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Theres a new trend in headlines in media outlets on the left of the political spectrum. Both on the record and as anonymous sources familiar with xyzs thinking, former Obama White House officials clog the airwaves and ink.

Take the Washington Post, ever ready to cast shade with its rallying cry that democracy dies in darkness. Their recent groundbreaking story interviewed a number of Obama sycophants in their struggle to adjust to a Trumpian world. No, thats not actually snark on my part. Thats the real headline.

Ordinary people in middle America couldnt care less if former Obama staffers are sad. They have little interest in the Russia investigations. Instead, the working class wants real news that affect their lives right now they want to hear about issues like tax reform, healthcare, and immigration. But the Post still doesnt understand that. The outlets misguided focus shows readers just how out of touch the editorial staff of the major relic media outlets are. The Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and others still cling to the coastal, condescending view of the remainder of the country.

The United States isnt just Manhattan, regardless of what the New Yorker would have you believe. Look at the medias endorsements in last years election: all but two major newspapers endorsed Hillary ClintonHillary Rodham ClintonTrump notes 'election meddling by Russia' in tweet criticizing Obama Former Obama advisor calls Fox state sanctioned media Biden rips Senate GOP healthcare bill, says it 'isn't about healthcare' MORE, who bragged about putting coal miners out of work and failed to make more campaign stops in the Americas heartland.

There has been no honest effort by mainstream media journalists to get to know or understand middle America. After the 2016 election, the nations leading political writers and analysts had an opportunity to better understand both their profession and the nation as a whole. So far, neither has occurred. Part of the reason is due to the large chasms between small town and urban America.

For years, conservative pundits have been quick to claim that the heartland is an almost mythical real America. As the differences between the coasts and hinterlands increase, that picture is rapidly becoming more valid. Half the country voted for Donald TrumpDonald TrumpKobach fined over Trump meeting memo OPINION: Dear media, Americans don't care about Obama's legacy Make Americas classroom and workplaces safe again MORE but if you watch CNN, you would think only Vladimir Putin chose him.

People outside the Beltway care about issues that directly affect them and their families. The unemployment rate may be at a historic low, but there are deep underlying issues for millions of Americans. In a way, the Great Recession never ended for them. Many work several jobs with reduced health coverage thanks to ObamaCare.

Rural areas struggle under the burden of regulations and taxes imposed by their urban overlords with some states facing actual bankruptcy. Many resent that these policies promulgated by Chicago, San Francisco, New York, and others benefit the well-connected and well-to-do while the moms and pops of Main Street keep their businesses alive with shoestring and gum.

Democrats only seem interested in flyover country when it benefits them, like Hillary Clintons transformation from Arkansas first lady to denigrating the basket of deplorables. Left-wing media outlets (forgive me for repeating myself) are replete with rural hate. According to the elites, its not the coasts that are in the bubble its the vast majority of the land area of the country!

Perhaps the Washington Post is right to cast Ben Rhodes and company in a sympathetic light. Not because of their policy failures or vanishing credibility, but because they are still foolish enough to believe their own product. American voters intentionally steered far away from emerging socialism and the Road to Serfdom. There wasnt much farther they could get from Barack ObamaBarack ObamaTrump notes 'election meddling by Russia' in tweet criticizing Obama Trump slams Obama for doing 'nothing' about Russia before the election OPINION: Dear media, Americans don't care about Obama's legacy MORE than Donald Trump.

Here is a major opportunity for folks with degrees to learn more or anything about folks with calloused hands and those who know how to drive a standard transmission. Political life doesnt end at the D.C. beltway. The rapid decline of traditional media shows not just a technological shift, but a conscious one as well. People who grew up reading Time magazine for its moderate roots slowly were turned off by the relentless pushing of demagogic and an ever more alien social and political agenda. If they wanted relentless lefty propaganda thinly veiled as entertainment, they would turn on John Oliver or Samantha Bee.

The legacy media is much too interested in salvaging whatever they can from President Obamas crumbling legacy. With ObamaCare next on the chopping block, his Iran non-treaty treaty falling apart, and Cuba policy overturned, there is precious little to the transformational politics promised by the former novice U.S. senator from Illinois.

Kristin Tate is a conservative columnist and author of the book Government Gone Wild: How D.C. Politicians Are Taking You For a Ride And What You Can Do About It. She was recently named one of NewsMaxs 30 Most Influential Republicans Under 30.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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OPINION: Dear media, Americans don't care about Obama's legacy - The Hill (blog)

Former U.S. President Barack Obama and his family arrived Friday on the resort island of Bali to begin a vacation in Indonesia, where he lived for several years as a child, officials said.

Obama, his wife and daughters Malia and Sasha arrived on a private jet at the military airport in the provincial capital, Denpasar, base commander Col. Wayan Superman said.

They then drove to a resort in Ubud, an arts and culture center amid hills and rice paddies where they will spend most of their vacation on Bali.

He said they were accompanied by Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, and would also visit Yogyakarta, an ancient city on the main island of Java where his mother, Ann Dunham, did anthropological research.

Obama moved to Indonesia in 1967 at age 6 after his divorced mother remarried an Indonesian man. She stayed on after the marriage broke up, working as an anthropologist and development aid worker, but Obama returned to Hawaii when he was 10 to live with his grandparents.

Foreign ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir said Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo had invited Obama to take a holiday in the country after leaving office.

Jokowi also invited the Obamas to visit the Bogor Palace in West Java during their nine-day trip.

Local media reported that the Obamas would visit Borobudur, a 9th-century Buddhist temple complex located near Yogyakarta.

Obama is also scheduled to speak at an Indonesian Diaspora Congress in Jakarta on July 1.

More here:
Obama begins nostalgic vacation in Indonesia with his family - ABC News

He said he considered having elections systems designated as critical infrastructure, a classification that would allow for the same cybersecurity protections available to the financial services and transportation sectors.

But the reactions to that idea, at least from several state election officials who control elections, ranged from neutral to negative, Mr. Johnson said.

Around mid-August, Mr. Johnson said, federal officials began hearing reports of scanning and probing of some state voter database registries. In the weeks after, intelligence officials became convinced the Russians were behind those efforts, though he said it was not until January that they were in a position to say that.

The administration formally accused the Russian government on Oct. 7, when Mr. Johnson and James R. Clapper Jr., then the director of national intelligence, released a statement saying the Russians had leaked information intended to interfere with the U.S. election process.

That was not soon enough for some Democrats, who have criticized the Obama administration for waiting until a month before the election to reveal its concern. Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the committees senior Democrat, pressed Mr. Johnson to explain their rationale.

Why wasnt it more important to tell the American people the length and breadth of what the Russians were doing to interfere in an election than any risk that it might be seen as putting your hand on the scale? Mr. Schiff asked. Didnt the public have a compelling need to know?

Asked why former President Barack Obama did not make his own announcement that a foreign power was meddling in the election process, Mr. Johnson suggested administration officials believed just his involvement would inherently politicize the facts.

We were very concerned that we not be perceived as taking sides in the election, injecting ourselves into a very heated campaign or taking steps to delegitimize the election process and undermine the integrity of the election process, he said.

Noting that the hacking happened at the direction of Vladimir Putin himself, Mr. Johnson said he was moved to try to shield the nations election system by the unprecedented nature of Russian interference in the last election.

What I mean is that we not only saw infiltrations, but we saw efforts to dump information into the public space for the purpose of influencing the ongoing campaign, he said, referring to the disclosure of hacked emails.

Republicans also seized on the statement in January by James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, that the D.N.C. refused to turn over its servers to investigators after it was discovered that the servers had been hacked.

Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, a Republican who is helping to lead the committees investigation into Russian interference, asked Mr. Johnson why a victim in this case, the D.N.C. would not turn over evidence of a crime.

If they had turned the server over to you or Director Comey, maybe we would have known more, Mr. Gowdy said.

Im not going to argue with you, sir, Mr. Johnson said. That was a leading question, and Ill agree to be led.

Lawmakers were focusing largely on an issue they agreed presented a profound problem for the country: foreign interference in the nations democratic process and its pernicious effect on voter confidence.

Whether our guy won or next time your guy wins, said Representative Tom Rooney, Republican of Florida, if interference persists then we really do cease being the country that we are.

Get politics and Washington news updates via Facebook, Twitter and in the Morning Briefing newsletter.

A version of this article appears in print on June 22, 2017, on Page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: Obama Officials Were Wary of Detailing Hacking.

Read more:
Obama White House Knew of Russian Election Hacking, but Delayed Telling - New York Times

Senate Republicans released their long-awaited bill Thursday to dismantle much of Barack Obama's health care law, proposing to cut Medicaid for low-income Americans and erase tax boosts that Obama imposed on high-earners and medical companies to finance his expansion of coverage.

The bill would provide less-generous tax credits to help people buy insurance and let states get waivers to ignore some coverage standards that "Obamacare" requires of insurers. And it would end the tax penalties under Obama's law on people who don't buy insurance the so-called individual mandate and on larger companies that don't offer coverage to their employees.

The measure represents the Senate GOP's effort to achieve a top tier priority for President Donald Trump and virtually all Republican members of Congress. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., hopes to push it through his chamber next week, but solid Democratic opposition and complaints from at least a half-dozen Republicans have left its fate unclear.

"We have to act," McConnell said on the Senate floor. "Because Obamacare is a direct attack on the middle class, and American families deserve better than its failing status quo."

But some Republican senators, as well as all the Senate's Democrats, have complained about McConnell's proposal, the secrecy with which he drafted it and the speed with which he'd like to whisk it to passage. McConnell has only a thin margin of error: The bill would fail if just three of the Senate's 52 GOP senators oppose it.

Democrats gathered on the Senate floor and defended Obama's 2010 overhaul. They said GOP characterizations of the law as failing are wrong and said the Republican plan would boot millions off coverage and leave others facing higher out-of-pocket costs.

"We live in the wealthiest country on earth. Surely we can do better than what the Republican health care bill promises," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

Some conservative and moderate GOP senators have their doubts, too.

Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., facing a tough re-election fight next year, said he had "serious concerns' about the bill's Medicaid reductions.

"If the bill is good for Nevada, I'll vote for it and if it's not, I won't," said Heller, whose state added 200,000 additional people under Obama's law.

The House approved its version of the bill last month. Though he lauded its passage in a Rose Garden ceremony, Trump last week privately called the House measure "mean" and called on senators to make their version more "generous."

At the White House on Thursday, Trump expressed hope for quick action.

"We'll hopefully get something done, and it will be something with heart and very meaningful," he said

The bill would phase out the extra money Obama's law provides to states that have expanded coverage under the federal-state Medicaid program for low-income people. The additional funds would continue through 2020, and be gradually reduced until they are entirely eliminated in 2024.

Ending Obama's expansion has been a major problem for some GOP senators. Some from states that have expanded the program have battled to prolong the phase-out, while conservative Republicans have sought to halt the funds quickly.

Beginning in 2020, the Senate measure would also limit the federal funds states get each year for Medicaid. The program currently gives states all the money needed to cover eligible recipients and procedures.

The Senate bill would also reduce subsidies now provided to help people without workplace coverage get private health insurance, said Caroline Pearson, a senior vice president of the health care consulting firm Avalare Health.

Unlike the House bill, which bases its subsidies for private insurance on age, the Senate bill uses age and income. That focuses financial assistance on people with lower incomes.

Pearson said those subsidies will be smaller than under current law. That's because they're keyed to the cost of a bare-bones plan, and because additional help now provided for deductibles and copayments would be discontinued.

Under Obama's law, "many of those people would have gotten much more generous plans," she said.

The bill would let states get waivers to ignore some coverage requirements under Obama's law, such as specific health services insurers must now cover. States could not get exemptions to Obama's prohibition against charging higher premiums for some people with pre-existing medical conditions, but the subsidies would be lower, Pearson said, making coverage less unaffordable.

Like the House bill, the Senate measure would block federal payments to Planned Parenthood. Many Republicans have long fought that organization because it provides abortions.

It would also bar the use of the bill's health care tax credits to buy coverage that includes abortions, a major demand for conservatives. That language could be forced out of the bill for procedural reasons, which would threaten support from conservatives, but Republicans would seek other ways to retain the restriction.

The Senate would provide $50 billion over the next four years that states could use in an effort to shore up insurance markets around the country.

For the next two years, it would also provide money that insurers use to help lower out-of-pocket costs for millions of lower income people. Trump has been threatening to discontinue those payments, and some insurance companies have cited uncertainty over those funds as reasons why they are abandoning some markets and boosting premiums.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the House bill would cause 23 million people to lose coverage by 2026. The budget office's analysis of the Senate measure is expected in the next few days.

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Senate GOP releases bill to cut Medicaid, alter 'Obamacare' - ABC News

President Obama has been out of office only a few months. But he might have both a street and an L.A. freeway named after him soon.

Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson has proposed renaming Rodeo Road in southwest L.A. Obama Boulevard in honor of the president. Wesson noted that Obama held a campaign rally at Rancho Cienega Park on Rodeo Road when running for president and that the area already has streets named after presidents (Washington, Jefferson, Adams).

In May, a plan to name a stretch of the 134 Freeway after Obama moved forward with approval from the state Senate. The freeway is not far from Occidental College in Eagle Rock, which Obama attended.

In California alone, several schools have been named after Obama. And in the Monterey Bay town of Seaside, city leaders designated a key street Obama Way.

Rodeo Road is a major street that runs from near the Culver City border east to Mid-City. Its sometimes confused by newcomers with the more upscale Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

Rodeo Road is not far from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. That used to be Santa Barbara Avenue until the city changed the name three decades ago.

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Los Angeles considers renaming Rodeo Road in southwest LA 'Obama Boulevard' - Los Angeles Times