U.S. to Russia: 'Put up or shut up' on Syrian ceasefire

People rest in the ruins of a destroyed Medecins Sans Frontieres-supported hospital hit by missiles in Marat Numan, Idlib province, Syria, Feb. 16, 2016. Photo by Ammar Abdullah/Reuters

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration, frustrated by Syria's ongoing violence, told Russia on Tuesday to "put up or shut up" about implementing a ceasefire in the Arab country, even as the U.S. backpedaled from an agreement for the truce to begin by Friday.

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Washington and Moscow announced after at a conference in Germany last week that the ceasefire would start by Feb. 19, raising hopes of a major breakthrough in a war that has raged for nearly five years, killed more than 250,000 people, beset Europe with its worst refugee crisis since World War II and helped the Islamic State emerge.

But State Department spokesman Mark Toner on Tuesday only stressed the need to "see some progress on a cessation of hostilities in the coming days." He said he couldn't "say categorically that ... there must be a cessation of hostilities" by Friday.

Toner blamed Russia for the impasse, condemning it for "unacceptable" attacks on hospitals and civilians. Russia must exert influence with Syrian President Bashar Assad's government to halt its ground offensives, Toner said. Russia says it is targeting terrorists, not civilians.

Speaking after a U.S.-Asian summit in California, President Barack Obama echoed the criticism.

"Russia has been propping up Assad this entire time," Obama said. He described Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to send troops and aircraft to Syria as "a testament to the weakness of Assad's position."

"A country has been shattered because Assad was willing to shatter it," Obama added. Russia, he said, "has been party to that entire process."

Despite all the recent talk of ceasefire, the conflict is threatening to escalate. Turkey said Tuesday it is pressing for ground operations in Syria amid fears that U.S.-backed Kurdish militants are making gains at the opposition's expense. Washington sees the Kurds as an effective fighting force against the Islamic State.

Little headway appears to have been made on securing humanitarian access to besieged areas throughout the country.

Last week's Munich agreement demanded that access be provided immediately amid Western charges that Assad is starving his opponents and civilians into submission. Toner said some aid has reached certain areas, despite no United Nations confirmation of successful deliveries. In Syria, U.N. peace envoy Staffan de Mistura said he hoped food and other supplies would make it through Wednesday.

The ceasefire announced by Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart last week appears most unlikely at this point. Toner said a U.S.-Russian-led task force that is supposed to map out the details of the truce still hasn't even met. He expressed hope of an initial gathering Wednesday.

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Here's What Happened Last Time An Outgoing President Made A Supreme Court Nomination

Just minutes after news broke Saturday afternoon that Antonin Scalia had died at 79, Republicans said they would not confirm President Barack Obama's nomination to replace the conservative Supreme Court justice -- no matter who it is. "Justice Scalia was an American hero," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a presidential candidate and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, tweeted Sunday. "We owe it to him, & the Nation, for the Senate to ensure that the next President names his replacement."

Republicans control the U.S. Senate, which must approve Supreme Court nominees. They believe the next president could be a Republican who would nominate a conservative replacement for Scalia, instead of the liberal Obama would be likely to nominate.

It's tempting to look to history to figure out what might happen now. But there aren't any directly comparable recent episodes.

No president in recent memory has faced a Supreme Court vacancy that opened during his final year in office. Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court's current swing vote, took office during Ronald Reagan's final year in office. But Reagan had nominated him the previous November. He was Reagan's third choice -- after Robert Bork, who was rejected by the Senate, and Douglas Ginsburg, who withdrew from consideration. And the vacancy he was filling had opened the previous July.

The most recent broadly similar situation occurred in June of 1968 (an election year), when President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who had said he would not run for re-election, nominated Associate Justice Abe Fortas to take over as chief justice of the Supreme Court. Republicans and conservative southern Democrats filibustered Fortas' nomination, and Johnson eventually withdrew it.

But there are a few key difference between the Fortas situation and Scalia's passing.

First, Fortas was already on the court. The nomination was to make him chief justice, not to bring him on, and making him chief justice would not have changed the court's ideological makeup. (When Johnson nominated Fortas for chief justice, he also nominated Homer Thornberry, a judge and former congressman, to fill Fortas' seat. But when the Senate rejected Fortas for chief justice, Thornberry's nomination died, too.)

Second, there were ethical concerns involved. Fortas was criticized for accepting $15,000 for speaking at American University's law school -- money that was provided by corporations. Obama will aim to nominate someone whose ethics are beyond question.

Finally, today's politics -- in which most conservatives are Republicans and most liberals are Democrats -- are dramatically different than those of 1968, when both parties were split.

There's an informal Senate rule that came out of the Fortas fight that Republicans will likely claim applies here. That's the "Thurmond rule," named after former Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), which, in the words of my colleague Ryan Grim, means "no lifetime judicial appointments would move in the last six months or so of a lame-duck presidency." Obama has more than six months left in his tenure, but remember, this is an informal rule -- it's not written down anywhere.

Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, controls the Senate's agenda. He's already said that the next president should appoint Scalia's replacement. And there's no telling whether Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who heads the judiciary committee, will even allow Obama's nominee a hearing. He's been dragging his feet with lower court appointees as it is.

Expect a fight.

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2016 voters will be most diverse ever

By Nov. 8, nearly one-in-three eligible voters will be Hispanic, black, Asian or any other racial and ethnic minority. Photo by Evan Semon/Reuters

Voters in this year's presidential election will be some of the most diverse ever, according to the Pew Research Center. By Election Day, nearly one-in-three eligible voters will be Hispanic, black, Asian or any other racial and ethnic minority.

Young Hispanics are the driving force behind a diversifying voting population. Many of these new voters are American-born and will turn 18 by Election Day. Pew writer and editor Jens Manuel Krogstad says that that makes Latino millennials a key demographic.

"They're almost half of all eligible Latino voters," he says. "That really stands out compared to whites millennials at just 27 percent."

The number of eligible voters is growing steadily overall. There are more than 10 million new eligible voters this election cycle compared to 2012. That increase also includes non-Hispanic, white Americans. The white electorate isn't declining, it just isn't growing at nearly the same rates as blacks, Hispanics and Asians. Krogstad says there's several reasons, one being an aging population. More whites are getting older and dying.

"There are also fewer white U.S. citizens turning 18," he says. "So as a result, white voters' percentage of the electorate fell from 71 to 69 percent since 2012."

READ MORE: Latino millennials could be major voting bloc — if they turnout

While immigration reform is a hot-button issue among Latino voters on both sides of the aisle, it's Asian-Americans who experienced the largest increase in eligible voters due to naturalization. Since 2012, nearly 60 percent of newly eligible Asian voters gained the right to vote from becoming naturalized American citizens. And by 2055, Asians will be the largest immigrant group in the country, potentially growing the voting population even more in the future.

According to Pew, the percentage of all minority eligible voters will continue to climb. And the changing face of the American electorate poses new outreach challenges for political parties looking to gain support among young people and minorities. Hispanics, blacks and Asians largely identify with Democrats while whites are more evenly split. Generational differences are also more common among whites.

But it's one thing to register to vote, it's another to show up to the polls. Across racial lines, minorities have lower voter turnout rates, especially among young people. And despite their growing percentage of the electorate, Hispanic millennials have lower turnout rates compared to black and white millennials. Krogstad says for Latinos, the youth is their greatest strength in terms of growing their political power.

"There's a lot of potential there for young Latinos to influence the presidential elections," he says. "The question is whether they will turn out to vote."

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