Medical studies have shown that cursing reduces levels of stress and pain. - Oliver Markus Malloy
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| 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES |
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| IVANKA TRUMP |
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| ACTIVISTS |
Activists Blast DNC for Even Considering a Fox News Debate
Activists remind GOP: Pharma's a friend
The conservative American Action Network is spending almost $3 million to try to keep Republican lawmakers aligned with Medicare's privately run drug benefit, pushing back on mounting pressure to support more direct government intervention.
By the numbers: The advocacy group's campaign will include $2.8 million worth of print and digital ads targeting 46 GOP House members and 11 Republican senators.
Between the lines: Medicare's drug benefit is administered by private insurers and relies on private pharmacy benefit managers to negotiate prices with private drug companies.
- The political uproar over drug prices, though, has sparked plenty of criticism of the private health care sector, revitalizing Democrats' push for the federal government to negotiate Medicare's drug prices directly.
- Republicans have started to make some other anti-pharma noises, but haven't yet endorsed direct government price negotiations. And AAN is hoping to keep it that way even as congressional Republicans look ahead to their 2020 races. [Axios. Vitals, February 28, 2019]
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| CLIMATE CHANGE |
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| WTF |
The Budget Gimmick Trump Wants to Use to Boost Defense Spending
Taking advantage of a loophole in the Budget Control Act, President Trump will propose a big increase in defense spending while cutting discretionary spending in 2020, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought said in an op-ed at RealClear Politics Monday.
The White House’s upcoming budget request will seek to increase Pentagon funding through a special warfighting account that is exempt from budget caps, Vought said. That will allow the administration to avoid matching defense spending increases with discretionary spending increases, as lawmakers have done for several years in negotiated spending deals to lift spending caps.
The Trump administration says it wants to cut discretionary spending by 5 percent across the board in what Vought called “one of the largest spending reductions in history,” while boosting defense spending by more than $30 billion.
How it would work: The White House is expected to request as much as $174 billion in 2020 for the overseas contingency fund, an off-the-books account that is intended to be used for short-term operations — and which some critics have dismissed as a Pentagon “slush fund.” The increase in OCO funding would more than offset the roughly $70 billion in cuts to the defense budget imposed by the caps, should they come into effect. Current OCO funding is about $69 billion.
Embracing a “gimmick:” Last year, then-OMB director Mick Mulvaney argued against using the overseas contingency account to evade budget caps, calling that approach a “gimmick” that threatened budget accountability. But that argument doesn’t seem to hold much sway in the current White House, where Mulvaney is now acting chief of staff.
Congress not likely to play along: House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-KY) and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) released a joint statement Monday making it clear that the president’s budgetary maneuver wasn’t going to fly: “If true, this is nothing more than a blatant attempt to make a mockery of the federal budget process, obscure the true cost of military operations, and severely shortchange other investments vital to our national and economic security.”
Republican Rep. Mac Thornberry (TX), the ranking member on the Armed Services Committee, was also critical: "It's ridiculous if that's what they do,” he said. However, Trump ally Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has signaled that he might support the move. “We’ve got to have adequate funding. Now, how do you get there? Are you going to be using some OCO to get there? Yeah you are. I don’t know how much it’s going to be, but I think you’re going to have an exaggerated figure there in order to get up to what we have to have to defend America," Inhofe said last week.
The bottom line: The White House is trying an end run around the budget negotiations that have resulted in higher spending in both defense and non-defense areas over the last few years. But the proposal to raise defense spending through a budget gimmick while cutting discretionary spending will likely be dead on arrival in Congress. [The Fiscal Times, February 25, 2019]
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| SCREEN |
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| READ |
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| INDONESIA |
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| BELGIUM |
Doughboy MIA for week of Feb. 25
A man is only missing if he is forgotten.
Monday's Doughboy MIA this week is Private Wesley J. Creech. Born 15MAR1886, in Hallsboro, North Carolina, Wesley Jackson Creech was the fourth of six children that Henry and Martha Creech would rear. He signed his 05JUN1917 draft card at Bolton, North Carolina, where he listed himself as a lumber inspector and two months later married Miss Francis Williamson, age 19. Creech received his draft call shortly thereafter, reporting for duty on 01OCT1917 and was sent to Camp Jackson for induction. From there he went to Camp Sevier for infantry training and was placed in Company C, 120 th Infantry Regiment, 30 th ‘Old Hickory’ Division. Departing Boston, Massachusetts for overseas service on 12May1918 aboard the transport Bohemian, Creech’s division was brigaded with the British in the Somme sector that summer. Records show Wesley Creech as being killed in action on 31AUG1918 and buried by a British unit, however later identification of his grave by American Graves Registration personnel proved fruitless. As such, he is memorialized on the Tablets to the Missing at the Flanders Field American Cemetery at Waregem, Belgium. [WW1 Dispatch Newsletter, February 26, 2019]
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| ISRAEL |
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.
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