should handle schools that dont meet the participation requirement.

Both the law and the regulations allow states to decide what to do about those schools but the regulations specify that the consequence must be severe enough to force schools to come into compliance.

Many Republicans and the nations largest teachers unions argued that the Obama administration created this requirement to punish schools out of thin air. But civil rights advocates said that without meaningful consequences, the 95 percent rule critical for ensuring that schools are held accountable for their students true performance would be meaningless.

There will be districts and schools with a strategic incentive not to have certain kids tested, said Gini Pupo-Walker of Conexin Amricas, a group that advocates for Latino families in Tennessee and is part of a statewide coalition advocating for educational equity.

Many states are deep into designing school-accountability systems based on the regulations. The first wave of applications are due to the Trump administration on April 3, leaving officials little time to retool their applications if Congress revokes the rules.

Chris Minnich, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, said in the absence of regulations, states will need DeVos to quickly and clearly explain what is expected of them.

In the end, whats most important is that the secretary be clear with the states about whats next, Minnich said. States are already planning, they have good plans in place, theyre starting to come together and we cant have this slow them down.

DeVos told states last month that deadlines for submitting applications wont change despite the turmoil. She promised to offer further guidance in the near future. One of my main priorities as Secretary is to ensure that States and local school districts have clarity during the early implementation of the law, she wrote.

Some state education chiefs welcome the overturning of the rules, saying it will give them more flexibility and would not derail the work already underway. But others said they fear that the rollback opens the door for some states to design lax systems that dont help identify and fix poorly performing schools.

I certainly hope that states dont have a blank check here, said Mitchell Chester, commissioner of education in Massachusetts.

The two major teachers unions were both critical of the regulations when they were finalized in November, but have since charted different courses. The National Education Association, the largest, has not taken a position on whether Congress should repeal them. But American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten on Thursday urged senators not to overturn the rules, saying that they struck a decent balance between flexibility for states and protections for equity and financial accountability.

Some conservatives also oppose a wholesale rollback, arguing that some provisions actually provide more flexibility to states than the law itself.

Mike Petrilli of the right-leaning Thomas B. Fordham Institute argued that rather than repealing the regulations, Congress should allow DeVos to determine which rules her department will not enforce. Over time, he suggested, the department could officially revise the rules to exclude those that are particularly offensive, without losing the ones that are helpful.

Senate Republicans have a sledgehammer; Betsy DeVos has a chisel, Petrilli wrote on Fordhams blog. They should let her use it.

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Congressional Republicans poised to overturn Obama-era education regulations - Washington Post

Major Republican initiatives are bogged down for reasons that have nothing to do with the personality flaws of the tweeter in chief, and everything to do with the broader, more fundamental fecklessness of his party.

According to Politico, a Trump confidante says that the man in the Oval Office or more often at Mar-a-Lago is tired of everyone thinking his presidency is screwed up. Pro tip: The best way to combat perceptions that youre screwing up is, you know, to stop screwing up.

But he cant, of course. And its not just a personal problem.

It goes without saying that Donald Trump is the least qualified individual, temperamentally or intellectually, ever installed in the White House. As he veers from wild accusations against President Barack Obama to snide remarks about Arnold Schwarzenegger, hes doing a very good imitation of someone experiencing a personal breakdown even though he has yet to confront a crisis not of his own making. Thanks, Comey.

But the broader Republican quagmire the partys failure so far to make significant progress toward any of its policy promises isnt just about Trumps inadequacies. The whole party, it turns out, has been faking it for years. Its leaders rhetoric was empty; they have no idea how to turn their slogans into actual legislation, because theyve never bothered to understand how anything important works.

Take the two lead items in the congressional GOPs agenda: undoing the Affordable Care Act and reforming corporate taxes. In each case Republicans seem utterly shocked to find themselves facing reality.

The story of Obamacare repeal would be funny if the health care and, in many cases, the lives of millions of Americans werent at stake.

First we had seven seven! years during which Republicans kept promising to offer an alternative to Obamacare any day now, but never did. Then came the months after the election, with more promises of details just around the corner.

Now theres apparently a plan hidden somewhere in the Capitol basement. Why the secrecy? Because the Republicans have belatedly discovered what some of us tried to tell them all along: The only way to maintain coverage for the 20 million people who gained insurance thanks to Obamacare is with a plan that, surprise, looks a lot like Obamacare.

Sure enough, the new plan reportedly does look like a sort of half-baked version of the Affordable Care Act. Politically, it seems to embody the worst of both worlds: Its enough like Obamacare to infuriate hard-line conservatives, but it weakens key aspects of the law enough to deprive millions of Americans many of them white working-class voters who backed Donald Trump of essential health care.

The idea, apparently, is to deal with these problems by passing the plan before anyone gets a chance to really see or think about whats in it. Good luck with that.

Then theres corporate tax reform an issue where the plan being advanced by Paul Ryan, the House speaker, is actually not too bad, at least in principle. Even some Democratic-leaning economists support a shift to a destination-based cash flow tax, which is best thought of as a sales tax plus a payroll subsidy. (Trust me.)

But Ryan has failed spectacularly to make his case either to colleagues or to powerful interest groups. Why? As best I can tell, its because he himself doesnt understand the point of the reform.

The case for the cash flow tax is quite technical; among other things, it would remove the incentives the current tax system creates for corporations to load up on debt and to engage in certain kinds of tax avoidance. But thats not the kind of thing Republicans talk about if anything, theyre in favor of tax avoidance, hence the Trump proposal to slash funding for the IRS.

No, in GOP world, tax ideas always have to be presented as ways to remove the shackles from oppressed job creators. So Ryan has framed his proposal, basically falsely, as a measure to make American industry more competitive, focusing on the border tax adjustment which is part of the sales-tax component of the reform.

This misrepresentation seems, however, to be backfiring: It sounds like a Trumpist tariff, and has both conservatives and retailers like Wal-Mart up in arms.

At this point, then, major Republican initiatives are bogged down for reasons that have nothing to do with the personality flaws of the tweeter in chief, and everything to do with the broader, more fundamental fecklessness of his party.

Does this mean that nothing substantive will happen on the policy front? Not necessarily. Republicans may decide to ram through a health plan that causes mass suffering, and hope to blame it on Obama. They may give up on anything resembling a principled tax reform, and just throw a few trillion dollars at rich people instead.

But whatever the eventual outcome, what were witnessing is what happens when a party that gave up hard thinking in favor of empty sloganeering ends up in charge of actual policy. And its not a pretty sight.

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Republicans, a party not ready to govern - The Seattle Times

Republicans will introduce their much-awaited bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act this week, a senior House Republican aide told NBC News on Sunday.

"We are in a very good place right now," said the aide, who asked not to be identified.

AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, told NBC News: "We are now at the culmination of a years-long process to keep our promise to the American people."

A draft bill obtained by NBC News would repeal much of the current law, also known as Obamacare, within the next few years and set in place a Republican vision of health care.

The draft legislation would provide expanded tax credits and health savings accounts for individuals while reducing federal spending on tax subsidies and Medicaid and practically eliminating the employer and individual mandates to provide and carry health insurance.

It wasn't clear Sunday night to what extent the draft legislation, dated Feb. 10, may have changed in the last three weeks, but at the time, an aide to a House Republican said: "This is the bones of what's going to happen."

President Donald Trump met with health insurance chief executives at the White House last week to try to win their support for the Republican revamp.

Only 12 percent of Americans said they had a "great deal" or "quite a bit" of confidence in health insurance companies in a NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll in December. In contrast, 54 percent said they had "very little" or "none at all."

Under the draft bill, Americans who need assistance to buy health care would receive a tax credit with an option to receive it in advance on a monthly basis based on age. A person under 30 would be eligible for a $2,000 tax credit, while a person over 60 would be eligible for a $4,000 credit.

The measure would also create state-based high-risk pools for people who don't have access to insurance. The federal government would start providing $15 billion to help fund the high-risk pools next year, but the funding would decrease to $10 billion by 2020 and beyond.

And the legislation would greatly expand the use of health savings accounts, a tax-deductible way to buy health insurance, which has become a top Republican priority.

The largest funding mechanism would be a tax on the most expensive employer-provided health insurance plans.

The anticipated release of the plan follows a series of town hall meetings across the country during which angry constituents berated Republican lawmakers over health care policy, pouring particular scorn on the idea of tax credits and health savings accounts.

Some Republican senators have already threatened to vote it against it, including Rand Paul of Kentucky, who lambasted the bill-writing process as overly secretive last week.

"The only copy we've seen is from the media," Paul said. "Now we're told it's being classified and the hearing is like a security clearance hearing you have to have security clearance and permission and have to be on the committee to see the bill."

Making good on promises of "repeal and replace" has proven difficult for Republicans, since members of the party are divided on what a replacement should look like and how much it should cost. Republican leaders, meanwhile, have promised not to "pull the rug" out from under people who are covered by current law.

But the senior House aide told NBC News on Sunday that there was a large staff meeting at the White House on Friday to resolve outstanding issues, while heath care committees in Congress worked over the weekend to incorporate technical guidance.

See the rest here:
Republicans to Introduce Health Care Replacement Bill This Week ... - NBCNews.com

Roll Call

Furor Over Russia's Hacking Puts Congressional Republicans on Hot Seat Wall Street Journal (subscription) In the controversy over Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, here's where the key players stand: Russian President Vladimir Putin must be pleased, President Donald Trump is furious, and congressional Republicans are in the hot seat. House Republicans Shouldn't Get Too Comfortable in MajorityRoll Call all 7 news articles »

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Furor Over Russia's Hacking Puts Congressional Republicans on Hot Seat - Wall Street Journal (subscription)