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I Must Search for Wisdom Every Hour



October 13, 1792, the cornerstone of The White House is set while Washington is in Philadelphia.


from Twitter

George Washington

@GeoWashington

First president of the United States, commander-in-chief.


The White House


Your door is shut against my tightened face,



And I am sharp as steel with discontent;



To bear my anger proudly and unbent.



But I possess the courage and the grace



And passion rends my vitals as I pass,



The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet,



Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass.



A chafing savage, down the decent street;



Oh, I must search for wisdom every hour,



To hold me to the letter of your law!



Deep in my wrathful bosom sore and raw,



And find in it the superhuman power



Against the potent poison of your hate.



Oh, I must keep my heart inviolate




WHITE HOUSE







TRAVEL BAN








JUDGE ASKS FOR TRAVEL BAN REPORT: A federal judge in Hawaii on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to turn over a report that shaped the latest travel ban policy. Earlier in the day, Hawaii and a local imam filed a motion to block the new set of travel restrictions, which they contend target Muslim travelers. The district court judge hearing the case, Derrick Watson, previously halted the second version of the travel ban in March. (For those keeping score at home, there've been three.)  The report in question, produced by the Homeland Security Department and shared with the White House on Sept. 15, recommended restrictions against seven countries deemed to supply "inadequate" vetting information about its travelers. The countries were Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen. (Somalia was found to have satisfied information-sharing requirements, but also faces restrictions under the new travel ban.) When Trump issued the third version of the travel ban in September, officials said the report was classified and would not be publicly released. Watson said the report should be provided no later than 6 a.m. local time (noon E.T.) on Saturday. [POLITICO's Morning Shift, October 11, 2017]
SCOTUS DROPS TRAVEL BAN APPEAL: "The Supreme Court on Tuesday dropped one of two challenges it was considering to President Donald Trump's travel ban policy, declaring moot a lawsuit over Trump's attempt to block issuance of visas to citizens of six majority-Muslim countries," POLITICO's Josh Gerstein reports. "The high court's move appeared to be an attempt by the justices to extricate themselves from pending litigation over the travel ban order that Trump issued in March, which was effectively superseded by a new directive."  "The Supreme Court's action Tuesday night removed from the high court's docket a case from Maryland in which refugee resettlement groups and several individuals argued that Trump's March order exceeded his legal authority and was prompted by unconstitutional bias against Muslims," Gerstein reports. "The high court's new order vacated a caustic ruling the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals issued in May in which the court's chief judge declared that Trump's ban 'drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination.'"  [POLITICO's Morning Shift, October 11, 2017]
IRANIAN GROUPS CHALLENGE TRAVEL BAN III: A group of Iranian-American advocacy organizations requested Monday to revive their legal challenge against President Donald Trump's travel ban in the D.C. Circuit Court. The groups sued in February to stop the first travel ban, which blocked travel to the United States by nationals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen - all Muslim-majority countries. (In Travel Ban II, released in March, Iraq was dropped from the list. In Travel Ban III, released in September, Sudan was dropped and majority-Muslim Chad was added, along with North Korea and Venezuela.) In June, the D.C. Circuit court stayed the proceedings in expectation that the Supreme Court would hear oral arguments in October. But the high court canceled the arguments after III replaced II. D.C. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan said, when she issued the stay that should "circumstances change prior to the Supreme Court issuing its final decision, any party may file a motion to lift the stay and may then re-file a motion for a preliminary injunction." The groups, led by the Pars Equality Center, did just that on Monday.  The groups cited the administration's request last week that the Supreme Court vacate current injunctions against the travel ban. They asked that the court "set a schedule allowing a ruling upon a renewed request for injunctive relief" before the new travel restrictions take effect on Oct. 18. They also said they were "prepared to re-file for a preliminary injunction as soon as the court lifts the stay." [POLITICO's Morning Shift, October 10, 2017]



TRADE







DONOHUE TO RATCHET UP NAFTA DEFENSE IN MEXICO: U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Tom Donohue will escalate the Chamber's war against the Trump administration's NAFTA agenda in a speech in Mexico City today, where he will continue to "ring the alarm bells."  With a "critical moment" having been reached, Donohue will say the U.S.-Mexico partnership is being "tested against the misguided forces of protectionism."  "Let me be forceful and direct. There are several poison pill proposals still on the table that could doom the entire deal, "Donohue will say, according to an excerpt of his speech. "All of these proposals are unnecessary and unacceptable. They have been met with strong opposition from the business and agricultural community, congressional trade leaders, the Canadian and Mexican governments, and even other U.S. agencies."  "The existential threat to the North American Free Trade Agreement is a threat to our partnership, our shared economic vibrancy, and clearly the security and safety of all three nations," Donohue will say. [POLITICO's Morning Trade, October 10, 2017]
U.S. ISDS PROPOSAL WOULD CUT TWO KEY PROTECTIONS: Expect USTR to put at least one of those "poison pills" forward at talks this week. The final U.S. proposal on investor-state dispute settlement comes not only with an "opt-in" provisions that effectively makes the whole process voluntary, but also rolls back two key investor protections private companies have been able to use under the mechanism in past U.S. agreements. U.S. business and agriculture groups have already signaled that a radical departure from the current U.S. approach to investor protections would be forcefully opposed by them.  Despite that warning, the U.S. will move forward on its ISDS proposal this week. It is said to no longer permit a violation of the "minimum standard of treatment" as grounds for foreign investors to request an independent arbitration panel if they feel government action has diminished the value of their investment.  The concept of a minimum standard of treatment, found in customary international law, establishes that governments must generally provide foreign investors with fair and equitable treatment under their laws. It is supposed to serve as a threshold for defining when a company experiences a "denial of justice." But critics have argued that the concept has repeatedly become subject to overly broad interpretations by arbitration panels.  Second, the NAFTA proposal the administration is expected to unveil would also eliminate "indirect expropriation" as an argument a foreign investor could use to file a claim. That would make it harder for a foreign company to win damages based on a government action that has only partially devalued an investment as opposed to a full seizure of the investment without proper compensation. [POLITICO's Morning Trade, October 10, 2017]
MEXICO: RISKS OF U.S. WITHDRAWAL ARE HIGH: Mexico sees a significant chance that President Donald Trump will pull out of NAFTA, but it still hopes the three countries can reach a deal to modernize the pact and make North America a more competitive region for manufacturing, a Mexican official said Friday.  "The risks of withdrawal are high, and we are preparing for that possibility," Karen Antebi, economic counselor at the Mexican Embassy, said during a Georgetown Law Center discussion on the future of the agreement.  Antebi underscored that Mexico remains opposed to the Trump administration's idea of revamping the automotive rules of origin to include a domestic content provision. But as of Friday, Mexico still had not seen any text from the United States explaining just how it intended to revamp the rules provisions, she said.  Antebi mostly spoke in positive terms about what a successful NAFTA renegotiation could do, but also stressed "we must avoid any scenario that would scale back the tremendous gains that we have achieved" under the original pact. . [POLITICO's Morning Trade, October 10, 2017]
BLOWBACK OVER CHAMBER'S 'DANGER' WARNING: Antebi spoke just a few hours after John Murphy, senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, warned that the Trump administration was pushing several "dangerous" proposals in the NAFTA talks that the business group could not support.  Those include the auto rules proposal, a five-year sunset review provision and changes to make the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism voluntary -- as well as other ideas that could be formally presented in the fourth round this week.  That prompted several Democrats with a long record of voting against trade agreement to fire back at the Chamber and align themselves with the administration's efforts. They included Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) and Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.). It also included Sen. Sherrod Brown, who told Morning Trade last month that he regularly chats with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer about the NAFTA negotiations.  "It's about time USTR took the pen away from corporate lobbyists and started writing trade policy that puts American workers first," Brown said in a statement. "Any trade proposal that makes multinational corporations nervous is a good sign that it's moving in the right direction for workers, and I look forward to reading the full text." [POLITICO's Morning Trade, October 10, 2017]



REX TILLERSON

Secretary of State





TECHNOLOGY







TAXES







DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE







DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION






READ







BIGOTRY






CANDIDATES







HARD TARGET - Swing Left targets Ryan's district: The progressive fundraising organization Swing Left will target House Speaker Paul Ryan's district in 2018 and raise money for whichever Democratic candidate wins the nomination to take on Ryan. Hosts of the progressive podcast Pod Save America announced the move on Thursday night during a live taping. Swing Left has raised over $1.8 million for Democratic challengers this year. [POLITICO's Morning Score, October 6, 2017]



BUDGET







THE $21 BILLION USDA SAVINGS ASSUMPTION: The budget battle in Congress moves forward this afternoon as the Senate Budget Committee begins to mark up its resolution, which couldn't look more different than what the House unveiled earlier this year. The agriculture lobby breathed a sigh of relief after Senate Republicans decided not to set cost-saving targets, also known as reconciliation instructions, for the Agriculture Committee. But there is a little-noticed detail in the budget resolution: an assumption that there will be about $21 billion in savings to USDA farm programs over a decade. Agencies that oversee research, farm subsidies and loans, and efforts to combat agricultural pests and diseases, are among those targeted for cuts. A Senate Budget Committee aide confirmed the assumed savings. [POLITICO's Morning Agriculture, October 4, 2017]



ADDICTION







NOTE: The news sources here vary.  Not all sources have the same credibility, but in an effort to share some different perspectives, they are included here.  This compendium itself cannot claim to be unbiased.  Please take into consideration where these different perspectives originate in assessing their value.  Thank you
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