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As offensive as it may sound to today's sensitive ears, it was only 11 years ago that a young and rising United States senator wrote the following about immigration:

"When I see Mexican flags waved at pro-immigration demonstrations, I sometimes feel a flush of patriotic resentment. When I'm forced to use a translator to communicate with the guy fixing my car, I feel a certain frustration."

That senator was Democrat Barack Obama from Illinois.

The quote comes from his 2006 autobiography, "The Audacity of Hope." After getting our attention with that blunt description of his feelings, Obama goes on to argue against following those feelings as some people do, to justify denial of "rights and opportunities" to immigrants who want to become Americans.

I had forgotten about that quote until I ran across it in an important essay posted by liberal analyst Peter Beinart in The Atlantic this past week, as Democrats tried in vain to win a couple of congressional seats in traditionally red districts in Georgia and South Carolina.

Titled "How the Democrats Lost Their Way on Immigration," Beinart's piece describes a Democratic Party trying to recover from President Donald Trump's upset victory, yet too hung up on the culture wars commonly known as "political correctness."

Of course, one could just as easily say the same about the Trump era's Grand Old Party, too gridlocked, so far, by its own internal right-versus-far-right conflicts to pass major legislation, despite its control of both houses of Congress.

Still, Republican gridlock is thin consolation for the Democrats' long losing streak in President Obama's years. His two presidential victories distract us from Democratic losses of more than a thousand state legislative seats and governorships and two-thirds of the country's legislative chambers.

In some ways, I think Beinart is too hard on the Democrats in accounting for such losses. I trace the collapse of compromise on immigration to 2008 when I saw Arizona Sen. John McCain, on his way to winning the GOP presidential nomination, booed at the Conservative Political Action Conference convention for advocating comprehensive immigration reform. He later abandoned that cause, and efforts by both parties to revive it have failed.

Yet, let's give credit where it is due. Republicans were singing the blues in similar fashion when Obama's elections in 2008 and 2012 and other Democratic victories threatened the long-term future of the Republicans as a national party. Instead, grass-roots groups like the tea party movement scored victories at the state and local level that have led to the GOP's current dominance.

Which brings me back to how Obama's quote illustrates to me why he managed to succeed twice at something on which Hillary Clinton failed twice: winning the presidency. His feelings of "patriotic resentment" sound like an honest description of concerns that many people feel. Although today he might be castigated by ideological purists as "racist" or at least committing a "microaggression," it is through expressing such sincerely held feelings that honest dialogue can begin and, one hopes, lead to useful compromise and progress.

In the best of all possible political worlds, candidates from both parties calm such irrational fears by educating voters with real facts, not just alarm. Unfortunately we do not live in that best political world these days. Instead, we are treated to Trump's craven slander of immigrants in the U.S. illegally as an invading tide of "murderers" and "rapists."

Yet, if you don't allow candid discussion of real issues, phony hot-button issues will take center stage. Think of the difference it would have made if Clinton had expressed, as her husband used to say in his 1992 presidential bid, how "I feel your pain."

Today's post-Trump Democrats are divided. One side says they must abandon "identity politics" that appeal to every left-out group but working-class and middle-class whites, who feel left behind by economic and cultural change.

The other side says, no, giving voice to traditionally left-out women and minorities is a core belief and essential to the turnout the party needs to win elections especially when they don't have a big draw like Obama on the ballot.

I think both sides of that debate are right. Democrats have been most successful when they have given voice to bread-and-butter working-class concerns, regardless of race or tribe. They can do it again, if they really want to win.

Clarence Page, a member of the Tribune Editorial Board, blogs at http://www.chicagotribune.com/pagespage.

cpage@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @cptime

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Memo to the Democrats: Don't forget the 'forgotten' - Chicago Tribune - Chicago Tribune

OBAMACARE FAILURE IS ON THE DEMOCRATS

Premium and deductible costs are rising and choice and competition are decreasing. As of now, over 1,200 counties will have only one insurance provider available on the individual market next year, and 35,000 individuals will live in counties with no options available at all. These numbers are expected to increase as insurers finalize their 2018 plans in the upcoming weeks, and yet, Democratic lawmakers have not introduced any major legislation to try and fix the system.

Obamacare Failure Is on the Democrats By Juliana Darrow National Review June 23, 2017

Senate Republicans are planning to vote on their version of the long-awaited health-care replacement bill as early as next week; this is the latest development in the contentious process of dismantling the Affordable Care Act. The unveiling of the Better Care Reconciliation Act sets up another showdown of competing narratives: ACA supporters will accuse Republicans of cutting coverage and reducing benefits and the GOP will point to a flawed system that is losing insurers and forcing double-digit premium increases on families across the country.

This face-off is nothing new. The conversation has played out repeatedly over the past six months. But one thing no one seems to be talking about is that Republicans are the only ones attempting to address the rising costs, declining quality of coverage, and increasing lack of choice in the health-care marketplace.

Democrats seem to be content with the status quo of the Affordable Care Act. Premium and deductible costs are rising and choice and competition are decreasing. As of now, over 1,200 counties will have only one insurance provider available on the individual market next year, and 35,000 individuals will live in counties with no options available at all. These numbers are expected to increase as insurers finalize their 2018 plans in the upcoming weeks, and yet, Democratic lawmakers have not introduced any major legislation to try and fix the system. They have taken the easy way out: showboating and complaining instead of working on a solution to stabilize the health-insurance market.

Republicans should no longer let their colleagues across the aisle get a free pass on the health-care-reform discussion. They cannot assume that just because the ACA is unpopular with their conservative base, replacing it will be a political win for the party. In addition to highlighting the merits of their own bill, Republicans must also continue to show the country that the ACA is a disastrous law, but one that Democrats are nonetheless committed to preserving.

The Democrats refusal to change current law most likely stems from an unwillingness to admit that the ACA has not lived up to its promises. Conservatives predicted eight years ago that a government-heavy health-care system would lead to decreased competition and increased costs. Democrats should not let embarrassment that those predictions came true prevent real solutions and lasting reform.

Read the full article here.

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National Review: Obamacare Failure Is on the Democrats - The White House (blog)

The Washington Post's national security reporters unveil the deep divisions inside the Obama White House over how to respond to Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election. (Whitney Leaming,Osman Malik/The Washington Post)

Today, Greg Miller, Ellen Nakashima and Adam Entous have a blockbuster behind-the-scenes story about how the Obama administration handled the Russian effort to manipulate the 2016 presidential election, one that is both shocking and maddening. Reading it, one cant avoid the conclusion that if it had happened during a Republican administration, things would have gone very differently.

What comes through again and again is that the Obama administration was terrified of looking partisan or doing anything that might seem like it was putting a thumb on the scale of the election, and the result was paralysis. This is a manifestation of what some years ago I began calling the Audacity Gap.

Democrats are forever worried about whether they might be criticized, whether Republicans will be mean to them, whether they might look as though theyre being partisan, and whether they might be subjected to a round of stern editorials. Republicans, on the other hand, just dont care. What theyre worried about is winning, and they dont let the kinds of criticism that frightens Democrats impede them. It makes Republicans the party of Yes we can, while Democrats are the party of Maybe we shouldnt.

So as the full scope of the Russian assault on the American election became clear, two things happened again and again. First, whenever the Obama administration would approach Republicans to try to issue some kind of bipartisan condemnation or coordinate efforts to minimize the effects of the attack, the GOP response was essentially, To hell with you, Democrats, after which the administration would slink back and do little or nothing. And second, even when they were deliberating on their own, the administration kept pulling back from responses it might take out of fear that someone might call them partisan.

Lets remember that the scope of Russian interference came into focus last summer. In June, it first became public that the Russians had infiltrated the systems of the Democratic National Committee. In July, during the Democratic convention, Wikileaks released internal DNC emails and those of John Podesta, who was chairing Hillary Clintons campaign, in an attempt to embarrass them and sow division within the Democratic Party (which turned out to be highly successful). In August, the intelligence services determined that there was a coordinated attack underway and that it was likely being directed by Vladimir Putin himself.

Apart from the creation and dissemination of a flood of phony anti-Clinton propaganda, administration officials were concerned that Russian hackers might try to directly affect voting systems, which we later learned they did in fact do. But when Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson attempted to do something about it, he got a partisan reaction:

On Aug. 15, Johnson arranged a conference call with dozens of state officials, hoping to enlist their support [for shoring up the security of their systems]. He ran into a wall of resistance.

The reaction ranged from neutral to negative, Johnson said in congressional testimony Wednesday.

Brian Kemp, the Republican secretary of state of Georgia, used the call to denounce Johnsons proposal as an assault on state rights. I think it was a politically calculated move by the previous administration, Kemp said in a recent interview, adding that he remains unconvinced that Russia waged a campaign to disrupt the 2016 race. I dont necessarily believe that, he said.

The same thing happened from Republicans in Congress: The administration sought a bipartisan response, and Republicans shut it down.

In early September, Johnson, [FBI Director] James Comey and [White House homeland security adviser Lisa] Monaco arrived on Capitol Hill in a caravan of black SUVs for a meeting with 12 key members of Congress, including the leadership of both parties.

The meeting devolved into a partisan squabble.

The Dems were, Hey, we have to tell the public, recalled one participant. But Republicans resisted, arguing that to warn the public that the election was under attack would further Russias aim of sapping confidence in the system.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) went further, officials said, voicing skepticism that the underlying intelligence truly supported the White Houses claims. Through a spokeswoman, McConnell declined to comment, citing the secrecy of that meeting.

Key Democrats were stunned by the GOP response and exasperated that the White House seemed willing to let Republican opposition block any pre-election move.

And as Miller, Nakashima and Entous reported in a previous article, the always-shrewd McConnell knew exactly what button he had to push to get the administration to back off:

According to several officials, McConnell raised doubts about the underlying intelligence and made clear to the administration that he would consider any effort by the White House to challenge the Russians publicly an act of partisan politics.

In other words, Republicans acted like partisans, and successfully rolled over Democrats who didnt want to seem like partisans. Within weeks, the administration decided not to take any action against Moscow before the election. They feared that any action would be seen as political and that Putin, motivated by a seething resentment of Clinton, was prepared to go beyond fake news and email dumps.

Now lets fast-forward to after the election is over. Perhaps the most head-spinning part of this report concerns a proposal to form a bipartisan commission to investigate Russian interference in the election:

But as soon as [White House chief of staff Denis] McDonough introduced the proposal for a commission, he began criticizing it, arguing that it would be perceived as partisan and almost certainly blocked by Congress.

Obama then echoed McDonoughs critique, effectively killing any chance that a Russia commission would be formed.

The election was already over, and they were still worried that something as obviously necessary as a bipartisan commission would be perceived as partisan. Savor that one for a moment.

There are some excuses you can come up with for the Obama administrations hesitance to act decisively against this threat, both in terms of publicizing it and in retaliating against Russia. It was concerned about setting off an escalating conflict with Russia, and its actions were colored by its assumption that Clinton would win, which was of course the assumption held by nearly everyone, Republican or Democrat. But imagine what would have happened if there were a Republican administration in office, and Russia mounted a full-scale assault on our election with the obvious intent of hamstringing the future Republican president (at a minimum) or getting the Democrat elected. Could anyone who knows anything about todays GOP actually believe it would have been so tentative?

Not on your life. Every Republican in Washington from the president on down would have been on TV every day saying that the Democratic nominee was a Russian stooge. They would have undertaken a comprehensive package of retaliatory measures immediately, not waiting until after the election was over. They would have talked about nothing else for months.

Thats not because they would have seen it as a profound threat to American sovereignty. We know that, because they dont care about that threat right now, as real as it is. Heck, the Republican nominee for president not only didnt condemn the Russian assault, he celebrated it. Donald Trump gleefully brought up Wikileaks 164 times on the campaign trail and publicly implored Russia to hack into his opponents email to see if any damaging information might be found there. Republicans have steadfastly resisted any investigation into what happened in the 2016 election.

No, they would have seen it as a threat to their own partisan interests, and responded with the same ferocity that they bring to all partisan conflicts. They wouldnt have worried about being criticized or being called partisan; they would have fought.

And in that case, it would have been the right thing to do. Instead, Vladimir Putin got just about everything he wanted: a destabilized, delegitimized, demoralized American system, and the election of a president whose advisers are tied up in an intricate web of connections to Russia and who is himself bizarrely solicitous of Putins needs and wants.

Theres no way to know whether the election might have turned out differently if the Obama administration had reacted more aggressively to the Russian assault. What we do know is that once again, Democrats were paralyzed by their worries about how things might look. Its not something Republicans ever concern themselves with and all you have to do is look at whos in charge in Washington to see the results.

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How Democratic timidity may have helped Trump get elected - Washington Post (blog)

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren tried to rally beleaguered Democrats at a town hall in Lowell last night, decrying the partys woeful track record in recent special elections saying it sucks to keep losing to the GOP.

I get it, said Warren, answering a question about what can be done to remove House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Its tough out there right now for the Democrats. You dont have to remind me. 0-for-4 in special elections that sucks.

But she cautioned that Democrats have too much at stake in Washington to spend time infighting.

The one thing weve got to do is weve got to keep in mind that we cant be spending our energy shouting at each other, said Warren. Boy, now more than ever we have got to keep our eye on what the Republican majority in the House and Senate and Donald Trump in the White House will do to America.

Warrens comments came on the heels of a bruising loss in a special election in Georgia on Tuesday, where Republican Karen Handel defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff by about 6 points, despite Democrats pouring in tens of millions of dollars and hyping the showdown as a referendum on President Trump.

In South Carolina the same night, Republican congressional candidate Ralph Norman beat Democrat Archie Parnell by a 3-point margin. The GOP also grabbed House seats recently in Montana and Kansas.

U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Salem) was quick to knock how Democrats have handled the post-presidential election era as news of the losses came in.

#Ossof Race better be a wake up call for Democrats business as usual isnt working, Moulton tweeted. Time to stop rehashing 2016 and talk about the future.

Moulton has also called for a new generation of leadership in the party, in a shot at longtime House leader Pelosi.

Seth makes a very legitimate point, Warren told reporters after the town hall last night. He wants to see leadership evolve. Thats fine. I just want to be really clear that were not firing at each other. There are always changes. When I came into the Senate, Harry Reid was the leader. Now its Chuck Schumer. The leadership team has changed. I understand there are changes.

Warren who has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2020 also blasted the Republican health care bill, calling it a tax-cut bill aimed at protecting the wealthy. Republicans in the Senate hope to vote on the bill by next week, but key GOP holdouts could block that plan.

Republicans have said its more important to give tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires than it is for us to help provide medical care for millions of our citizens, Warren said. This is not an economics decision. This is a values decision. This is a measure of who we are as a people.

Warren did say she would be open to meeting with the group Veterans Assisting Veterans, which is alleging that the Bay State senator puts the priorities of illegal immigrants ahead of those of war vets.

Look, all three of my brothers are veterans and I have been very committed on veterans issues long before I got into the United States Senate, both at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the research work Ive done, she said. And, now in particular that Im on the Armed Services Committee, advancing bills to help veterans in every way that I can. I think my office has reached out and Im glad to meet with anybody.

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Warren exhorts Democrats - Boston Herald

The Fix's Callum Borchers and Aaron Blake explain President Obama's tough choices about how to react to Russian interference in the 2016 election. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

The Washington Post is reporting Friday morning that President Barack Obama knew in August that Russian President Vladimir Putin was waging an extraordinary cyberwar on the U.S. presidential campaign, both to discredit the election and try to help Donald Trump win. The Obama administration did not publicly acknowledge all of this until after the election, in December.

In the last few months of the election campaign, behind the scenes and sometimes publicly Democrats in Congress were extremely critical of the president for not telling the public about what was happening.

Top members of theObamaadministration have since defended that decision as the best of bad choices. Former homeland security secretary Jeh Johnson toldCongress earlier this week: "We were concerned that, by making the statement, we might in and of itself be challenging the integrity of the of the election process itself."

So what really happened? Here is a timeline ofhow the Obama administration responded tothe Russian meddling and how he was criticized for it.

1960: Russians have been trying to influence outcomes and perceptions of U.S. elections since around this time, say intelligence experts today.

July 2016:Nearly 20,000 election-year emails from Democratic National Committee staff members are published by WikiLeaks, on the evethe 2016 Democratic National Convention. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) resigns as chairwoman over some of the emails. Some intelligence Democrats point the finger at Russia.

Middle of summer 2016:Top Democrats in Congress say they realized the extent of the hacking, and that it was from Russia. "In the late summer of last year, it became apparent that the Russians were doing more than gathering foreign intelligence that they were in fact dumping it in a way designed to potentially influence outcomes, not by affecting the vote machines, necessarily, but by affecting American public opinion with the dumping of these emails," recalled Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, in a recent committee hearing.

Late July:The U.S. government makes a concerted effort to investigate Russia meddling in the election. As former CIA director John Brennan recalled toCongress in June 2017: "When it became clear to me last summer that Russia was engaged in a very aggressive and wide-ranging effort to interfere in one of the key pillars of our democracy, we pulled together experts from CIA, NSA and FBI in late July to focus on the issue, drawing in multiple perspectives and subject matter experts with broad expertise to assess Russian attempts to interfere in the U.S. presidential election."

July 27:Trump calls on Russia to hack Clinton's emails to see if she didn't turn any over to the FBI that she should have.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump says it's "far-fetched" and "ridiculous" to say Russia hacked Democratic Party emails to help him become president. (Reuters)

July 27: Schiff and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who are among the eight members of Congress who get regular classified briefings by intelligence officials, write to President Obama "urging that the administration declassify and release any intelligence community assessments related to the DNC hack, and develop a swift and powerful response."

Early August: The Washington Post reports that Obama received an "eyes only" envelope by courier from the CIA that"detailed Russian President Vladimir Putins direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the U.S. presidential race" and to help Trump win. "An intelligence bombshell," The Post called it.

August 2016: The Obama administration discovers some entity trying to break into voter registration systems across states.

Also August: Then-Republican nominee Trump starts saying the election is rigged.

Also August:Then-CIA director John Brennan calls his counterpart in Russia and tells them to knock it off.

Aug. 15: The Department of Homeland Security issues a statement warning state governments that some kind of entity was trying to hack into states' voter registration systems. Then-DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson would go on to issue several other statements over the next few months. "In the late summer, fall, I was very concerned about what I was seeing, and this was on my front burner all throughout the pre-election period in August, September, October and early November to encourage the states to come in and seek our assistance," he told Congress in June 2017. "And I'm glad that most of them, red and blue, did."

September 2016: Obama directly confronted Putin at a world leaders meeting in China, telling him to stop -- or else, according to Post reporting.

September: Top members of Congress get a secret briefing by the intelligence community that Russia is interfering in the election, but to what end, they aren't sure. The intelligence community privately saysagencies are conducting a broad investigation. The Washington Post later reported that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) voiced doubts about the accuracy of this in those secret meetings.

Sept. 22: Frustrated that the Obama administration still had not made a public statement about the extent of Russian hacking, Schiff and Feinstein, the top Democrats on Congress's intelligence committees, take matters into their own hands and issue a rare public statement attributing the hack to Russia and senior levels of the Russian government. Here it is in full:

Based on briefings we have received, we have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the U.S. election. At the least, this effort is intended to sow doubt about the security of our election and may well be intended to influence the outcomes of the electionwe can see no other rationale for the behavior of the Russians. We believe that orders for the Russian intelligence agencies to conduct such actions could come only from very senior levels of the Russian government. We call on President Putin to immediately order a halt to this activity. Americans will not stand for any foreign government trying to influence our election. We hope all Americans will stand together and reject the Russian effort.

[Meet Adam Schiff, the Democrat becoming the face of opposition to Trump]

Sept. 28:McConnell and the other top three congressional leaderswrite a letter urging states to use the federal government's help to prevent hacking into their voter registration systems. It makes no mention of Russia.

Oct. 7: The Russian government hacked into Democrats' emails, according to a public statement by then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Homeland Security Secretary Johnson. They conclude "that the intelligence community is confident the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations." This marks the first public U.S. acknowledgment that the Russian government interfered in the election.

Also Oct. 7: The Washington Post publishes an Access Hollywood video of then-candidate Trump bragging about grabbing women's private parts, burying the intelligence community's announcement about Russia.

November-December 2016: Seven Democratic senators send a short letter to Obama to ask him to declassify details of Russian meddling. "We believe there is additional information concerning the Russian Government and the U.S. election that should be declassified and released to the public,"they say.

Dec. 6: Top Democrats send another letter to President Obama asking him to brief "all members of Congress on Russian interference in the U.S. election."

Dec. 9: The Washington Post reports on a secret CIA assessment that concludes Russians intervened in the U.S. election to try to help Trump win the presidency, rather than with the sole goal of undermining Americans' confidence in their electoral systems.

Obama orders a comprehensive review of what happened, going back to 2008, with plans to make it public, The Post reports.

Dec. 29:Obama announces sanctions on Russia for election meddling, kicking out 35 Russians expected to play a role in the hacking and taking over two Russia compounds in the U.S.

December-January: President-elect Trump repeatedly refuses to acknowledge the intelligence community's public assessments and private briefings to him that Russia hacked in the election to help him win. "It could have been China," he said as recently as May 2017.

Jan. 6: In what The Washington Post calls a "remarkably blunt assessment," the intelligence agencies release a declassified report saying that Putin ordered the hacking and elevation of fake news in the United States to help Trump win. It determines: Russia developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump and repeatedly sought to artificially boost his election chances.

May and June 2017: Former Obama intelligence officials go before Congress to assert that Russia interfered in the election. Former CIA director Brennan testifies before Congress and says this: "It should be clear to everyone that Russia brazenly interfered in our 2016 presidential election process and that they undertook these activities, despite our strong protests and explicit warning that they not do so."

Former CIA director John Brennan testified May 23 before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence about Russia's influence on the 2016 presidential election. (The Washington Post)

June 2017: Former Obama intelligence officials defend waiting until October to announce what they had known for several months, that Russia was interfering in the election. Here's Johnson speaking to Schiff this week:

This was a big decision, and there were a lot of considerations that went into it. This was an unprecedented step. First, as you know well, we have to carefully consider whether declassifying the information compromises sources and methods. there was an ongoing election, and many would criticize us for perhaps taking sides in the election. So that had to be carefully considered. One of the candidates, as you'll recall, was predicting that the election was going to be rigged in some way. And so we were concerned that, by making the statement, we might in and of itself be challenging the integrity of the of the election process itself.

This was this was a very difficult decision. But in my personal view, it's something we had to do. It got careful consideration, a lot of discussion. My view is that we needed to do it, and we needed to do it well before the election, to inform the American voters of what we knew and what we saw, and that it would be unforgivable if we did not, pre-election. And I'm glad we did it.

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The emerging timeline of Obama and Russia that is giving Democrats heartburn - Washington Post