“..and I prayed to God to make me strong and able to fight, and that’s what I’ve always prayed for ever since.”
[Harriet] Tubman to Ednah Dow Cheney, SC, 1865
The American Civil War is often conceptualized as a conflict between white northerners and white southerners, during which African American slaves waited on the sidelines for their fates to be decided. The slaves themselves knew better, recognizing the true stakes of the war from the very beginning.
In 1861, Harris Jarvis, an enslaved man on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, found himself laboring under a particularly cruel master. Reflecting back later in life, he said that his master “was the meanest man on all the Eastern Shore, and that’s a heap to say...It was bad enough before, but after the war came, it was worse than ever. Finally, he shot at me one day, and I reckoned I’d stood it about as long as I could.”
Jarvis fled and made his way to Fortress Monroe, where he spoke to Union Gen. Benjamin Butler. “I went to him and asked him to let me enlist, but he said it wasn’t a black man’s war. I told him it would be a black man’s war before they got through.” After Butler’s rejection, Harry Jarvis emigrated to Africa for a time before deciding to return to the United States. After landing in Boston in 1863, he “found that it had got to be a black man’s war for sure.” Enlisting in the 55th Massachusetts, the sister regiment of the famous 54th, Harry Jarvis served in the Union army until losing a leg at the Battle of Folly Island, near Charleston, South Carolina. [Civil War Trust, January 31, 2018]
 |
| READ |
 |
| REPUBLICAN PARTY |
POLITICS
 |
| INFRASTRUCTURE |
TRADING A SHUTDOWN FOR INFRASTRUCTURE $: Senate leaders reached a two-year budget agreement Wednesday,
avoiding another government shutdown that otherwise would have taken effect at
midnight tonight. The agreement includes a pledge of $10 billion a year in
fiscal years 2018 and 2019 for "programs related to rural water and
wastewater, clean and safe drinking water, rural broadband, energy, innovative
capital projects, and surface transportation." Note: That's still just 10
percent of what's needed for Trump's $200 billion, 10-year infrastructure
proposal [POLITICO's Morning Transportation, February 8, 2018]
WANTED-PERMIT CAPTAIN: The push to streamline
and better coordinate the permitting process for infrastructure projects among
myriad federal agencies is hitting a snag - there's no one at the Council on
Environmental Quality steering the ship. The Trump administration is expected
to make permitting changes a major piece of the infrastructure plan coming next
week, but the agency that's charged with providing guidance for permits issued
under the National Environmental Policy Act is without a Senate-confirmed
leader (nominee Kathleen Hartnett White withdrew from consideration over the
weekend).
The right stuff: Alex reports:
"While the absence of a Senate-confirmed official at CEQ doesn't prevent
the White House from altering the review guidance it gives to agencies, the
vacancy makes that harder to achieve without a leader to push for changes
across the administration. And putting the right people in place at CEQ to
coordinate and prod agencies to speed the NEPA review process is the best way
to achieve results, rather than simply issuing new guidance that reiterates
established processes, according to many NEPA critics." [POLITICO's Morning Transportation, February 8, 2018]
In 2016, the National Rifle
Association spent an unprecedented $70 million on the election—and spent more
three times as much boosting Trump as it did for Mitt Romney in 2012.1
And some of that money may have
come from Russia. The New York Times and McClatchy have
have reported significant evidence that Russian officials may have used the NRA
to funnel money illegally into the Trump campaign.2,3 The top
Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee has started looking into this
collusion, but we need a full investigation. That's why we're calling on the Senate and
House Judiciary Committees to investigate the NRA's ties with Russia—and what
the Trump campaign knew about them.
When the Supreme Court issued
the Citizens United and Wisconsin Right to Life decisions,
it opened a massive loophole for money to secretly flow into our political
system—even illegal spending by foreign powers. The NRA advertises itself as a
red-blooded American organization, wrapping itself in the flag to protect the
2nd amendment above all others. The NRA has stopped Congress from passing
meaningful gun control legislation for decades, despite increasing numbers of
mass shootings. Now we've learned that the NRA is connected to a Russian gun
group founded by Alexander Torshin, a deputy governor of Russia's national
bank. Torshin has been connected to international money laundering scams—and at
an NRA dinner to endorse Trump in 2016, Torshin met with Donald Trump, Jr.4 Shortly
after, The New York Times reported that the NRA had several
contacts with Moscow and an NRA operative tried to make contact between the
Kremlin and Trump.
However, the NRA hides behind
Supreme Court cases like Citizens United to avoid releasing
donor names to the public—even though it is illegal for foreign nationals to
contribute to U.S. elections. Without a subpoena, we can't know if Russia
donated to the NRA to specifically support Trump.
Trump and the GOP would very much like us to
forget the probable collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. But we're not going away, and we know that our
very democracy depends on fair elections. We're not giving
up until the Senate and House Judiciary Committees investigates the connection
between the NRA and Russia, and how Trump’s campaign was involved.
Kurt
Walters,
The Rootstrikers project at Demand Progress
The Rootstrikers project at Demand Progress
Sources:
1. McClatchy, "FBI investigating whether
Russian money went to NRA to help Trump," January 18, 2018
2. Ibid.
3. The New York Times, "Top Russian Official Tried to Broker ‘Backdoor’ Meeting Between Trump and Putin," November 17, 2017
4. McClatchy, "FBI investigating whether Russian money went to NRA to help Trump," January 18, 2018
2. Ibid.
3. The New York Times, "Top Russian Official Tried to Broker ‘Backdoor’ Meeting Between Trump and Putin," November 17, 2017
4. McClatchy, "FBI investigating whether Russian money went to NRA to help Trump," January 18, 2018
 |
| GAMES |
 |
| EPA |
 |
| ENERGY |
1 potentially done thing: State Department Steve
A little-known State Department spokesman
named Steve Goldstein has won the universal loathing of White House staff. He's
the mystery officialwho told reporters last week that "The president's
comments [to Homeland Security officials] were not helpful," per a source
briefed on the situation.
- The
backdrop: On Friday, while Secretary of State Tillerson
was visiting Mexico City trying to convince officials there that his
boss's immigration plan wasn't so bad, Trump was delivering a much harsher message about illegal immigrant drug pushers to Homeland Security officials
in Virginia.
White House staff want him canned: Unprompted, a senior White House official sent me a screenshot of
Goldstein's quote. "What's 'not helpful' is that people who aren't willing
to do their duty and support the president's agenda are being allowed to keep
their jobs," the official texted
- "What
kind of dumbass diplomat makes a comment like that, knowing how the
president of the United States will react when he sees it?” the official
added. “They prove his point, and shoot themselves in the foot, every time
they do something like this."
Other administration officials say they
believe Goldstein has a history of exacerbating tensions between the White
House and the State Department. They point to comments he made to the NYT and other newspapers about the Jerusalem embassy
move that were seen as unhelpful in the lead-up to the vice president's recent
trip to Israel.
Asked about this, Goldstein replied:
"In the nine weeks since being sworn in I have had only one goal: to
support the Secretary of State and this administration as we work to support
America’s foreign policy. Ultimately we all work for the American people,
and that’s how I spend my day."
Our thought bubble: It's Steve Goldstein vs. the world — and we're betting on the
world.
 |
| BUDGET |
|
Breaking down the budget deal's health care dollars
|
|
The
budget deal would provide billions of dollars in new health care spending,
including:
The
proposal also would beef up the discounts pharmaceutical companies are
required to provide to seniors in Medicare's "donut hole" — a
coverage gap in its drug benefit that the ACA attempted to close. The budget
deal would accelerate that process. [Axios
Vitals, February 8, 2018]
|
Kicking the can on bending the cost
curve
Everybody
wants to control health care costs — until it’s time to actually control health
care costs.
Driving the news: The bipartisan
budget deal unveiled yesterday in the Senate would repeal the Affordable Care
Act’s Independent Payment Advisory Board. It’s merely the most recent time
Congress has voted, with bipartisan support, to chip away at efforts to slow
the growth in health care spending, or at least to help balance the federal
checkbook.
Ask not for whom the cost curve bends:
- Repealing the IPAB takes away what was initially seen as one of the
ACA’s most significant cost-control measures.
- The IPAB was conceived as an independent, expert board that would
make targeted reductions in Medicare payments to doctors, hospitals and
other providers — it’s legally prohibited from directly cutting benefits —
if the program’s overall spending grows faster than a prescribed rate.
- No one has ever been appointed to the IPAB, and Medicare spending
hasn’t grown fast enough to trigger it, anyway.
- Still, it’s never sat especially well with lawmakers, who saw it as
a usurpation of their power. Providers have always hated it — because its
whole purpose is to cut their payments.
It’s not just the IPAB. The
budget deal would "slow down federal efforts to hold providers accountable
for reducing Medicare costs," Modern Healthcare reports.
- Congress has repeatedly agreed to delay the ACA’s tax on expensive employer-based health plans.
That’s also a cost-control measure — one of the law’s most powerful, in
fact.
- Under former secretary Tom Price, and with many congressional
Republicans’ support, the Health and Human Services Department rolled back several ACA-based pilot programs that sought to control
health care spending.
- Lawmakers have also agreed to delay or freeze the law’s taxes on
medical devices and health insurers — which weren’t necessarily designed
to control health care costs, but which nevertheless helped make the ACA a
net deficit-reducer for the federal government.
The bottom line: One
person’s cost control is another person’s pay cut — and that fact will always
complicate the execution of these ostensibly shared goals. [Axios Vitals, February 8, 2018]
ELECTION SECURITY UPDATE - Senate
Democrats interrogated a top DHS official Wednesday about progress on defending
future elections against Russian interference. Sen. Kamala Harris said she was
concerned that Chris Krebs - who has been serving as the leader of DHS's main
cybersecurity wing - didn't have a precise timeline for when in April DHS will
finish delivering the highest-level cyber checks that states requested.
"What we've done is put at the top of the pile the state and local
election officials right now. So we have deprioritized others and put those at
the top," Krebs answered, referring to state and local needs over other
critical infrastructure needs. "We are looking at the ways to increase
training, to bring additional personnel on."
Krebs also told Harris at a meeting of the
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that 30 percent of the 50
senior state election officials have received security clearances to receive
cyber threat information. He further stated that there are 37 officials who
"have submitted their paperwork." Additionally, "we have about
17, I believe, interim secret," meaning that they can be "read
in" to receive classified information at certain times. POLITICO's Morning Cybersecurity, February 8, 2017]
|
Organizations
slammed the budget bill Congress passed on Friday for not providing
protection to the Dreamers
|
|
|
|
|
Adam Gabbatt in New York @adamgabbatt |
No dream act for undocumented
immigrants ...
The budget bill
Congress passed on Friday morning has met with fury from
immigrant groups –
who have accused Democrats of betraying Dreamers.
Organizations
including the youth-led immigrant group United We Dream,
Indivisible and the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus condemned the legislation,
which provided no
protection for undocumented immigrants brought to the US
as children. The
Dreamers face deportation on 5 March unless an immigration
bill is passed.
Make the Road Action, a group that works on
behalf of immigrants, published
a list of 73 Democratic congressmen and women
who it said had
“betrayed immigrant youth”. Make the Road and United We
Dream, a youth-led immigrant group, are urging activists to call their
representatives to stress
the need for protection for Dreamers.
|
|
Here are the 73 Democrats that betrayed immigrant youth
and families this
|
|
The perceived
inaction could yet come back to bite centrist Democrats in
the coming months.
Angel Padilla, policy director for Indivisible, tweeted that
the vote “should prove to
dreamers that just because democrats are better than
the alternative doesn’t
automatically make them your friends”.
immigration next
week, but the House speaker, Paul Ryan, has made no such
commitment.
The Congressional
Hispanic Caucus slammed Ryan and the House majority
leader, Kevin McCarthy,
demanding that they bring an immigration bill to the
House floor before the 5
March deadline.
“If they do not give
us a vote on bipartisan legislation that protects Dreamers,
then they will be
condoning the deportation of Dreamers, it’s as simple as that,”
the CHC said
in a statement.
|
|
legislation that protects Dreamers, then they will be condoning the
deportation
of Dreamers – it’s as simple as that.
Read full @HispanicCaucus statement here: https://t.co/OsTQAvkP5h #protectdreamerspic.twitter.com/KEOGU7tppB
— Hispanic Caucus (@HispanicCaucus) February 9, 2018 [The
Guardian, The Resistance Now,
February 10, 2018]
|
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
NOTE: I have no official connection to any organization from which information is shared.. Occasionally, I post informational material and/or an opportunity to donate or join as a "community service" announcement. These again are shared for their varying perspectives.
Any books listed are random or topic-related to something else in the post. Think of these as a "library bookshelf" to browse. They are shared for informational or entertainment value only, not as being recommended
Comments
Post a Comment