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“Voter apathy was, and will remain the greatest threat to democracy.” ― Hazen Pingree






CANDIDATES






Lauren Underwood
— Former VP Joe Biden has formally endorsed Democrat Lauren Underwood, a registered nurse and health policy expert from Naperville, in her run for Congress. She faces incumbent Republican Randy Hultgren in the 14th Congressional District election. Underwood, an Obama administration appointee, has also been endorsed by former President Barack Obama. [POLITICO Illinois Playbook, September 25, 2018]

From Staffer to Congresswoman, by Way of Qatar?

Elizabeth Heng is trying to go from congressional staffer to congresswoman. But in the few months between her prior stint on the Hill and the launch of her campaign for California’s 16th Congressional District, Heng took a quick spin through Washington’s infamous revolving door.
In September 2017, Heng resigned from her position as the chief of outreach and protocol for the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Shortly thereafter, she started working on behalf of the Qatari embassy in Washington.
Heng did so by way of Stonington Strategies, the lobbying firm run by Nick Muzin, a former aide to Sens. Ted Cruz and Tim Scott who went on to work for the Trump presidential campaign before landing on K Street last year. In May, Stonington filed a periodic “supplemental” statement with the Department of Justice disclosing its work for the Qatari embassy. In that filing, the firm reported paying Heng $10,000 in December, itemized as "fees for assisting with travel logistics and administrative work.”
Neither Stonington nor the Heng campaign responded to requests for additional information on what, precisely, that work entailed.
Heng’s campaign has garnered significant attention on the right. Wall Street Journal columnist William McGurn suggested this month that she could be “an Ocasio-Cortez for the GOP.” Heng, whose parents emigrated from Cambodia, became a rallying cry for conservatives who accuse social-media companies of ideologically stilted censorship when Twitter and Facebook blocked a campaign ad that featured graphic images of the Cambodian genocide.
Heng also has impressive foreign-policy credentials for a young Hill aide. In her perch at the Foreign Affairs Committee, she served as a gatekeeper between Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), the committee’s chairman, and the numerous heads of state and foreign diplomats with whom Royce frequently met.
That sort of experience—and the connections that come with it—are naturally valuable to representatives of foreign governments seeking to sway U.S. policy, as Qatar did through Stonington until the firm terminated its contract in June. For Heng, those connections appear to have paid off already.

Indeed, in March, about a month after Heng declared her candidacy, Muzin donated the legal maximum to her campaign. [Daily Beast, Pay Dirt, September 27, 2018]



TECHNOLOGY






MICHELLE OBAMA






NATURE & OUTDOORS   







NATO







U.S. AGRICULTURE







VETERANS














BUDGET




The End Of The Congressional Budget Process. Congress's decision to ignore the process this year effectively means that the Congressional Budget Act has been abandoned.
The biggest example of that abandonment started with the GOP leadership deciding early that, even though it was legally required, Congress would not adopt a budget resolution this year. The reasoning was quite cynical: they didn't want the Republicans running for reelection to have to go on record in favor of the trillion-dollar budget deficits their tax and spending policies created.
Accountability for the deficit was one of the main reasons the Congressional Budget Act was adopted. The act created budget resolutions specifically to force representatives and senators to vote on a single piece of legislation that compared total revenues and spending o they could be held accountable for the deficit or surplus.
This year, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) unilaterally decided that the budget act didn't need to be implemented specifically because that accountability could hurt the GOP's chances of retaining its majorities.
It's hard to see the Congressional Budget Act ever being fully implemented again because of the Ryan/McConnell ploy. While Congress has not adopted budget resolutions in other years, those failures were mostly the result of an inability or unwillingness to compromise rather than a willful disregard of the law.
The second biggest example of the budget process being abandoned was the House's and Senate's failure to oversee Trump's repeated efforts to impound, transfer and reprogram funds away from congressionally mandated priorities. Appropriations were frequently used by the White House very differently from they way they were supposed to be used and Congress did nothing.
The blame for this year's fiscal debauchery belongs squarely on the House and Senate Republican majorities and the GOP president. Their policies and decisions all made the federal budget situation much much worse.

It won't be getting better any time -- as in years or even decades -- soon. [thebudgetguy, September 30, 2018]










CYBERSECURITY





NOT TOO HOT, NOT TOO COLD — The Trump administration's replacement of an Obama-era directive governing offensive cyber operations has been misconstrued, according to a senior NSA official. "Does that mean that the new strategy is hack, hack, hack, hack, always be hacking? No, it does not," Rob Joyce, NSA Director Gen. Paul Nakasone's senior adviser for cybersecurity, said Wednesday at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event. Joyce, President Donald Trump's former White House cyber coordinator, pointed to the administration's diplomatic and financial sanctions for malicious cyber activity by Russia and other bad actors, saying cyber strikes were simply "an element of that portfolio."
"There was some debate about how much overhead and bureaucracy was associated with [cyber operations], and were we able to do the things in the timeframes and at the pace we needed?" Joyce said. "And we weren't." To remedy that, Trump rescinded the Obama directive, known as PPD-20, and replaced it with National Security Presidential Memorandum 13. "But that is not an indicator that the needle has moved from where we were to a whole bunch of hacking," Joyce stressed. "That is not the case." Later, he told reporters that NSPM 13 "got rid of some of the inefficiencies and, frankly, the bottlenecks that prevented good ideas from being operationalized in the past."

Joyce also addressed concerns that the federal government lacked a formal process for responding to election meddling, like foreign influence operations on social media. "There is an established process," he told reporters, naming the FBI as the lead agency. "There already has been interagency coordination in the lead-up to" the election, he said, including "some dry runs and table runs of things we have to pay attention to." Joyce said he was confident that every agency involved knew what it needed to do. He also said the White House, through the National Security Council, was involved in the effort. [POLITICO's Morning Cybersecurity, October 11, 2018]







Hi there,

We've spent the last year working with an inspiring group of changemakers in cities throughout the country and around the world. Now we'll be inviting them to our backyard. 

We're thrilled to announce that we will be hosting our second Summit on November 18 and 19 in Chicago and once again, we're livestreaming it on Obama.org. 

Sign up here to get a reminder before the Summit goes live on Obama.org.

This year's Summit theme is Common Hope. Uncommon Stories.We chose that theme based on an idea that has guided President Obama throughout his life: Though we may come from different backgrounds and hold different beliefs, we are all bound by a shared desire to build a better future for our communities. 

We'll be inviting the Foundation's inaugural program participants—from Obama Foundation Fellows and Scholars to Africa Leaders to Community Leadership Corps members to representatives of the Global Girls Alliance and My Brother's Keeper Alliance—to help advance an ongoing conversation on what community leadership in action means today. 

We'll also engage participants in discussions about the development of the Obama Presidential Center and Museum, a place we hope inspires visitors in Chicago and around the world to realize their potential is limitless.

Be sure to tune in to the Summit on November 18 and 19 on Obama.org. You can sign up for a reminder before the livestream begins here.

Trust us, you won't want to miss the view from this Summit.

- The Obama Foundation [The Obama Foundation, October 16, 2018]



RUSSIAN THREAT      













IRAN





 A conversation with Mohammad Javad Zarif

On Saturday afternoon, I asked Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif whether he believes that Iran's enemy, the state of Israel, will exist for a long time to come.
  • "We believe the policies that are being pursued [by Israel] are not sustainable," Zarif told me and a small group of reporters who met with him at the Iranian Mission in New York.
Later in the conversation, a reporter asked Zarif whether he could acknowledge any mistakes Iran has made. He said no government would answer that question, and instead he described his ideal future for the region.
  • Zarif described an idyllic regional neighborhood, one that "doesn't have a dominant power." It would be peaceful, with guaranteed security for all nations, including the Gulf States and Iraq.
"What about Israel?" I asked. Does it have a place in his vision of the region?
  • "I decide not to" include Israel in this region, he replied.
  • Asked whether he might entertain Israel's right to exist in the context of a broader "Middle East" region, he replied that the concept of a region "is a construct. ... The region I am talking about is the region in which I live."
Why this matters: Zarif’s comments came after the UN General Assembly exposed a growing split between America and Europe over the question of Iran.
  • At the UNGA, the Europeans doubled down on their commitment to the Iran nuclear deal by announcing they would set up a special payment channel to let European companies keep dealing with Iran while ducking U.S. sanctions.
  • Meanwhile, American and Israeli leaders spent the week torching Iran — from John Bolton warning Iran "we will come after you" to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling the UN that his intelligence agents had found a "secret atomic warehouse" in downtown Tehran.
Zarif said he was weaving together a global coalition to resist U.S. sanctions and secure a market for Iranian oil, batting off questions about Hezbollah and human rights in Iran. He also said Netanyahu’s “secret atomic warehouse” was actually a laundromat for Persian rugs.
  • He wouldn't let U.S. journalists verify that claim, he said, as a matter of sovereignty.
  • Would he invite the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to do the same? Zarif said the IAEA hadn't asked to inspect that factory and they wouldn't because they "know better."
What's next? Zarif said Iran could pull out of the nuclear deal if the Europeans don’t fulfill their commitments. And he didn't close the door to a meeting, one day, with Trump. But he didn't seem bullish about that prospect, adding that the Iranians had not requested a meeting with him and don't consider him reliable. [Axios Sneak Peek, September 30, 2018]



THAILAND







TUNISIA







SPAIN







FRANCE







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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