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Most Americans are close to total ignorance about the world. They are ignorant. That is an unhealthy condition in a country in which foreign policy has to be endorsed by the people if it is to be pursued. ― Zbigniew Brzeziński






Scrap the Logan Act

Credit cards and drug prescriptions must periodically be renewed or they expire. The same policy ought to apply to laws and regulations. I’ve argued in the past that every statute should automatically become null and void after a fixed period of time — 15 years, say — unless lawmakers expressly vote to reauthorize it. Gardens that aren’t regularly weeded grow chaotic and ugly. So do statutory codes. That’s why legislators should be obliged to review their handiwork on a regular basis, and affirmatively renew laws, agencies, and policies that are still relevant and beneficial. Those not renewed should lapse.

Mandatory sunset clauses aren’t a new idea. As far back as 1789, Thomas Jefferson suggested a system under which every law “naturally expires at the end of 19 years.” It should be clear “to every practical man,” he wrote in a letter to James Madison, “that a law of limited duration is much more manageable than one which needs a repeal.”

Which brings me to John Kerry and the Logan Act.

The Boston Globe’s Matt Viser reported on Friday that the former secretary of state has been engaged in “shadow diplomacy” to preserve the Iran nuclear deal he negotiated on behalf of the Obama administration. President Trump, National Security Adviser John Bolton, and the new secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, are all sharply critical of the Iran accord, and Trump may announce this week that the United States is pulling out of the deal. To prevent that from happening, Kerry and a group of lieutenants who worked with him at the State Department have been pushing aggressively in the opposite direction — meeting with high-ranking foreign officials, including Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.
What does this have to do with repealing obsolete laws? The Globe explains:
 
Kerry’s activities could raise questions if they are perceived as a direct effort to counter current administration foreign policy.

The Trump administration got entangled with controversy when Michael Flynn, the incoming national security adviser, tried to undermine Obama policies in the administration’s last few weeks. His actions appeared to some legal experts to violate the Logan Act, an obscure 18th century law meant to crack down on private citizens acting on behalf of the United States during a dispute with foreign governments.

The Logan Act prohibits US citizens from having private correspondence with a foreign government “with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government . . . in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States.”
 
The Logan Act was passed in 1799, during the presidency of Federalist John Adams. It is named for George Logan, a Pennsylvania physician who opposed Adams’s hostile policy toward France, and took it upon himself to sail to Europe and engage in some freelance diplomacy with the regime in Paris. When Logan’s activity became known, Federalists in Congress enacted the law in retaliation. Still on the books as 18 U.S. Code § 953 , the Logan Act makes it illegal for a US citizen to “directly or indirectly” conduct “any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof . . . to defeat the measures of the United States.” Violators can be fined and imprisoned for up to three years.

Not once in 218 years has the Logan Act been used to prosecute anyone. Not since 1803 has anyone even been indicted for breaking the law. Plainly the statute is a dead letter. In an age of modern communications, instantaneous and global, it is utterly unworkable. Under modern First Amendment jurisprudence, it is likely unconstitutional as well.

Nevertheless it persists, to be regularly invoked by partisans seeking to score political points. Thus the Logan Act was invoked a few months ago after the disclosure that Trump’s former adviser Michael Flynn had negotiated with Russian officials during the presidential transition. It was invoked in 2008 , when former president Jimmy Carter held meetings with leaders of the Hamas terror regime in Gaza. It was invoked in 1984, after Jesse Jackson traveled to Cuba and Nicaragua to meet with officials of the Marxist regimes. It was even invoked during the last presidential campaign, when Trump smirkingly expressed the hope that Russia had hacked into Hillary Clinton’s emails.



Of what value is a federal law that for more than two centuries has been used only to scold and threaten? The Logan Act should have been repealed centuries ago. It is not healthy to criminalize political differences, which is all that the Logan Act has ever amounted to. Nor is it safe to enact criminal statutes so sweeping (“any correspondence or intercourse with . . . any officer or agent”) that any American mounting a campaign to affect US foreign policy could theoretically be vulnerable to prosecution.

In my view, Kerry is quite wrong about the Iran nuclear deal. The agreement he negotiated with the mullahs has not quelled Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It has made the world more dangerous, not less. I think Trump should pull the plug on the deal, and hope he will do so this week.

But I certainly can't fault Kerry for seeking to generate support for the accord he midwifed. It is absurd to suggest that he ought to be prosecuted under the Logan Act for meeting with Iranian or European officials. It is absurd to suggest that anyone ought to be prosecuted under a law that has lain dormant for more than two centuries. If there was ever an illustration of the need for legislation to come with automatic sunset provisions, the Logan Act is it. Time to stop ridiculing that dumb law, and repeal it instead. [The Boston Globe, Arguable, May 7, 2018]


CYBERSECURITY









FBI





U.S. MILITARY










FEDERAL WORKFORCE   



Also on Tuesday [May 8, 2018] the House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Workforce Protections looks at implications of opioid abuse on federal employee's benefits and House Judiciary Committee holds a hearing on challenges and solutions in the opioid crisis. [POLITICO Pulse, May 4, 2018]



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WORK





PLANT WORKERS WARN ON HOG INSPECTION PROPOSAL: More than 6,500 hog plant workers have asked the Agriculture Department to reconsider a proposed rule that would increase slaughterhouse line speeds.
The workers - members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union - submitted their comments on Wednesday in opposition to the proposed rule, which they argue could endanger their safety. The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service's comment period for the proposed rule wrapped up on Wednesday, after a 30-day extension at the request of various consumer and industry groups.
Marc Perrone, international president of the UFCW, said faster line speeds would result in more injuries for workers and less-safe food for consumers.

"We urge the USDA to hear their voices and rewrite this rule so that the people who work in pork plants and the millions they serve can all be kept safe," he said. [POLITICO's Morning Agriculture, May 3, 2018]



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HEALTHCARE



2019 Obamacare rate season is upon us.
IT BEGINS: VIRGINIA INSURERS FORECAST BIG PRICE JUMPS - Initial filings from several insurers aiming to participate on the state's Obamacare marketplace in 2019 show double-digit rate hikes.
According to documents filed with state regulators, CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield is forecasting an average 26.6 percent boost that would affect about 8,400 enrollees. Company subsidiary Group Hospitalization and Medical Services filed rates seeking an average 64.3 percent rate increase for another 4,500 people. Other plans include Cigna, which is asking regulators for a 15 percent increase impacting roughly 103,000 enrollees, and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic, which is eyeing a 32.1 percent bump.
Not all of the proposed price changes are sky-high: Anthem, for example, wants to boost rates on average only by 5.6 percent, and Optima Health Plan wants a 1.9 percent decrease. But the initial glimpse of premium increases is predictably prompting political jockeying that will continue throughout the summer and fall as officials finalize next year's prices.
Unlike prior years, this time it's Democrats taking advantage of the proposed spikes to blame President Donald Trump and Hill Republicans, arguing they have taken several actions that will destabilize insurance markets.

"Their irresponsible games are hurting Virginians by making it harder for families to afford health care," Democratic senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine said in a joint statement Friday about the GOP's Obamacare moves. [POLITICO Pulse, May 7, 2017]













EDUCATION





IVANKA TRUMP




GAMES & SPORTS




GET YOUR TICKETS -- THE CONGRESSIONAL BASEBALL GAME will be June 14 at Nationals Park -- the first anniversary of the shooting that took place at the Republican practice last year. Gates will open at 5:30 p.m. and the first pitch will be at 7:05 p.m. as the Democrats look to defend their title. All proceeds go to the Congressional Sports for Charity. [POLITICO Playbook, May 4, 2018]   Congressional Baseball Roster







E.COLI OUTBREAK HAS CAUSED FIRST KNOWN DEATH: The E. coli outbreak linked to romaine lettuce grown near Yuma, Ariz., has spread to three new states and led to the first death, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The death was reported in California, but the CDC gave no further details, Pro Ag's Liz Crampton writes.
The outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 has now led to 121 reported illnesses across 25 states, with 52 hospitalizations, including 14 people who developed kidney failure.
Calls for faster response: Bill Marler, a food safety expert who's representing 59 of the people who are ill, said he's "frustrated" with the CDC and FDA for not being more open about the source of the outbreak. He also calls on the government to provide information on where consumers purchased the contaminated products.
The first reported illnesses occurred in mid-March, and the most recent case was April 21. It's possible the number of victims will increase because illnesses that happened in the last few weeks may not yet be counted because of the time between when a person develops symptoms and when it's reported to the government.
"It just seems frankly inconceivable to me 12 years after the spinach outbreak in 2006 that sickened 200 that we're a month into this outbreak and getting very little information from the FDA and CDC as to the source," Marler said, referencing an outbreak that led to five deaths and prompted the FDA to look into how to better trace outbreak sources. "My clients are frustrated and I can't imagine how farmers in Yuma and around the country are feeling."
FDA rebuttal: An FDA spokesman stood by the agency's response to the outbreak, saying that it "quickly put out a public warning to retailers, distributors and consumers not eat or serve lettuce from the Yuma Growing Region when government experts linked illnesses to that growing area."

FDA staff has examined "hundreds of records" as it investigates dozens of fields as the source of the outbreak, the spokesman said. "We are working to identify multiple distribution channels that can explain the entirety of the nation-wide outbreak and are tracing back from multiple groupings of ill people located in diverse geographic areas," he said. [POLITICO's Morning Agriculture, May 3, 2018]


FCC

DOJ GETS CRACKING ON T-MOBILE-SPRINT - The Justice Department isn't wasting any time on its merger review, already requesting information from the FCC about the two wireless carriers. "The Department has opened an investigation into the proposed merger of T-Mobile US, Inc., and Sprint Corporation," wrote DOJ's Scott Scheele in a letter to the FCC released Tuesday, asking for data provided by the companies about their phone numbering resources and the ability to port numbers from one carrier to another. "This type of information has been sought by the Department and provided by the Federal Communications Commission on numerous occasions in the past," Scheele said.
- Ross' take on the proposed deal: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said he was intrigued by talk of how the proposed T-Mobile-Sprint merger could help spur 5G efforts. "I think the pitch that Sprint and T-Mobile are making is an interesting one, that their merger would propel Verizon and AT&T into more active pursuit of 5G," he said in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday. Ross also noted that he thinks "nobody" has "perfected" 5G yet, but added that it is vital for the country's growth. "We need it. We need it for defense purposes. We need it for commercial purposes," he said.
- The proposed merger could also have an unintended side effect on an upcoming spectrum auction, Margaret reports. "The FCC plans to hold an auction in November for high-frequency spectrum that wireless carriers say is needed for 5G. But the agency's rules ban bidders from discussing strategy among themselves - a restriction that could be a problem as the third- and fourth-largest wireless carriers seek approval of their $26.8 billion merger."
- Calls multiply for hearing on merger: Sen. Ed Markey on Tuesday became the latest lawmaker to press for a congressional hearing in light of the T-Mobile-Sprint merger, following a similar push House Energy and Commerce Democrats made earlier this week . "The proposed T-Mobile and Sprint merger could present a number of harms to consumers and the marketplace, including higher prices and fewer innovative services," the Massachusetts Democrat writes in a letter to Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) and ranking member Bill Nelson (D-Fla.). [POLITICO's Morning Tech, May 2, 2018]


DEMOCRATS TO MAKE LIFELINE CASE USING PUERTO RICO - Several Democrats are signing onto a forthcoming letter coming from Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) that will argue that FCC Chairman Ajit Pai should not make cuts or limit the agency's Lifeline program, which subsidizes telecom service for low-income households, due to its importance for Puerto Ricans. Pai has visited Puerto Rico multiple times following last year's hurricanes and said he prioritizes helping the territory recover.
- "Under your current proposal, it is estimated that 75 percent of existing Lifeline customers in Puerto Rico would lose their telecommunications carrier," states a draft of the letter to Pai that's circulating on Capitol Hill and confirmed to POLITICO by a Democratic aide. "After many communities endured widespread lack of communications post-[Hurricane] Maria, they should not be forced to endure additional hardship." At least 37 House Democrats and Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) signed on as of earlier this week. Velázquez's office didn't confirm the letter or indicate when it may be sent.  [POLITICO's Morning Tech, May 2, 2018]



NET NEUTRALITY FIELD HEARING - Sen. Jeanne Shaheen this morning will host a Senate Small Business Committee field hearing that examines the effect of the FCC's net neutrality rollback on small businesses. The panel, which will take place at the University of New Hampshire, will include testimony from business leaders including Zach Luse, CEO of Paragon Digital Marketing, and Lisa Drake, director of sustainability innovation at Stonyfield Farm. "Today, small businesses can reach customers throughout the world at the click of a button. Net neutrality has been a linchpin of that success," Shaheen will say, according to prepared remarks. Thousands of small businesses have signed onto a letter that calls on Congress to preserve the FCC's 2015 net neutrality rules by supporting a measure that aims to undo the agency's repeal via the Congressional Review Act. We're tracking. [POLITICO's Morning Tech, May 2, 2018]



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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 commercial or business interest information shared is purely informational, not an endorsement.  I have no connection with any such commercial or business interest.

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.
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