“The more cashless our society becomes, the more our moral compass slips.” ― Dan Ariely
BUSINESS BURST -- Walmart is announcing $2 million in grant support for black
and Latino students to take Capitol Hill internships. Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee
(D-Texas) and Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) will join current interns and a Walmart
representative tonight at The Observatory at an event unveiling the grants. [Playbook PM, July 24, 2018]
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| BORDER WALL |
Why
Trump’s Border Wall Could Cost More than Expected
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has
analyzed several types of barriers for use on the Southwestern border but has
failed to estimate the costs of building those barriers in all relevant
locations, according to a report out Monday from the Government
Accountability Office.
As a result, the cost of the border wall
could end up being higher than the current estimate of $25 billion.
In 2017, CBP awarded contracts to six
companies for the construction of eight barrier prototypes (see below). CBP
developed a method for evaluating those barriers focused on engineering,
operations and denial of entry to unauthorized immigrants. However, CBP did not
create cost estimates for constructing the various kinds of barriers along
specific parts of the border, and those costs “can vary depending on
topography, land ownership, and other factors,” the GAO said. Without that
data, “CBP does not have complete information for prioritizing locations to use
its resources in the most cost-effective manner.”
The GAO warned that the failure to develop
comprehensive cost estimates puts the wall project at risk: “[Department of
Homeland Security] plans to spend billions of dollars developing and deploying new
barriers along the southwest border. However, by proceeding without key
information on cost, acquisition baselines, and the contributions of previous
barrier and technology deployments, DHS faces an increased risk that the Border
Wall System Program will cost more than projected, take longer than planned, or
not fully perform as expected.” [The Fiscal
Times, August 6, 2018]
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| U.S. AGRICULTURE |
Poll views: More Americans support increasing subsidies for small and
medium-size farming operations over those for large agricultural businesses,
according to the latest results from POLITICO's polling partnership with the
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. More here.
[POLITICO's Morning Agriculture, July 23, 2018]
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| Russian interference in the 2016 election |
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|
Here’s what we know about the interference in the 2016
presidential election – Russia was responsible for it.
The tin-foil hat wearers (which includes the president) will still claim that we lack evidence of Moscow’s involvement, but two Justice Departmentindictments and the unanimous view of the country’s intelligence agencies largely puts that issue to bed. What is still contested, however, is the impact of Russia’s actions. On Tuesday, President Trump tried to clean up the mess he’d made in Helsinki by reading a prepared statement in which he claimed he misspoke when denying Russian involvement in the cyber attacks. No serious observer believes that, especially when Trump said, “I accept our intelligence community's conclusion that Russia's meddling in the 2016 election took place” but then added, it “could be other people, also." That’s what we call a tell. If the president is saying that others could have been involved in election meddling, it means he doesn't accept the intelligence community's conclusion that it was Russia ... and only Russia. What is, however, more interesting to me is what Trump said right before: "I have felt very strongly that … Russia's actions had no impact at all on the outcome of the election.” Speaker of the House Paul Ryan took a similar approach, arguing that Russia “did interfere in our elections, it’s really clear — there should be no doubt about that,” but went on to say, “it’s also clear that it didn’t have a material effect” on the outcome. The "meddling is on the margins," says former Trump campaign managerSteve Bannon. "It's just not that big of a deal." This view has been bolstered, in part, by Mueller’s indictments and Rosenstein's public statements, which take the same position. Since there is no evidence to date that Russian hackers changed vote tallies (though the investigation is not yet complete), the Justice Department's caution makes sense. But as a political matter we do not need to be so cautious. The fact of the matter is, if Mueller’s two indictments of Russian hackers are correct – and there’s little reason to think they are not – it’s very hard to argue with the idea that Russia’s intervention didn’t sway the election to Trump. To understand why, it’s important to remember that while Hillary Clinton had a three-million vote advantage in the popular vote, just a handful of voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania cost her the election. Based on my back of the envelope calculations, had approximately 38,875 voters in those three states had switched from Trump to Clinton, then we’d have a Democratic president right now. In addition, in all three states the number of votes for third party candidates, Jill Stein and Gary Johnson, were far greater than Clinton’s margin of defeat. In an election that close everything matters and nothing matters. What I mean is that any number of factors – from third party voters to those who stayed home to failed outreach efforts by any of the candidates to voter suppression efforts to ill-timed letters from the FBI Director - could have influenced the final results. Critics like to say that Clinton should have spent more time in Michigan and Wisconsin before Election Day and that had she done so she might have won. Well, if you're going to take the position that Clinton's travel decisions were "material" then I'm not sure how you can say that Russia's multi-pronged effort to boost the candidacy of Trump and undermine Clinton's was incapable of swaying a mere 38,875 voters. And if that interference did impact those 38,875 voters - or the legion of third party ballot-casters - then, yes, Russia's meddling mattered. |
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| CLIMATE CHANGE |
LUKEWARM ENDORSEMENT: Prominent Senate climate hawk Sheldon Whitehouse told reporters only time would tell how significant
Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo's carbon tax legislation , H.R. 6463, is to the ongoing debate. "Anytime you can
get an elected Republican to admit climate change is real and propose a
solution, that's a start," he said. "Whether they're serious and
sincere or whether this is cover is something that time will tell, but it's
definitely not unwelcome." [POLITICO's Morning Energy, July 24, 2018]
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| CANDIDATES |
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| READ |
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| NATURE & OUTDOORS |
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| FROM THE PORCH |
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| CYBERSECURITY |
AFGHANISTAN REPORT — FALLEN RANGER WAS PART OF A CIA OP: "An
Army Ranger who was killed in Afghanistan earlier this month was part of a
secret program that helps the CIA hunt down militant leaders, according to
three former special operations soldiers who knew him," reports our colleague Wesley Morgan.
"Over the past year, the CIA has ramped up its activities
in Afghanistan at the behest of the Trump administration, according to a report in The New York Times, including by
expanding its target set to encompass members of regional militant groups like
the Taliban, which were long the purview of the military — not just foreign
terrorist groups like al-Qaida."
Separately, a Green Beret who
fired on a civilian truck in Afghanistan showed "horribly poor
judgment" during a deployment in which officers let soldiers drink alcohol
and have sex in violation of military rules, according to an Army investigative
report obtained by Stars and Stripes.
Meanwhile, Afghan commandos killed
senior Taliban leaders in an operation conducted last week, adds the AP.
Still, the Taliban is gaining the upper hand in
an Afghan district as a result of a U.S.-backed cease-fire by the government in
Kabul, locals tell Stars and Stripes. [Morning
Defense, July 25, 2018]
NICK
SHAPIRO, the former deputy chief of staff at the CIA, emails this
about PRESIDENT TRUMP'S threat
to take away security clearances from his former boss John Brennan: "To be
clear: Former Deputy and Acting CIA Director Michael Morell perfectly lays out
exactly why all former DCIA's leave with their clearance here (Morell's tweet) and so
you know, John Brennan hasn't made one penny off of his clearance. Not one
thing he has done for remuneration since leaving the government has been
contingent on him having a security clearance.
"One doesn't
need a security clearance to speak out against
the failings of Trump. This is a political attack on career national security
officials who have honorably served their country for decades under both Repubs
& Dems in an effort to distract from Mueller's investigation."
--
@benjaminwittes: "I just texted @Comey asking whether
he even has a security clearance to revoke. 'Nope,' he responded. There's
nothing for POTUS to revoke. Comey says he was 'read out' when he left
government as per normal practice. ... He even recently declined a temporary
clearance from the IG to read the classified annex to the IG's recent report.
He didn't want to see any classified material lest the president accuse him of
leaking it." [POLITICO Playbook, July 24, 2018]
JOSH MEYER:
"How U.S. intelligence agencies can find out what Trump told
Putin": "President Donald Trump's insistence
on holding a one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin hobbled
U.S. intelligence agencies who would usually get an intimate look at such a
sitdown, but American spies still have extraordinary capabilities to piece
together what was discussed. That's in large part due to the existence of a
top-secret U.S. collection service that specializes in tapping adversaries'
communications on the fly, including those of Putin's entourage at last week's
summit in Helsinki.
"Privately,
sources familiar with U.S. intelligence capabilitiesexpressed
confidence that the so-called Special Collection Service scooped up not only
Putin's readout of the two-hour meeting, but what the Kremlin's top spymasters
really think about it — and how they're spinning it to their foreign
counterparts.
"That means
the National Security Agency and CIA are at
less of a strategic disadvantage than U.S. intelligence officials have
acknowledged publicly. But because they likely are missing the one critical
piece of intelligence they need the most — a word-by-word account of what,
exactly, Trump and Putin said during the meeting — those officials appear to be
flying somewhat blind when it comes to fulfilling their most important mission
of helping U.S. policy makers figure out what comes next." POLITICO [POLITICO
Playbook, July 24, 2018]
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