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From MSNBCpoliticsshows to town hall meetings across the country, the overarching issue for the Democratic Partys base since Trumps victoryhas been Russia, often suffocatingattention forother issues.This fixation has persisted even though ithas no chance to sink the Trump presidency unless it is proven that high levels of the Trump campaign actively colluded with the Kremlin to manipulate the outcome of the U.S. election a claim for which absolutely no evidence has thus far been presented.

The principal problem for Democrats is that so many media figures and online charlatansare personally benefiting from feeding the base increasingly unhinged, fact-free conspiracies just as right-wing media polemicists did after both Bill Clinton and Obama were elected that there are now millions of partisan soldiers absolutely convinced of a Trump/Russia conspiracy for which, at least as of now, there is no evidence. And they are all waiting for the day, which they regard as inevitable and imminent, when this theory will be proven and Trump will be removed.

Key Democratic officials are clearly worried about the expectations that have been purposely stoked and are now trying to tamp them down. Many of them have tried to signal that the beliefs the base has been led to adopt have no basis in reason or evidence.

The latest official to throw cold water on the MSNBC-led circus is President Obamas former acting CIA chief Michael Morell. What makes him particularly notable in this context is that Morell was one of Clintons most vocal CIA surrogates. In August, he not only endorsed Clinton in the pages of the New York Times but also became the first high official to explicitly accuse Trump of disloyalty, claiming, In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.

But on Wednesday night, Morell appeared at an intelligence community forum to cast doubt on allegations that members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. On the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians here, there is smoke, but there is no fire at all, he said, adding, Theres no little campfire, theres no little candle, theres no spark. And theres a lot of people looking for it.

Obamas former CIA chiefalso cast serious doubt on the credibility of the infamous, explosive dossier originally published by BuzzFeed, saying that its author, Christopher Steele, paid intermediaries to talk to the sources for it.The dossier, he said, doesnt take you anywhere, I dont think.

Morells comments echo the categorical remarks by Obamas top national security official, James Clapper, who told Meet the Press last week that during the time he was Obamas DNI,he saw no evidenceto support claims of a Trump/Russia conspiracy. We had no evidence of such collusion, Clapper stated unequivocally. Unlike Morell, who left his official CIA position in 2013 but remains very integrated into the intelligence community, Clapper was Obamas DNI until just seven weeks ago, leaving on January 20.

Perhaps most revealing of all are the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee charged with investigating these matters who recently told BuzzFeed how petrified they are of what the Democratic base will do if they do not find evidence of collusion, as they now suspect will likely be the case. Theres a tangible frustration over what one official called wildly inflated expectations surrounding the panels fledgling investigation, BuzzFeeds Ali Watkins wrote.

Moreover, several committee sources grudgingly say, it feels as though the investigation will be seen as a sham if the Senate doesnt find a silver bullet connecting Trump and Russian intelligence operatives. One member told Watkins: I dont think the conclusions are going to meet peoples expectations.

What makes all of this most significant is that officials like Clapper and Morell are trained disinformation agents; Clapper in particular has proven he will lie to advance his interests. Yet even with all the incentive to do so, they are refusing to claim there is evidence of such collusion; in fact, they are expressly urging people to stop thinking it exists. As even the law recognizes, statements thatotherwise lack credibility become more believable when they are ones madeagainst interest.

Media figures have similarly begun trying to tamp down expectations. Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed, which published the Steele dossier, published an article yesterday warningthat the Democratic bases expectation of a smoking gun is so strong that Twitter and cable news are full of the theories of what my colleague Charlie Warzel calls the Blue Detectives the lefts new version of Glenn Beck, digital blackboards full of lines and arrows. Smith added: It is also a simple fact that while news of Russian actions on Trumps behalf is clear, hard details of coordination between his aides and Putins havent emerged. And Smithscore warning is this:

Trumps critics last year were horrified at the rise of fake news and the specter of a politics shaped by alternative facts, predominantly on the right. They need to be careful now not to succumb to the same delusional temptations as their political adversaries, and not to sink into a filter bubble which, after all, draws its strength not from conservative or progressive politics but from human nature.

And those of us covering the story and the stew of real information, fantasy, and now forgery around it need to continue to report and think clearly about what we know and what we dont, and to resist the sugar high that comes with telling people exactly what they want to hear.

For so long, Democrats demonized and smearedanyone trying to inject basic reason, rationality, and skepticism into this Trump/Russia discourse by labeling them all Kremlin agents and Putin lovers. Just this week, the Center for American Progress released a report using the language of treason to announce the existence of a Fifth Column in the U.S. that serves Russia (similar to Andrew Sullivans notorious 2001 decree that anyone opposing the war on terror composed an anti-American Fifth Column), while John McCain listened to Rand Paul express doubts about the wisdom of NATO further expanding to include Montenegro and then promptly announced: Paul is working for Vladimir Putin.

But with serious doubts and fears now emerging about what the Democratic base has been led to believebyself-interested carnival barkers and partisan hacks, there is a sudden, concerted effort to rein in the excesses of this story. With so many people now doing this, it will be increasingly difficult to smear them all as traitors and Russian loyalists, but it may be far too little, too late, given the pitched hysteria that has been deliberately cultivated around these issues for months. Many Democratshave reached the classic stage of deranged conspiracists where evidence that disproves the theory is viewed as further proof of its existence, and those pointing to it are instantly deemed suspect.

A formal, credible investigation into all these questions, where the evidence is publicly disclosed, is still urgently needed. Thats trueprimarily so that conspiracies no longer linger and these questions are resolved by facts rather than agenda-driven anonymous leaks from the CIA and cable news hosts required to feed a partisan mob.

Its certainly possible to envision an indictment of a low-level operative like Carter Page, or the prosecution of someone like Paul Manafort on matters unrelated to hacking, but the silver bullet that Democrats have been led to expect will sink Trump appears further away than ever.

But given the way these Russia conspiracies have drowned out other critical issues being virtually ignored under the Trump presidency, its vital that everything be done now to make clear what is based in evidence and what is based in partisan delusions. And most of what the Democratic base has been fed for the last six months by their unhinged stable of media, online, and party leaders hasdecisively fallen into the latter category, as even their own officials are now desperately trying to warn.

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Key Democratic Officials Now Warning Base Not to Expect Evidence of Trump/Russia Collusion - The Intercept

Kansas City Star (blog)

Steve Kraske: Kansas Democrats have a new leader who really wanted the job Kansas City Star (blog) So let's all say hello to John Gibson, who earned his political stripes as chairman of the Johnson County Democratic Party more than a decade ago. He's an MIT grad, so you might reasonably assume that he knows what he has gotten himself into. He works ...

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Steve Kraske: Kansas Democrats have a new leader who really wanted the job - Kansas City Star (blog)

President Trump proposed an ambitious budget Thursday morning, calling forsevere cuts across most of the federal government and a major increase in military spending. Itwould be hard to design a planDemocrats are more primed to hate, but -- thoughthe last election left them nearly powerless inCongress -- budget experts say they can probablystop Trump from making the budget blueprint a reality.

And they'll get a bit of help from an Obama-era law to do it.

Democrats have already made their opposition plain:"President Trump has shown that he does not value the future of our children and working families," Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the minority leader in the House, said Thursday. The budget, she said, "fails to recognize that the health of America, the strength of America, does not just depend on our military."

Ordinarily, Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues would have little say over the federal budget. Republicans control both the House and the Senate, and Congress typically begins putting together the government's budget througha process known as reconciliation, which prevents the party in the minority from throwing upa filibuster in the Senate.

President Trump has introduced his budget plan, but that's just the beginning of the appropriations process. The Washington Post's White House economic policy reporter Damian Paletta explains what happens next. (Video: Jenny Starrs/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

There's where the past will come back to bite Trump's effort: In 2011, Congress and former President Obama enacteda strict set of federal spending limits -- the "sequester," as it is called.

As part ofthe deal, which put limits on both militaryand domestic spending, any proposal going beyondthose caps must overcome a potential filibuster in the Senate.

Trump's budget, and it's $54 billion in new defense spending, meets that criteria. "The president has said hes going to undo the military sequester," Trump's budget chief, Mick Mulvaney, told reporters on a conference call Wednesday. "This budget does that."

With 46 seats, not counting the two independent senators who typically join their caucus, Democrats have more than enoughto mount a filibuster. Trump would need their cooperation to enact the budget.

Yet Trump is unlikely to find Democratic senators who would support his budget, whichwould eviscerate public agencies outside of the military.

Trump's proposal would provide more funds for the Pentagon, for public charter schools and for building a wall along the border with Mexico. The presidentwould gut environmental protection and drastically reduce funding for scientific research across the government. Less money would be available to help poor mothers buy food for their families and to help impoverished households heat their homes.

Some Republicans might be opposed as well. Trump's budget does not reduce federal spending, instead shifting expenditures from other agencies to the Pentagon. Libertarians such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and ideologically moderate, fiscally conservativelawmakers such Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) havearguedthe government should spend less and borrow less money.

The legislative branch, not the president, is responsible for the government's budget. Trump will not be able tomake his budget reality without more support from lawmakers.

Apart from the sequester,there is another reason Republicans might not be able toenact Trump's budget this year: Repealing Obamacare could take months.

Republicans are relying on reconciliation to repeal Obamacare without confronting a Democratic filibuster in the Senate. To use reconciliation to instead begin work on a budget, Republican lawmakers would have to start over, scrapping the progress they have made so far on dismantling Obamacare.

Some Republican lawmakers, however, have objected to the legislation that their party has advanced to repeal Obama's reform, and many observers expect the GOP debate over health care to continue through the summer. By then, the start of the federal government's fiscal year for budgeting purposes in October will be approaching, leaving lawmakers little timeto put a new budget in place.

"We're very late here," said William Hoagland, who worked in Congress for decades as an aide to senior Republican lawmakers. "That just doesnt give them a lot of time to go through the process."

Hoagland said it was "terribly unrealistic" to think that Congress would act on Trump's budget.

"This is Bill Hoagland speaking, and I can only say: No, its not realistic," he said.

What is more likely, Hoagland predicted, is that Congress will keep things simple by maintaining the currentlevels of funding for federal agencies, passing what is known as a continuing resolution.

That does not mean that Trump's budget is irrelevant, however. For the first time, the president has had to show how he would deliver on some of the promises he made during the campaign, noted Bill Gale, who served as an economist in President George H.W. Bush's White House.

"The presidents budget proposal matters because its a statement of the administrations priorities and goals," Gale said. "People can look at those numbers and look at their implications and understand more specifically what he is proposing."

For instance, in order to dedicate funds to the wall along the border and to augment the Pentagon's budget, Trump proposes compromising on his other goals. He would make less money available for some infrastructure projects and limit counterterrorism grants for local law enforcement.

The budget, Gale said, "doesn't allow people to hide behind the rhetoric."

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How an Obama-era law could help Democrats block Trump's budget - Washington Post

President Trump ran as a different kind of Republican, putting together a collection of evangelical Christian, rural and working-class voters who felt betrayed by government. He was the outsider, agitating for an agenda that did not promote corporate profits at the expense of workers and vowing, for example, to leave entitlements alone. His vision was nativist, nationalist, protectionist and paternalistic. Big government for the little guy, in other words.

His two biggest initiatives so far health-care reform and his budget tell a vastly different story. This is old-style right-wing politics on steroids. Transfer wealth to the rich via Medicaid cuts for the poor and tax breaks to the rich. Deploy health spending accounts, where 70 percent of money comes from those making more than $100,000.

The budget is even less generous to Trumps base.The Postnoted that the listed of abolished programs included the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which disburses more than $3 billion annually to help heat homes in the winter. It also proposed abolishing the Community Development Block Grant program, which provides roughly $3 billion for targeted projects related to affordable housing, community development and homelessness programs, among other things.

Hisrural supporters dont fare very well:

President Donald Trump has proposed halting funding for rural clean water initiatives and reducing county-level staff, for a 21 percent drop in discretionary spending at the Department of Agriculture (USDA), according to a White House budget document.

The $4.7 billion in cuts would leave USDA with a budget of $17.9 billion after cutting some statistical and rural business services and encouraging private sector conservation planning. Farm groups warned that farmers and rural communities could suffer.The budget proposal would save $498 million by eliminating a rural water and wastewater loan and grant program that helps fund clean water and sewer systems in communities with fewer than 10,000 people.Other areas targeted for cuts include staffing at county-level USDA service centers.

If you are an industrial worker, you might be concerned about a21 percent cut in the Labor Department, which will impact worker safety and training programs.

As one might expect, theAFL-CIOissued a blistering statement from its president, Richard Trumka:

Working people in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin didnt vote for a budget that slashes workforce training and fails to invest in our nations infrastructure.President Trumps proposed budget attempts to balance the budget on the backs of working families. The $54 billion cut to programs that benefit working families is dangerous and destructive. Huge cuts to the departments of Labor, Education and Transportation will make workplaces less safe, put more children at risk and make improving our failing infrastructure much more difficult. The administration can and should do better.

The budget abandons the futureslashing investments in workers, communities, young people, protecting our environment and building democracy.There are major cuts in job training, education, health programs, the environment, the arts and foreign aid. Research programs in science and medicine are slashed. Sixty-two government programs/agencies are slated for elimination.

The budget, like the health-care plan, strikes at the heart of Trumps campaign promises, which did not envision a libertarian evisceration of government. Trump leaves the details to others, but the details undermine his appeal to working-class voters, his core support. Either he never meant to be a different kind of Republican or his team has used his rhetorical routine to mask a budget that is less populist than any other in the modern era. Democrats would be wise to start analyzing the budgets real-world impact quantifyingcuts to each state and to programs that serve people making, say, less than $75,000. What expenses are shifting onto the backs of working-class and middle-class people? What protections are eliminated? This is not going to match up with the beneficent image Trump tried to cultivate.

Trump hired a right-wing Cabinet, so its no surprise a right-wing budget and health-care plan emerged. Democrats would do well to focus on the clash between Trump, protector-of-the-little-guy, and Trump, friend-of-the-rich-and-powerful. The former was simply a sales pitch for the campaign; the reality should be a rude awakening for all those new GOP voters who might be amenable to a true populist economic message from the other party.

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How Democrats can capitalize on Trump's betrayal of his base - Washington Post (blog)

Democratic lawmakers have made a number of misleading claims about the House Republican replacement bill for the Affordable Care Act and findings in the Congressional Budget Office report.We compiled a roundup of their talking points, as a companion to our fact-check of White House claims about the CBO report.

Is it an act of mercy to throw 24 million people off of health insurance, so Republicans can hand billionaires a massive new tax giveaway? House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), news conference, March 16

But what this bill does is it takes away health care from 14 million people in the next year, 24 million over ten years. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), interview on CNNs New Day, March 16

Actually, according to the CBO score, 14 million people will lose their insurance next year and 24 million people ultimately will lose their insurance. Rep. Linda T. Snchez (D-Calif.), news briefing, March 15

The two headline-grabbing estimates from the CBO report have been taken out of context by some lawmakers, includingPelosi and Snchez. The CBO estimated that under the GOP replacement bill, 14 million fewer people would be insured in 2018 than under the current health-care law and 24 million fewer people insured by 2026.

But this does not mean all of the 14 million or 24 million will be thrown off health insurance or lose health insurance.

Some of the people who would be uninsured would choose not to have insurance, because they had decided to obtain health insurance only to avoid a penalty under the ACAs individual mandate; the replacement bill eliminates the mandate. Others, such as elderly Americans, would not get insurance because the premiums are too high. (The replacement bill would allow the elderly to be charged five times as much as the youngest insured, compared with a 3:1 ratio under the ACA.) Many of the uninsured people would lose insurance because of reductionsin Medicaid enrollment after some states discontinue the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare.

The CBO estimated that the GOP bill would lead to 14 million fewer people insured than under Obamacare by 2018. Six million of 14 million would be people who now havecoverage in the individualinsurance market; 5million would be people with coverage under Medicaid; and 2million would be people with coverage through their employers, who also would no longer be required to provide insurance. (The remainder come from other insurance shifts.)

Most of the reductions in coverage in 2018 and 2019 would stem from repealing the penalties associated with the individual mandate, the CBO found.

The CBO estimated that health insurance premiums would be 10 percent lower in 2026 than projected under current law. Thats because insurance premiums would spike for older people (20 to 25 percent higher for a 64-year-old) and many older people would drop out of the insurance markets. Then the pool of people getting insurance would be younger and healthier, leading to lower premiums than currently projected. But its important to remember that it does not mean that premiums would decline by 10 percent, just that they would increase at a lower rate than now projected.

If this legislation is passed and millions of people are thrown off of health insurance, not able to get to a doctor when they must, thousands of Americans will die. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), quoted in news article, March 13

Sanders repeated a version of a Four-Pinocchio claim after the CBO report was released this week. However, Sanders spoke in broader terms this time (thousands of Americans will die) rather than using a specific number (36,000) that was so dubious that it earned Four Pinocchios.

Previously, Sanders had cited a calculation from ThinkProgress, a left-leaning website, assuming that 29.8 million people would lose their insurance and that one person will die for every 830 people who lose insurance.

As we noted in our January fact-check, the 29.8 million figure was a pretty big assumption. It was based on a report that assumed Republicans will repeal parts of the law through the reconciliation process without outlining any replacement plan, thus leading to a near collapse of the nongroup insurance market.

The actual GOP replacement plan, of course, doesnt support those assumptions. The CBO found that 24 million people would become uninsured compared with the current law, over 10 years (not immediately). The CBO didnt calculate the bills impact on mortality.

That takes away one of the main assumptions made in the original calculation on which Sanders relies, and it makes his claim questionable. Plus, he again said that thousands will die rather than could die stating calculations based on assumptions as a definitive fact.

#ReadtheBill & youll see #TrumpCare would allow insurance execs to personally make millions off your health care. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), post on Twitter, March 8

Baldwins tweet is misleading. The GOP replacement bill would repeal an Obamacare cap of $500,000 on how much insurance companies can deduct on their tax returns from their chief executives salaries. The cap applies to how much corporations can deduct not the individual executives tax liability, as PolitiFact Wisconsin noted.

According to CNNMoney: Five major insurers paid their CEOs $73 million in 2015, the most recent year for which pay has been reported. Only $2.5 million of that was deductible under Obamacare tax laws. But more than $70 million of that would be deductible under the proposed Republican legislation.

In general, other types of businesses face a $1 million deduction limit for executive compensation. The cap also restricted corporations from making tax deductions on stock options and other performance-based pay for the executives. So Baldwin and others argue that eliminating the cap would give incentive to companies to pay their executives more, since theyd make up for some of it through lower taxes. Removing the cap would ultimately boost the incomes of top executives, who stand to gain from their companies profitability, they say.

So while getting rid of the cap may make it easier for insurance companies to boost executive compensation, Baldwin goes too far in saying that the bill would allow executives to personally make millions.

Plus, well note that top executives already make millions. The chief executives of Aetna and Cigna received $17.3 million in 2015, UnitedHealths chief executive had $14.5 million in total compensation, and Humanas chief executive received $10.3 million, CNNMoney reported.

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Fact-checking Democrats' rhetoric on the GOP health-care bill - Washington Post