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Luke Pearson is a Gamilaroi man who in 2012 founded IndigenousX: a 100% Indigenous owned and operated, independent media, consultancy, and training organisation.  As January 26th approaches, I wanted to ask Luke about what he makes of the Australia Day culture warring, his critique of the #changethedate campaign, our national amnesia when it comes to our history and why we need to #changethenation instead. He explains the nature of the ongoing occupation of this country, what political action might bring about material change for First Nations people and why the idea of changing the national holiday is like a gym membership.  If you’ve got the means please support this show by becoming a Patron Join the LIASYO Facebook group here please and thank you My 2021 show is called WE ARE ALL IN THIS – it’s on sale now at the Adelaide Fringe I’m joining the (awesome) line up for Tommy Little’s Big Comedy Show @ the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in March @LukeLPearson @IndigenousX ARTICLE: Why we need to change the date of Australia Day ARTICLE: Maybe we shouldn't change the date of Australia Day after all  ARTICLE: Why I no longer support #changethedate ARTICLE: Why we need to #ChangeTheNation (by Shiralee Lawson) ARTICLE: Why I was gutted when Australia applauded the anthem change  ARTICLE: We are One Nation?  ARTICLE: Remembering 1938 'Day of Mourning' declaration ARTICLE: 'We hereby make protest' - a history of 1938 Andrew Jakubowicz's research on "Harmony Day" CAUSE OF THE WEEK: indigenousx.com.au  

SHOW NOTES:  - All the info you need to START is on our website! Seriously, go there. - Join our PATREON community for bonus perks! - Get your TBR merch - Show credits   FROM TODAY’S PODCAST:  - Get 40% Off The Bible Recap Book! - Article: The Difference Between Pharisees and Sadducees in the Bible - Matthew 7:6 - Picture: Caesarea Philippi - Article: Caesarea Philippi - Daniel 7:13 - Article: Why is Jesus called "Son of Man"? - Article 1 of 3: What is the Rock in Matthew 16:18? - Article 2 of 3:  The Exegetical Examination of Matthew 16:18 - Article 3 of 3: Is Peter the Rock? Early Interpretations of Matthew 16:18 - Matthew 21:42 - Ephesians 2:20 - Act 4:11 - 1 Corinthians 3:11 - John 18:4 - Revelation 13:8 - The Bible Recap Book!   SOCIALS: The Bible Recap: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter D-Group: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter TLC: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter   D-GROUP:The Bible Recap is brought to you by D-Group - an international network of discipleship and accountability groups that meet weekly in homes and churches: Find or start one near you today!

SHOW NOTES:  - All the info you need to START is on our website! - Join our PATREON family for bonus perks! - Get your TBR merch - Show credits   FROM TODAY’S PODCAST:  - The Bible Recap Printable Reading Plan  - The Bible Recap New Testament Reading Plan (on the Bible app) - Mark 14:61-62 - Article: Why is Jesus called "Son of Man"? - Article: Resources on Daniel's Seventy Weeks - The Bible Recap Credits   SOCIALS: The Bible Recap: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter D-Group: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter TLC: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter   D-GROUP:The Bible Recap is brought to you by D-Group - an international network of discipleship and accountability groups that meet weekly in homes and churches: Find or start one near you today!

We get a lot of questions from our clients about postprandial fatigue. Never heard of it? Well you’ve certainly familiar with the term “food coma” - and perhaps with the experience of being in one. What causes this phenomenon and why does it affect some people more than others? Is it normal to need a nap after lunch?  On this podcast I’m joined by NBT Scientific Director Megan Hall to talk about postprandial fatigue - the sleepiness, difficulty focusing, and even dizziness or nausea that strikes after consuming a meal. Megan talks about some of the biological processes behind the need for a post-meal snooze, and when to suspect a deeper pathology. She also offers practical tips to help you resolve your own postprandial fatigue. Thank you everyone who so generously supports this podcast on Patreon - without your support, we wouldn’t be able to keep this podcast independent and free of ads. So thank you. And just a reminder - as a Patreon supporter - not only do you have our eternal gratitude, but also... You get some awesome gifts - including 20-35% discounts on all supplements we recommend when working with clients, which saves many of our supporters $50-$100 a month over what they were previously paying on Amazon. So by supporting the podcast, they’re actually spending LESS money each month. In addition to that, you can also get access to our Office Hours, where Megan answers questions twice a week. You can submit all your own questions, as well as listen to all the replays, covering everything from krill oil to mitochondrial support. We’ve worked really hard to make sure that the bonuses you get are actually way more valuable than what you pay whatever level you choose to support us at. So if you’d like to support the podcast and get access to the discounts and Office Hours, just head over to NBT.link and sign up there. Here’s the outline of this interview with Megan Hall: [00:04:25] Common symptoms of postprandial fatigue. [00:05:46] Reactive hypoglycemia; Study: Johnson, Debra D., Kay E. Dorr, and Wendell M. Swenson. "Reactive hypoglycemia." JAMA 243.11 (1980): 1151-1155.  [00:06:35] Diagnosing reactive hypoglycemia; Study: CHALEW, STUART, et al. "Diagnosis of reactive hypoglycemia: pitfalls in the use of the oral glucose tolerance test." Southern Medical Journal 79.3 (1986): 285-287. [00:09:00] Symptoms and causes of hypoglycemia. [00:09:37] Increased insulin sensitivity; Studies: 1. Brun, J. F., et al. "Increased insulin sensitivity and basal insulin effectiveness in postprandial reactive hypoglycaemia." Acta Diabetologica 33.1 (1996): 1-6; 2. Vexiau, P., B. Legoff, and G. Cathelineau. "Insulin and cortisol secretion during OGTT in patients with reactive hypoglycaemia with or without clinical symptoms." Hormone and metabolic research 15.09 (1983): 419-421. [00:09:47] Hypocortisolism; Studies: 1. Meyer, Gesine, et al. "Nocturnal hypoglycemia identified by a continuous glucose monitoring system in patients with primary adrenal insufficiency (Addison's disease)." Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics 14.5 (2012): 386-388; 2. Christiansen, Jens Juel, et al. "Effects of cortisol on carbohydrate, lipid, and protein metabolism: studies of acute cortisol withdrawal in adrenocortical failure." The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 92.9 (2007): 3553-3559. [00:10:05] Hypothyroidism; Studies: 1. Kalra, Sanjay, Ambika Gopalakrishnan Unnikrishnan, and Rakesh Sahay. "The hypoglycemic side of hypothyroidism." Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism 18.1 (2014): 1; 2. Yadav, Tek Chand, et al. "Recurrent hypoglycemia: An unusual finding of hypothyroidism." Thyroid Research and Practice 14.3 (2017): 127. [00:10:53] What to do about hypoglycemia. [00:13:09] Accelerated gastric emptying. [00:16:20] Reactive hypoglycemia after exercise. [00:18:51] Postprandial hyperglycemia; Study: Gerich, John E. "Clinical significance, pathogenesis, and management of postprandial hyperglycemia." Archives of internal medicine 163.11 (2003): 1306-1316. [00:20:38] Problems associated with hyperglycemia; Studies: 1. Ceriello, Antonio, et al. "Meal-induced oxidative stress and low-density lipoprotein oxidation in diabetes: the possible role of hyperglycemia." Metabolism 48.12 (1999): 1503-1508; 2. Ceriello, Antonio, et al. "Meal-generated oxidative stress in type 2 diabetic patients." Diabetes care 21.9 (1998): 1529-1533; 3. Cavalot, F. "Do data in the literature indicate that glycaemic variability is a clinical problem? Glycaemic variability and vascular complications of diabetes." Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism 15.s2 (2013): 3-8; 4. Ceriello, Antonio, et al. "Evidence for an independent and cumulative effect of postprandial hypertriglyceridemia and hyperglycemia on endothelial dysfunction and oxidative stress generation: effects of short-and long-term simvastatin treatment." Circulation 106.10 (2002): 1211-1218; 5. Tibaldi, Joseph. "Importance of postprandial glucose levels as a target for glycemic control in type 2 diabetes." Southern medical journal 102.1 (2009): 60-66. [00:21:24] Insulin resistance. [00:21:39] Video: PAH 2016 - A systems analysis approach to insulin resistance, with Dr. Tommy Wood. [00:23:02] What to do: Look at diet; 1. Krebs, Jeremy D., et al. "Improvements in glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity with a low-carbohydrate diet in obese patients with type 2 diabetes." Journal of the American College of Nutrition 32.1 (2013): 11-17; 2. Lin, Po-Ju, and Katarina T. Borer. "Third exposure to a reduced carbohydrate meal lowers evening postprandial insulin and GIP responses and HOMA-IR estimate of insulin resistance." PloS one 11.10 (2016): e0165378; 3. MacDonald, Ian A. "A review of recent evidence relating to sugars, insulin resistance and diabetes." European journal of nutrition 55.2 (2016): 17-23; 4. Bradley, Una, et al. "Low-fat versus low-carbohydrate weight reduction diets: effects on weight loss, insulin resistance, and cardiovascular risk: a randomized control trial." Diabetes 58.12 (2009): 2741-2748. [00:28:46] Mediterranean diet; Study: Guasch-Ferré, Marta, et al. "Dietary polyphenols, Mediterranean diet, prediabetes, and type 2 diabetes: a narrative review of the evidence." Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity 2017 (2017). [00:29:56] Endotoxemia and insulin resistance 1. Moreira, AP Boroni, and R. de Cássia Gonçalves Alfenas. "The influence of endotoxemia on the molecular mechanisms of insulin resistance." Nutrición hospitalaria 27.2 (2012): 382-390; 2. Cani, Patrice D., et al. "Metabolic endotoxemia initiates obesity and insulin resistance." Diabetes 56.7 (2007): 1761-1772. [00:30:24] Megan's outline for this podcast.  [00:31:19] When fatigue after a meal might be normal. [00:33:08] Article: Why a pandemic flu shot caused narcolepsy. [00:33:49] Both high fat and high carb meals can cause sleepiness; Study: Wells, Anita S., et al. "Effects of meals on objective and subjective measures of daytime sleepiness." Journal of applied physiology 84.2 (1998): 507-515. [00:33:56] Intestinal stimulation can cause sleepiness; Kukorelli, Tibor, and Gábor Juhász. "Electroencephalographic synchronization induced by stimulation of small intestine and splanchnic nerve in cats." Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology 41.5 (1976): 491-500. [00:34:20] Sleepiness after eating vs. just chewing; Study: MJ Harnish, SR Greenleaf, WC Orr, “A comparison of feeding to cephalic stimulation on postprandial sleepiness.” Physiology & behavior 64.1 (1998):93-96. [00:34:38] Cholecystokinin (CCK) may affect the alert centers in the brain; Study: Wells, Anita S., et al. "Influences of fat and carbohydrate on postprandial sleepiness, mood, and hormones." Physiology & behavior 61.5 (1997): 679-686. [00:37:13] Thermogenesis; Study: Zammit, Gary K., et al. "Postprandial sleep and thermogenesis in normal men." Physiology & behavior 52.2 (1992): 251-259. [00:37:40] Summary: How to fix the problem. [00:38:43] Nutrisense for continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). [00:46:29] Timing your walk with glucose peak; Study: Reynolds, Andrew N., and Bernard J. Venn. "The timing of activity after eating affects the glycaemic response of healthy adults: a randomised controlled trial." nutrients 10.11 (2018): 1743. [00:51:01] Support NBT on Patreon to access the forum.  

The U.S. Treasury has been legally robbed! In this episode, discover the secret provisions in the multi-trillion dollar CARES Act that no one is talking about (like the new process for over the counter drug approvals) and discover the reasons behind problems that everyone is talking about (like why Mom & Pops can't get a small business loan approved but Fogo de Chao can.) The good news is that the problems are so obvious that they are easily fixed... If Congress ever comes back from vacation.  Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Click here to contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank’s online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536 Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD160: Equifax Breach CD199: Surprise Medical Bills CD201: WTF is the Federal Reserve? CD212: The COVID-19 Response Laws Bills H.R.748 - CARES Act Text: H.R.748 - CARES Act Roll Call: H.R.748 - CARES Act House passed by voice vote at 1:25pm on March 27th Transcript: House debate Tom Massie demanded a recorded vote but an insufficient number of members supported him and the demand for a recorded vote was refused Signed by Trump on March 27 CARES Act Outline DIVISION A - Keeping Workers Paid and Employed, Health Care System Enhancements, and Economic Stabilization TITLE I - Keeping American Workers Paid and Employed Act Sec. 1102: "Paycheck Protection Program" (Small Business Loans) The Federal Government will guarantee 100% of the loans made under this authority between February 15, 2020 and June 30, 2020. The loans are allowed to be used by businesses to pay for their employees salaries, tips, sick and vacation time, health care, retirement benefits, and state and local taxes. Sole proprietors and independent contractors are eligible. All payments are capped at a salary rate of $100,000/yr per individual. Payments are not eligible for employees who live outside the United States, even if they are US citizens. A “small business” is defined as a business with fewer than 500 employees per physical location. Usually, franchises in a large corporate chain would be except from receiving these loans, but that exemption is waived. Nonprofits and veterans organizations are eligible as well. The maximum loan amount is $10 million. No personal guarantee or collateral can be required to get the loans between February 15, 2020 and June 30, 2020. There are no penalties allowed for prepayment of the loans. The Federal government will collect no administration fees. Interest rates are capped at 4% Fees for banks: The government will pay the bankers processing fees of 5% for loans under $350,000, 3% for loans between $350,000 and $2 million, and 1% of loans over $2 million. Loan payments must be allowed to be deferred - so no required payments of principal, interest, or fees - for at least 6 months and up to one year. The loans are allowed to be sold on the secondary market, but if the investor doesn’t want to abide by the deferment requirements, the government can buy the loan. Banks are going to be exempted from some disclosure requirements for these loans. The law authorizes $349 billion for this program. Sec. 1106: The loans from Section 1102 are eligible for forgiveness - as in you don’t have to pay them back - if the loan money was used for payroll costs, interest-only on mortgage payments (it specifically excludes payments towards the principal on a mortgage loan), rent payments, and/or utility payments. The government will pay the bankers for amount of the loan forgiven plus interest, capped at the amount of the principal on the loan. The amount of loan forgiveness will be reduced if the business employees fewer people during the COVID-19 crisis than they did before. The amount of forgiveness will be reduced by the amount of salary that employees who make less than $100,000/yr have their pay reduced beyond a 25% cut. Businesses can get loan forgiveness for extra money given to tipped employees. Businesses who re-hire their employees or re-instate employees salary to their pre-crisis level by June 30, 2020 will be eligible to have their loans forgiven. The banks will decide who will have their loans forgiven and banks are prohibited from being punished if the documentation submitted to them is wrong until June 30, 2020. Sec. 1110: From January 31, 2020 through December 31, 2020, businesses with fewer than 500 employees, sole proprietorships, and independent contractors can request a $10,000 advance to pay for employee sick leave, payroll, increased costs for materials, rent, or mortgage payments. The business can be approved using a credit score or self certification of the ability to repay. The advance can be up to $10,000 and must be paid within 3 days. If the applicant is approved for a loan, the advance will be reduced from the loan forgiveness amount. If the applicant isn’t approved, the advance doesn’t have to be repaid. $10 billion is appropriated for the advances. Sec. 1112: The government will pay the principal, interest, and fees for six months on some existing loans that are guaranteed by the government by the Small Business Act. $17 billion is appropriated for these payments. Sec. 1113: Until March 27, 2021, small businesses that want to declare bankruptcy and reorganize under Chapter 11 must have debts under $7.5 million instead of $2,725,625 as is usually the case, which increases the number of small businesses that will be eligible. TITLE II - Assistance for American Workers, Families, and Businesses SUBTITLE A: Unemployment Insurance Provisions Sec. 2102: Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Who qualifies: People who would qualify under existing State laws People who self-certify that are able to work except that the person has been diagnosed with COVID-19, someone in their home has been diagnosed with COVID-19, they are caring for someone with COVID-19, has a child whose daycare or school is closed due to COVID-19, can’t get to work because of a COVID-19 quarantine, their work is closed due to COVID-19, or they are self employed. People who do not qualify are people who have the ability to telework with pay or people who are receiving paid sick leave or other paid leave benefits Effective period: Beginning on or after January 27, 2020 and ending on or before December 31, 2020 Limits: No one can get unemployment benefits for more than 39 weeks, but this can be extended by the Secretary of Labor if needed Sec. 2104: Unemployment Amounts: It’s the amount determined by your state’s unemployment law plus $600 per week if the state chooses to enter into an agreement with the Secretary of Labor. The Federal government will pay for 100% of the costs of the extra unemployment payments and the administration costs. It’s an unlimited appropriation and it’s valid until July 31, 2020. SUBTITLE B: Rebates and Other Individual Provisions Sec. 2201: Issues a means tested “advanced refund" of $1,200 per adult and $500 per child. You only get the full amount as an adult if you make $75,000 per adult or less. People who make more than $75,000 per adult will have their check amount reduced based on their income up to about $100,000. People who make more than that will get nothing. The payment will be delivered via direct deposit to anyone who has authorized the IRS to do so since January 1, 2018 while everyone else will have to wait for checks. If we accidentally get overpaid, the IRS can’t charge us interest on that payment. The payments will be made for the 2019 tax year if you have already done your taxes for last year. If you haven’t, it’ll be based on 2018. They will send a notification in the mail to us about our payments to our last known address, which will tell us the amount and if it’s going to be delivered via direct deposit or by check. Sec. 2202: Waives rules that penalize removing money from your retirement accounts if you take the money out between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020.. You can take out up $100,000 in “coronavirus-related distributions”. You are allowed to pay it back in full for 3 years starting on the day you took the money out. To qualify, you have to self certify that you are someone who had COVID-19, is caring for a spouse or dependent who had COVID-19, or someone who was financially screwed in some way due to being quarantined, having work hours reduced, or having to care for a child. Sec. 2203: Waives the requirements that people over the age of 72, or their dependents who inherited their retirement accounts, to withdraw some money from the retirement accounts every year. The waiver is valid even for people who were not adversely affected by COVID-19. Sec. 2204: Allows people - even those that don’t itemize their deductions - to deduct $300 in donations in 2020 for cash payments given to charities, a government organization, educational organizations, veterans organizations… There’s a long list. Applies to taxable years starting with 2020. Sec. 2205: For people who do itemize their deductions, the current limit of cash contributions than can be written off (which is a maximum of 60% of the taxpayer’s tax bill for the year) is suspended. You can deduct up to your entire tax bill, although maybe even more because carry-overs are allowed. For corporations, the usual limit of cash contributions that can be written off (10% of the corporation’s income) is increased to 25% of the corporation’s income. The corporate limit increase is valid only in 2020. Sec. 2206: Allows employers to pay for some of an employee’s student loan - principal and/or interest - tax free if the payment is made by January 1, 2021. SUBTITLE C - Business provisions Sec. 2301: Employers with more than 100 employees will be able to get a tax credit for half of the wages they pay to their employee’s who can’t work, with a limit of $10,000 per employee per quarter. Employer with fewer than 100 employees can get the tax credit for all their employees. Employers who qualify are ones that had to close due to COVID-19 or whose gross receipts are less than 50% of what they were the same quarter last year. Employers who take out the small business loans created by this law can’t get this credit too. They will lose this tax credit in the quarter after their gross receipts are more than 80% of what they were in same quarter the prior year. This is predicted to save companies $54.6 billion. Sec. 2302: Allows employers to defer payroll taxes, with half the amount required to be paid by December 31, 2021 and the other half due by December 31, 2022. Businesses that have had loans forgiven using the provisions in this law are not eligible. Sec. 2303: The IRS code has, for many years, allowed business losses to be carried over to following years, so that the companies tax liability will be lower in the years to come. This law changes that so business losses from 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 can be carried backwards to each of the five years before the loss while also allowing the existing option to carry the losses forward too. The law also removes the limit that said that this couldn’t be done to offset more than 80% of taxable income for 2018, 2019, or 2020, which means this can be used to zero out their taxable income for years since 2013. This means that companies will be able to get refunds on taxes they paid on taxes going as far back as 2013. In those years, corporate tax rates were higher, so reducing their income levels retroactively lets them get more money back from those higher tax years. There’s no requirement that the businesses that get this tax gift be in any way negatively affected by COVID-19. This is estimated to provide $25.5 billion to corporations Sec. 2304: Prior to the 2017 tax cut law, individual taxpayers could deduct unlimited business losses against other kinds of income. The 2017 tax law changed that so that losses could only be used to shelter the first $250,000 or $500,000 of a married couple’s nonbusiness income, such as capital gains from stock market investments. This law retroactively removes new limits imposed by the 2017 tax law going back to 2018 and until 2021. This will allow individuals to submit amended returns and get refunds that weren’t allowed in 2018 and 2019. In reality, this will allow wealthy investors to use losses generated by depreciation in real estate to minimize their taxes on profits from things like investments in the stock market. No harm from COVID-19 needs to be proven in order to use and benefit from this provision. This is the second largest tax giveaway in this law. This is projected to cost almost $170 billion. Sec. 2305: Allows corporations expecting a refund due to the repeal of the alternative minimum tax in 2017 to get that refund faster. Sec. 2306: Increases the amount corporations can deduct on the interest expenses it pays on its loans from 30% of the company’s “adjusted taxable income” to 50%. Companies can do this regardless of any affect COVID-19 had on their business. This is projected to cost $13.4 billion. Sec. 2307: A tax credit for real estate owners, this changes a provision in the 2017 tax law to allow real estate owners to write off the costs of improvements to the interiors of their properties in the first year instead of spreading them out over many years. This is backdated to the enactment of the tax law, which will allow real estate owners to get tax refunds. Sec. 2308: Waives the federal excise tax on any alcohol used in hand sanitizer for calendar year 2020. TITLE III - Supporting America’s Health Care System in the Fight Against the Coronavirus Part 1 - Addressing Supply Shortages Subpart A - Medical Product Supplies Sec. 3101: Orders a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on the security of the United States medical product supply chain, specifically by evaluating the dependance of the United States and our private sector on critical drugs and devices sources or manufactured outside of the United States. Sec. 3103: Manufacturers of certain types of masks and ventilators are granted immunity from lawsuits during public health emergencies. Subpart B - Mitigating Emergency Drug Shortages Sec. 3112: Requires the manufacturers of drugs critical to the public health to report interruptions to the supply of the drug when the cause of the interruption is an interruption in the supply of the active pharmaceutical ingredient. They must also create and implement risk management plans. Is not effective until mid-September 2020. Subpart C - Preventing Medical Device Shortages Sec. 3121: Requires manufacturers of medical devices that are critical to public health to report to the government during or in advance of a public health emergency any interruptions in the manufacture of the devices that could lead to a meaningful disruption in the supply of that device in the United States. Unless it’s not possible, the government must get this notification at least 6 months prior to the date that the interruption or discontinuance is expected. The government must then distribute the information to appropriate health care industry officials. The government can keep the information from the public if disclosing it increases the likelihood of over-purchase of the product. Part II - Access to Health Care For COVID-19 Patients Subpart A - Coverage of Testing and Preventive Services Sec. 3201: Amends the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (the 2nd COVID-19 Response Law) so that coverage is only for COVID-19 tests that are “approved, cleared, or authorized” or that the developer has requested or intends to request emergency use authorization, is developed in and authorized by a State, or another test that HHS determines appropriate in writing. This provision did not change the language (loophole) that requires visits be covered only if they “result in the ordering or administration of a COVID-19 test.” Sec. 3202: Health care providers must publish on a public internet website the prices for COVID-19 testing. If health insurers have a negotiated rate with a providers, they are allowed to pay that rate if it is lower than the published rate. If there is no negotiated rate, the insurance companies must pay the amount listed on their public website. Sec. 3203: The health insurance companies “shall” be required to cover, without cost sharing, “any qualifying coronavirus preventive service” (which is “a service or immunization that is intended to prevent or mitigate coronavirus disease 2019) within 15 days of it’s official recommendation by the United States Preventive Services Task Force or the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Subpart B - Support for Health Care Providers Sec. 3211: Provides $1.32 billion in extra funding for community health centers that are testing for COVID-19 Sec. 3215: Gives legal immunity in State and Federal courts to medical professionals who volunteer and provide services during the COVID-19 public health emergency declared on January 31, 2020, but the immunity is only valid for actions that took place after March 27th (the date of enactment). The immunity is not valid if the health care professional acted with willful or gross negligence or if the health professional was intoxicated by drugs or alcohol. Subpart C - Miscellaneous Provisions Sec. 3222: Elderly people who are homebound due to social distancing requirements during the COVID-19 emergency will be able to get government food deliveries as if they were homebound due to illness, as the law usually requires. Part III - Innovation Sec. 3301: Allows contracts created by BARDA (the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority) during a public health emergency to continue past the end date of the public health emergency. Sec. 3302: Requires - no option - the Secretary of Health and Human Services to expedite the development and review of new animal drugs if preliminary clinical evidence indicates that the new drug might prevent or treat an animal disease that could cause serious or life-threatening diseases in humans, if the expedited process is requested by the organization creating the animal drug. Part IV - Health Care Workforce Sec. 3401: Appropriates $23.7 million per year through 2025 for grants to health professions schools and other public and nonprofit health or educational organizations, but with most of the grants being funded at significantly lower rates than they were during the Obama years. For example, for loan repayments and fellowships, they provided $5 million/yr during 2010-2014; that’s decreased to $1.2 million for 2021-2025. For educational assistance for people from disadvantaged backgrounds, they provided $60 million/yr during 2010-2014; that’s decreased to $15 million for 2021-2025. For grants to public and nonprofit private hospitals and medical schools, they provided $125 million/yr during 2010-2014; that’s decreased to under $49 million for 2021-2025. For health education center programs, they provided $125 million/yr during 2010-2014; that’s decreased to under $41.2 million for 2021-2025. For public health training centers, they provided at least $43 million/yr for 2012-2015; that’s decreased to $17 million for 2021-2025. The only category that gets significantly greater funding is a pediatric specialty loan repayment program that requires the student to work for at least 2 years in pediatric medicine to get the money. The funding level was $50 million/yr from 2010-2013, the funding is authorized to be unlimited from 2021 through 2025. All of these are authorizations for appropriations, they don’t provide any additional money. Sec. 3403: Requires grants and contracts be awarded for a Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program, that would train health professionals in geriatrics. The law authorizes about $40 million, but doesn’t appropriate it. This is a problem because Congress frequently will authorize programs they have no intention of funding, and without the funding, they don’t really exist. Sec. 3404: Authorizes appropriations, but does not appropriate, for nursing eduction programs about $138 million/yr for fiscal years 2021 through 2025, which is a decrease from the funding of $338 million that was valid from 2011-2016. Also authorizes, but does not appropriate, $117 million/yr from 2021-2015 for nursing student loans. Subtitle B - Education Provisions Sec. 3503: Through 2021, the requirement that all colleges match Federal funding for student work-study programs) is waived except for private for-profit organizations. Sec. 3504: Colleges will be allowed to use some of their federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant money for students facing “unexpected expenses and unmet financial need”. The student can be given up to the maximum Federal Pell Grant for that year (which is currently $6,345). Sec. 3505: Allows colleges to pay student their work-study wages up to the full amount they would have been paid had there not been an emergency. They can make the payments in one-time grants or as multiple payments. Sec. 3506: The semester that students with loans couldn’t finish because of COVID-19 will not be counted towards their lifetime limits on subsidized loan eligibility. Sec. 3507: The semester that students with loans couldn’t finish because of COVID-19 will not be counted towards their lifetime limits on Pell Grant eligibility. Sec. 3508: Colleges, including for-profit colleges, that have students with loans withdraw from their schools due to COVID-19 will not have to repay the money they received from that student. The students will not have to return the money either and their loan obligation will be cancelled. The schools are allowed to let the student return after a leave of absence. Sec. 3511: Gives the Secretary of Education the option, at the request of a State, local, or tribal government, to waive statutory and regulatory requirements except for civli rights laws. The waivers may also be granted to charter schools. The waivers will not be valid past the 2019-2020 school year. Sec. 3512: During the COVID-19 emergency, the Secretary of Education can make payments - including on principal and interest - on loans issued to historically black colleges and universities through the HBCU Capital Financing Loan program, but the payments will have to be repaid to the Department of Education no sooner than one year after the COVID-19 emergency ends. The law appropriates $62 million. Sec. 3513: The Secretary of Education is required to suspend all payments due for student loans until September 30, 2020. Interest is not allowed to accrue during the suspension time. Each month during the suspicion must be treated as if the payments were made for the purpose of loan forgiveness programs. During the suspension period, student loan collections actions including wage garnishment and tax refund reductions must stop. People with student loans are allowed to keep making payments towards their principal. Sec. 3518: Allows the Secretary of Education to change the requirements, including matching requirements, for grant money given to colleges for the year of the emergency and the following fiscal year. Sec. 3519: Allows the Secretary of Education to excuse teachers from obligations they made to receive grants. The Secretary of Education is required to waive requirements that teaching service be consecutive for loan forgiveness as long as the teach completes a total of 5 years of required teaching service. Subtitle C - Labor Provisions Sec. 3606: Allows employers who will get a credit for the sick and family leave they are providing their employees to get that credit in advance. Sec. 3608: Required payments to employee pension plans can be postponed until January 1, 2021, but they must be paid with interest. Sec. 3610: Allows any government agency to change their contracts to allow the government to pay for up to 40 hours per week of paid leave that a contractor provides to its employees until September 30, 2020. This only applies to contractors who can’t work because the facilities where they work are closed and who can’t do their work remotely. Subtitle D - Finance Committee Sec. 3701: High deductible health insurance plans that do not include deductibles for telehealth services will still be considered high deductible plans. Sec. 3702: Starting on January 1, 2020, menstrual care products are considered medical products, which allows people to purchase them with Health Savings Accounts. Sec. 3703: Allows people on Medicare to be covered for telehealth visits to doctors they have not seen before. Sec. 3705: During the COVID-19 emergency, dialysis patients who receive their treatments at home do not need to meet face to face with their doctors, which allows the visit to be conducted via telehealth. Sec. 3706: The Secretary of Health and Human Services can allow hospice physicians or nurse practitioners to conduct patient visits via telehealth during the COVID-19 emergency Sec. 3709: Stops the 2% Medicare sequestration from May 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020, but extends sequestration for an extra year (to 2030 instead of 2029) Sec. 3710: Medicare will pay an extra 20% for people diagnosed with COVID-19, using “diagnosis codes, condition codes, or other such means as may be necessary” during the emergency period declared by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Sec. 3713: Beginning on the day that a COVID-19 vaccine is licensed, Medicare will not charge a deductible for the the vaccine or its administration. Sec. 3714: Allows people on Medicare to get 90 day supplies of their drugs in a single refill for the during of the COVID-19 emergency declared by the HHS Secretary. Sec. 3719: During the emergency period, the Secretary of HHS can loan hospitals an advance of up to 6 months of Medicare payments. The payments can be made periodically or in a lump sum for up to 100% of the their usual payments, 125% for critical access hospitals. Hospitals will have to be given 120 days before any payments are decreased to offset the loans and must be given at least 1 year from the date of their first loan receipt to pay back the balance in full. Subtitle E: Health and Human Services Extenders Part I - Medicare Provisions Sec. 3803: Restores the funding levels of recently gutted low income programs. $13 billion to state health insurance programs, $7.5 billion to area agencies on aging, and $5 billion for aging and disability resources centers, and $12 billion for the National Center for Benefits and Outreach Enrollment. Part II - Medicaid Provisions Sec. 3813: Delays $4 billion in payment cuts to hospitals written into the Affordable Care Act which were supposed to begin in 2014. Hospitals were expected to be treating fewer uninsured individuals when the cuts were written into law. Part III - Human Services and Other Health Programs Sec. 3821: Extends the “Sexual Risk Avoidance Education Program” (abstinence eduction) from its scheduled end of May 22, 2020 to November 30, 2020. The program gives grants to states that agree to promote abstinence-only sex ed. Requirements and funding levels Sec. 3822: Extends the “Personal Responsibility Education Program” from its scheduled end of May 22, 2020 to November 30, 2020. Requirements and funding Part IV - Public Health Provisions Sec. 3831: Adds $1.5 billion to the funding for Community Health Centers to bring the funding to equal the 2019 funding, and funds them at the same rate through November 30, 2020. Adds $241 million to the funding for the National Health Service Corps, whose funding was allowed to lapse in December 2019, restoring its funding to equal the 2019 funding. Adds $45 million to teaching health centers that operate graduate medical programs to bring the funding to equal the 2019 funding, and funds them at the same rate through November 30, 2020. Subtitle F - Over the Counter Drugs Part 1 - OTC Drug Review Sec. 3851: Creates a new process for FDA approval of over the counter drug applications. Allows the Secretary of Health and Human Services to issue administrative orders to approve changes and new uses of over the counter drugs instead of requiring drug companies to go through the standard review process that takes longer. Companies whose applications are approved will get 18 month exclusivity on their drugs. Sec. 3854: Allows sunscreen companies with products affected by a pending FDA order to request that the HHS Secretary instead use the new, faster, less complete administrative order process created by Section 3851 for over the counter drugs. They must make this request by mid September 2020. Administrative orders issued by the HHS Secretary will be “deemed to be a final order”. As part of this process, the company may request and the HHS Secretary must conduct a “confidential meeting” with the company to discuss what data they should submit to show that their ingredients are safe and effective. Part II - User Fees Sec. 3862: Beginning in fiscal year 2021, to fund the new processes for over the counter drug approvals created by Section 3851, facilities that manufacture over the counter drugs will be assessed an annual fee and there will be either a $500,000 or $100,000 fee for requests to change drug monographs using the process created by Section 3851. Companies will not have to pay the fee if they are requesting changes to enhance warnings or instructions on the labels. TITLE IV - Economic Stabilization and Assistance to Severely Distressed Sectors of the United States Economy Subtitle A - Coronavirus Economic Stabilization Act of 2020 Sec. 4002: Defines a “covered loss” as “losses directly or indirectly as a result of coronavirus, as determined by the Secretary”, with “the Secretary” being Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. “Eligible business” is an air carrier or “a United States business that has not otherwise received adequate economic relief in the form of loans or loan guarantees provided under this Act” Sec. 4003: Gives the Secretary of the Treasury the authorization to “make loans, loan guarantees and other investments” to "eligible businesses”, States, and local governments up to a total of $500 billion dollars. $46 billion must be directed at the airline industry and $454 billion will be loans, loan guarantees, and “other investments” determined by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. Sec. 4004: Limits the amount of money that an employee of a business that gets a Treasury Department loan to $3 million plus half of whatever they got over $3 million in 2019 for the length of the loan plus one year. Sec. 4005: Until March 1, 2022, the Secretary of Transportation will have the authority to require any airline that takes loan money to maintain their flight schedules, as the Secretary of Transportation determines is needed. Sec. 4007: Suspends a 7.5% Federal excise tax on airlines from March 27, 2020 through the end of the year. Sec. 4008: Amends the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform law to allow the FDIC to provide insurance for all accounts of banks that don’t accrue interest until December 31, 2020. Sec. 4009: Between March 13, 2020 and either the end of the COVID-19 emergency or December 31, 2020, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve is exempt from requirements that they give the public a day’s notice before their meetings and that they make public the minutes of their behind closed doors meetings. They must only keep a record of their votes and reasons for their votes which might be released to the public later (there’s no requirement that they be released). Sec. 4011: Allows unlimited lending to “nonbank financial institutions” such as insurance companies, venture capitalists, currency exchanges, and pawn shops until the end of the emergency declared on March 13 or until December 31, 2020. Sec. 4012: Lowers the amount of actual money that community banks must have in their possession from 9% to 8%, and gives the banks with less than that a “reasonable grace period” to get the money. This is valid until the end of the emergency declared on March 13 or until December 31, 2020. Sec. 4013: Allows banks to avoid counting troubled loans as troubled on their balance sheets from March 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020 or 60 days after the emergency declared on March 13th ends. Sec. 4014: Exempts banks from relatively new reporting requirements on their credit losses from March 27, 2020 through the end of the emergency declared on March 13 or December 31, 2020. Sec. 4015: Allows the Treasury Department to use its Exchange Stabilization Fund (which had $93.7 billion in it as of February 2020) to get around needing Congressional appropriations to cover any losses the Federal Reserve may need to absorb through its lending programs that allow unusual collateral to be offered like money market funds, corporate bonds, and securities. Sec. 4017: Increases the President’s power to use the Defense Production Act by waiving the requirement for Congressional authorization for projects that cost more than $50 million for two years and waives the requirement that Congress needs 30 days advanced notice before a Defense Production Act project can start for 1 year. Sec. 4018: Creates an Inspector General within the Treasury Department who will be appointed by the President. Says that when the Inspector General requests information, the agencies “shall, to the extent practicable” give him the information or else they will be reported to Congress. Sec. 4019: Prohibits loans or payments originating from the Treasury and Federal Reserve authorized by Section 4003 from going to any company in which the President, Vice President, an executive department head, member of Congress or their spouses, children, or son/daughter in laws own over 20% of the voting stock. Sec. 4020: Creates a Congressional Oversight Commission whose job is to conduct oversight of the implementation of this law by the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve. The commission will have five members: 1 appointed by the Speaker of the House (Nancy Pelosi), 1 appointed by the House minority leader (Kevin McCarthy), 1 appointed by the Senate majority leader (Mitch McConnell), 1 appointed by the Senate minority leader (Chuck Schumer), and 1 Chairperson co-appointed by the Speaker and Majority Leader (Pelosi and McConnell). Sec. 4021: Companies that allow customers to adjust their payment schedules have to report that the customer is current on their payments unless their accounts are already delinquent. This is valid from January 31, 2020 through either the end of July 2020 or 4 months after the emergency declared on March 13th ends Sec. 4022: People with Federally backed mortgages who have been affected by COVID-19 “directly or indirectly” can request and must be granted for a pause in loan payments for a maximum of about a year, but you have to request it twice (again after the first 180 days). Interest and fees will still accrue but they can’t charge any extra interest, penalties, or fees. Customers have to provide no proof of hardship. Prohibits the banks that manage Federally backed loans from moving forward with any foreclosure processes until mid-May 2020 (60 days after March 18, 2020). Sec. 4023: People/companies that own multifamily housing with 5 or more units with Federally backed mortgages who have been affected by COVID-19 “directly or indirectly” can request and must be granted for a pause in loan payments. The forbearance (pause) can be for a total of 90 days as long as the building owner requests it three times with at least 15 days notice. People who get this pause are not allowed to evict their tenants or charge them any late fees during the mortgage payment pause. Sec. 4024: Starting on March 27, 2020 and ending in late July 2020, landlords can not begin eviction proceedings for non-payment of rent or charge fees or penalties for not paying rent. Sec. 4025: Prohibits the government from attaching a string to a loan or loan guarantee that requires the business to negotiate with unions over worker pay or conditions of employment. This is valid starting on the day the business is first issued the loan and ending a year after the loan is paid off. Sec. 4026: Within 72 hours of each transaction, the Treasury Secretary must publish on the Treasury Department website a description of the transaction, the date, and the “identity of the counterparty”, the amount of the loan/guarantee/investment, how the price was determined, the interest rate, conditions, and a copy of the final term sheet. The Treasury Secretary also has to report any contracts entered into for the administration of loans or guarantees within 24 hours after the contract is entered into. The Federal Reserve has to issue reports to Congress that will have to be made public on their website within 7 days of the report being delivered to Congress. Sec. 4027: Appropriates $500 billion Sec. 4029: The authorities given to the Treasury Secretary and Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve to make loans, loan guarantees, and “investments” in businesses and banks will expire on December 31, 2020. Subtitle B - Air Carrier Worker Support Sec. 4112: The Secretary of the Treasury “shall” give money to airlines and the contractors that work with them which “shall exclusively be used for the continuation of payment of employee wages, salaries, and benefits”. Passenger air carriers will get $25 billion, cargo airlines $4 billion, and contractors will get $3 billion. Sec. 4113: The employees will have to be paid whatever rate they were paid from April 1, 2019 through September 30, 2019. Steven Mnuchin will decide all terms and conditions, other than the ones set by section 4114, 4115, and 4116. The payments have to start to be made within 10 days of enactment. The Inspector General of the Treasury Department will have to audit the certifications made by the companies about employee salary and benefit rates. Sec. 4114: Airlines or contractors that take the money can’t furlough their workers or reduce their wages or benefits until September 30, 2020, they can’t buy stock in their company or parent company, or pay out dividends. The Secretary of Transportation is also given authorization until March 1, 2022 to require only airlines or contractors that take the money to continue service to anywhere that they served as of March 1, 2020. Sec. 4115: Prohibits the government from attaching a string to a loan or loan guarantee that requires the airline or contractor to negotiate with unions over worker pay or conditions of employment. This is valid starting on the day the business is first issued the loan and ending on September 30, 2020. Sec. 4116: From March 24, 2020 through March 24, 2022, any airline or contractor that takes the money has to agree that no employee who made more than $425,000 in 2019 will be paid more than what they were paid in 2019, or will receive more than double their 2019 pay as a severance package. Employees that were paid more than $3 million can’t be paid more than $3 million plus half of the amount they were paid over $3 million in 2019. This includes salary, bonuses, stock awards and “other financial benefits”. Sec. 4117: The Treasury Secretary is allowed, but not required, to accept stock and securities and other “financial instruments” from the airlines and contractors. Sec. 4120: Appropriates $32 billion. TITLE V - Coronavirus Relief Funds Sec. 5001: Appropriates $150 billion for State, tribal and local governments. Amounts will be determined by population but each state will get at least $1.25 billion. Washington D.C. is treated as a territory and all territories will split $3 billion. Tribal governments will split $8 billion. Steven Mnuchin will decide how the tribal government money will be divided. The Inspector General of the Treasury must investigate the receipt, disbursement, and use of funds. TITLE VI - Miscellaneous Provisions Sec. 6001: Allows the Postal Service to borrow $10 billion from the Treasury Department. Division B - Emergency Appropriations for Coronavirus Health Response and Agency Operations Bureau of Prisons Sec. 12003: The Secretary of Health and Human Services “shall appropriately consider” distributing personal protective equipment and test kits to the Bureau of Prisons for use by inmates and staff. Sec. 12005: Authorizes and appropriates $300 million that the Secretary of Commerce can use for direct payments to subsistence, commercial, and charter fishery businesses. Department of Energy Sec. 14002: Extends the authority for the Secretary of Energy to sell oil from the strategic petroleum reserve and gives the Department of Energy the authority to sell $900 million worth of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, $450 million in 2021 and 2022, on top of the $450 million they can sell in 2020. The Judiciary Sec. 15002: Allows for criminal proceedings to be conducted via video teleconferencing until 30 days after the national emergency declaration terminates. It will only be allowed with the consent of the defendant or juvenile after they talk to a lawyer. Election Security Grants Provides $400 million to prepare for the 2020 Federal election cycle, domestically or internationally. The money must be given by the Election Assistance Commission to the states within 30 days. There is no direction on how the money is divided among states. The states have to submit reports on how they use the money. Money not used by December 31, 2020 has to be returned to the Treasury. Pandemic Response Accountability Committee Sec. 15010: Creates a Pandemic Response Accountability Committee that will investigate and report on the use of COVID-19 funds through September 2025. The committee will be operated by two full time paid employees and the other members will be inspectors generals from at least 9 federal agencies. The committee will have enforceable subpoena power. The committee is allowed, but not required, to hold public hearings. The committee will have a public website that is required to provide their findings, data, some contracting information, division of COVID-19 funds by state and congressional district, agency plans for use of funds, all recommendations made to the agencies, etc. Department of Homeland Security Sec. 16004: Prohibits the Department of Homeland Security from transferring War on Terror funds for the COVID-19 efforts. Sec. 16006: The Secretary of Homeland Security must extend the REAL-ID deadline until at least September 30, 2021. Department of Health and Human Services Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund Provides an additional $27 billion for “developing necessary countermeasures and vaccines, prioritizing platform-based technologies with US based manufacturing capabilities, the purchase of vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and necessary medical supplies”. Products purchased by the Federal government must be purchased in accordance with regulations on fair and reasonable pricing, ensuring affordability in the commercial market is optional. The HHS Secretary can not take any action that would slow down the development of the products. $16 billion can be spent on purchasing items for the Strategic National Stockpile. Funds can be used to construct or renovate “US based next generation manufacturing facilities, other than facilities owned by the United States government” in addition to the authority to construct or renovate private facilities that manufacture vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. Adds an additional $100 billion to reimburse health care providers - public, private, and for profit - for COVID-19 expenses. Sec. 18115: Every lab that performs or analyzes a COVID-19 test must report the result of each test to the Secretary of Health and Human Services until the end of the HHS Secretary’s public health declaration with respect of COVID-19. State Department Sec. 21012: Provides $3 billion for the International Development Association (World Bank), $7.3 billion for the African Development Bank, and authorizes the Treasury “to make loans in an amount not to exceed the dollar equivalent 28,202,470,000 of Special Drawing Rights (which is approximately $38.5 billion as of April 21, 2020) OTC Drugs Bill Information Article: H.R.3443 - Over-the-Counter Monograph Safety, Innovation, and Reform Act of 2019, Congress.gov Article: S.2740 - Over-the-Counter Monograph Safety, Innovation, and Reform Act of 2019, Congress.gov Article: Roll Call Vote 116th Congress - 1st Session On Passage of the Bill (S. 2740), United States Senate, December 10, 2019 Bill Profile: H.R.3443: Clients Lobbying on H.R.3443: Over-the-Counter Monograph Safety, Innovation, and Reform Act of 2019, OpenSecrets.org Bill Profile: H.R.3443: Lobbyists lobbying on H.R.3443: Over-the-Counter Monograph Safety, Innovation, and Reform Act of 2019, OpenSecrets.org Sen. Johnny Isakson - Georgia: Top Industries 1995 - 2020, OpenSecrets.org Sen. Lamar Alexander - Tennessee: Top Industries 1995 - 2020, OpenSecrets.org Articles/Documents Update: Message from Jennifer Roberts, CEO of Chase Business Banking Chase Banking, April 23, 2020 Article: Hard-hit restaurants, gyms and other businesses are battling insurers over the coronavirus, sparking a new Washington lobbying war By Tom Hamburger and Tony Romm, The Washington Post, April 22, 2020 Article: Pelosi says Shall will stay on oversight commission after failure to disclose stock sales by Jeremy Herb and Lauren Fox, CNN, April 22, 2020.  Article: Vaccine Chief Says He Was Removed After Questioning Drug Trump Promoted The New York Times, April 22, 2020 Article: Highlights of the Nearly $500B Coronavirus Relief Bill The New York Times, April 21, 2020 Article: Publicly traded firms get $365M in small-business loans By REESE DUNKLIN, JUSTIN PRITCHARD, JUSTIN MYERS and KRYSTA FAURIA, Associated Press, April 21, 2020 Article: Restaurants’ bailout problem: Unemployment pays more By IAN KULLGREN, Politico, April 20, 2020 Article: Medical Staffing Companies Cut Doctors’ Pay While Spending Millions on Political Ads By Isaac Arnsdorf, ProPublica, April 20, 2020 Article: The coronavirus could force more doctors to sell — or shutter By Bob Herman, Axios, April 20, 2020 Article: Chase and other banks shuffled Paycheck Protection Program small business applications, lawsuit says By Dalvin Brown, USA Today, April 20, 2020 Article: Shake Shack returning $10 million government loan meant for small businesses By Stephanie Ruhle and Alex Johnson, NBC News, April 20, 2020 Article: WTI crude price goes negative for the first time in history By Cameron Wallace, World Oil, April 20, 2020 Article: In Race for Small-Business Loans, Winning Hinged on Where Firms Bank By Ruth Simon and Peter Rudegeair, The Wall Street Journal, April 20, 2020 Article: Zoom's Security Woes Were No Secret to Business Partners Like Dropbox By Natasha Singer and Nicole Perlroth, The New York Times, April 20, 2020 Article: A raw deal By Judd Legum, Popular Information, April 20, 2020 Article: The Trickle-Up Bailout By Matt Taibbi, Taibbi, April 17, 2020 Article: Donna Shalala Selection Makes a Mockery of Bailout Oversight Panel by David Dayen, The American Prospect, April 18, 2020.  Press Release: Pelosi Appoints Congresswoman Donna Shalala to Congressional Oversight Commission of the CARES Act, April 17, 2020.  Article: Ruth’s Chris Steak House Gets $20 Million From Coronavirus Aid Program By Charity L. Scott, The Wall Street Journal, April 17, 2020 Article: The COVID-19 Bailout That’s Left Every Hospital Unhappy In Its Own Way By Rachana Pradhan and Lauren Weber, Kaiser Health News, April 16, 2020 Article: I’m Overseeing the Coronavirus Relief Bill. The Strings Aren’t Attached. By Bharat Ramamurti, The New York Times, April 16, 2020 Article: House lawmakers indefinitely postpone return to Washington By Mike Lillis and Scott Wong, The Hill, April 16, 2020 Article: Paycheck Protection Program out of money: Thousands of small businesses shut out By Stephen Gandel, CBS News, April 16, 2020 Article: Here Are the Contracts Showing How $4.5 Trillion in Stimulus Was Outsourced to Wall Street By Pam Martens and Russ Martens, Wall Street on Parade, April 16, 2020 Article: Most Patients Undergoing Ground And Air Ambulance Transportation Receive Sizable Out-Of-Network Bills By Karan R. Chhabra, Keegan McGuire, Kyle H. Sheetz, John W. Scott, Ushapoorna Nuliyalu, and Andrew M. Ryan, HealthAffairs, April 15, 2020 Article: Renters Are Being Forced From Their Homes Despite Eviction Moratoriums Meant to Protect Them By Alana Semuels, Time, April 15, 2020 Article: One Person is Overseeing Congress's Bailout Loans. He Wants Answers. by Alan Rappeport, New York Times, April 15, 2020.  Article: Policy Memo: Federal Reserve Lending Facilities for Private Companies and Securitizations Americans for Financial Reform, April 15, 2020 Article: Hedge Fund Managers Claiming Bailouts as Small Businesses By Katherine Burton and Joshua Fineman, Bloomberg, April 14, 2020 Article: Rural hospitals shut out of stimulus loans face financial crisis By Rachel Roubein, Politico, April 14, 2020 Article: Tax change in coronavirus package overwhelmingly benefits millionaires, congressional body finds By Jeff Stein, The Washington Post, April 14, 2020 Article: WHITEHOUSE, DOGGETT RELEASE NEW ANALYSIS SHOWING GOP TAX PROVISIONS IN CARES ACT OVERWHELMINGLY BENEFIT MILLION-DOLLAR-PLUS EARNERS Sheldon Whitehouse, U.S. Senator for Rhode Island, April 14, 2020 Article: Your Coronavirus Check Is Coming. Your Bank Can Grab It. By David Dayen, American Prospect, April 14, 2020 Article: Tax change in coronavirus package overwhelmingly benefits millionaires, congressional body finds By Jeff Stein, The Washington Post, April 14, 2020 Article: How Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7 Million By Shahar Ziv, Forbes, April 14, 2020 Article: Stimulus Oversight Panel Has One Person Trying to Watch $2.2 Trillion Alone By Joshua Green, Bloomberg, April 14, 2020 Article: Coronavirus antibody testing must be covered free of charge, feds say By Stefan Becket, CBS News, April 13, 2020 Article: Unsanitized: Meet The Corporate Bailout’s First Policeman By David Dayen, American Prospect, April 13, 2020 Article: Who's getting these hundreds of billions in government aid? For now, the public may be in the dark By Peter Whoriskey and Heather Long, The Washington Post, April 13, 2020 Article: CARES Act Package Ushers in Changes to OTC Drug Review Process Duane Morris, April 13, 2020 Article: Commission calls for review of election security standards By Tom Temin, Federal News Network, April 13, 2020 Article: Medical Staffing Companies Owned by Rich Investors Cut Doctor Pay and Now Want Bailout Money By Isaac Arnsdorf, ProPublica, April 10, 2020 Article: Furor Erupts: Billions Going To Hospitals Based On Medicare Billings, Not COVID-19 By Jay Hancock and Phil Galewitz and Elizabeth Lucas, Kaiser Health News, April 10, 2020 Article: Providers Begin Receiving $30B in Emergency Funding from HHS, Plus Newly Suspended State Regs Home Care Association of New York State Blog, April 10, 2020 Article: The Colleges Getting The Most Money From The Stimulus Bill By Wesley Whistle, Forbes, April 10, 2020 Article: It is Not All About the Coronavirus: The CARES Act Brings Long-Awaited Over-the-Counter (OTC) Monograph Reform By Genevieve Razick and Carolina Wirth, Arnall Golden Gregory LLP, JDSUPRA, April 10, 2020 Article: Unsanitized: Federal Reserve Rescue Is the Best Rescue By David Dayen, The American Prospect, April 10, 2020 Article: The Fed’s ‘Main Street’ Mistake Wall Street Journal, April 9, 2020 Article: Exclusive: These for-profit colleges could reap up to $1 billion in federal bailout money By Matt Smith, Market Watch, April 9, 2020 Article: Fed's balance sheet swells to record $6.13 trillion By Jonnelle Marte and Ann Saphir, Reuters, April 9, 2020 Article: 'Extremely Alarming': Coronavirus Stimulus Law Allows the Federal Reserve to Hold Secret Meetings on Corporate Bailouts By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, April 9, 2020 Article: Congress Must Have Skipped the First Three Seasons of Trump Reality Show By Eleanor Eagan, The American Prospect, April 9, 2020 Alert: U.S. CARES ACT ENABLES LONG-AWAITED OTC DRUG REGULATORY MODERNIZATION: KEY HIGHLIGHTS By Brian Burgess and Julie Tibbets, Goodwin, April 8, 2020 Article: Coronavirus: CMS approves nearly $34 billion in accelerated/advance payments to healthcare providers By Keith A. Reynolds, Medical Economics, April 8, 2020 Article: Trump removes inspector general who was to oversee $2 trillion stimulus spending By Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post, April 7, 2020 Article: Welfare for Wall Street By Nomi Prins, The Nation, April 7, 2020 Article: Congress fixed tax code “retail glitch” and gave real estate a tax windfall By Rich Bockmann and Kevin Sun, The Real Deal, April 7, 2020 Article: Trump removes inspector general who was to oversee $trillion stimulus spending By Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post, April 7, 2020 Article: Big Restaurant, Hotel Chains Won Exemption to Get Small Business Loans By Bob Davis and Heather Haddon, The Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2020 Article: CARES Act Contains Significant New Over-The-Counter (OTC) Drug Provisions by Charles Andres, Wilson Sonsini, April 6, 2020 Article: Trump’s Aggressive Advocacy of Malaria Drug for Treating Coronavirus Divides Medical Community By Peter Baker, Katie Rogers, David Enrich and Maggie Haberman, The New York Times, April 6, 2020 Article: Private Flights Getting Cheaper Thanks to Stimulus Tax Relief By Katherine Chiglinsky and Tom Metcalf, Bloomberg, April 6, 2020 Article: 2020 CARES Act—FAQs for Nonprofit Organizations and Donors By James P. Joseph Bridget M. Weiss Dana O. Campos, Arnold & Porter, April 6, 2020 Article: What does the CARES Act mean for net operating losses and non-corporate business losses? By Douglas Charnas and Paul Leonard, JDSUPRA, April 3, 2020 Article: Trump announces intent to nominate White House lawyer Brian Miller as inspector general for $2 trillion coronavirus law by Jeff Stein, The Washington Post, April 3, 2020 Letter: Addressed to Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar By Alexander Sammon, American College of Emergency Physicians, April 3, 2020 Article: Unsanitized: Why Banks Don’t Want to Help Small Businesses By David Dayen, The American Prospect, April 3, 2020 Article: Unsanitized: Aid Package Status Update By David Dayen, The American Prospect, April 2, 2020 Article: It’s Steve Mnuchin’s Economy Now By Alexander Sammon, American Prospect, April 1, 2020 Article: US aims to lease space in emergency oil stockpile, after buying plan canceled, sources say Reuters, April 1, 2020 Article: Trump may rent Strategic Petroleum Reserve storage to U.S. drillers By ARI NATTER, JENNIFER A. DLOUHY AND STEPHEN CUNNINGHAM, World Oil, April 1, 2020 Article: Temporary Waiver of Required Minimum Distribution Rules By Jean McDevitt Bullens, Baker Newman Noyes, April 1, 2020 Article: Unsanitized: It’s the First of the Month By David Dayen, The American Prospect, April 1, 2020 Article: Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat says bank is 'working around the clock' on small business relief program By Hugh Son, The CNBC, April 1, 2020 Article: Tax Savings Opportunities from the CARES Act By John Werlhof, CLA, March 31, 2020 Article: The Relief Package Ushers In Trump's Planned Economy By Matt Stoller, Wired, March 31, 2020 Article: Federal COVID-19 Economic Relief and Its Impact on the Energy Sector: An Overview Energy Alert, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, March 31, 2020 Article: Boeing Will Take Aid, Won’t Give Equity Banking Exchange, March 31, 2020 Article: Bailing Out the Bailout By Matt Taibbi, RollingStone, March 31, 2020 Article: US Banks Welcome $2trn Stimulus Package By David White and Zachary Kribs, Kidney News Online, March 30, 2020 Article: CARES Act to Improve Options for People on Home Dialysis By David White and Zachary Kribs, Kidney News Online, March 30, 2020 Statement: FDA on Signing of the COVID-19 Emergency Relief Bill, Including Landmark Over-the-Counter Drug Reform and User Fee Legislation Commissioner of Food and Drugs - Food and Drug Administration - Stephen M. Hahn M.D., U.S. Food & Drug Administration, March 30, 2020 Article: Key Provisions in the CARES Act for Health Care Providers By Health Law Practice - von Briesen & Roper, s.c., The National Law Review, March 30, 2020 Article: CARES On Campus: Stimulus Program & Higher Education By Anne Cartwright and Julie Miceli, JDSUPRA, March 30, 2020 Article: Inside the CARES Act: Changes to the Bankruptcy Code Under the CARES Act By Melissa Anne Peña, The National Law Review, March 29, 2020 Article: Lawmakers Pack Federal Stimulus Bill With Pet Provisions By Brody Mullins and Ted Mann, The Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2020 Press Release: Trump Suggests He Can Gag Inspector General for Stimulus Bailout Program By Charlie Savage, The New York Times, March 27, 2020 Press Release: Statement by the President The White House, March 27, 2020 Article: Unsanitized: The Federal Reserve Loads the Cannon By David Dayen, The American Prospect, March 27, 2020 Article: Inside the talks on the largest U.S. bailout: frantic negotiations, partisan tensions and a Trump tweet By Seung Min Kim, Mike DeBonis, Erica Werner and Paul Kane, The Washington Post, March 27, 2020 Article: Over-the-Counter (OTC) Drug Monograph Process U.S. Food & Drug Administration, March 27, 2020 Article: The Health Care Industry and the CARES Act: Insight and Next Steps Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, March 27, 2020 Article: Bank Regulatory Provisions in the CARES Act By Robert Klinger, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, JDSUPRA, March 27, 2020 Article: Fed Releases Details of BlackRock Deal for Virus Response By Matthew Goldstein, The New York Times, March 27, 2020 Article: Stimulus Bill Allows Federal Reserve to Conduct Meetings in Secret; Gives Fed $454 Billion Slush Fund for Wall Street Bailouts By Pam Martens and Russ Martens, CounterPunch, March 27, 2020 Document: Terms of Assignment for BlackRock on Behalf of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Regarding Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility New York Fed, March 27, 2020 Press Release: Acting Secretary Chad Wolf Statement on the REAL ID Enforcement Deadline Homeland Security, March 26, 2020 Article: How the Fed’s Magic Money Machine Will Turn $454 Billion Into $4 Trillion By Jeanna Smialek, The New York Times, March 26, 2020 Article: Unsanitized: The Essential Imbalance of the 2020 Bailout By David Dayen, American Prospect, March 26, 2020 Article: Bonanza for Rich Real Estate Investors, Tucked Into Stimulus Package By Jesse Drucker, The New York Times, March 26, 2020 Article: Funding to refill U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve cut from stimulus plan By STEPHEN CUNNINGHAM, ARI NATTER AND JENNIFER A. DLOUHY, World Oil, March 25, 2020 Article: Stop the $6 Trillion Coronavirus Corporate Coup! By Matt Stoller, BIG by Matt Stoller, March 25, 2020 Article: Unsanitized: Bailouts, A Tradition Unlike Any Other By David Dayen, American Prospect, March 25, 2020 Article: Fed taps BlackRock to run emergency programs By Dawn Lim, Market Watch, March 25, 2020 Article: Avoid Taxes, Receive Federal Bailouts By Alexander Sammon, American Prospect, March 25, 2020 Document: INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT AGREEMENT New York Fed, March 25, 2020 Article: Fine Print of Stimulus Bill Contains Special Deals for Industries By Eric Lipton and Kenneth P. Vogel, The New York Times, March 25, 2020 Article: Congress to bail out firms that avoided taxes, safety regulations and spent billions boosting their stock By Jonathan O'Connell, The Washington Post, March 25, 2020 Article: 'Completely Dangerous and Unacceptable,' Ocasio-Cortez Says of Impending Senate Recess in Midst of Coronavirus Crisis By Eoin Higgins, Common Dreams, March 25, 2020 Article: Senate leaving DC until April 20 after coronavirus stimulus vote By Jordain Carney, The Hill, March 25, 2020 Article: Senate stimulus bill extends funding for abstinence education By Tyler Olson, Fox News, March 25, 2020 Article: Oil purchase to fill strategic reserve dropped from stimulus By Benjamin J. Hulac, Roll Call, March 25, 2020 Article: U.S. Fed hires BlackRock to help execute mortgage-backed securities purchases By Pete Schroeder and Michelle Price, Reuters, March 24, 2020 Article: What is the Exchange Stabilization Fund? And how is it being used in the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis? By Sage Belz and David Wessel, Brookings, March 24, 2020 Press Release: Federal Reserve announces extensive new measures to support the economy Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, March 23, 2020 Article: COVID-19 Update: Federal Reserve Launches TALF (Again) By Scott A. Cammarn and Mark Chorazak, The National Law Review, March 23, 2020 Article: Trump's coronavirus eviction freeze won't keep a roof over our heads, advocates say By Tim Fitzsimons, NBC News, March 21, 2020 Article: Addressed to Speaker Pelosi, Leader McConnell, Leader McCarthy, and Leader Schumer By Ben Lane, America's Health Insurance Plans, BlueCross BlueShield Association, March 19, 2020 Article: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HUD suspending all foreclosures and evictions By Ben Lane, Housing Wire, March 18, 2020 Press Release: Federal Reserve Board announces establishment of a Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF) to support the flow of credit to households and businesses Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, March 17, 2020 Article: Federal Reserve cuts rates to zero and launches massive $700 billion quantitative easing program By Steve Liesman, CNBC, March 15, 2020 Article: How the drug industry got its way on the coronavirus By Sarah Karlin-Smith, Politico, March 5, 2020 Article: How Much Of Boeing’s Revenues Comes From The U.S. Government? By Trefis Team, Great Speculations, Forbes, January 2, 2020 Article: Funding Legislation Delays $4B in Medicaid DSH Payment Cuts By Jacqueline LaPointe, Revcycle Intelligence, December 20, 2019 Article: Southwest Airlines reaches confidential settlement with Boeing for some of its 737 Max losses By Lori Aratani, The Washington Post, December 13, 2019 Article: Boeing 737 Max Factory Was Plagued With Problems, Whistle-Blower Says By David Gelles, The New York Times, December 9, 2019 Article: How Much Income Puts You in the Top 1%, 5%, 10%? By Julia Kagan, Investopedia, November 21, 2019 Article: Senator Seeks Last Win In Over-the-Counter Drug Bill (Corrected) By Alex Roff, Bloomberg Law, October 31, 2019 Article: Boeing’s 737 Woes Aren’t Hurting Its Pursuit of Military Contracts, Exec Says BY Marcus Weisgerber, Defense One, October 15, 2019 Article: What Percentage of Americans Owns Stock? By Lydia Saad, Gallup, September 13, 2019 Article: FDA Chief of Staff Calls OTC Monograph Reform a Top Priority By Michael Mezher, Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society, May 21, 2019 Article: These 30 companies, including Boeing, get the most money from the federal government By Samuel Stebbins and Michael B. Sauter, USA Today, March 29, 2019 Article: Boeing Was ‘Go, Go, Go’ to Beat Airbus With the 737 Max By David Gelles, Natalie Kitroeff, Jack Nicas and Rebecca R. Ruiz, The New York Times, March 23, 2019 Article: Agencies reporting proposal for the implementation of Current Expected Credit Losses (CECL) Deloitte, January 22, 2019 Article: FDA Opens the Door for a Broader Range of Over-the-Counter (OTC) Drugs by Charles Andres, Wilson Sonsini, August 2, 2018 Article: Jared Kushner Paid No Income Tax for years By Jesse Drucker and Emily Flitter, The New York Times, October 13, 2018 Guidance for Industry: Innovative Approaches for Nonprescription Drug Products U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), July 2018 Article: HISTORICALLY BLACK COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES: Action Needed to Improve Participation in Education's HBCU Capital Financing Program Office of Public Affairs, GAO, July 26, 2018 Article: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Alex Azar By Katelyn Newman, U.S. News, January 29, 2018 Article: The Richest 10% of Americans Now Own 84% of All Stocks Rob Wile, Money, December 19, 2017 Article: Why the newest sunscreens still haven't hit the U.S. market By Brady Dennis, The Washington Post, May 11, 2015 Article: Washington’s Skin Canc

SHOW NOTES:  - All the info you need to START is on our website! Seriously, go there. - Join our PATREON community for bonus perks! - Get your TBR merch - Show credits   FROM TODAY’S PODCAST:  - Deuteronoy 8:17-18 - Article: Why the Psalms Are Written "For the Choir Director" - Exodus 34:6-7 - D-Group Calendar - D-Group Promo Video   SOCIALS: The Bible Recap: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter D-Group: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter TLC: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter   D-GROUP:The Bible Recap is brought to you by D-Group - an international network of discipleship and accountability groups that meet weekly in homes and churches: Find or start one near you today!

Entertainment: Corona has us all quarantined, Doordash is not the move, Drake's baby is revealed, Tiger King, and more Hot Topics: Should your pregnancy announcement include his children with another woman? and Can Adonis say the N-word? Article: Why are young people dying from Corona? Godspiration: The importance of connecting with God in good times so you already have him in hard times.

Audio issues resolved - we're back for another episode to run a thought experiment on the idea of 'why a space force is necessary'. With the Space Force being created as the 6th branch of the US military, there's been a lot of jokes (I've laughed at a few). But the Space Force could very easily become a much larger part in humanities day to day. There are lots of possibilities - a Space Arms Race to a technological transformation that brings human expansion to Lunar and Martian colonies. I've been noticing a trend lately that has the recipe for major change and progress...let's hope it's in the best interest for all of us. Starship Update - Nosecone https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1230276876930863105 Starlink 4 launched - Falcon 9 B1056.4 didn’t land RIPhttps://youtu.be/8xeX62mLcf8 USSF Enterprise SATCOMhttps://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article/2087406/ussf-signs-vision-for-single-integrated-satellite-communications-enterprise Article - Why having a space force is necessary - Imprimishttps://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/urgent-need-united-states-space-force/ TIME Article - Strange Russian Spacecraft Shadowing U.S. Spy Satellite, General Says https://time.com/5779315/russian-spacecraft-spy-satellite-space-force/ Today in Space is funded in part by ag3d-printing.com, our 3D printing lab. Interested in what we're making? Check out our instagram @AG3Dprinting. Reach out if you need something 3D printed! We're here to help  

Raising boys can be such a heart wrenching experience! Between their 2 families, Bonnie and Audrey are raising 9 boys from ages 6 months to 19. They share their experiences, successes, failures and lessons learned. Everything from puberty to gender rolls, WD40 to body part obsessions, empathy to facial hair is discussed! Mentioned in this episode: Article: Why modern feminism is illogical, unnecessary and evil Arnica montana for bruises Bringing Up Boys Raising a Modern Day Knight 5 Love Languages for Children The Dangerous Book for Boys The Double Dangerous Book for Boys

SHOW NOTES:  - All the info you need to START is on our website! Seriously, go there. - Join our PATREON community for bonus perks! - Get your TBR merch - Show credits   FROM TODAY’S PODCAST:  - Article: The Difference Between Pharisees and Sadducees in the Bible - Matthew 7:6 - Picture: Caesarea Philippi - Article: Caesarea Philippi - Daniel 7:13 - Article: Why is Jesus called "Son of Man"? - Article 1 of 3: What is the Rock in Matthew 16:18? - Article 2 of 3:  The Exegetical Examination of Matthew 16:18 - Article 3 of 3: Is Peter the Rock? Early Interpretations of Matthew 16:18 - Matthew 21:42 - Ephesians 2:20 - Act 4:11 - 1 Corinthians 3:11 - John 18:4 - Revelation 13:8 - Visit The Bible Recap store!   SOCIALS: The Bible Recap: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter D-Group: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter TLC: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter   D-GROUP:The Bible Recap is brought to you by D-Group - an international network of discipleship and accountability groups that meet weekly in homes and churches: Find or start one near you today!

SHOW NOTES: Thanks for listening! We’ve posted some helpful info for you in our show notes below!   PODCAST BASICS: - Subscribe where you listen! - Check out the details on our website - Get the Bible app (free) - Follow our Bible reading plan - Check out our customized journal - Join our PATREON community for bonus fun!    MERCH: Get your TBR merch! We’ve got t-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, phone wallets, and stickers!    FROM TODAY’S PODCAST:  - Mark 14:61-62 - Article: Why is Jesus called "Son of Man"? - Article: Resources on Daniel's Seventy Weeks   SOCIALS: The Bible Recap: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest  D-Group: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest TLC: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter   D-GROUP:The Bible Recap is brought to you by D-Group - an international network of discipleship and accountability groups that meet weekly in homes and churches: Find or start one near you today!   TBR TEAM: Written and Hosted by: Tara-Leigh Cobble Content Manager: Courtney Vaughan Podcast Operations: Callie Summers Website Management: Joelle Smith Sound Engineer: Allison Congden Content Design: Morgan Young Social Media Management: Sarah Yocum Journal Design: Brittney Murray Logo Design: Landon Wade   Available on: iTunes | Spotify | Google | Stitcher | Podbean | Google Play | YouTube   WEBSITE:thebiblerecap.com

Dan is joined by Ace Patterson (hip-hop artist ‘Call Me Ace,’ Consumer Marketing at Facebook). They break down how 50 Cent built a brand on shock value, why he raises hell on social media, whether he’s changed his style, and why he’ll never get canceled. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | SoundCloud | YouTube | RSS Host: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.co Guest: Ace Patterson, @callmeacelegit, callmeace.com Links referenced: Article: Why 50 Cent Hasn't Been Canceled - Trapital Podcast: Moody Jones on marketing for Snoop Dogg, EMPIRE’s digital strategy, and why he wants to work with Childish Gambino - Trapital Hip-hop’s influence continues to grow. Take your insights to the next level. Become a Trapitalist.

SHOW NOTES: Thanks for listening! We’ve posted some helpful info for you in our show notes below!   PODCAST BASICS: - Subscribe where you listen! - Check out the details on our website - Get the Bible app (free) - Follow our Bible reading plan - Check out our customized journal - Join our PATREON community for bonus fun!   MERCH: Get your TBR merch! We’ve got t-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, phone wallets, and stickers!   MERCH: Get your TBR merch! We’ve got t-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, phone wallets, and stickers!   FROM TODAY’S PODCAST: - Deuteronoy 8:17-18 - Article: Why the Psalms Are Written "For the Choir Director" - Exodus 34:6-7 - D-Group Calendar - D-Group Promo Video   SOCIALS: The Bible Recap: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest D-Group: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest TLC: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter   D-GROUP:The Bible Recap is brought to you by D-Group - an international network of discipleship and accountability groups that meet weekly in homes and churches: Find or start one near you today!   TBR TEAM: Written and Hosted by: Tara-Leigh Cobble Content Manager: Courtney Vaughan Podcast Operations: Callie Summers Website Management: Joelle Smith Sound Engineer: Allison Congden Content Design: Morgan Young Social Media Management: Sarah Yocum Journal Design: Brittney Murray Logo Design: Landon Wade   Available on: iTunes | Spotify | Google | Stitcher | Podbean | Google Play | YouTube   WEBSITE:thebiblerecap.com

In the final days of the 115th Congress, Congress passed and President Trump signed into law the First Step Act, which made changes to the operation of the federal prison system. In this episode, learn every detail of this new law, including the big money interests who advocated for its passage and their possible motivations for doing so. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Click here to contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536 Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD176: Target Venezuela: Regime Change in Progress CD129: The Impeachment of John Koskinen Bills/Laws S.756 - First Step Act of 2018 Govtrack Link Committee Summary Bill Text House Final Vote Results Senate Final Vote Results Sponsor: Sen. Dan Sullivan (AK) Original bill numbers for the First Step Act were S.2795 and HR 5682 First Step Act Outline TITLE I - RECIDIVISM REDUCTION Sec. 101: Risk and needs assessment system Orders the Attorney General to conduct a review current and possible recidivism reduction programs, including a review of products manufactured overseas the could be produced by prisoners and would not compete with the domestic private sector Orders the Attorney General to create an assessment system for each prisoner to be conducted during the intake process that will classify each of them as having minimum, low, medium, or high risk of recidivism, the prisoner’s likelihood of violent or serious misconduct, and assign them to programs accordingly. This process must be published on the Department of Justice website by July 19, 2019 (210 days after enactment). Prerelease custody means home confinement with 24 hour electronic monitoring, with the possibility of being allowed to leave to go to work, to participate in a recidivism reduction program, perform community service, go to the doctor, attend religious services, attend weddings or funerals, or visit a seriously ill family member. Sec. 102: Implementation of Risk and Needs Assessment System By mid-January 2020, the Attorney General must implement the new risk assessment system and complete the initial intake risk assessments of each prisoner and expand the recidivism reduction programs The Attorney General “shall” develop polices for the warden of each prison to enter into partnerships with “non-profit and other private organizations including faith-based, art, and community-based organizations”, schools, and “private entities that will deliver vocational training and certifications, provide equipment to facilitate vocational training…employ prisoners, or assist prisoners in prerelease custody or supervised related in finding employment” and “industry sponsored organization that will deliver workforce development and training, on a paid or volunteer basis.” Priority for participation will be given to medium and high risk prisoners Sec. 104: Authorization of Appropriations Authorizes, but does not appropriate, $75 million per year from 2019 to 2023. Sec. 106: Faith-Based Considerations In considering “any entity of any kind” for contracts “the fact that it may be or is faith-based may not be a basis for any discrimination against it in any manner or for any purpose.” Entities “may not engage in explicitly religious activities using direct financial assistance made available under this title” Sec. 107: Independent Review Committee The National Institute of Justice will select a “nonpartisan and nonprofit organization… to host the Independent Review Committee" The Committee will have 6 members selected by the nonprofit organization, 2 of whom must have published peer-reviewed scholarship about the risk and needs assessments in both corrections and community settings, 2 corrections officers - 1 of whom must have experience working in the Bureau of Prisons, and 1 individual with expertise in risk assessment implementation. The Committee will assist the Attorney General in reviewing the current system and making recommendations for the new system. TITLE II - BUREAU OF PRISONS SECURE FIREARMS STORAGE Sec. 202: Secure Firearms Storage Requires secure storage areas for Bureau of Prisons employees to store their firearms on the outside of the prisoner area. Allows Bureau of Prison employees to store firearms lockboxes in their cars Allows Bureau of Prison employees “to carry concealed firearms on the premises outside of the secure perimeter of the institution” TITLE III - RESTRAINTS ON PREGNANT PRISONERS PROHIBITED Sec. 301: Use of Restraints on Prisoners During the Period of Pregnancy and Postpartum Recovery Prohibited From the day a prisoner’s pregnancy is confirmed and ending 12 weeks or longer after the birth, a “prisoner in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons, or in the custody of the United States Marshals Service… shall not be placed in restraints” Will not apply to state prisons or local jails Exceptions include if the prisoner is an “immediate and credible flight risk” or if she poses an “immediate and serious threat of harm to herself or others” No matter what, a pregnant or recovering mother can’t: Have restraints placed around her ankles, legs, or waist Have her hands tied behind her back Be restrained using “4-point restraints" Be attached to another prisoner Within 48 hours of the pregnancy confirmation, the prisoner must be notified of the restraint restrictions (it doesn’t say how they must be notified) TITLE IV - SENTENCING REFORM Sec. 401: Reduces Sentencing for Prior Drug Felonies Changes the mandatory minimum for repeat offender with a previous “serious drug felony” (which is defined based on the length of the prison sentence: An offense for which they served more than 12 months) or a “serious violent felony” (added by this bill) from an automatic 20 year sentence to an automatic 15 year sentence. Changes the mandatory minimum for repeat offenders with two or more previous “serious drug felony or serious violent felony” convictions from a mandatory life sentence to a mandatory 25 years. Applies to cases that have not been sentenced as of the date of enactment and is not retroactive Sec. 402: "Broadening of Existing Safety Valve” Expands the criteria for leniency from mandatory minimums to include people with up to 4 prior non-volent convictions, not including minor misdemeanors. Applies to cases that have not been sentence as of the date of enactment and is not retroactive. Sec. 404: Appeals For Current Prisoners Convicted of Crack Related Crimes Allows people who were convicted of crack related crimes prior to August 3, 2010 (when the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 - which reduced the sentencing differences between crack and power cocaine - became law) to be eligible for reduced sentences. TITLE V - SECOND CHANCE ACT OF 2007 REAUTHORIZATION Sec. 502: Changes Existing Programs Creates an optional grant program for the Attorney General allowing him to provide grants to private entities along with governmental ones, for consulting services (to “evaluate methods”, “make recommendations”, etc). Authorizes, but doesn’t appropriate, $10 million per year from 2019 through 2023 ($50 million total) Sec. 503: Audits of Grantees Requires annual audits of entities receiving grants under the Second Chance Act of 2007 beginning in fiscal year 2019. Prohibits grantees from using grant money to lobby Department of Justice officials or government representatives, punishable by the full repayment of the grant and disqualification for grants for 5 years. TITLE VI- MISCELLANEOUS CRIMINAL JUSTICE Sec. 601: Placement of Prisoners Close to Families Requires that attempts be made to place a prisoners within 500 driving miles of the prisoner’s primary residence Adds “a designation of a place of imprisonment… is not reviewable by any court.” Sec. 603: Terminally Ill Prisoners Can Go Home Allows some terminally ill or elderly prisoners over the age of 60 to serve the rest of their sentences in home confinement Sec. 605: Expanding Prison Labor Allows Federal Prison Industries to sell products, except for office furniture, to government entities for use in prisons, government entities for use in disaster relief, the government of Washington DC, or “any organization” that is a 501(c)3 (charities and nonprofits), 501(c)4s (dark money “social welfare" organizations), or 501d (religious organizations). Requires an audit of Federal Prison Industries to begin within 90 days of enactment, but no due date. Sec. 611: Healthcare Products Requires the Bureau of Prisons to provide tampons and sanitary napkins to prisoners for free Sec. 613: Juvenile Solitary Confinement Prohibits juvenile solitary confinement to only when needed as a 3 hour temporary response to behavior that risks harming the juvenile or others, but it can not be used for “discipline, punishment, or retaliation” Federal Prison Industries: UNICOR UNICOR Index FPI is a “wholly-owned government corporation established by Congress on June 23, 1934. It’s mission is to protect society and reduce crime by preparing inmates for successful reentry through job training” UNICOR FAQs UNICOR 2018 Sales Report UNICOR Federal Prison Industries, Inc., Fiscal Year 2015, Annual Management Report, November 16, 2015 Shutdown Back-Pay Law -Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019, signed January 16 2019. - Bill Text Additional Reading Article: Revolving door brings Trump-tied lobbying firm even closer to the White House by Anna Massoglia and Karl Evers-Hillstrom, OpenSecrets News, January 22, 2019. Article: Trump fails the first test of the First Step Act by Edward Chung, The Hill, January 10, 2019. Article: The First Step Act could be a big gift to CoreCivic and the private prison industry by Liliana Segura, The Intercept, December 22, 2018. Article: For-profit prisons strongly approve of bipartisan criminal justice reform bill by Karl Evers-Hillstrom, OpenSecrets News, December 20, 2018. Statement: SPLC statement on bipartisan passage of First Step Act criminal justice reform bill by Lisa Graybill, Southern Poverty Law Center, December 20, 2018. Article: The First Step Act is not sweeping criminal justice reform - and the risk is that it becomes the only step by Natasha Lennard, The Intercept, December 19, 2018. Article: Conservatives scramble to change criminal justice bill by Jordain Carney, The Hill, December 18, 2018. Article: The FIRST STEP Act will make us safer without the Cotton-Kennedy amendments by Tricia Forbes, The Hill, December 18, 2018. Article: Who no details about criminal justice 'reform'? by Thomas R. Ascik, The Hill, December 17, 2018. Letter: The ACLU and the Leadership Conference support S.756, and urge Senators to vote yes on Cloture and no on all amendments, The Leadership Conference, CivilRights.org, December 17, 2018. Article: Koch-backed criminal justice reform bill to reach Senate, All Things Considered, NPR, December 16, 2018. Article: The problem with the "First Step Act" by Peniel Ibe, American Friends Service Committee, December 14, 2018. Article: Why is a Florida for-profit prison company backing bipartisan criminal justice reform? by Steve Dontorno, Tampa Bay Times, December 7, 2018. Article: How the FIRST STEP Act moves criminal justice reform forward by Charlotte Resing, ACLU, December 3, 2018. Article: Private prison companies served with lawsuits over using detainee labor by Amanda Holpuch, The Guardian, November 25, 2018. Statement: GEO Group statement on federal legislation on prison reform (The FIRST STEP Act), GEO Group, November 19, 2018. Article: Karl Rove's crossroads GPS is dead, long live his multi-million dollar 'dark money' operation by Anna Massoglia and Karl Evers-Hillstrom, OpenSecrets News, November 16, 2018. Article: We are former attorneys general. We salute Jeff Sessions. by William P. Barr, Edwin Meese III, and Michael B. Mukasey, The Washington Post, November 7, 2018. Article: How the Koch brothers built the most powerful rightwing group you've never heard of by Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, Caroline Tervo, and Theda Skocpol, The Guardian, September 26, 2018. Article: U.S. prisoners' strike is a reminder how common inmate labor is by Ruben J. Garcia, CBS News, September 8, 2018. Article: Kim Kardashian, activist, visits White House to call for prisoner freedom by Amelia McDonell-Parry, Rolling Stone, September 6, 2018. Article: Who is Chris Young? Kim Kardashian West to meet with Donald Trump to try to get prisoner pardoned by Janice Williams, Newsweek, September 5, 2018. Article: Kim Kardashian West visits White House to talk prison reform by Brett Samuels, The Hill, September 5, 2018. Article: Kim Kardashian West to another convicted felon's case: report by Brett Samuels, The Hill, September 5, 2018. Article: 'Prison slavery': Inmates are paid cents while manufacturing products sold to government by Daniel Moritz-Rabson, Newsweek, August 28, 2018. Article: Turf war between Kushner and Sessions drove federal prison director to quit by Glenn Thrush and Danielle Ivory, The New York Times, May 24, 2018. Report: Attorney General Sessions announces Hugh Hurwitz as the Acting Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Department of Justice, May 18, 2018. Article: Beware of big philanthropy's new enthusiasm for criminal justice reform by Michelle Chen, The Nation, March 16, 2018. Article: Corporations and governments collude in prison slavery racket by Mark Maxey, People's World, February 7, 2018. Article: Super PAC priorities USA plans to spend $50 million on digital ads for 2018 by Jessica Estepa, USA Today, November 2, 2017. Article: Private prisons firm to lobby, campaign against recidivism by Jonathan Mattise, AP News, October 31, 2017. Article: Slave labor widespread at ICE detention centers, lawyers say by Mia Steinle, POGO, September 7, 2017. Article: The sordid case behind Jared Kushner's grudge against Chris Christie by Byron York, The Washington Examiner, April 16, 2017. Report: How much do incarcerated people earn in each state? by Wendy Sawyer, Prison Policy Initiative, April 10, 2017. Press Release: The GEO Group closes $360 million acquisition of community education centers, Company Release, GEO Group, Inc., April 6, 2017. Article: How a private prison company used detained immigrants for free labor by Madison Pauly, Mother Jones, April 3, 2017. Article: Bias in criminal risk scores is mathematically inevitable, researchers say by Julia Angwin and Jeff Larson, ProPublica, December 30, 2016. Article: Jailed for ending a pregnancy: How prosecutors get inventive on abortion by Molly Redden, The Guardian, November 22, 2016. Article: Federal prison-owned 'factories with fences' facing increased scrutiny by Safia Samee Ali, NBC News, September 4, 2016. Investigative Summary: Findings of fraud and other irregularities related to the manufacture and sale of combat helmets by the Federal Prison Industries and ArmorSource, LLC, to the Department of Defense, Office of the Inspector General, August 2016. Report: Federal prison industries: Background, debate, legislative history, and policy options, Congressional Research Service, May 11, 2016. Article: New Koch by Jane Mayer, The New Yorker, January 25, 2016. Article: Pregnant and behind bars: how the US prison system abuses mothers-to-be by Victoria Law, The Guardian, October 20, 2015. Article: American slavery, reinvented by Whitney Benns, The Atlantic, September 21, 2015. Article: Yes, prisoners used to sew lingerie for Victoria's Secret - just like in 'Orange is the New Black' season 3 by Emily Yahr, The Washington Post, June 17, 2015. Report: Treatment industrial complex: How for-profit prison corporations are undermining efforts to treat and rehabilitate prisoners for corporate gain by Caroline Isaacs, Grassroots Leadership, November 2014. Report: The prison indistries Enhancement Certification Program: A program history by Barbara Auerbach, National CIA, May 4, 2012. Article: The hidden history of ALEC and prison labor by Mike Elk and Bob Sloan, The Nation, August 1, 2011. Article: Slave labor - money trail leads to Koch brothers and conservatives who want your job! by Bob Sloan, Daily Kos, February 21, 2011. Article: The Legacy by Gabriel Sherman, New York Magazine, July 12, 2009. Hearing: Federal Prison Industries, House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, C-SPAN, July 1, 2005. Article: Democratic donor receives two-year prison sentence by Ronald Smothers, The New York Times, March 5, 2005. Sound Clip Sources Discussion: Criminal Justice Reform and Senate Vote on First Step Act, C-SPAN, December 19, 2018. Speakers: - Mike Allen, Founder and Executive Editor of Axios - Mark Holden, Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Koch Industries - Senator Amy Klobuchar Sound Clips: 22:27 Mike Allen: So, I have on NPR, “Koch-Backed Criminal Justice Reform to Reach Senate.” To some people, at least at first blush, there’s an incongruity to that. Tell us how Koch Industries got involved in this issue. Mark Holden: Yeah, well, I mean, Charles Koch and David Koch have been very focused on these issues forever, literally. They were early funders of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, Institute for Justice, a lot of different groups. And from Charles’s perspective, the war on drugs, it’s been a failure. It doesn’t mean that you—there aren’t—it was in a criminal element within the war on drugs, but there are a lot of people in the war on drugs who don’t need to be incarcerated for so long. And so we’ve been very much in favor of proportional sentencing. You know, punishment must fit the crime. You break the law, you should pay a price, and then once you pay that price, you should be welcomed back into society, with all your rights. All your rights come back. That’s why we supported Amendment 4 down in Florida, the voting restoration rights for people with felonies in Florida. We don’t think it makes sense for people not to be able to participate once they’ve paid their debt to society. And for us, for Charles in particular, this is all about breaking barriers to opportunity. 24:10 Mark Holden: And last night, 87 to 12, that’s a curb stomping. And I will note, as a Patriots fan, Gronk is 87 and Brady’s 12, right? I mean, yeah. Something there. 49:00 Mike Allen: Watching last night, and the conversations today, it was clear there was a real sense of history, a sense of occasion on the Senate floor last night. Take us there. Tell us what that was like. Senator Amy Klobuchar (MN): Well, we haven’t had a lot of joyous moments in the Senate this year. Big-surprise-news item I gave you. And this was one of those because I think for one thing we’re coming to the end of the year. We were able to get some really important things done: the farm bill; the sex harassment bill that I led with Senator Blunt that had been really difficult to negotiate for the last year; and then of course the budget, which we hope to get done in the next two days; and then we’ve got this. And this was something that has been explained. It was five years in the making. It took people out of their comfort zones. You had people on both sides that never thought they’d be talking about reducing drug sentences. So in that way, it was kind of this Christmas miracle that people came together. But the second piece of it was just that we knew they were these bad amendments that you’ve heard about. Some of them we felt were maybe designed to put us in a bad place, only because politically the bill protected us from a lot of the things that were in the amendments. So what was the best part of the night for me was that it wasn’t Democrats fighting against Tom Cotton and these amendments; it was Chuck Grassley, in his festive-red holiday sweater, who went up there with that Iowa accent that maybe only I can understand, being from Minnesota, and was able to really effectively fight them down. And the second thing was just the final vote—I mean, we don’t get that many votes for a volleyball resolution—and that we had that strong of support for the reform was also really exciting. Senate Session: Senate floor First Step Act Debate and Vote, C-SPAN, December 18, 2018. Podcast: Wrongful Conviction Podcast: Kim Kardashian and Jason Flom join forces to advocate for Criminal Justice Reform and Clemency, September 5, 2018. Netflix Episode: Orange is the New Black, Season 3 Episode 5, Fake it Till You Make It Some More, June 11, 2015. Netflix Episode: Orange is the New Black, Season 3 Episode 6, Ching Chong, Chang, June 11, 2015. Video Clip: Whitney Houston 'Crack is Whack' Clip from 2002 Diane Sawyer Interview on ABC News, YouTube, February 11, 2012. Hearing: Federal Prison Industries, House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, C-SPAN, July 1, 2005. Witnesses: - Phillip Glover - American Federation of Government Employees Prison Locals Council - President - Paul Miller - Independent Office Products & Furniture Dealers Association Sound Clips: 1:32 Former Representative Howard Coble: Prisoners who are physically able to work must labor in some capacity five days a week. FPI is a government corporation that operates the BOP’s correctional program and employs inmates of the federal prison population to manufacture goods for and provides services to federal agencies. About 20% of the inmates work in Federal Prison Industries’, FPI, factories. They generally work in factory operations such as metals, furniture, electronics, textiles, and graphic arts. FPI work assignments pay from $0.23 to $1.15 per hour. 6:19 Representative Bobby Scott (VA): FPI can only sell its products and services to federal agencies. The program was established in the 1930s, in the midst of the Great Depression, as a way to teach prisoners real work habits and skills so that when they are released from prison they’ll be able to find and hold jobs to support themselves and their families and be less likely to commit more crimes. It is clear that the program works to do just that. Followup studies covering as much as 16 years of data have shown that inmates who participate in Prison Industries are 14% more likely to be employed and 24% less likely to commit crimes than like prisoners who do not participate in the program. 1:39:58 Former Representative Pieter Hoekstra, current Ambassador to the Netherlands: Mandatory source was great for Federal Prison Industries during the 1990s and 2001 and 2002. But you know what? I think it was wrong that Federal Prison Industries was the fastest and probably the only growing office-furniture company in America during that time. As the industry was going through significant layoffs, Federal Prison Industries was growing by double digits each and every year. 1:46:40 Philip Glover: If you have someone serving at USP, Leavenworth, for instance, and they’re in for 45 years or 50 years, you can educate them, you can vo-tech them, but to keep them productive and occupied on a daily basis and feel like they have a little bit of worth, this program seems to do that. That’s where, at least as a correctional officer, that’s where I come from on this program is that it gives the inmate a sense of worth, and every day he goes down and does something productive. Resources About Page: Americans for Prosperity American Addiction Centers: Crack Cocaine & Cocaine: What's the Difference? Annual Report: The GEO Group, Inc. 2017 Annual Report Lobbying Report: Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 (Section 5) Media Statement: Statement from CoreCivic President and CEO Damon Hininger on the First Step Act OpenSecrets: Americans for Prosperity OpenSecrets: CoreCivic Inc. Lobbyists OpenSecrets: CoreCivic Inc Profile for 2018 Election Cycle OpenSecrets: GEO Group Lobbyists OpenSecrets: GEO Group Profile for 2018 Election Cycle OpenSecrets: Outside Spending of Political Nonprofits OpenSecrets: Trump 2017 Inauguration Donors Product Page: Pride Enterprises Ranker.com: 50 American Companies That Have Ties to Modern Slavery SPLC: Criminal Justice Reform Visual Resources Community Suggestions See more Community Suggestions HERE. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)

People in power tell us constantly that China is a threat but... Why? In this episode, we explore the big picture reasons why China poses a threat to those in power in the United States and what our Congress is doing to combat that threat. Spoiler alert: There's a another U.S. military build-up involved. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Click here to contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536 Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD116: TPP - The Environment Chapter CD115: TPP - Access to Medicine CD114: Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Investment Chapter CD095: Secret International Regulations (TPA & TPP) CD060: Fast Track for TPP CD053: TPP - The Leaked Chapter CD052: The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Bills/Laws H.R. 5105: BUILD Act of 2018 Became law as a part of H.R. 302: FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 BUILD Act text from FAA law Purposes for which support may be provided The new bank “may designate private, nonprofit organizations as eligible to receive support… to promote development of economic freedom and private sectors” and “to complement the work of the United States Agency for International Development and other donors to improve the overall business enabling environment, financing the creation and expansion of the private business sector.”  Powers of the new development bank The bank “shall have such other powers as may be necessary and incident to carrying out the functions of the Corporation” S. 2736: Asia Reassurance Initiative Act of 2018 Sec. 101: Policy “Promotes American prosperity and economic interests by advancing economic growth and development of a rules-based Indo-Pacific economic community”  Sec 102: Diplomatic Strategy To support the “Association of Southeast Asian Nations”, “Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation”, and the “East Asia Summit” #1: Emphasize our commitment to “freedom of navigation under international law”  #7 : "Develop and grow the economy through private sector partnerships between the United States and Indo-Pacific partners" #8: “To pursue multilateral and bilateral trade agreements … and build a network of partners in the Indo-Pacific committee to free markets”  #9: To work with Indo-Pacific countries to pursue infrastructure projects and “to maintain unimpeded commerce, open sea lines or air ways, and communications”  Sec. 201: Authorization of Appropriations Authorizes $1.5 billion for each fiscal year 2019 through 2023 to be divided among the State Dept., USAID, and the Defense Dept.  Congressional Budget Office: The total authorization is almost $8.6 billion The money is allowed to be used for “foreign military financing and international military education and training programs”  The money is allowed to be used “to help partner countries strengthen their democratic systems”  The money is allowed to be used to “encourage responsible natural resource management in partner countries, which is closely associated with economic growth”  Sec. 205: United States-ASEAN Strategic Partnership Sense of Congress expressing the value of “strategic economic initiatives, such as activities under the United States-ASEAN Trade and Investment Framework Arrangement and the United States-ASEAN Connect, which demonstrate a commitment to ASEAN and the ASEAN Economic Community and build upon economic relationships in the Indo-Pacific region." Sec. 209: Commitment to Taiwan “The President should conduct regular transfers of defense articles to Taiwan”  Sec 213 Freedom of Navigation and Overflight; Promotion of International Law “It is the sense of Congress that the President should develop a diplomatic strategy that includes working with United States allies and partners to conduct joint maritime training and freedom of navigation operations in the Indo-Pacific region, including the East China Sea and the South China Sea, in support of a rules-based international system benefitting all countries.”  Sec. 215: Cybersecurity Cooperation Authorizes $100 million for each year (2019-2023) to “enhance cooperation between the United States and Indo-Pacific nations for the purposes of combatting cybersecurity threats.”  Sec. 301: Findings; Sense of Congress Free trade agreements between the United States and three nations in the Indo-Pacific region have entered into force: Australia, Singapore, and the Republic of Korea  According to the National Security Strategy, the United States will “work with partners to build a network of stated dedicated to free markets and protected from forces that would subvert their sovereignty.”  Sec. 304: Trade Capacity Building and Trade Facilitation (a) “The President is encouraged to produce a robust and comprehensive trade capacity building and trade facilitation strategy, including leveling the playing field for American companies competing in the Indo-Pacific region.”  Authorization of Appropriations:“There are authorized to be appropriated such amounts as many be necessaryto carry out subsection (a)."  Sec. 305: Intellectual Property Protection The President “should” take “all appropriate action to deter and punish commercial cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property” and orders a report on the government’s efforts to do so.  Authorization of Appropriations: “There are authorized to be appropriated to the United States Trade Representative such amounts as may be necessary  to sponsor bilateral and multilateral activities designed to build capacity in the identified priority areas” in the report  Sec. 306: Energy Programs and Initiatives Orders the President to create a strategy, updated every 5 years, to “encourage” Indo-Pacific countries to “implement national power strategies and cooperation with United States energy companies and the Department of Energy national laboratories”  Authorization of Appropriations: $1 million per year from 2019 through 2023 Sense of Congress: “the United States should explore opportunities to partner with the private sector and multilateral institutions, such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, to promote universal access to reliable electricity in the Indo-Pacific region, including Myanmar (Burma)" Sec. 409: Authorization of Appropriations $210 million each year (2019-2023) to “promote democracy” and the money can be given to “universities, civil society, and multilateral institutions that are focusing on education awareness, training, and capacity building.” This money can be spent to “promote democracy” in China.  Sec. 411: Young Leaders People-to-People Initiatives Authorizes $25 million per year (2019-2023) to support the “Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative, the ASEAN Youth Volunteers program, and other people-to-people exchange programs that focus on building the capacity of democracy, human rights, and good governance activities in the Indo-Pacific region.”  Sec. 412: Savings Program “Nothing in this Act may be construed as authorizing the use of military force.”  HR 5515: John S. McCain National Defense Authorization for Fiscal Year 2019 Sec. 1252 Amends the NDAA for 2016, which authorized the South China Sea Initiative providing military equipment and training to Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, to change the name of the program to the “Indo-Pacific Maritime Security Initiative” and expands the authorization to include the Indian Ocean in addition to the South China Sea and the countries of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Adds India to the list of countries allowed to be paid for expenses, along with Brunei, Singapore, and Taiwan. Extends the expiration date from September 30, 2020 to December 31, 2025.  Sec. 1253 Changes the name of the military build-up authorized in NDAA 2018 from the “Indo-Asia-Pacific Stability Initiative” to the “Indo-Pacific Stability Initiative”. Changes the activities authorized to include an increase in “rotational and forward presence” of the US Armed Forces and adds the prepositioning of “munitions” in addition to equipment. Expands the options for funding by removing the requirement that funding come “only” from a section 1001 transfer authority. Requires a 5 year plan be submitted to Congress by the Secretary of Defense by March 1, 2019.  Public Law 115-91: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 Sec 1251  Authorized the “Indo-Asia-Pacific Stability Initiative” to “increase the presence and capabilities” of the United States Armed Forces in the region by building new infrastructure, “enhance the storage and pre-positioning in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region of equipment of the United States Forces”, and with military training and exercises with allies.    Sound Clip Sources Hearing: Democracy Promotion in a Challenging World Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, June 14, 2018. Transcript Watch on YouTube Witnesses: Carl Gershman - National Endowment for Democracy: President Daniel Twining - International Republican Institute: President Kenneth Wollack - National Democratic Institute: President Timestamps & Transcripts  1:43:38 Representative Michael McCaul (TX): I had a briefing yesterday in a classified setting on ZTE and Huawei, and their efforts to conduct espionage in this country. I’ve also seen them in Sri Lanka where they have burdened them with so much debt that they had to turn over a strategic port to the Chinese. We see the Chinese now in Djibouti for the first time, and we see them leveraging the continent of Africa into so much debt that they will be able to eventually take over these countries. They exploit them. They bring in their own workers—they don’t even hire the host countries’ workers—and they export their natural resources in what is this One Belt, One Road policy. 1:45:00 Carl Gershman: In March, The Economist magazine had a cover story on China, and the bottom line of the cover story was—and this is a direct quote—‘‘The West’s 25-year bet on China has failed.’’ The bet was that if China was brought into the World Trade Organization, was encouraged to grow economically, it would become a more liberal society and be part of the liberal world order. 1:46:26 Carl Gershman: It’s a problem with the Belt and Road Initiative, which is not just an economic expansion. This is intimately tied to China’s geopolitical and military strategy precisely to get strategic ports in Sri Lanka or in Maldives because countries fall into the debt trap and pay back by leasing their ports. 1:58:05 Representative Ted Yoho (FL): They’re a form of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and, as we all know, that’s communism. Our form of government empowers the people. Empowered people reach their full potential. China empowers the government where the people are suppressed for the benefit of the government. 2:00:10 Daniel Twining: It’s the surveillance architecture. This Orwellian total surveillance state they’re building with artificial intelligence and facial recognition and all this stuff. It’s very attractive, as you say, not to people but to leaders. 2:07:52 Representative Ted Poe (TX): Globally, what do you personally see is the number-one entity that is a threat to democracy worldwide? Is it China? Is it Russia? Is it North Korea? Is it ISIS? Is it Iran? Pick one. Pick the one you think is the threat. Carl Gershman: China. Rep. Poe: China. Gershman: China. Rep. Poe: Mr. Twining. Daniel Twining: China. Rep. Poe: Mr. Wollack. Kenneth Wollack: Russia. Rep. Poe: Russia. Russia and China. Hearing: The China Challenge, Part 1: Economic Coercion as Statecraft, Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity, July 24, 2018. Witnesses: Dan Blumenthal: Director of Asian Studies and Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute Ely Ratner: Vice President and Director of Studies at the Center for a New American Security Timestamps and Transcripts  33:49 Chairman Senator Cory Gardner (CO): This hearing will be the first hearing in a three-part series of hearings titled The China Challenge and will examine how the United States should respond to the challenge of a rising China that seeks to upend and supplant the U.S.-led liberal world order. 34:12 Chairman Senator Cory Gardner (CO): According to the National Security Strategy, for decades U.S. policy was rooted in the belief that support for China’s rise and for its integration into the post-war international order would liberalize China. Contrary to our hopes, China expanded its power at the expense of the sovereignty of others. According to the National Defense Strategy, the central challenge to U.S. prosperity and security is the reemergence of long-term strategic competition by what the National Security Strategy classifies as revisionist powers. It is increasingly clear that China and Russia want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model: gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions. 35:28 Chairman Senator Cory Gardner (CO): The question before us now is identifying the tools the United States has at its disposal to counter the disturbing developments posed by China’s less-than-peaceful rise. This is why Senator Markey and I and a bipartisan group of co-sponsors in the Senate joined in introducing the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, or ARIA, on April 24. The legislation sets a comprehensive policy framework to demonstrate U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific region and the rules-based international order. ARIA provides a comprehensive set of national security and economic policies to advance U.S. interests and goals in the Indo-Pacific region, including providing substantive U.S. resource commitments for these goals. I’m joined in this legislation on the committee by Senator Kaine, Senator Coons, Senator Cardin, Senator Markey, by Senator Rubio, and Senator Young, as well as Senators Sullivan and Perdue and Graham. 38:12 Chairman Senator Cory Gardner (CO): Our first witness is Senator—is Dan Blumenthal—I almost gave you a demotion there, Dan—who serves as director of Asian studies and resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Blumenthal has both served in and advised the U.S. government on China issues for nearly two decades. From 2001 to 2004 he served as senior director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia at the Department of Defense. Additionally, from 2006, 2012 he served as a commissioner on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, including holding the position of vice chair in 2007. 38:54 Chairman Senator Cory Gardner (CO): Our second witness today is Ely Ratner, who serves as the vice president and director of Studies at the Center for a New American Security. Mr. Ratner served from 2015 to 2017 as the deputy national security advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, and from 2011 to 2012 in the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs at the State Department. He also previously worked in the U.S. Senate as a professional staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and in the office of Senator Joe Biden. 42:01 Dan Blumenthal: I have to state that the era of reform and opening in China is over. It’s been long over. It’s been over, probably for 10 years. And China is back to being run by state-owned enterprises that are related to the party. The private sector is diminishing. That provides the Chinese state with a lot more control over economic coercive policies. 49:27 Ely Ratner: First, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee should hold hearings on the cost and benefits of rejoining the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Rejoining TPP is among the most important things we can do to advance our economic position in Asia and erode the effectiveness of China’s economic coercion. By contrast, U.S. withdrawal has done substantial damage to our standing in the region and is facilitating the development of a Chinese sphere of influence in Asia and beyond. Rejoining TPP would renew confidence in the credibility and commitment of the United States, help to re-route supply chains in the region, open new markets for U.S. companies, and ultimately reduce China’s economic leverage. 56:28 Senator Ed Markey (MA): And through its Belt and Road Initiative, BRI, China is burdening countries receiving infrastructure loans with debts so extreme that they begin to undermine their own very sovereignty. According to a recent New York Times report, this Belt and Road Initiative amounts to a debt trap for vulnerable countries around the world, fueling corruption and autocratic behavior in struggling democracies. 59:30 Senator Cory Gardner (CO): Mr. Blumenthal, you mentioned in your opening statement, you talked about the economic opening in China being over. Could you go into a little bit more detail of what you mean by that? Dan Blumenthal: So, the period of reform and opening, which Deng Xiaoping began in 1978 and allowed for the great growth of China, the great growth of the private sector, private-sector entrepreneurs and brought so many Chinese out of poverty and benefitted the world, ended, probably 10 years ago, the Chinese we now know. The Chinese have gone back to the state sector dominating, taking out room for entrepreneurs to grow. They’ve gone back to things like price controls. They’ve gone back to things like lending on the basis of non-market, non-profitable lending but rather through patronage from the party to state-owned enterprises. They certainly haven’t moved any further than they were 10, 12 years ago on market access, things that we’ve been pressing for. They haven’t stopped subsidizing. In fact, they’ve doubled down on subsidizing their state-owned enterprises, which is probably the single biggest cause of probably the WTO stalling as much as it has. And Xi Jinping is certainly not taking China down the road of another round of market reforms—quite the contrary. He’s a statist and favoring state-owned enterprises and the subsidization of state-owned enterprises over the private sector. 1:11:42 Ely Ratner: China is going to use its economic clout to try to achieve its geopolitical aims, which include dividing American alliances and eroding the influence of the United States in the region. So I think that was a very important episode. It was very revealing. I think we can talk about trying to incorporate China into a rules-based order. I don’t think that’s where we’re going to be in the next several years. I think what we have to do is pull up our socks, get more competitive, slow down Chinese momentum in its efforts to develop this sphere of influence. That’s a much more urgent task than a long-term goal of developing a rules-based order. 1:13:44 Senator Todd Young (IN): Mr. Ratner, thanks for your testimony. As I reviewed your written statement, you seem to be making a pretty simple argument with very serious implications. In short, you seem to be saying we’re in a high-stakes competition with China, that China does not accept this rules-based international order we had hoped to welcome them into back in 2000. The legitimacy of that order and the institutions that were stood up to oversee that order are not respected by China. China, instead, respects power. And we as a nation have insufficient leverage, it seems, to be able to affect the sort of change we want with respect to intellectual-property theft, joint-licensing requirements, dumping, and so many other things. What we lack—and this is language you employed—is a comprehensive strategy. Is that a fair summary of your viewpoint, Mr. Ratner? Ely Ratner: Yes, sir. 1:21:05 Ely Ratner: When it looked like the United States was going to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership and that agreement was going to pass, the Chinese were starting to ask questions quietly at senior levels, with American officials about what they would need to do down the road to improve their practices to join that agreement, and obviously, those conversations are no longer happening today. 1:22:30 Senator Jeff Merkley (OR): Mr. Ratner, under WTO, is China allowed to offer subsidies to its businesses? Ely Ratner: Senator, I’m not a trade lawyer, so I can’t get into the weeds of WTO law, but I think the answer is no, and there’re several other dimensions in which they’re not in compliance with the agreement. Sen. Merkley: Under the WTO, China is required to do an annual report of all of its subsidies to different enterprises. Does it do that report? Ratner: I believe not, Senator. Sen. Merkley: So, when it fails to do the report, we are, under the WTO, allowed to do a report on their subsidies. I did an amendment a few years ago that said if China doesn’t produce a report, our trade representative will be directed to produce our report. And before that amendment, the ink could dry on it, our trade rep under President Obama produced a list of 200 Chinese subsidies, subsidies we’re well aware of but rarely kind of articulated. So that’s—so we certainly have an understanding of massive Chinese subsidies that are not allowed under WTO. How about to offer loans at non-market rates? Ratner: I believe not, sir. Sen. Merkley: Or to provide land for free as a form of subsidy? Ratner: I think that’s right, as well as forced technology transfer and a number of other practices. Sen. Merkley: And how about being required—for our companies to be required to locate in a particular part of China where the infrastructure is inferior to other locations? Ratner: Correct. Sen. Merkley: A couple years ago, when I was a part of a delegation to China, we were at a meeting of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in which many of these practices were highlighted, but one company in particular stood up and said, and I won’t name the exact company because they probably didn’t want it too much publicized at the time, but they said they were basically told, we have to put our manufacturing center in this far-western city, far from the port infrastructure; we are told we cannot build any size of item that is in direct competition with the Chinese items; they were told they only could build larger versions that the Chinese weren’t yet building, or they would be shut down and shut out of the country. Is that type of activity by the Chinese legal under the WTO? Ratner: No, sir. Sen. Merkley: And what about requiring American companies to do joint-venture arrangements in order to be able to locate in China? Ratner: Also, not part of the agreement. Sen. Merkley: So, and you’re familiar with how these joint-venture agreements are often used as a way to drain U.S. technology? Ratner: Yes, sir. Sen. Merkley: So, what does one say to the American citizen who says, “China is violating all of these rules, and the WTO has no mechanism by which we appear to be able to hold them accountable. Why shouldn’t we work intensely to create an ability to hold China accountable to the structure of the WTO?” Ratner: I think that was the intention of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. 1:45:22 Senator Cory Gardner (CO): In recent writings in the Wall Street Journal, quotes from President Xi, China has its own ideas about how the world should be run, and as he put it, “to lead in the reform of global governance.” Another quote, or another statement, “in at least eight African countries, as well as some in Southeast Asia, Chinese officials are training their counterparts in how to manage political stability through propaganda and how to control media and the Internet,” and that the China model provides “a new option for other countries who want to speed up their development while preserving their independence.” And finally this: China has committed to train 10,000 political elites in Latin America by 2020. All of this speaks to the need for what you have described, Mr. Ratner, what you have described, Mr. Blumenthal, is U.S. leadership and U.S. response, whether it’s the BUILD Act, whether it’s legislation that Senator Young has described, the legislation that we have co-sponsored together—the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act. This is a time for U.S. leadership, and it’s a time to stand boldly for our values that have empowered the world to be a better place, that has lifted up hundreds of millions of people around the globe up and out of poverty through a system of rules and standards that don’t favor one country over another but that give people a chance to participate in global governance and that global rise. Hearing: The China Challenge, Part 2: Security and Military Developments, Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity, Septemer 5, 2018. Witnesses: Dr. Oriana Skylar Mastro: American Enterprise Institute Abraham Denmark: Director of the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Timestamps and Transcripts  27:50 Chairman Cory Gardner (CO): Our first witness is Dr. Oriana Skylar Mastro, who is the Jeane Kirkpatrick visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute where she focuses on Chinese military and security policy in the Asia Pacific. She is also assistant professor of Security Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and serves in the United States Air Force Reserve as a political-military affairs strategist at Pacific air forces. Previously, Dr. Mastro was a fellow in the Asia-Pacific security program at the Center for a New American Security. 28:25 Chairman Cory Gardner (CO): Also joined on the panel by Abraham Denmark, who is director of the Asia program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Prior to joining the Wilson Center, Mr. Denmark served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, where he supported the secretary of defense and other U.S. senior government leaders in the formulation and implementation of national security strategies and defense policies toward the region. Mr. Denmark also previously worked as senior vice president for political and security affairs at the National Bureau of Asian Research, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, and held several positions in the U.S. intelligence community. 42:40 Oriana Skylar Mastro: What China is doing is they’re exploiting gaps in the order. So, we talk about the U.S.-led international order and whether China is challenging it or not. But in reality, there’s many areas of the order that lacks certainty, or ambiguous, don’t have consensus. So I would label cybersecurity as one of these areas. And so what China does is it’s trying to build consensus or work on the periphery of the order. So, for example, when they did One Belt, One Road, and they initially moved to the central Asia, they weren’t challenging the United States, because the United States was not there. And so I would say that in addition to strengthening our relationship with traditional partners and allies, the United States needs to think more broadly about its relationships with countries around the globe. Also, in terms of the security initiative, I would recommend that we think more about demand not supply, in kind of business terms. You often, at least in my experience, you think about what the United States has to offer in terms of security assistance, and then we try to put together packages, whether it’s visits, port visits, or a rotation of a squadron or what have you, instead of looking at what those countries actually demand. And so we should move away from this model of increasing advertising and hoping that countries around the world will decide they want what we have to offer, and instead try to look at what they actually want and start supplying that. 1:05:45 Senator Ed Markey (MA): Should the United States abandon the rules-based international system, and what would the concessions be that we would try to extract in order to take such a step? Dr. Mastro. Oriana Skylar Mastro: So, sir, I don’t think we should abandon it. Instead, what I’m arguing for is an expansion of that system. I think that actually the international, is very limited. If you look at the definition, the party to that order, the amount of countries that actually might be involved in certain treaties, it’s not every country possible. For example, India has very different views on things like cybersecurity than the United States does. And so I think if we could manage to build consensus in these areas of uncertainty, we could actually shape China’s choices. And to that end, that gives the United States a lot of political power because the bottom line is one of the main differences between today and maybe 10 years ago is for the United States, the security benefits that we give to our partners, allies, in the region are no longer enough to outweigh the economic benefits that they get from interacting with China. And so we need a security-benefits-plus type of strategy in which we think also about the economic benefits, which is difficult under the current administration, given the trade policy, but also those political benefits by building new international institutions and building new norms and consensus around areas where that consensus has failed to date. 1:07:08 Chairman Cory Gardner (CO): Going back to the question I started to talk about, just the investments that China has made in South America, the investments China is making in Central America. If you look at investments in Panama, El Salvador, and at least apparently in El Salvador, as perhaps part of an agreement as it relates to the decision El Salvador made on Taiwan. Look at the sale of submarines to countries—Thailand—do we see that as continued opportunity for China’s military expansion? Will we see military basing affecting U.S. operations in Thailand? Will we see, perhaps, an opportunity for military entrance into Central America, into South America, China, basing, even, perhaps? Mr. Denmark. Abraham Denmark: Well, I think there’s a lot that remains to be seen. I don’t think there’s a definitive yes or no answer to that question, but I do expect that Djibouti be the first overseas base that China has established. I fully expect that that will not be the last. Where additional facilities may pop up remains to be seen. I personally would expect more facilities to be established along the trade routes from the Western Pacific, through the Indian Ocean, into the Middle East. I would expect to see more there than before I’d expect to see them in Latin America, primarily because of China’s economic interests, but it remains to be seen. 1:20:00 Senator Ed Markey (MA): In September of 2013, China began a concerted effort to build artificial islands in the South China Sea by crushing coral reefs into sand. It built land features where none previously existed. On top of that, China expanded small outposts into military bases capable of conducting operations. Admiral Philip Davidson, the commander of the United States Indo-Pacific Command, stated this year that China’s militarization of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea means “China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios, short of a war with the United States.” Ms. Mastro, what considerations or challenges do these bases pose for other claimants and the United States in peacetime, in the gray zone, or in conflict? In other words, what are the implications of China’s military bases in the South China Sea? Oriana Skylar Mastro: So, militarily, sir, they expand the range of Chinese capabilities. And so I think I made the point previously that it’s difficult for us to conceive of fighting a war with China using our bases in Korea and Japan, and that’s primarily because of the range of conventional precision-guided munitions that China has that can reach those bases and render them inoperable. In the South China Sea, which is about the size of the United States, China’s power-projection capabilities historically have been quite limited. And in the report, for example, one thing that was highlighted was the H-6K, when it has ______(01:37), now China can extend its range to 3,300 kilometers. But if you actually have bases there, coupled with carriers, then China’s able to sustain combat sorties, for example, for longer periods of time and at farther ranges than it was before. And this is what allows it to be able to control, as the quote suggested, large areas of the South China Sea, the air, and the sea. I would just mention on the gray-zone side, that China can engage in gray-zone activities only because the United States allows it to. There’s nothing that, as far as I understand it, there’s nothing that tells us that, for example, if China says, “Well, this is a Coast Guard,” that we can’t respond with the use of the U.S. Navy. We are too concerned about escalation, and China knows this. They don’t believe in miscalculation and in inadvertent escalation, and so they use this to their advantage. And we should start being very clear about what our redlines are and, obviously, being then able to follow through with that. 1:42:30 Senator Ed Markey (MA): I just have one final area of questioning, if I may, and that just goes back to the Belt and Road Initiative which has resulted in a very generous policy by China of loaning money to countries, which they then can’t pay back, which then results in China being able to extract huge long-term concessions from those countries. Sri Lanka, just a perfect example where they’ve now had to give up a 99-year lease to the Chinese company, which is partially owned by the Chinese government, 15,000 acres of land. And now it appears there are more countries that are deciding to reconsider how far in debt they want their countries or companies to be to a Chinese entity. But at the same time, President Xi, just in the last few days has announced a new $60 billion program—grants, loans—around the world, on top of the $60 billion program that they’ve had in the past that now has these consequences. So, what are the implications for the United States, for global security, of these Chinese strategies in country after country to gain access, or control over, ports in countries? And what would you recommend to the United States that we do to try to make sure that we minimize the ability of this Belt and Road program to build economic and security relationships with companies in a way almost giving them offers they can’t refuse so they become deeper indebted and more entangled into Chinese foreign policy objectives? 1:48:09 Abraham Denmark: The initiative announced several weeks ago by Secretary of State Pompeo in this vein to enhance U.S. engagement, economic engagement, in these areas I thought was a good indication of seeing the problem and trying to address it, not trying to copy the Chinese system, but playing to American strengths of the free market and American corporations. Hearing: The China Challenge, Part 3: Democracy, Human Rights, and the Rule of Law, Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity, December 4, 2018. Watch on C-SPAN Witnesses: Laura Stone: Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the US Department of State Scott Busby: Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Rights and Labor at the US Department of State Gloria Steele: Acting Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Asia at USAID Timestamps and Transcripts  01:23:05 Senator Ed Markey (MA): Around the world, all countries, including the United States, rely on the rules-based international order to underpin security and prosperity to help provide a level playing field, to provide the maximum opportunity for the greatest number of people, and to defend and protect certain fundamental rights. So it is of the utmost importance that we do everything in our power to ensure that this system remains. 01:30:00 Senator Cory Gardner (CO): Our first witness is Scott Busby, who serves as deputy assistant secretary of state at the Bureau of the Human Right, Democracy, and Labor. Previously, he served as director for human rights on the National Security Council in the White House from 2009 to 2011, where he managed a wide range of human rights and refugee issues. 01:36:20 Scott Busby: My bureau, DRL, is implementing $10 million of FY 2018 economic support funds to support human rights in China, just as we have done for the past several years. Nevertheless, such programs are increasingly challenged by the difficult operating environment in China, including the new and highly restrictive foreign NGO management law. 1:59:58 Senator Marco Rubio (FL): And then you see sort of what the global reaction has been to it, and there’s reason to be concerned that this post-World War II, pro-democracy, pro-human rights, global norms are being eroded and reshaped and that China is using its geopolitical heft and its economic power to push it in that direction. Meeting: Press availability at the 51st ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting and related meetings, August 4, 2018. Speaker: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Timestamps and Transcripts  1:15 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo: "Throughout my ASEAN-centered engagements these past days I’ve conveyed President Trump’s commitment to this vital part of the world that continues to grow in importance. Security has been a major focus of our conversations. As part of our commitment to advancing regional security in the Indo-Pacific, the United States is excited to announce nearly $300 million in new funding to reinforce security cooperation throughout the entire region.” 4:50 - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo: "As I said earlier this week, the United States practices partnership economics; we seek partnership, not dominance. Earlier this week at the Indo-Pacific Business Forum hosted by the United States Chamber of Commerce, I outlined the Trump administration’s economic strategy for advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific, and I talked about why U.S. businesses’ engagement in the region is crucial to our mission of promoting peace, stability, and prosperity. There is no better force for prosperity in the world than American businesses. When nations partner with American firms, they can have confidence they are working with the most scrupulous, well-run, and transparent companies in the world. As a down payment on a new era in American economic commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, I announced at the forum $113 million in new U.S. Government resources to support foundational areas of the future: the digital economy, energy, and infrastructure. In addition, the Trump administration is working with Congress to encourage the passage of the BUILD Act. It recently passed the U.S. House of Representatives and now before the United States Senate. Under this bill, the government’s development finance capacity would more than double to $60 billion to support U.S. private investment in strategic opportunities abroad." Meeting: Beyond NAFTA and GATT, National Association Southern Center, April 20, 1994. Speaker: Arthur Dunkel - Director of the UN Wrote the “Dunkel Draft” in 1991, a 500 page general outline of what became the WTO 3 years later - it’s basically the WTO’s Constitution “Retired” from GATT in 1993, became a “trade consultant”, and served on the board of Nestle Is a registered WTO dispute panelist Transcript  Arthur Dunkel: If I look back at the last 25 years, what did we have? We had two worlds: The so-called Market Economy world and the sadly planned world; the sadly planned world disappeared. One of the main challenges of the Uruguay round has been to create a world wide system. I think we have to think of that. Secondly, why a world wide system? Because, basically, I consider that if governments cooperate in trade policy field, you reduce the risks of tension - political tension and even worse than that." Additional Reading Article: Disney sets out international leadership team post-Fox deal by Stewart Clarke, Variety, December 13, 2018. Article: IMF delays Sri Lanka's loan discussion on political crisis, Reuters, November 20, 2018. Annual Report: U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, USCC.gov, November 14, 2018. Article: Sri Lanka's political shake-up is a win for China by Bharath Gopalaswamy, Foreign Policy, October 29, 2018. Article: Sri Lanka to secure sixth tranche of $250 million IMF's EFF, Press Reader, Sunday Times (Sri Lanka) October 14, 2018. Article: The BUILD Act has passed: What's next? CSIS, October 12, 2018. Article: Power play: Addressing China's belt and road strategy by Daniel Kliman and Abigail Grace, CNAS, September 20, 2018. Article: Taiwan's monthly minimum wage to increase by 5% in 2019 by Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, September 6, 2018. Fact Sheet: U.S. security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, U.S. Department of State, August 4, 2018. Article: Treasury weakens donor disclosure requirements for some nonprofits by Michael Wyland, Nonprofit Quarterly, July 18, 2018. Article: China is doing the same things to Sri Lanka that Great Britain did to China after the opium wars by Panos Mourdoukoutas, Forbes, June 28, 2018. Article: Chinese firm pays $584 million to secure 99-year lease of Sri Lanka port by Reuters, GCaptain, June 26, 2018. Article: How China go Sri Lanka to cough up a port by Maria Abi-Habib, The New York Times, June 25, 2018. Article: China's use of cercive economic measures by Peter Harrell, Elizabeth Rosenberg, and Edoardo Saravalle, CNAS, June 11, 2018. Article: China's military escalation by The Editorial Board, WSJ, June 4, 2018. Article: China owns US debt, but how much? by Investopedia, April 6, 2018. Article: China's military facilities in South China Sea 'almost ready' by Raul Dancel, The Straits Times, February 6, 2018. Report: China's economic rise: History, trends, challenges, and implications for the United States by Wayne M. Morrison, Congressional Research Service, February 5, 2018. Article: U.S. leadership needed in the Asia-Pacific by James W. Fatheree, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, November 17, 2017. Article: China's new island-building ship raises the stakes in South China Sea by Dan Southerland, Radio Free Asia, November 10, 2017. Report: Taiwan: Issues for Congress, Congressional Research Service, October 30, 2017. Article: Inside the fight for OPIC reauthorization by Adva Saldinger, devex, February 21, 2017. News Release: Charles A Kupchan and Ely Ratner join CFR as Senior Fellows, Council on Foreign Relations, February 15, 2017. News Report: PG&E receives maximum sentence for 2010 San Bruno explosion by Kate Larsen, ABC 7 News, January 26, 2017. Article: Lockheed Martin scores $395M DHS security operations center contract by Billy Mitchell, Fed Scoop, September 9, 2016. Article: Terror in Little Saigon by A.C. Thompson, ProPublica, November 3, 2015. Article: Taiwan multinationals serving a broader role by Molly Reiner, Taiwan Business TOPICS, October 28, 2015. Article: China's island factory by Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, BBC News, September 9, 2014. Article: Why was the Dalai Lama hanging out with the right-wing American Enterprise Institute? by David Rose, Vanity Fair, February 26, 2014. Article: The secret foreign donor behind the American Enterprise Institute by Eli Clifton, The Nation, June 25, 2013. Article: Inside the secretive dark-money organization that's keeping the lights on for conservative groups by Walt Hickey, Business Insider, February 12, 2013. Article: How Beijing won Sri Lanka's civil war, Independent, May 23, 2010. Article: The one-year review: Obama's Asia policies by Daniel Blumenthal, Foreign Policy, November 3, 2009. Article: Former high-ranking Bush officials enjoy war profits by Tim Shorrock, Salon, May 29, 2008. Report: ChoicePoint sold to LexisNexis parent, Atlanta Business Chronicle, February 21, 2008. Article: Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study by Ian Sample, The Guardian, February 2, 2007. Article: The man who said to much by Michael Isikoff, Newsweek, September 3, 2006. Article: Put a tiger in your think tank, Mother Jones, May/June 2005 Article: What I didn't find in Africa by Joseph C. Wilson, The New York Times, July 6, 2003. Article: Armitage is ready to step into ring by Steven Mufson, The Washington Post, February 14, 2001. Article: Advocacy and lobbying without fear: what is allowed within a 501(c)(3) charitable organization by Thomas Raffa, Nonprofit Quarterly, September 21, 2000. Resources About Page: The CNA Coporation About Page: Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP About Page: The National Bureau of Asian Research About Page: Oriana Skylar Mastro AEI Scholar List: Dan Blumenthal AEI Scholar List: Oriana Skylar Mastro Alexander Hamilton Society: Our Principles American Enterprise Institute: Annual Report 2017 American Enterprise Institute: Board of Trustees American Enterprise Institute: Jeane Kirkpatrick Fellowship and Scholars Program American Enterprise Institute: Leadership American Enterprise Institute: Scholars Armitage International: Our Team Biography: Scott Busby, Deputy Asst. Secretary, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Cambridge University Press: Think Tanks, Public Policy, and the Politics of Expertise Center for New American Security: About CNAS Center for New American Security: Victoria Nuland, CEO CRS Report: U.S. Security Assistance and Security Cooperation Programs Center for Strategic & International Studies: Richard L. Armitage, Trustee Interactive Map: China Belt and Road Initiative IRS: Exemption Requirements - 501 (c)(3) Organizations LinkedIn Account: Oriana Skylar Mastro LinkedIn Account: Scott Busby LinkedIn Account: U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Lockheed Martin: Board Members - Daniel F. Akerson OpenSecrets: American Enterprise Institute Park Hotels & Resorts: Board of Directors ManTech: Mission, Vision, and Values Report to Congress: U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, November 2018 Right Web: American Enterprise Institute Search Results: Paul | Weiss Professionals Security Cooperation Programs: Fiscal Year 2017 Handbook Special Emergency Authorities Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative SourceWatch: American Enterprise Institute Ties to the Koch Brothers SourceWatch Infographic: Donors Trust Infographic Tesla Investors: James Murdoch Biography Website: American Enterprise Institute Website: Chartwell Strategy Group Website: CNAS Website: U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Website: Wilson Center Whitehouse Publication: National Security Strategy of the United States of America, December 2017 Wilson Center: Abraham Denmark Wilson Center: Corporate Council World Trade Organization: Overview and Future Direction, updated Nov 29, 2018 Community Suggestions See more Community Suggestions HERE. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)

These days, when people ask me the #1 book I recommend for all things gut, it is, hands down "" by Dr. Michael Ruscio. This book takes a deep dive into topics such as: How the gut works and its role in your body, Practical diet and lifestyle advice to support your gut health, Simple and actionable tools to repair your gut, and An innovative, user-friendly plan to heal, support, and revitalize your gut. This is Dr. Ruscio's third appearance on the podcast. The first one, titled  talked about why apparently healthy people, especially athletes and exercise enthusiasts, get broken guts, and what they can do about it. Then, the second podcast, titled , was an in-depth discussion on carbs and their effect on your body. What will his third appearance on the podcast reveal??? Quite a bit, as you will hear. About the guest: Michael Ruscio is a doctor, clinical researcher and best-selling author whose practical ideas on healing chronic illness have made him an influential voice in functional and alternative medicine. His work has been published in peer-reviewed medical journals and he speaks at integrative medical conferences across the globe. Dr. Ruscio also runs an influential website and podcast at DrRuscio.com, as well as his clinical practice located in northern California. During my discussion with Dr. Ruscio, you'll discover: -What small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) is...6:40 Dr. Ruscio's interest in this goes back 5 years. Focused on improving the health of bacteria. Observations don't always translate into practical action inside a clinic. You differentiate the discrepancies when you separate the large and small intestine. What's going on in the large intestine isn't indicative of the small. A lot of "gut advice" is large intestine-centric. Small intestine comprises 56% of gut activity. Most prone to leaky gut Most immuno active Where 90% of calories are absorbed Bacterial overgrowth is either an overgrowth of or the wrong type of bacteria in the small intestine Not a parasite Native to your system; either in the wrong place or too much of it. -How SIBO affects the thyroid...12:33 Many people who think they have a thyroid condition actually do not. 60% of people who were rechecked were found not to be hypothyroid. Symptoms of hypothyroidism can be mistaken for other problems in the GI tract. Study done on people with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) Higher incidence of fatigue, depression and anxiety found They were not hypothyroid Another study looking at 1800 patients Looking for drug use, medication use, prior intestinal surgery; expected these to increase risk of SIBO Two most correlated conditions: being hypothyroid and being on thyroid medication. 290 were taken off medication and retested; 60% were not hypothyroid Neither antibodies, nor weight, nor time on medication dictated whether were hypo or normal thyroid. Speak with your doctor to confirm whether you're hypothyroid or not. Be wary if you were diagnosed by someone outside of conventional medicine. -The testing and protocol for SIBO Dr. Ruscio recommends...22:15 For testing thyroid: test TSH and Free T4 If within normal range, you likely don't have a thyroid problem. For SIBO, two practical options; breath tests. One uses glucose, the other uses lactulose -About the elemental diet. What it is and how it works...27:30 Hypoallergenic, gut-healing meal replacement shake. Absorbs in the first part of small intestine Rests the remainder of the small and large intestine Starves overgrowth Not as difficult as it may sound. -The African vs. the Westerner microbiota, and whether or not it's a good idea to try to mimic our ancestors...32:20 Challenge lies in excising just one element out of an entire culture, and inserting it into a totally different population. Many African tribes have parasites in their bodies. Hard to replicate their diet because their bodies have adapted to their specific environment. -What happened when the Sardinians tried to eliminate malaria...39:07 Back in 1950's, Sardinia had a high rate of malaria; cases of MS skyrocketed. Sardinian immune system learned to function with malaria. Once taken away, the immune system didn't know what to do. Created unforeseen adverse consequences. The malaria may have actually strengthened their immune systems. Article: -Why we should have more naturally occurring plant life around our home...43:05 -Dr. Ruscio's comments on probiotics...44:55 Most probiotics do not colonize you. Can help reset the microbiota to a healthy equilibrium. Works in tandem with a healthy lifestyle. Think of it as a "nudge" to complement your lifestyle to reset to a healthy equilibrium Should kids use probiotics? The earlier an antibiotic is used, the more detrimental; the earlier a probiotic is used, the more beneficial it is. Can probiotics "seed" the gut? A lot of outlandish claims to market the product. The more a product is marketed, the more claims are made about it. May be unsubstantiated. Ecoli used as a probiotic? -Why we would be "surprised" about dietary fiber...56:30 The amount of data Dr. Ruscio had to sort through almost made him quit writing his book. There have been no consistent benefits shown from high dietary fiber intake. Fiber enthusiasts cherry pick the data from which they make their claims to its efficacy. Carnivore diet: Results are varied on patients Dr. Ruscio has treated who have used it. Focus more on simplifying your diet. A "lazy" diet. -Whether or not melatonin can help with leaky gut...1:03:37 Focus on sleep quality. Use melatonin carefully, to supplement healthy lifestyle. Resources from this episode: -Dr. Ruscio's new book "Healthy Gut, Healthy You" -Thorne Mediclear SGS -DirectLabs for SIBO testing (2-Hr Glucose/Lactulose) Episode Sponsors: - Check out our incredible Black Friday deals! The specials continue through Tuesday, 27 Nov. - The bedroom biohack for men and women who want to upgrade their sexual performance. Purchase 6 treatments, and get one for free! - Board shorts handmade in the USA since 1961. Get 10% off and free shipping on any order over $99 when you use discount code "ben." - Green Juice. Get your favorite superfoods in one drink. NO shopping, No juicing, No Blending, No CLEAN UP! Use discount code "greenfield" and get 20% off your order. - is giving 20% of every order to victims of the recent California wildfires when you use discount code "ben10%." Do you have questions, thoughts or feedback for Dr. Ruscio or me? Leave your comments at http://bengreenfieldfitness.com/healthygut and one of us will reply!  

The State Department is known as the agency that solves conflicts with words but a closer look reveals that it’s much more connected to war than most of us think. By examining the State Department’s funding for 2018, discover the State Department’s role in regime changes past, current, and future. In this episode, you’ll also get an introduction to the National Endowment for Democracy, a scandalous organization with a noble sounding name. Mike Glaser joins Jen for the Thank You’s. View the updated Omnibus Please Support Congressional Dish - Quick Links Click here to contribute a lump sum or set up a monthly contribution via PayPal Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Use your bank’s online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North Number 4576 Crestview, FL 32536 Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Additional Reading Article: It's time for a coup in Venezuela by Jose R. Cardenas, Foreign Policy, June 5, 2018. Opinion: Venezuela needs a new government after rigged election keep socialist criminal Maduro in power by Roger F. Noriega, Fox News, May 23, 2018. Opinion: Venezuela's sham election by The Editorial Board, The New York Times, May 21, 2018. Report: Trump bans purchase of Venezuelan debt in new sanctions by John Paul Rathbone, Financial Times, May 21, 2018. Article and Video: Pompeo vows U.S., Mideast allies will 'crush' Iranian operatives around the world by Carol Morello, The Washington Post, May 21, 2018. Article: Venezuaela's Maduro re-elected amid outcry over vote by Luc Cohen and Andreina Aponte, Reuters, May 20, 2018. Opinion: It's time to hasten Maduro's exit from power by Marco Rubio, CNN, May 16, 2018. Letter: 34 organizations oppose rescission of Complex Crises Fund, FCNL, May 14, 2018. Report: Egypt population surge must be met with job growth, IMF says by Ahmed Feteha, Bloomberg, May 6, 2018. Opinion: A new hope for NGOs in Egypt by Andrew Miller, The Hill, April 23, 2018. Article: John Bolton is cleaning at the National Security Council by Eliza Relman, Business Insider, April 12, 2018. Opinion: The observer view: The west's ill-founded support for Sisi and his brutal regime, The Guardian, April 2, 2018. Article: John ("Bomb Iran") Bolton, the new warmonger in the White House by Robin Wright, The New Yorker, March 23, 2018. Report: State Dept. announces $1B in weapons sales to Saudi Arabia by Ellen Mitchell, The Hill, March 22, 2018. Report: Here's how many Americans don't have access to a 401(k) plan by Emmie Martin, CNBC, March 12, 2018. Report: Egypt's IMF program: Assessing the political economy challenges by Bessma Momani, Brookings, January 30, 2018. Article: Egypt: Time to entrench growth and make it more inclusive, IMF, January 23, 2018. Report: Arab Republic of Egypt : 2017 Article IV Consultation, Second Review Under the Extended Arrangement Under the Extended Fund Facility, and Request for Modification of Performance Criteria-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for the Arab Republic of Egypt, International Monetary Fund, January 22, 2018. Article: Beyond the Iran nuclear deal by John Bolton, WSJ, January 15, 2018. Article: Allison's goal: Keep Summit Point humming by Tim Cook, The Journal, December 11, 2017. Interview: An interview with Carl Gershman '65, President of the National Endowment for Democracy by Adrianne Owings, The Politic, November 20, 2017. Working Paper: Household wealth trends in the United States, 1962 to 2016: Has middle class wealth recovered? by Edward N. Wolff, The National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2017. Article: Millions of Americans are left out of the stock market boom by Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN Money, October 20, 2017. Article: Egypt's Sisi meets Kushner after U.S. holds back aid by Ahmed Aboulenein, Reuters, August 23, 2017. Article/Video: Trump alarms Venezuela with talk of a 'military option' by The New York Times, August 12, 2017. Article: Why is Egypt's new NGO law controversial? by Farah Najjar, Aljazeera, May 31, 2017. Video: Construction progress on the new Foreign Affairs Security Training Center (FASTC), U.S. Department of State, April 1, 2017. Article: An actual American war criminal may become our second-ranking diplomat by Eric Alterman, The Nation, February 2, 2017. Report: National Endowment for Democracy is first 'undesirable' NGO banned in Russia by Alec Luhn, The Guardian, July 28, 2015. Article: Did State Dept. mislead Congress about findings in an OMB report? This lawmaker says so. by Colby Itkowitz, The Washington Post, May 12, 2015. Report: Two years after Benghazi, State battles lawmakers over training site for agents by Ben Kamisar, The Hill, April 12, 2015. Article: To stop Iran's bomb, bomb Iran by John R. Bolton, The New York Times, March 26, 2015. Article: Price to avoid another Benghazi? House leaders question $461 million training center by Josh Siegel, The Daily Signal, June 25, 2014. Report: CIA admits role in 1953 Iranian coup by Saeed Kamali and Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian, August 19, 2013. Article: Egyptian military ousts Morsi, suspends constitution by Abigail Hauslohner, William Booth, and Sharaf al-Hourani, The Washington Post, July 3, 2013. Report: McCain's rules on lobbying face test by Matthew Mosk and Jeffrey H. Bimbaum, The Washington Post, May 23, 2008. Article: Bush aims to raise whose budget? by Brendan Koerner, Slate, January 22, 2004. Article: The networks of "democratic" interference by Thierry Meyssan, Voltairenet, January 22, 2004. Article: Venezuala coup linked to Bush team by Ed Vulliamy, The Guardian, April 21, 2002. Article: Venezuela gets big I.M.F credit, backing market reforms by Paul Lewis, The New York Times, July 13, 1996. Resources Archive.org: National Endowment for Democracy: Form 990 (2002-2015) Campaign Contributions: Maurice Tempelsman Political Campaign Contributions 2016 Election Cycle Congressional Research Service: State, Foreign Operations Appropriations: A Guide to Component Accounts Energy Report: BP Statistical Review of World Energy June 2017 Friends Committee on National Legislation: The Complex Crisis Fund International Republican Institute: Board of Directors International Republican Institute: FAQs LinkedIn Profile: Alison Fortier LinkedIn Profile: Judy Black National Democratic Institute: Board of Directors National Democratic Institute: FAQs National Endowment for Democracy: History National Endowment for Democracy: William Blum Paladin Capital Group Info: Michael Steed Publication: Journal of Democracy USAid: Office of Program, Policy, and Management U.S. Department of State: Foreign Affairs Security Training Center (FASTC) U.S. Government Accountability Office: Retirement Security Reports Website: National Endowment for Democracy Sound Clip Sources Testimony: State Department Fiscal Year 2019 Budget Request, Foreign Affairs Committee, C-SPAN, May 23, 2018. 5:32 Chairman Ed Royce (CA): The National Endowment for Democracy in particular should be strongly supported. Let’s face it: democracy is on the ropes worldwide; supporting it is a moral and strategic good. NED is backing critical programming in Venezuela and Nigeria and worldwide. It is no time to cut this programming. 6:00 Chairman Ed Royce (CA): The administration has rightly provided lethal arms to Ukraine, which remains under siege by Russian proxies. 6:16 Chairman Ed Royce (CA): A far more severe threat is Moscow’s information war. This committee has heard that Moscow’s goal isn’t so much to make Western citizens think this or think that; Russia’s goal is to destroy all confidence in objective thought. By undermining fact-based discussions with lies, our enemies hope to gravely damage Western democracies. The State Department must aggressively counter disinformation through its global engagement center, other means, and with department officials speaking out for the truth. 18:05 Mike Pompeo: On Monday I unveiled a new direction for the president’s Iran strategy. We will apply unprecedented financial pressure; coordinate with our DOD colleagues on deterrents efforts; support the Iranian people, perhaps most importantly; and hold out the prospect for a new deal with Iran. It simply needs to change its behavior. 19:40 Mike Pompeo: This budget request seeks $2.2 billion to help stimulate American economic growth by expanding markets for U.S. investment and ensuring the partner countries can fully participate in the global economy. 19:55 Mike Pompeo: America’s message, a noble one, must be shared with the world at all times. Gentleman Royce, you mentioned the global engagement center. We will work with the 55-plus-million dollars available to cover both its original mission, counter extremism, plus countering state-sponsored disinformation campaigns. We will not tolerate Russian interference in our 2018 elections. Much work has been done; there’s more to do. Rest assured that we will take the appropriate countermeasures in response to the continued Russian efforts. 35:05 Mike Pompeo: First, with respect to Venezuela, we did this morning receive a formal notification that our charged affairs had been PNG’d. We will respond appropriately, certainly reciprocally, but perhaps more than that. Perhaps proportionately. We understand that there’s a second U.S. officer who will also be PNG’d. We’re well aware. We’re watching the Maduro regime continue to engage in destructive behavior for the Venezuelan people. 1:44:35 Paul Rep. Cook (CA): Foreign military sales. A number of the countries are concerned. Peru is— Mike Pompeo: Mm-hmm. Rep. Cook: —I think they’re putting in a plug for the C-130Js. Very, very interested. And so I obviously am very, very concerned. Before, in the past, we’re much more involved in that. And as I said, there’s a lot of countries, most notably China and Iran, that are involved in that. What can we do to increase foreign military sales in that region? Pompeo: I, for one, would advocate for working closely with them and encouraging them to purchase U.S. equipment that fit their country, that was the right tool set for them, for themselves and their security interests. I hope that we can, across the board, streamline the State Department’s process connected with foreign military sales. There’s work to do. Rep. Cook: And I brought up this subject before in regards to NATO. You know, Eastern Europe, they’re still reliant on the parts from Russia. Once you go with another country, you’re going to be dependent on that. So, I think we’ve got to look at that whole situation, or once they buy, they’re going to be buying there for the next five generations or something. Pompeo: Yes, sir. Rep. Cook: Thank you very much. I yield back. 1:54:17 Rep. Scott Perry (PA): And in Bosnia, I’m concerned that there’s an October election and there’s a problem with the constitution. The date and accords were never supposed to last 20 years. They have. But I’m concerned that we’re not headed in the right place there. And I just want to get your thoughts on that, if we’re going to wait to see what happens, if we’re going to take preemptive action. I would hate to see that thing burn down and then—with the United States having troops on the ground there to try and secure the peace, and also if we’re interested in pursuing putting some forces there, again, to thwart Russia, and if that’s a consideration. So, those two topics, sir. Mike Pompeo: So, let me start first with Bosnia. We’re working on the very issue you described. I can’t say a lot about it, but know that the State Department, others, Department of Defense are there. We understand the risk. We think the region’s very important. We know the—and this transitions to your second part of the question which is, we know the Russians are hard at work there destabilizing— Rep. Perry: As are the Turks, right? Pompeo: Yes. And so there are a handful, although admittedly not sufficiently sized levers currently being employed, and we’re working to develop a strategy that puts us in a better place. 1:55:35 Rep. Scott Perry (PA): Mr. Secretary, this is a picture—I’m sure you’re well aware—of an M1 tank manufactured right here in the United States, paid for by the citizens of the United States, with their taxes. That is a Hezbollah flag on it. I am concerned and have written letters regarding the Train and Equip Program in Iraq and the Shia Crescent and the land bridges they’re building across Iraq with the militias there again. Many of the Iranian people want freedom, they want peace, and the don’t agree with the regime that they’re working—living under. But I offered amendments in the NDAA to stop the funding and the Train and Equip Program. One was found in favor; one was not. So we leave it up to you. I want to make sure that you’re aware that this is happening, including militias like Kata’ib Hezbollah, listed as a terrorist organization for killing American soldiers. And if the Congress is unwilling to stop it, I hope you will be willing to stop the funding and the Train and Equip Program in Iraq and funding the Iranian militias that are willing to kill Americans and Jews and everybody across the Crescent that disagrees with them. Mike Pompeo: I’ll say this: it is the case that when we perform Train and Equip functions from time to time, equipment ends up in the hands of the wrong people. It’s a risk inherent in those operations. The question becomes, is the value we’re getting from that training, those exercises, outweigh the risk that that happens? You should know that the U.S. government works diligently to put rules and processes in place to make that picture, or pictures like that, as infrequent as possible. Rep. Perry: I don’t think the Iraqis are complying. 2:03:45 Rep. Ron DeSantis (FL): In terms of what’s going on in Venezuela, there’s a pretty significant Cuban presence of military intelligence. Is that your estimation? Mike Pompeo: I’m sorry. Could you repeat the question? Rep. DeSantis: In terms of the situation in Venezuela, propping up the Maduro regime, is part of that the Cuban military and intelligence apparatus? Pompeo: In this setting I can say there are a great deal of Cuban influence that is working alongside the Maduro regime. Rep. DeSantis: And it’s not helpful to what America wants. Pompeo: It runs adverse to U.S. interests, directly adverse to U.S. interests. 2:05:42 Rep. Ron DeSantis (FL): The Iranian people, obviously, are not happy with this regime. I mean, this is a militant, Islamic regime that’s been really imposed on relatively pro-Western populous, educated middle class. We see the protests. The president has spoken out, I think correctly. What can we do to help, because it seems like the regime cracks down on the social networks, they don’t want there to be a free flow of information, but I think it’s certainly in our interests to empower people who view this regime as illegitimate and not representative of their ideals. Mike Pompeo: It’s long been U.S. deeply held position that we will do the things we can to ensure that peoples all around the world have their human rights, their political rights, their capacity to express themselves. We shouldn’t shy away from that with respect to Iran, either. There are a number of tools that we can use, some of which I’m now responsible for their implementation; others exist other places in government. We should bring them all to bear to allow the Iranian people to be governed by the leaders that they choose. 2:59:44 Rep. Ted Lieu (CA): I’d like to ask you now about Yemen. As you know, the war in Yemen is now the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. Over 22 million people are now at risk of starvation, 8 million don’t know where their next meal will be, and every 10 minutes a child dies of preventable causes. So the U.S. is involved in Yemen in two ways. One is we are striking terrorists. Now, I don’t have a problem with that. But the other way we’re involved is we are assisting the Saudi-led military coalition. And again, I don’t have a problem with assisting our allies, but I do have a problem when that coalition is killing large numbers of civilians through airstrikes that are nowhere near military targets. And as of last September, more than 5,000 civilians have been killed, the majority from these airstrikes. In 2016 the State Department, its lawyers, have wrote a memo saying that because we’re refueling these planes, the Saudi jets, and also providing them other assistance, that U.S. personnel could be considered a co-belligerent and liable for war crimes. I know you just came on as secretary of state. Wonder if you’ve had a chance yet to read that memo. Mike Pompeo: I have not. Rep. Lieu: At your convenience. Pompeo: But I will. I will review the memo. Rep. Lieu: Thank you. I appreciate that. And if you could also make a request to your state department to see if members of Congress could also review that memo in a classified setting as well, that’d be appreciated. Pompeo: Have you—You’ve not had a—I take it you’ve not had a chance to see it. Rep. Lieu: We have not. Pompeo: Yes, sir. Rep. Lieu: So if you could make that request, that’d be great. Pompeo: I will review that, absolutely. Rep. Lieu: Thank you. So, when this conflict first started, we had all these airstrikes from Saudi-led coalition, and what it turned out is that it’s not that they were trying to hit a Houthi vehicle that was moving and they missed and struck a bunch of civilians; what ended up happening is they intentionally struck those civilian targets. So they struck hospitals, weddings, schools, markets, and last year they struck a funeral, that killed hundreds of people, twice. So they hit this funeral, and the jets went around and hit it again a second time. Very precise. That’s why the Obama administration actually stopped a shipment of precision-guided munitions because they realized actually these jets are intending to strike their targets and they were civilians. It’s my understanding that the Trump administration is now going to go forward with that sale. Just wondering why do you think anything has changed in Yemen that would authorize this sale to go forward? Mike Pompeo: So, I’m cursorily familiar with the incidents you’re describing. There are a very rigid set of rules that are thought deeply about in every national security agency that I’ve been part of—at the CIA before, now at State Department—with respect to providing munitions to organizations that are intentionally engaging in civilian targeting. We have a complex set of rules and prohibitions. We would never do that. It is this administration’s judgment that providing the precision-guided munitions actually decreases the risk to civilians. And it’s for that reason we think this actually makes sense, certainly for our allies and partners but also for citizens that are engaged in ordinary activity inside of Yemen. And if I might, this administration’s also taken serious action to do our best to reduce the humanitarian crisis that is Yemen as well. We’ve not resolved it, but we’ve made real progress. Rep. Lieu: Thank you. News Interview: Bolton: 'Our goal should be regime change in Iran', Fox News, January 1, 2018. Video: 2004 State of the Union Address , C-SPAN, January 20, 2004. Congress: Ron Paul: War with Iran has already been decided by the Financial Elite, C-SPAN, January 3, 2012. 1:40:39* Senator Rand Paul (KY): I think many people would admit that the Iran agreement had some deficiencies. One of the largest deficiencies might have been that the $100 billion was released all at once instead of maybe gradually to help modulate behavior over a longer period of time. That being said, the $100 billion that was released was a great inducement to get Iran to sign the agreement. That was a carrot, and that carrot’s gone. They’ve gotten the good thing, and now we want compliance, and now we’re pulling out. And so the question is, what are the next inducements to get them to sign things, or will there not be? I think there’s a question with—there are two possibilities, basically, of what will happen. So you reintroduce the strongest sanctions ever. They either don’t work—that’s one possibility—because they’re unilateral, and some say unilateral sanctions won’t work. Let’s say they don’t work. That means Europe, China, and Russia continue to trade with them, and Iran says, “Well, they’re going to continue to trade with us. We’ll just keep abiding by the agreement.” They don’t develop any more nuclear weapons or technology towards that, but they don’t do anything else that you would like—ballistic missiles, less terrorism. So, really, basically, we don’t get what we want if the sanctions don’t work. Second possibility. Let’s say the sanctions do work. We have enough manipulation of money that flows through us from Europe. Europe does a lot of trade with us. Europe buckles. I think Russia and China still will trade with them, but let’s say Europe buckles. And let’s say it works, and it puts enough pressure on Iran, then there are two possibilities of what Iran does. The first possibility is they say, “Oh, Secretary Pompeo. We love Secretary Pompeo’s 12-point strategy, and we’re going to accept that.” I think that’s unlikely. The second possibility, if the sanctions work and they put enough pressure on them—Iran feels the pressure—is that they restart their nuclear centrifuge program. So those are two possibilities. But what I’d like to do is go through the 12 steps that you’d like Iran to do and sort of explore what these would mean if we thought about them in terms of bigger than Iran. So one of your first things is—and this came up during JCPOA, but nobody really could really get this done—you want Iran to reveal the military dimensions of its nuclear program. Well, let’s substitute Israel for Iran there. Does anybody think Israel’s going to reveal the military dimensions of their nuclear program? Well, you’ll say, “Well, they’re our friend.” Well, yeah, but from Iran’s perspective they see Israel as a rival and a regional rival. Let’s put Saudi Arabia in there. Well, Saudi Arabia revealed the military dimensions of its nuclear program. Well, some might say, “Mm, they don’t really have it.” But I’m guessing there are files over at the CIA that say, “Well, you know what? They have talked to people about purchasing it. Some say they have purchased nuclear technology.” I can guarantee we know that, and you probably can’t admit it, but let’s put Saudi Arabia in there. Are they willing to discuss anything they have done to develop nuclear weapons? So really what you’re asking for is something that they are never going to agree to. Okay? You can try to crip them. It’s sort of like unconditional surrender. You’re not getting that. Let’s move on. Proliferation of ballistic missiles. I don’t like them threatening surrounding countries or us with ballistic missiles. Nobody does. But they respond not just to us; they respond to Saudi Arabia. There’s a 1,000-year-old war over there. There’s a 1,000-year-old religious war over there, and there’s hostility between the two. So when we supply weapons and the Saudis buy ballistic missiles—the Saudis have a ballistic program—they respond to that. The Saudis and their allies, the Gulf sheikhdom, spend eight times more than Iran. So when you tell Iran, “Oh, well, you have to give up your ballistic-missile program,” but you don’t say anything to the Saudis, you think they’re ever going to sign that? They would have to be crippled and starving people in the streets for them ever to agree to give up their ballistic-missile program. Had we kept the Iran agreement with them and you said to the Iranians, “Well, we want less of an arms race over there. We’d like to have peace with Saudi Arabia. Could we get Saudi Arabia to the table, with Iran, to discuss either a freeze of ballistic missiles—” you know, when we went to Russia, we didn’t just succumb and say we’d give up our weapons. Neither did Russia. We did it in parity. We had an agreement. If you leave Saudi Arabia out of it and you leave Israel out of it and you look at Iran in isolation, that’s not the way they perceive it. So, don’t think they’re going to jump at your 12 notions here of what you’d like them to do. Mike Pompeo: Senator, may I make this one point? Paul: Go ahead. Pompeo: I think the example of Saudi Arabia’s a reasonable one. We have told the Saudis exactly what I asked from the Iranians. Paul: To talk about their nuclear program? Pompeo: They have said they want a peaceful nuclear-energy program, and we have told them we want a gold-standard, Section 123 agreement from them, which would not permit them to enrich. That is simply all I’ve asked of Iran as well. Paul: Do we have information that the Saudis have talked to actors in Pakistan and other places about purchasing nuclear technology? Pompeo: Sir, I can’t answer that here this morning. Paul: Which is to say we, in all likelihood, do have that information. And so the thing is it’s a one-way playing field. Unless we understand that there are two big players over there—really, three big players: you got Iran, you got Israel, and you got Saudi Arabia—we want Iran to do things we’re not willing to ask anybody else to do and that we would never do. So— Pompeo: Senator, I disagree with you. I think we ask most nations to do precisely what we’re asking Iran to do. Paul: Let’s move on to another one of your 12 points and the military support for the Houthi rebels. Well, once again, you’re asking them to end it, but you’re not asking the Saudis to end their bombardment of Yemen. I mean, if you look at the humanitarian disaster that is Yemen, it is squarely on the shoulders of the Saudis. And so we’re going to ask the Iranians to quit supplying—they, in all likelihood, are the ones supplying the missiles—and we get reports, and the Defense Department comes and says, “There’ve been 32 missiles strikes in Saudi Arabia.” Well, there’s been, like, 16,000 bombings of Yemen by Saudi Arabia. Nobody even mentions that. We act as if it didn’t even happen. If we are so ignorant that there’re two sides to this war, we’re never getting anywhere. Iran’s not going to stop doing that, but they might if you sat them down with the Saudi Arabians, said, “This arms race doesn’t make sense,” and Saudi Arabia’s willing to sit down at the table. You know, is Saudi Arabia willing to stop, another one’s withdrawal all forces under Iran’s command throughout the entirety of Syria? There were dozens of groups in there, even ISIS, that were getting weapons from Qatar and Saudi Arabia. In fact, one of the leaked emails from WikiLeaks was from Clinton to Podesta, saying, “My goodness. We’ve got to stop Saudi Arabia and Qatar from funding ISIS.” That’s a direct email. They were acknowledging they knew about it, and they were acknowledging it was a problem, but weapons were flowing in to all kinds of radicals in there. So if you want Iran to stop—and I mean, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are 10 times the problem, you know? The whole Syrian war has all of these radical jihadists. The people who attacked us came from Saudi Arabia. We ignore all that, and we lavish them with more bombs. So, really, until we acknowledge there are two sides to the war—or three sides to the war in the Middle East—you’re not going to get the agreement. I think it was naïve to pull out of the Iran agreement, and I think in the end, we’ll be worse off for it. United Nations Address: Jon Bolton U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., June 18, 2006. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)  

On Friday the 13th of April, President Trump bombed the government of Syria… Again. In this episode, learn some of the little-discussed history of and reasons for the on-going attempts to overthrow the government of Syria. Please Support Congressional Dish Click here to contribute using credit card, debit card, PayPal, or Bitcoin Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Mail Contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North #4576 Crestview, FL 32536 Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD167: Combating Russia (NDAA 2018) LIVE Additional Reading Article: 'Obscene masquerade': Russia criticised over Douma chemical attack denial by Patrick Wintour, The Guardian, April 26, 2018. Article: Why does Syria still have chemical weapons? by Patrick Wintour, The Guardian, April 18, 2018. Report: Russia rejects UN resolution for independent Douma investigation, Aljazeera, April 18, 2018. Report: Pentagon warns of IS resurgence in regime areas of Syria, France24, April 17, 2018. Interview: Legal questions loom over Syria strikes, Interview by Jonathan Masters of John B. Bellinger III, Council on Foreign Relations, April 15, 2018. Letter: Text of a letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, April 15, 2018. Report: Trump bombs Syria hours after 88 lawmakers urged him to first consult Congress by Jennifer Bendery, Huffpost, April 13, 2018. Interview: What are U.S. Military options in Syria? Interview by Zachary Laub of Mona Yacoubian, Council on Foreign Relations, April 13, 2018. Report: Thousands of US troops and Marines arrive in Jordan by Shawn Snow, Marine Times, April 13, 2018. Report: Global chemical weapons watchdog 'on its way to Syria', Aljazeera News, April 12, 2018. Report: Pentagon strips Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria troop numbers from web by Tara Copp, Military Times, April 9, 2018. Press Release: Press release on Israeli air strikes in Syria, MFA Russia, February 20, 2018. Article: Kurds pull back from ISIS fight in Syria, saying U.S. 'let us down' by Liz Sly, The Washington Post, March 6, 2018. Report: US has no evidence of Syrian use of sarin gas, Mattis says by Robert Burns, AP News, February 2, 2018. Article: The pundits were wrong about Assad and the Islamic State. As usual, they're not willing to admit it by Max Abrahms and John Glaser, Los Angeles Times, December 10, 2017. Report: [Syria investigator del Ponte signs off with a sting](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-, mideast-crisis-syria-investigator/syria-investigator-del-ponte-signs-off-with-a-sting-idUSKCN1BT29Q) by Reuters Staff, Reuters, September 18, 2017. Article: Trump's red line by Seymour M. Hersh, Welt, June 25, 2017. Article: The 'Pipelineistan' conspiracy: The war in Syria has never been about gas by Paul Cochrane, Middle East Eye, May 10, 2017. Article: MIT expert claims latest chemical weapons attack in Syria was staged by Tareq Haddad, Yahoo, April 17, 2017. Report: MIT expert claims latest chemical weapons attack in Syria was staged by Tareq Haddad, International Business Times, Yahoo, April 17, 2017. Report: Dozens of U.S. missiles hit air base in Syria by Michael R. Gordon, Helene Cooper, and Michael D. Shear, The New York Times, April 6, 2017. Report: ISIS used chemical arms at least 52 times in Syria and Iraq, report says by Eric Schmitt, The New York Times, November 21, 2016. Article: How the White Helmets became international heroes while pushing U.S. Military intervention and regime change in Syria by Max Blumenthal, Alternet, October 2, 2016. Meetings Coverage: Security council unanimously adopts resolution 2254 (2015), endorsing road map for peace process in Syria, setting timetable for talks by UN Security Council, December 18, 2015. Article: How Syria's 'geeky' President Assad went from doctor to dictator by Sarah Burke, NBC News, October 30, 2015. Report: Declared Syrian chemical weapon stockpile now completely destroyed by Thomas Gibbons-Neff, The Washington Post, August 18, 2014. Article: Analysts question US intel on Syria chem attack, DW, January 18, 2014. Book Review: Whose Sarin? by Seymour M. Hersh, London Review of Books, December 19, 2013. Article: UN report says sarin likely used in five locations in Syria, DW, December 13, 2013. Article: Assad did not order Syria chemical weapons attack, says German press by Simon Tisdall and Josie Le Blond, The Guardian, September 9, 2013. Article: Cameron forced rule out British attack on Syria after MPs reject motion by Nicholas Watt and Nick Hopkins, The Guardian, August 29, 2013. Article: Spooks' view on Syria: what wikileaks revealed by Alex Thomson, Channel 4, August 28, 2013. Article: Obama weighs 'limited' strikes against Syrian forces by Thom Shanker, C.J. Chivers, and Michael R. Gordon, The New York Times, August 27, 2013. Report: Moscow rejects Saudi offer to drop Assad for arms deal by Agence France-Presse, Hurriyet Daily News, August 8, 2013. Analysis: UN's Del Ponte says evidence Syria rebels 'used sarin' by Bridget Kendall, BBC News, May 6, 2013. Report: Syrian rebels used nerve gas, UN investigator says by TOI Staff, Times of Israel, May 6, 2013. Report: UN sources say Syrian rebels - not Assad - used sarin gas by Adam Clark Estes, The Atlantic, May 5, 2013. Report: U.N. has testimony that Syrian rebels used sarin gas: investigator by Reuters Staff, Reuters, May 5, 2013. Letter: Text of White House letter on Syria to senators by The Associated Press, The Seattle Times, April 25, 2013. Article: How economic reforms are contributing to the conflict in Syria by Rodrigo Abd, NPR, May 29, 2012. Article: The only remaining online copy of Vogue's Asma al-Assad profile by Max Fisher, The Atlantic, January 3, 2012. Report: IMF gives Syria high grade for economic reform by Stephen Glain, The National, January 6, 2009. Report: REFILE-LIberalised Syria banks "on sound track" by Reuters Staff, Reuters, May 26, 2008. Article: The redirection: Is the Administration's new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism? by Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, March 5, 2007. Article: Syrian Arab Republic -- IMF article IV consultation, mission's concluding statement, International Monetary Fund, May 14, 2006. Report: Investigator says Syria was behind Lebanon assassination by Warren Hoge, The New York Times, December 12, 2005. Article: Reform hinges on Syria's leader by Evan Osnos, Chicago Tribune, April 22, 2005. Resources Congressional Research Service: Armed Conflict in Syria: Overview and U.S. Response Council on Foreign Relations: Syria's War: The Descent into Horror by Zachary Laub Country Reports on Terrorism: Chapter 6 -- State Sponsors of Terror Overview Gov. Publishing Office: Counter-ISIS Training and Equipment Fund IMF Working Paper: Syria's Conflict Economy by Jeanne Gobat and Kristina Kostial Pipeline Report: Arab Gas Pipeline (AGP), Jordan, Syria, Lebanon Public Law: 9/11 AUMF Public Law: Iraq War AUMF Scientific Advisory Board: OPCW 27th Session March 23, 2018 Wikileaks Tweet on OPCW UN News: Action Group for Syria Final Communique June 30, 2012 UN Security Council Report: Goal in Syria Sound Clip Sources Hearing: US Policy Toward Middle East; House Foreign Affairs Committee; April 18, 2018. Witnesses: -David Satterfield - Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State - Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs - Wess Mitchell - Assistant Secretary of State of European and Eurasian Affairs 15:25 David Satterfield: While preventing the use of chemical weapons in Syria is our immediate concern, the administration’s priority remains the defeat of ISIS. ISIS has lost nearly all of the territory it once controlled in Iraq and Syria, but the fight in Syria still has to be pursued to its conclusion. More broadly, the United States supports a unified and territorially whole Syria. This objective is served by U.S. support for the UN-led Geneva political process, established by UN Security Council Resolution 2254, in which process the U.S. believes strongly that representatives of all Syrians, including all its Kurdish components, should fully participate. 16:30 David Satterfield: The Iraqi government is stabilizing communities, including minority communities that suffered greatly from ISIS, and now we’re beginning private-sector-led, investment-driven reconstruction. 34:15 Representative Eliot Engel (NY): To me, ISIS is one prong of something, an important prong, but one prong of what we should be doing. I really think to rid Syria of the butcher Assad ought to be as important as our ISIS concerns. David Satterfield: I strongly agree with you that a Syria in which Assad remains as leader of this regime is not a Syria which we would predict to be meaningfully secure or stable, or not a source of generation of threat and violent extremism under whatever name in the future, and it’s why we have strongly supported a political process led by the UN. Unfortunately, that political process has been blocked, and the parties responsible for blocking it are quite clear: it’s the Syrian regime itself and the Russians, who through their absence of pressure on the regime in Damascus contributes to, enables this freezing of a Geneva process which, virtually, the entire international community supports. Engel: And through the veto in the United Nations. Satterfield: Exactly, sir. 1:02:20 Representative Dana Rohrabacher: What is our purpose in Syria? Will we accept anything less than—would we accept a compromise that would keep Assad in power, at least in part of Syria, or is our goal and our purpose only to totally eliminate the Assad government? David Satterfield: Mr. Rohrabacher, our purpose of our forces in Syria, as Secretary Mattis, Chairman Dunford have stated repeatedly, is to defeat ISIS. The purpose of our diplomacy, of our international engagement, with respect to Syria, is to support a political process, which at its end has a revised constitution, elections conducted under the auspices of the United Nations. And our belief is that those elections, if freely and fairly conducted amongst all Syrians, including the émigré Syrian communities, would not produce the survival of the Assad regime. Rohrabacher: Okay, let me just note, what you described wasn’t just Syria, but probably three-quarters of the countries of the Middle East. And if we made those demands of—why is it that Syria, we have to make those demands against Syria and not against all these other countries in the Middle East? Satterfield: Because, sir, of the extraordinary depredations of this regime in this country against its citizens, because of the extraordinary and historically unprecedented, in modern times, outflow of— Rohrabacher: You don’t think the rest of the countries in the Middle East have similar track records? You’re trying to tell me that—well, we heard the same thing, of course, about Saddam Hussein, we heard the same thing about Gaddafi, and we ended up creating total chaos—total chaos—in that part of the world. Satterfield: No regime in modern history in the Middle East, including Saddam Hussein’s— Rohrabacher: Yes. Satterfield: —has killed as many of its own citizens, has produced external and internal displacement of its own citizens on the scale of the Assad regime. No. It’s unique, sadly. Rohrabacher: Well, let me just say, Mr. Ambassador, you read history differently than I do. That is an area that is filled with dictators, it’s filled with authoritarian regimes, filled with our allies, that if people rose up against them as they’re rising up against Assad—he’s a bad guy, he’s a dictator, he’s everything you said, but he’s not that different from these other regimes once they are challenged. Once they were challenged, don’t tell me the Qatar government wouldn’t mow down all of their guest workers if there was an uprising in Qatar, and vice versa with these other regimes. I’m very disturbed by the fact that we’re sliding into a war and not having an out that will not lead us to major military commitments to that region. That would be a disaster, and I think it’s based on the analysis that you just said: that Assad is somewhat different than everybody else. I don’t think so. News: Rand Paul Says Syrian Gas Attack was False Flag, or Assad is Dumbest Dictator on the Planet; CNN News; April 17, 2018. Meeting: U.N. Security Council on Airstrikes in Syria; U.N. Security Council; April 14, 2018. Testimony: Secretary Mattis and General Dunford on 2019 Budget Request; House Armed Services Committee; April 12, 2018. Witnesses: - James Mattis - Secretary of Defense - General Joseph F. Dunford Jr. - Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 41:42 Secretary of Defense James Mattis: On Syria, sir, both the last administration and this one made very clear that our role in Syria is the defeat of ISIS. We are not going to engage in the civil war itself. Now, you can look back to a year ago when we did fire missiles into Syria, unrelated to ISIS, and that was, of course, the use of chemical weapons. And some things are simply inexcusable, beyond the pale, and in the worst interest of not just the Chemical Weapons Convention but of civilization itself. 42:48 Secretary of Defense James Mattis: And the only reason Assad is still in power is because of the Russians’ regrettable vetoes in the UN, and the Russian and Iranian military. So, how do we deal with this very complex situation? First of all, we are committed to ending that war though the Geneva process, the UN orchestrated effort. It has been unfulfilled because, again, Russia has continually blocked the efforts. 50:10 Representative Niki Tsongas (MA): So as you’re considering possible steps forward—military actions you might take— what do you hope to achieve by any military action that the administration might eventually decide to take? Secretary of Defense James Mattis: Congresswoman, I don’t want to get, as you’ll understand, into the details of a potential decision by the commander in chief, due to this latest attack, which is absolutely inexcusable. There have been a number of these attacks. In many cases, you know we don’t have troops. We’re not engaged on the ground there, so I cannot tell you that we had evidence, even though we certainly had a lot of media and social-media indicators that either chlorine or sarin were used. As far as our current situation, if, like last time, we decide we have to take military action in regard to this chemical weapons attack, then, like last time, we will be reporting to Congress just as we did when we fired a little over a year ago, slightly over a year ago. As far as the counter violent extremists, counter ISIS— Tsongas: So, let me go back to this. So, before taking any action, you would report to Congress as to the nature of what that action might be. Mattis: I will speak only to the fact that we will report to Congress. We’ll keep open lines of communication. There will be notification to the leadership, of course, prior to the attack. But we’ll give a full report to the Congress itself, probably as rapidly as possible. 54:05 Secretary of Defense James Mattis: I believe there was a chemical attack, and we’re looking for the actual evidence. The OPCW—this is the organization for the Chemical Weapons Convention—we’re trying to get those inspectors in, probably within the week. 1:00:42 Representative Jackie Speier (CA): Mr. Secretary, a Military Times article this week revealed that the Defense Manpower Data Center failed to report the number of combat troops deployed in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan last quarter. That website was also stripped of deployment data from previous quarters. I’m very concerned about that. I think that there’s no combat advantage to obfuscating the number of U.S. service members that were in these countries three months ago, and, furthermore, the American public has a right to know. Do you intend to restore that information to the website? Secretary of Defense James Mattis: I’ll look at it, Congresswoman. As you know, we keep the Congress fully informed, right down to every week. We can update you on exactly the numbers in each case, and we do maintain some degree of confidentiality over the number of troops engaged against enemies in the field. So, I’ll have to look at it. But we will not, of course, ever keep those numbers away from members of Congress, for your oversight. Speier: Well, I know, but this has been an ongoing website that’s provided this information to the public, and all of a sudden, the last quarter, it’s not posted, and they’ve sweeped away all the data for previous quarters. So, it would suggest to, I think, the public and to members of this Congress that you are no longer going to make that information available, and I think the public has a right to know. Mattis: I see. When I come in, ma’am, I don’t come in intending to hide things, but I would just ask, what would you do if you thought the enemy could take advantage of that kind of data, seeing trends at certain times of the year and what they can expect in the future? But I’ll certainly look at it. I share your conviction that the American people should know everything that doesn’t give the enemy an advantage. Speier: Thank you. I yield back. 1:18:09 Representative John Garamendi (CA): What is the legal authority—the precise legal authority—of the United States government to engage in military action in response to the chemical weapons use by the Assad regime? Secretary of Defense James Mattis: Right. I believe that authority’s under Article II. We have forces in the field, as you know, in Syria, and the use of chemical weapons in Syria is not something that we should assume that, well, because you didn’t use them on us this time, you wouldn’t use them on us next time. 1:28:35 Representative Tulsi Gabbard (HI): You know, the president has indicated recently his intention to launch U.S. military attacks against Syria. Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the sole power to declare war. Congress has not done so against the Syrian government. Section 3 of the War Powers Resolution requires the president to consult with Congress before introducing U.S. armed forces into situations of hostilities. Section 2 of the War Powers Resolution clarifies the constitutional powers of the president as commander in chief. In Article II, which you referenced, Secretary Mattis, to introduce forces into hostilities only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by an attack upon the U.S., its territories, possessions, or armed forces. Syria’s not declared war against the U.S. or threatened the U.S. The launch of 59 missiles against Syria by Trump last year was illegal and did not meet any of those criteria in the War Powers Resolution. The consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018, which was signed into law by President Trump, states that none of the funds made available by this Act may be used with respect to Syria in contravention of the War Powers Resolution, including for the introduction of U.S. armed military forces into hostilities in Syria. My question is, will the president uphold the Constitution, the War Powers Resolution, and comply with the law that he signed by obtaining authorization from Congress before launching U.S. military attacks against Syria? Secretary of Defense James Mattis: Congresswoman, we have not yet made any decision to launch military attacks into Syria. I think that when you look back at President Obama sending the U.S. troops into Syria at the time he did, he also had to deal with this type of situation, because we were going after a named terrorist group that was not actually named in the AUMF that put them in. This is a complex area, I’ll be the first to admit. Gabbard: It is simple, however, what the Constitution requires. So while you’re correct in saying the president has not yet made a decision, my question is, will he abide by the Constitution and comply with the law? Mattis: Yeah. I believe that the president will carry out his duties under the Constitution to protect the country. Interview: John Kerry - We Got All of the Chemical Weapons Out of Syria; CNN; April 9, 2018. Interview: John Kerry on Getting Chemical Weapons out of Syria, 2014; Meet the Press; April 9, 2018. Testimony: US Policy in Syria After ISIS; Senate Foreign Relations Committee; January 11, 2018. Witnesses: - David Satterfield - Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs 13:45 David Satterfield: A stable Syria absolutely requires the departure of President Assad and his regime. They’ve inflicted suffering and countless deaths on the Syrian people, including use of chemical weapons. This regime is a magnet for terror. It is incapable of democratically leading the whole of Syria. We, our allies, have come to Russia with a path towards the Syrian political transition, towards a political solution, on many occasions, and we call on Russia again today to pressure the regime to work seriously towards a political resolution to this conflict. 14:37 Sen. Bob Corker (TN): We are now not demanding that Assad leave. Instead, as I understand it, we’re embracing the UN resolution as Putin has recently done. Is that correct? David Satterfield: That’s correct, Mr. Chairman. Corker: And that would mean that there would then be an election that would take place. Satterfield: There would be a constitutional reform and revision process, and then there would be an electoral process. That electoral process would be fully under UN monitoring and supervision. Corker: And is it true that—it’s my sense that people like you and others believe that if that process occurs as has been laid out and as supported right now by Russia, do you believe that the way Assad would go through a democratic election where he would lose? Satterfield: Mr. Chairman, we cannot conceive of a circumstance which a genuinely fair electoral process overseen by the UN, with participation of a Syrian displaced community, could lead to a result in which Assad remained at the helm. 21:20 David Satterfield: First step was the defeat of ISIS. As long as ISIS remained a potent fighting force in Syria, the bandwidth, the space to deal with these broader strategic challenges, including Iran and, of course, Assad and the regime, simply wasn’t there. But that bandwidth is being freed up now. With the UN process, with international support for a credible electoral and constitutional reform process, we see political transition in Syria as a potentially achievable goal. We don’t underestimate the challenges ahead. It’s going to be hard—very hard—to do. Assad will cling to power at almost every cost possible. But with respect to Iran, we will treat Iran in Syria and Iran’s enablement of Hezbollah as a separate strategic issue. How do you deal with it? You deal with it in all places that it manifests itself, which is not just Syria, but Iraq, Yemen, the Gulf, other areas where Iran’s maligned behaviors affect our and our allies’ national interests. Difficult challenge, but not impossible challenge, and it is one we are seized with right now, but having a politically transformed Syria will, in and of itself, be a mitigating and minimizing factor on Iran’s influence, and the opposite is also true. Satterfield: We are working on stabilization in the north and the northeast right now very successfully and with a minimum of U.S. physical presence. About 2,000 U.S. military and seven, soon to be 10, foreign service colleagues. This is a highly efficient operation, and it’s working on the ground. But those are only the first steps. The 2254 political process, the process that the entire international community of like-minded states has signed on to, is the key. It’s the key to addressing Assad and his departure; it is the key to resolving the question of foreign forces and Iranian influence. And what are our levers, what are our tools to move that forward? They are denial of legitimacy and authenticity to any claim of victory by the regime or its supporters in Moscow or Tehran, and the withholding of reconstruction funds, which are vital to the regime and we think Moscow’s interests over the long term. Those are potent levers. 48:58 Sen. Bob Corker: As I understand, the troops that are there, they’re not involved in combat. Is that correct? David Satterfield: Senator, there are still combat activities going on in the middle Euphrates valley. The campaign against the so-called Caliphate, that is, the territorially structured presence of ISIS, is not over yet. That campaign continues. The level of fighting has significantly diminished since the days of urban conflict in Mayadeen, Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor. But the fight goes on, and there is combat activity. Corker: But, most of their efforts are in support of those that are actually on the front lines. Satterfield: They are in facilitation of the SDF efforts, who have consistently carried this fight since the beginning. 49:47 Sen. Ron Johnson (OH): Reconstructing Syria’s going to cost somewhere in the order of 200 to 300 billion dollars. Is that…? David Satterfield: That’s a general international estimate, sir. Johnson: So, who has that kind of money? Satterfield: I can tell you who doesn’t: the Syrian regime, Moscow, and Tehran. Who does? The international community companies, international financial institutions. They’ve got the money collectively, but that money is not going to flow into a Syria which has not gone through a political transformation and transition. Hearing: Authorization for Use of Military Force; Senate Foreign Relations Committee; October 30, 2017. 2:55:15 Sen. Rob Portman (OH): Do you think there can be a lasting peace there as long as Assad is in power, and does the current AUMF give you the ability, General Mattis, to be able to deal with that issue if you think that has to be resolved? That might be one example. Rex Tillerson: Well, the current AUMF only authorizes our fight against ISIS in Syria, as I indicated in my remarks. We’re not there to fight the regime. There is no authority beyond the fight against ISIS. Therefore, we have to pursue a future Syria that’s kept whole and intact, and a process, which the UN Security Council process does provide a process by which, in our view, the Assad regime will step down from power. Breaking News: Brian Williams is Guided by the Beauty of Our Weapons in Syria Strikes; MSNBC; April 13, 2017. Breaking News: Zakaria: Trump Just Became President; CNN; April 7, 2017. Report: Hillary Clinton Discussed Rigging the Election in Leaked Audio; The Young Turks; November 1, 2016. Interview: Gen. Wesley Clark - 7 Countries in 5 Years; Democracy Now!; August 6, 2016. Hearing: U.S. Policy and Russian Involvement in Syria; House Foreign Affairs Committee; November 4, 2015. Witnesses: - Anne Patterson - Assistant Secretary of State - Victoria Nuland - Assistant Secretary of State Statement: Situation in Syria; Secretary of State Clinton calls on Assad to resign Interview: 100% Syria Have No Chemical Weapon, John Kerry; Charlie Rose; March 10, 2014. Debate: British House of Commons Debate on Syria; House of Commons; August 29, 2013. Press Briefing: US President Barack Obama in 'red line' warning to Syria over Chemical Weapons; Telegraph; August 21, 2012. Testimony: US Policy Toward Syria; House International Relations Committee; September 16, 2003. Speech: Democracy in Iraq; George Bush; February 26, 2003. Witnesses: - John Bolton - then Undersecretary at the Department of State for Arms Control, current National Security Advisor 53:12 Former Representative Gary Ackerman (NY): Are we talking about regime change in Syria if they do not voluntarily rid themselves of whatever it is we’re saying they have or do that threatens our national security? John Bolton: Mr. Ackerman, as the president has made clear and as we are directed, our preference is to solve these problems by peaceful and diplomatic means. But the president has also been very clear that we’re not taking any options off the table. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)  

Another shutdown, another dingleberry-filled temporary funding law! In this episode, learn about the new law that reopened the government after the 6 hour shutdown by providing funding until March 23 and be one of the few people in the country who will know about the random goodies that hitchhiked their way into law. Miranda Hannah joins Jen for the thank yous. Please Support Congressional Dish Click here to contribute using credit card, debit card, PayPal, or Bitcoin Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Mail Contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North #4576 Crestview, FL 32536 Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD147: Controlling Puerto Rico CD128: Crisis in Puerto Rico Additional Reading Article: Get ready: Here comes another bs* budget commission by Stan Collender, Forbes, March 4, 2018. Report: Let Pentagon carry over FY18 budget boost so money isn't wasted, key lawmaker says by Joe Goud, Defense News, February 22, 2018. Report: Key health care provisions of bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 by Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz PC, Lexology, February 22, 2018. Article: Can updated tax credits bring carbon capture into the mainstream? by Emma Foehringer Merchant, Green Tech Media, February 22, 2018. Article: The shutdown clock is still ticking and that causes chaos throughout the government by Deirdre Shesgreen, USA Today, February 19, 2018. Report: Congress passes legislation to help foster children weather opioid epidemic by Lizzy Francis, Fatherly, February 13, 2018. Report: USA extends nuclear tax credit deadline, World Nuclear News, February 12, 2018. Report: House passes stopgap spending bill to end government shutdown by Lindsey McPherson, Roll Call, February 9, 2018. Report: The health 202: Republicans kill Obamacare's controversial "death panel" by Paige Winfield Cunningham, The Washington Post, February 9, 2018. Article: Why this tax bill may accidentally give huge leverage to the Freedom Caucus next year by Catherine Rampell, The Washington Post, December 20, 2017. Report: CMS announces big expansion to Medicare Advantage value-based insurance design model by Leslie Small, Fierce Healthcare, November 22, 2017. Report: House votes to repeal ObamaCare's Medicare cost-cutting board by Nathaniel Weixel, The Hill, November 2, 2017. Article: The pros and cons of switching to a Medicare Advantage Plan by John Bulliner, Medicare.com, January 24, 2017. Article: A single senator is blocking reform of the foster care system by Ryan Grim, Huffpost, December 6, 2016. Article: A sweeping reform of the foster care system is within reach but hanging by a thread by Ryan Grim, Jason Cherkis, and Laura Barron-Lopez, Huffington Post, December 2, 2016. Article: Congress to consider scaling down group homes for troubled children by Joaquin Sapien, ProPublica, May 20, 2015. Additional Viewing Hearing: A way back home: Preserving families and reducing the need for foster care, US Senate Committee on Finance, August 4, 2015. Hearing: No place to grow up: How to safely reduce reliance on foster care group homes, US Senate Committee on Finance, May 19, 2015. Bill Outline H.R. 1892: Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018   Division A: Honoring Hometown Heroes Act Sec. 10102: Allows the flag to be flown at half staff when a first responder dies at work. Division B: Supplemental Appropriations, Tax Relief, and Medicaid Changes Relating to Certain Disasters and further extension of continuing appropriations Title I: Gives $2.36 billion to the Department of Agriculture, available until the end of 2019, to pay for "expenses related to crops, trees, bushes, and vine losses" caused by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, and other hurricanes and wildfires that took place in 2017. Companies who have crop insurance can have 85% of their losses covered by our tax money Companies who didn't buy crop insurance can have up to 65% of their losses covered by our money Title I: Gives $14 million to Puerto Rico's food program but says the money is for infrastructure grants for infrastructure damaged by Hurricanes Irma and Maria Sec. 20101: Changes the law to allow livestock producers to collect payments for cows they sold at reduced prices, instead of just dead ones, and eliminates the $20 million cap on total payouts for livestock producers. Sec. 20201: Orders the Secretary of Commerce to issue a waiver within 120 days of the provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act which prohibit the capture of marine mammals for three infrastructure projects designed to reduce land loss in Louisiana. It says the waiver for the projects "will remain in effect for the duration of the construction, operations and maintenance of the projects. No rule-making, permit, determination, or other condition or limitation shall be required when issuing a waiver pursuant to this section." Title IV: Gives $15 billion to the Army Corps of Engineers to repair damages caused by natural disasters $10 billion has to be spend in areas impacted by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria Repairs made in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands "shall be conducted at full Federal expense" Title V: Provides $1.652 billion for the "Disaster Loans Program Account" but $618 million of that can be spend on "administrative expenses to carry out the disaster loan program" Title VI: Adds $23.5 billion to FEMA's "Disaster Relief Fund" Sec. 20604: Adds religious institutions to the definition of a "Private Nonprofit Facility", which makes them eligible to receive tax money for disaster aid services. Sec. 20605: Says the Federal government will pay 90% of the costs for 2017 wildfire disasters. Title XI: Provides $1.374 billion for the Federal highway "Emergency Relief Program", with the Federal government paying 100% of the costs for Puerto Rico Title XI: Provides $28 billion in disaster relief for housing and infrastructure. $11 billion must be spent on areas hit by Hurricane Maria $2 billion of that will be spent on upgrades to electrical power systems Sec. 20102: Allows victims of wildfires in CA to borrow up to $100,000 from their own retirement accounts and pay it back within 3 years. Sec. 20103: Allows companies that had to close due to wildfires to get a credit for up to 40% of their employees' wages, up to $6,000 each. Sec. 20104: Suspends limitations on charitable contributions made before December 31, 2018 for relief efforts in the California wildfire disaster area Sec. 20301: Provides an extra $3.6 billion for Puerto Rico and $106 million for the US Virgin Islands for Medicaid Puerto Rico can get $1.2 billion more if Puerto Rico implements a new process for transmitting data to the Transformed Medicaid Statistical Information System (T-MSIS) and if it creates a Medicaid fraud control unit Subdivision 3: Extends 2017 government funding levels until March 23, 2018. Funds the census Forces the sale of $350 million worth of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Division C: Budgetary and other matters Sec. 30101: Sets the budget limits for 2018 and 2019 2018 $629 billion for defense $579 billion for non-defense 2019 $647 billion for defense $597 billion for non-defense Sec. 30102: Zeroes out the balances on the PAYGO budget scorecard. Sec. 30204: Requires the Secretary of Energy to sell 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve every year from 2022-2025 and 35 million per year in 2026 and 2027. Lowers the amount of oil we must have in reserves from 450 million barrels to 350 million barrels Sec. 30301: Suspends the debt ceiling entirely until March 1, 2019. Division D: Revenue Measures Subtitle A, Subtitle B, and Subtitle C: Extend 31 tax credits Sec. 40402: Extends until 2021 but then phases out tax credits for residential solar electricity, solar water heaters, small wind energy turbines, and geothermal heat pumps. Sec. 40411: Extends until 2022 and then phases out a 30% credit for fiber-optic solar, fuel cell, and small wind energy property, eliminating the credits entirely by 2024. Sec. 40501: Extends and expands tax credits for nuclear power facilities Sec. 41119: Extends an existing tax credit for carbon sequestration technology for 6 years and changes it so that more money is rewarded for each ton of carbon captured and eliminates a cap on how many tons were eligible for credits (it was 75 million tons). Division E: Health and Human Services Extenders Title I: Extends the authorization for the Children's Health Insurance Program through 2027 and adds $48 million per year for 2023-2027 for enrollment assistance. Title II: Extends Medicare programs Sec. 50302: Authorizes voluntary telehealth appointments for people receiving at-home dialysis treatments for end state renal disease, as long as they see a doctor in-person every 3 months. Sec. 50321: Expands a test program, which began in 2015 with 7 States, to all States. The program allows privately administered Medicare Advantage plans flexibility to design custom insurance plans for people with certain chronic diseases. Sec. 50322: Starting in 2020, privately administered Medicare Advantage plans will be able to offer extra benefits for people with chronic health conditions and uniformity requirements will be waived for those plans. Sec. 50323: Starting in 2020, privately administered Medicare Advantage plans can include "telehealth benefits" Sec. 50341: Starting sometime in 2019, some Medicare administrators will be allowed to offer incentives up to $20 to encourage seniors to encourage them to come to appointments with their primary care doctors. The money collected will not be considered taxable income. The Secretary of Health and Human Services can cancel this program at any time for any reason. Sec. 50412: Increased criminal and civil fines for Federal health care program fraud Sec. 50502: Updates the abstinence education program and increases funding from $50 million to $75 million in 2018 and 2019 Sec. 50711: Creates a program funding State efforts to provide mental health care, substance abuse treatment, and parenting counseling to parents in order to prevent their children from being placed in foster care. Sec. 50712: Allows foster care payments to be given to licensed residential treatment facilities if the facility welcomes the child to live with its parent as long as the facility provides parenting classes and family counseling. Sec. 50745: Requires States to require every child-care institution to run fingerprint-based checks of national crime information databases on any adult working in their facility. Sec. 50901: Funds Community Health Centers with $3.8 billion for 2018 and $4 billion for 2019 Sec. 52001: Repeals the Independent Payment Advisory Board Title XII: Offsets Sec. 53103: Requires Medicaid to count lottery winnings as income when determining Medicaid eligibility Sec. 53105: Rescinds $985 million from the Medicaid Improvement Fund, which is meant to improve oversight of Medicaid contracts and contractors. Sec. 53107: Reduces pay for outpatient physical and occupational therapists for care their assistant's provide to 85 percent of the rate that would have otherwise been paid. Sec. 53114: Increases the percentage that people who make over $500,000 per year pay for Medicare premiums from 80% to 85%. Sec. 53115: Empty's the Medicare Improvement Fund by eliminating all $220 million. Sec. 53116: Accelerates the closing of the prescription drug "donut hole" for seniors by moving up a decrease in out of pocket prescription costs to 25% by one year - it's now 2019 - and by increasing the percentage that drug manufacturers must discount their drugs from 50% to 70%. Sec. 53119: Cuts $1.35 billion from the Prevention and Public Health Fund over the next 10 years. Division G: Budgetary Effects Exempts the entire law from the PAYGO scorecard and the Senate PAYGO scorecards. Resources Bill Overview: H.J.Res. 45 Pay As You Go Act of 2010 Bill Summary: Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 Bill Scorecard: Pay-As-You-Go Act Scorecard August 4, 2017 Budget Notice: 2017 Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act Annual Report Committee on Finance Report: An Examination of Foster Care in the United States and the Use of Privatization Government Debt Info: The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It Government Debt Info: Interest Expense on the Debt Outstanding Louisiana State Government: Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority Infrastructure Projects Visual Resources 20 Years of Congress Budget Prograstination in One Chart Sound Clip Sources Senate Remarks: Senator Paul on Budget Cap Increases in Two-Year Budget, C-SPAN, February 8, 2018. Senator Rand Paul: The bill is nearly 700 pages. It was given to us at midnight last night, and I would venture to say no one has read the bill. No one can thoroughly digest a 700-page bill overnight, and I do think that it does things that we really, really ought to talk about and how we should pay for them. Senator Rand Paul: So the reason I’m here tonight is to put people on the spot. I want people to feel uncomfortable. I want them to have to answer people at home who said, how come you were against President Obama’s deficits, and then how come you’re for Republican deficits? Isn’t that the very definition of intellectual dishonesty? If you were against President Obama’s deficits and now you’re for the Republican deficits, isn’t that the very definition of hypocrisy? People need to be made aware. Your senators need to answer people from home, and they need to answer this debate. We should have a full-throated debate. Senator Rand Paul: You realize that this is the secret of Washington. The dirty little secret is the Republicans are loudly clamoring for more military spending, but they can’t get it unless they give the Democrats welfare spending, so they raise all the spending. It’s a compromise in the wrong direction. We should be compromising in the direction of going toward spending only what comes in. And yet this goes on and on and on. Senator Rand Paul: For the umpteenth time, Congress is going to exceed their budget caps. We had something passed back in 2010. It was called PAYGO. It was supposed to say, if you’re going to pay new money, you had to go find an offset somewhere else. You could only pay as you go. It was sort of like a family would think about it. If you’re going to spend some more money, you either got to raise your income or you’ve got to save some money. You know how many times we’ve evaded it since 2010? Thirty-some-odd times. Senator Rand Paul: So the bill’s going to exceed the budget caps by $296 billion. And that’s not counting the money they don’t count, all right? So these people are really, really clever. Imagine them running their fingers together and saying, how can we hide stuff from the American people? How can we evade the spending caps so we can be even more irresponsible than we appear? So, 296 is the official number; about $300 billion over two years that will be in excess of the budget caps. But there’s another $160 billion that’s stuck into something called an overseas contingency fund. The budget caps don’t apply there. So we’re $300 billion for two years over the budget caps; then we’re another 160 billion over the caps—they just don’t count it. They act as if it doesn’t matter; we’re just not going to count it. Senator Rand Paul: The spending bill’s 700 pages, and there will be no amendments. The debate, although it’s somewhat inside baseball that we’re having here, is over me having a 15-minute debate, and they say, woe is me; if you get one, everybody’ll want an amendment. Well, guess what? That would be called debate. That would be called an open process. That would be called concern for your country—enough to take a few minutes. And they’re like, but it’s Thursday, and we like to be on vacation on Fridays. And so they clamor. But we’ve been sitting around all day. It’s not like we’ve had 100 amendments today, we’re all worn out, we can’t do one more. We’re going to have zero amendments—zero, goose egg, no amendments. Senator Rand Paul: So over the past 40 years, four times have we actually done the right thing—passed 12 individual appropriation bills, bundled them together, have a budget, and try to do the right thing. You know, there’s no guarantee that everybody’ll be wise in their spending, but it’s got to be better; it can’t be worse. What do we do instead? It’s called a continuing resolution. We glom all the bills together in one bill, like we’ve done tonight—Republicans and Democrats clasping hands—and nobody’s going to look at it. Nobody’s going to reform the spending. As a consequence, wasteful spending is riddled throughout your government. Only four times in 40 years have we done the appropriation process the way we’re supposed to. Senator Rand Paul: The last thing I’ll get to is something called the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling is something that has been a limitation on how much we spend, and we have to vote on it, and it’s an unpleasant vote. And so they try to either do it for a long period of time or try to stretch it beyond elections. So this bill, the 700-page bill that no one read, that will continue all the spending and will not reform your government and is irresponsible—the one we will pass later tonight—that 700-page bill also allows the debt ceiling to go up. Historically, we would let the debt ceiling—our borrowing limit—we would let it go up a dollar amount. We’d say, well, we’ve got to borrow money, and it looks like we’re going to need a trillion dollars. But you know the way they do it now? It’s like everything else around here: We bend, break the rules, and then somehow there’s a little bit of deviousness to it. The debt ceiling will go up in an unspecified amount. So as much as you can borrow between now and November, go for it. So there is no limitation. The debt ceiling becomes not a limitation at all. Senator Rand Paul: And the media doesn’t even get it. The media does you such a disservice. They can’t even understand what’s going on sometimes. They’re like, bipartisanship has broken out. Hallelujah! Republicans and Democrats are getting along. And in reality, they should be telling you, look for your wallet; check your pants to make sure they haven’t taken your wallet, because when both parties are happy and both parties are getting together and doing stuff, guess what? They were usually looting the Treasury. And that’s what this bill does. It’s going to loot the Treasury. It spends money we don’t have. We will have a trillion-dollar deficit this year. Press Briefing: Presidential Remarks on Federal Spending, C-Span, June 9, 2009.   Community Suggestions Video: The Political Vigilante: Graham Learns About MMT Part 1  Video: The Political Vigilante: Graham Learns About MMT Part 2 See more community suggestions HERE.   Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)

The Internet plays an essential role in our modern society and yet the way the Internet will be governed is still unclear. In anticipation of an impending Federal Communications Commission vote to reverse the so called “net neutrality” regulation implemented during the Obama administration, we look at the law which the FCC is trying to enforce. We also examine our current lawmaker’s plans for Internet governance by listening to highlights of three hearings featuring testimony from lawyers from Facebook, Twitter, and Google. Please Support Congressional Dish Click here to contribute using credit card, debit card, PayPal, or Bitcoin Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Mail Contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North #4576 Crestview, FL 32536 Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Bills H.R. 3989: Amend Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 S. 652 (104th): Telecommunications Acto of 1996 Additional Reading Article: House foreign surveillance turf war heats up as law sunset nears by Daniel R. Stoller, Bloomberg, December 1, 2017. Article: Colorado warns families to be prepared in case congress doesn't come through on CHIP funding by Kimberly Leonard, Washington Examiner, November 27, 2017 Article: Congress confronts jam-packed December with shutdown deadline looming by Mike Debonis and Ed O'Keefe, The Washington Post, November 26, 2017 Article: States prepare to shut down children's health programs if congress doesn't act by Colby Itkowitz and Sandhya Somashekhar, The Washington Post, November 23, 2017. Article: Here's how the end of net neutrality will change the internet by Klint Finley, Wired, November 22, 2017. Article: What is net neutrality? by Aaron Byrd and Natalia V. Osipova, NY Times, November 21, 2017. Article: Will the Telecommunications Act get a much-needed update as it turns 21? by Richard Adler, Recode, February 8, 2017. Article: Cable tv price increases have beaten inflation every single year for 20 years by Nathan McAlone, Business Insider, October 31, 2016 Article: 20 years after the Telecommunications Act of 1996, rekindling Congress's political will by Stuart N. Brotman, The Hill, February 8, 2016. Article: The city that was saved by the internet by Jason Koebler, Motherboard, October 27, 2016. Article: This was 1995: A pop culture snapshot by Patricia Garcia, Vogue, September 1, 2015. Article: Why your internet prices are bound to go up by Brian Fung, Washington Post, July 23, 2015. Report: In a nutshell: Net neutrality, CBS News, March 1, 2015. Report: AT&T buys DirectTV for $48.5 billion by Roger Yu, USA Today, May 18,2014. Article: Federal appeals court strikes down net neutrality rules by Brian Fung, Washington Post, January 14, 2014. Article: Legal gymnastics ensue in oral arguments for Verizon vs. FCC by Jennifer Yeh, Freepress, September 10, 2013. Report: Comcast completes NBC Universal merger, Reuters, January 29, 2011. References Bill Resources: H.R.1555 Communications Act of 1995 Bill Roll Call: H.R. 3989 Vote Roll Call FCC Resources: Telecommunications Act of 1996 Mission Statement: AIPAC - America's Pro-Israel Lobby Network Map: Community Networks Publication: Public Law 104 Telecommunications Act of 1996 Publication: The USA Liberty Act Report: Akamai's State of the Internet 2017 Report: FCC Fact Sheet Support Page: AT&T HBO Channels Visual References Cable Prices vs. Inflation, 1995-2015 Sound Clip Sources Senate Select Intelligence Committee: Facebook, Google and Twitter Executives on Russian Election Interference; November 1, 2017 (Senate Social Media) Witnesses: Colin Stretch - Facebook Vice President & General Counsel Sean Edgett - Twitter Acting General Counsel 1:49:24 Sen. Roy Blunt (MO): Mr. Stretch, how much money did the Russians spend on ads that we now look back as either disruptive or politically intended? It was at $100,000. Is that— Colin Stretch: It was approximately $100,000. Blunt: I meant from your company. Stretch: Yes, approximately $100,000. Blunt: How much of that did they pay before the election? Stretch: The— Blunt: I’ve seen the— Stretch: Yeah. Blunt: —number 44,000. Blunt: Is that right? Stretch: So— Blunt: 56 after, 44 before. Stretch: The ad impressions ran 46% before the election, the remainder after the election. Blunt: 46%. Well, if I had a consultant that was trying to impact an election and spent only 46% of the money before Election Day, I’d be pretty upset about that, I think. So, they spent $46,000. How much did the Clinton and Trump campaigns spend on Facebook? I assume before the election. Stretch: Yeah. Before the elec— Blunt: They were better organized than the other group. Stretch: Approximate—combined approximately $81 million. Blunt: 81 million, and before the election. Stretch: Yes. Blunt: So, 81 million. I’m not a great mathematician, but 46,000, 81 million, would that be, like, five one-thousandths of one percent? It’s something like that. Stretch: It’s a small number by comparison, sir. 2:19:55 Sen. Tom Cotton (AR): Do you see an equivalency between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Russian Intelligence Services? Sean Edgett: We’re not offering our service for surveillance to any government. Cotton: So you will apply the same policy to our Intelligence Community that you apply to an adversary’s intelligence services. Edgett: As a global company, we have to apply our policies consistently. Cotton: This reminds me of the old line from the Cold War, of one who did not see a distinction between the CIA and the KGB on the other hand, because the KGB officer pushed an old lady in front of an oncoming bus, and the CIA officer pushed the old lady out from the path of the oncoming bus, because they both go around pushing old ladies. I hope that Twitter will reconsider its policies when it’s dealing with friendly intelligence services in countries like the United States and the U.K. as opposed to adversarial countries like Russia and China. House Select Intelligence Committee: Facebook, Google and Twitter Executives on Russian Election Interference; November 1, 2017 (House Social Media) Witnesses: Kent Walker - Google Senior Vice President & General Counsel Colin Stretch - Facebook Vice President & General Counsel Sean Edgett - Twitter Acting General Counsel 39:05 Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ): Social-media platforms have the responsibility of striking a balance between removing false information and preserving freedom of speech. Can you give us some brief detail of how each of your companies plan to target perceived false news while protecting the robust political discourse? Kent Walker: Let me take that because that was the sort of next stage to my answer to Mr. Shift’s question. We are taking a number of different steps beyond advertising to focus on fake news. We are working to improve our algorithms, to provide additional guidance and training to the Raiders who provide quality feedback for us, and to look at a wider variety of signals to improve the ranking of authentic and genuine news on our sites and to demote sites that we feel are deceptive or misleading. We are also making broader use of fact-check labels, working with third parties, for both Google Search and Google News. And when it comes to advertising, we’ve taken steps to disallow advertising on sites that misrepresent their nature or purpose, and to add to our policies around or against hate speech, incitement of violence, and the like. Colin Stretch: I would group our efforts with respect to false news into three buckets. First, we find that most false news is financially motivated, and we’re making efforts to disrupt the financial incentives. That, we think, will make a big dent in it. Second, we’re looking to stop the spread of it. So when we have information that’s been disputed by independent fact-checkers, we limit the distribution and we alert users who are attempting to share it that it has been disputed. And third, we’re engaged in a number of user-education efforts to help, particularly around the world, users approach some of the content they see with a more discerning eye. Sean Edgett: We’re tackling this challenge in a few ways, and I think the way this was characterized is correct: it’s a balance between free speech and what’s real and what’s false. And we often see there’s a lot of activity on the platform to correct false narratives, and one of those things, for example, is the text-to-vote tweets that we turned over to you, which we took off our platform as illegal voter suppression. The number of tweets that were counteracting that as false and telling people not to believe that was, like, between eight and 10 times what we saw on the actual tweets. But we’re working on the behavior. That’s where we’re focused right now. We’ve had great strides in focusing on that for things like terrorism and child sexual exploitation. We’re trying to figure out how we can use those learnings to stop the amplification of false news or misinformation, and think we’re making great strides there, but it’s a definite balance. We also have work we’ve done, just like my peers, around ads transparency that, I think, is going to help educate the consumer about who’s paying for an ad, what else they’re running, what they’re targeting, what they’re after—especially around electioneering ads, who’s paying for it, how much they’re spending. We are also working with third parties. We have a Trust and Safety council of experts, academics, around the world who are helping us think through the things that we’re trying to employ to tackle these issues and how they will impact the debate and free speech on our platform. So we’re working hard on this, but it’s a challenge. 59:39 Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL): I submit to you that your efforts have to be more than just about finding malicious and deceptive activity, that you have a responsibility—all of you have a responsibility—to make sure that we are not adding to the problem by not being as rigorous and as aggressive as we can in terms of vetting the content and in terms of making sure that we are being really dynamic in doing that. And I also want to just say that I think it’s ridiculous that a foreign entity can buy a political ad with rubles but can’t give a political contribution to me—a Russian person can’t give me a political contribution. There seems to be some legislation that needs to be had here, is all I’m saying. 1:16:05 Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL): Let’s look at unpaid content for a second. Sometimes these fake accounts are pulled down, but the fake story takes the false claims of widespread voter fraud, for example, generated by these accounts have spread thousands of thousands of times, often picked up by legitimate news accounts. What do you do to flag that? What do you sense is your responsibility? And before any of you answer, let me just notice this, that if we’re asking is, are we still in this situation? As of just a short time ago—and I’m talking about when this meeting started—on Twitter, if you clicked on the hashtag “NYCTerroristAttack,” which is “trending,” marked with a red button saying “live,” the top tweet links to an Infowars story with the headline, “Imam: I Warned De Blasio About New York City Terror; He was Too Busy Bashing Trump.” This is a real-time example of when we talk about this information being weaponized. How quickly can you act, and what’s your responsibility to set the record straight so that the people who saw this know that it’s fake news and at least at some point in time it can’t keep spreading like some sort of virus through legitimate world? Sean Edgett: That’s something we’re thinking about all the time because it’s a bad user experience, and we don’t want to be known as a platform for that. In your example, in for instance, the system self-corrected. That’s not—that shouldn’t be the first tweet you see anymore. It should be a USA article, the last time I checked. Quigley: But you saw this. Edgett: USA Today. At lunch I did, yeah, and I also saw the system correct it. Quigley: Can you give me a really good guess on how long it was top? Edgett: We can follow up with you and your staff on that, and I don’t have the stat in front of me. Quigley: Yeah. Edgett: So I don’t know. But we are, like we said earlier, trying to balance free speech with making the information you see on the system—especially around trends that we direct you to, so if you’re clicking on a hashtag, we want to make sure you’re seeing verified accounts and accurate information and reporting. Sometimes it doesn’t work as we intended. We learn from those mistakes and tweak and modulate going forward. Quigley: Beyond the correction, do you have a responsibility to flag something as “this was fake news”? Edgett: We see our users do that a lot. We’re an open, public platform with respect to journalists and other organizations who point these things out. You may have seen that on this instance, for example. Quigley: Yeah, if someone’s breaking the law, you’ve got to feel like you have a responsibility to do something about that. It’s not—as you said, this is a—with this extraordinary gift, this platform of free expression, comes the responsibility you all talked about. So, if you know something’s illegal, you know you have the responsibility to do something. At what point does this become something where you can’t just correct it; you’ve got to say to the public, this isn’t true. Edgett: Right. And we take swift action on illegal content, illegal activity, on the platform. A good example of this is the text to vote, voter suppression tweets that we’ve turned over to this committee. We saw swift action of the Twitter community on disputing those claims; and Twitter actively tweeted, once it discovered these things were on the platform, to notify our users that this was fake information, that you could not, in fact, vote by tweet, and pointing people to a tool that would allow them to find their nearest polling place. That tweet— Quigley: Is this [unclear] because that was illegal activity, or is this—if something’s just fake, do you think you have an equal responsibility? Edgett: We took that down because it was illegal voter suppression. We are actively working on, how do we balance what is real and fake, and what do we do in the aftermath of something being tweeted and re-tweeted, like you said, and had people even seen it and how do we make sure that they’re seeing other view points and other facts and other news stories. Quigley: Do you have a policy right now where if you know something’s out there that’s not true, of saying so? Edgett: We do not. We have a policy that fosters the debate on the platform. We have a policy that takes down a lot of that content because it comes from automated malicious accounts or spammers. That stuff we’re removing and acting on as quickly as we can. Quigley: And I understand how you’re trying to distinguish that, but the fact is if something’s fake, it doesn’t matter if it’s from a fake account or some bot or something. If it’s just not true and it’s wildly obvious, before it goes viral and gets picked up legitimate, you must feel like you have some responsibility. Edgett: We are—we are deeply concerned about that and figuring out ways we can do it with the right balance. 1:57:39 Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA): RT, Russia Today, on your platform, has 2.2 million subscribers. Fox News, on your platform, has 740,000 subscribers. CNN has 2.3 million subscribers. The Intelligence Community assessment that was made public in January spoke about RT, and it said, “RT conducts strategic messaging for Russian government. It seeks to influence politics and fuel discontent in the United States.” So my question to you is, why have you not shut down RT on YouTube? Kent Walker: Thank you, Congresswoman. We’ve heard the concerns, and we spoke briefly about this previously. We recognize that there’re many concerned about RT’s slanted perspective. At the same time, this is an issue that goes beyond the Internet to cable, satellite television and beyond. We have carefully reviewed RT’s compliance with our policies. We’ve not found violations of our policies against hate speech and incitement to violence and the like. Speier: It’s a propaganda machine, Mr. Walker. The Intelligence Community—all 17 agencies—says it’s an arm of one of our adversaries. Walker: And we agree that— Speier: I would like for you to take that back to your executives and rethink continuing to have it on your platform. Walker: Yes. We agree that transparency’s important for all of these different sources of information. We are working on additional ways to provide that for all government-funded sources of information, including Al Jazeera and a range of government organizations. 2:05:27 Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC): Is it constitutionally protected to utter an intentionally false statement? Colin Stretch: So, it depends on the context, but there is recent Supreme Court precedent on that. On Facebook— Gowdy: On which side: that it is or is not? Stretch: That it is, in most cases, protected. However, on Facebook, our job is not to decide whether content is true or false. We do recognize that false news is a real challenge. The way in which we’re addressing it is by trying to disrupt the financial incentives of those who are profiting from it, which is where most of it comes from. Most of this, most of the fake-news problem is coming from low-quality websites that are trying to drive traffic on every side of every issue, and by disrupting the financial incentives, we’re able to limit the distribution. We’re also trying to make sure that users do know when a story has been disputed by a neutral third party and alerting users to that fact— I’ll stop. I’ll stop there. Gowdy: Well, I’m smiling only because on the last break a couple of my colleagues and I were wondering who those neutral fact-checkers are, and I really do appreciate your desire to want to have a neutral fact-checker. If you could let me know who those folks are, I’d be really grateful, because people in my line of work might take exception with the neutrality of some of the fact-checkers. So, if I understand you correctly, the authenticity of the speaker is very important; the accuracy of the content, less so. Stretch: That’s how we approach it. That’s exactly right. Gowdy: All right. For the life of me, I do not understand how a republic is served by demonstrably, provably, intentionally false information. And I get it, that you don’t want to be the arbiter of opinion—I don’t want you to be, either—but today’s not Thursday, so if I say it is, I swear I don’t understand how my fellow citizens benefit from me telling them something that is demonstrably false, and I am saying it with the intent to deceive. I just—for the life of me, I don’t get it, but I’m out of time. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism: Facebook, Google and Twitter Executives on Russian Disinformation; October 31, 2017 (Social Media) Witnesses: Colin Stretch - Facebook Vice President and General Counsel Sean Edgett - Twitter Acting General Counsel Richard Salgado - Google Law Enforcement & Information Security Director Clint Watts - Foreign Policy Research Institute, National Security Program Senior Fellow Michael Smith -New America, International Security Fellow 38:25 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (RI): And I gather that all of your companies have moved beyond any notion that your job is only to provide a platform and whatever goes across it is not your affair. Colin Stretch: Senator, our commitment to addressing this problem is unwavering. We take this very seriously and are committed to investing as necessary to prevent this from happening again. Absolutely. Whitehouse: Mr. Edgett? Sean Edgett: Absolutely agree with Mr. Stretch, and this type of activity just creates not only a bad user experience but distrust for the platform, so we are committed to working every single day to get better at solving this problem. Whitehouse: Mr. Salgado? Richard Salgado: That’s the same for Google. We take this very seriously. We’ve made changes, and we will continue to get better. Whitehouse: And ultimately, you are American companies, and threats to American election security and threats to American peace and order are things that concern you greatly, correct? Stretch: That is certainly correct. Edgett: Agree. Salgado: That’s right. 52:15 Sen. Dianne Feinstein (CA): Mr. Salgado, why did Google get preferred status to Russia Today, a Russian propaganda arm, on YouTube? Richard Salgado: There was a period of time where Russia Today qualified really because of algorithms to participate in an advertising program that opened up some inventory for them, subjective standards around popularity and some other criteria to be able to participate in that program. Platforms or publishers like RT drop in and out of the program as things change, and that is the case with RT. They dropped out of the program. Feinstein: Well, why didn’t you revert RT’s preferred status after the ICA came out in January 2017? It took you to September of 2017 to do it. Salgado: The removal of RT from the program was actually a result of, as I understand it, is a result of some of the drop in viewership, not as a result of any action otherwise. So, there was nothing about RT or its content that meant that it stayed in or stayed out. 2:03:15 Sen. Mazie Hirono (HI): So, Mr. Stretch, you said that there are 150 people at Facebook just focused on the content of what’s on your platform. How many people do you have, Mr. Edgett, at Twitter to concentrate on the content and ferretting out the kind of content that would be deemed unacceptable, divisive? I realize there are a lot of First Amendment— Sean Edgett: Right. Hirono: —complicated issues, but how many people do you have? Edgett: Well, we harness the power of both technology, algorithms, machine learning to help us, and also a large team of people, that we call our Trust and Safety team and our User Services team, it’s hundreds of people. We’re at a different scale than Facebook and Google, obviously, but we’re dedicating a lot of resource to make sure that we’re looking at user reports about activity on the platform that they think is violent or activity on the platform they think is illegal, and prioritizing that accordingly. Hirono: So, you have fewer people than Facebook. Facebook has 150; you said you have hundreds. Edgett: Yeah, we have hundreds— Hirono: Hundreds. Edgett: —across User Services and Trust and Safety, looking at the issues of content on the platform. Hirono: What about you, Mr. Salgado? Richard Salgado: Google has thousands of people. There’s many different products, and different teams work on them, but internally we’ll have thousands of people working on them. We also get a good deal of leads on content that we need to review for whether it’s appropriate or not that come from outside the company as well. Hirono: You have thousands of people just focused on the content— Salgado: On various types of content. Hirono: —as Mr. Stretch indicated to us that he has at Facebook? You have thousands of people dedicated? Salgado: We have thousands of people dedicated to make sure the content across our—and remember, Google has many different properties within it—but, yes, the answer is we have thousands that look at content that has been reported to us as inappropriate. Hirono: So, in view of that, Mr. Stretch, do you think 150 people is enough people? Stretch: Senator, to be clear, the 150 people I mentioned earlier is people whose full-time job is focused on addressing terrorism content on Facebook. In terms of addressing content on the site generally, we have thousands. And indeed, we have a Community Operations team that we announced earlier this year that we were going to be adding additional thousands to the several thousands that are already working on this problem every day. Hirono: I think it’s pretty clear that this is a whole new sort of use, or misuse, of your platform, and you may have various ways to address terrorist content, but this is a whole other thing. 2:32:10 Clint Watts: Account anonymity in public provides some benefits to society, but social-media companies must work to immediately confirm real humans operate accounts. The negative effects of social bots far outweigh any benefits that come from the anonymous replication of accounts that broadcast high volumes of misinformation. Reasonable limits on the number of posts any account can make during an hour, day, or week should be developed and human-verification systems should be employed by all social-media companies to reduce automated broadcasting. 2:33:07 Clint Watts: Lastly, I admire those social-media companies that have begun working to fact-check news articles in the wake of last year’s elections. These efforts should continue but will be completely inadequate. Stopping false information—the artillery barrage landing on social-media users comes only when those outlets distributing bogus stories are silenced. Silence the guns, and the barrage will end. I propose the equivalent of nutrition labels for information outlets, a rating icon for news-producing outlets displayed next to their news links and social-media feeds and search engines. The icon provides users an assessment of the news outlet’s ratio of fact versus fiction and opinion versus reporting. The rating system would be opt-in. It would not infringe on freedom of speech or freedom of the press. Should not be part of the U.S. government, should sit separate from the social-media companies but be utilized by them. Users wanting to consume information from outlets with a poor rating wouldn’t be prohibited. If they are misled about the truth, they have only themselves to blame. 2:44:20 Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (RI): Mr. Watts, you’ve been a U.S. Army infantry officer, you’ve been an FBI special agent on the Joint Terrorism Task Force, you’ve been executive officer of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, and you’ve been a consultant to the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division and National Security Branch, so you clearly take American national security very seriously. It is, and has been, your life’s work. So, when you say, ”The Kremlin disinformation playbook,” which we’re talking about here, “will also be adopted by authoritarians, dark political campaigns, and unregulated global corporations who will use this type of social-media manipulation to influence weaker countries; harm less-educated, vulnerable populations; and mire business challengers,” you’re not just talking about the Russian election-manipulation operation getting worse and having to be contained. You’re talking about it as if it’s a technology that other bad actors can adopt and have it metastasized entirely into new fields of dissimulation, propaganda, and so forth. Clint Watts: Yes. Whitehouse: Correct? Watts: Everybody will duplicate this if they don’t believe in the rule of law, if they want to destroy democracies from the inside out. Anyone with enough resources and time and effort, if they put it against us, they can duplicate this. I could duplicate it if I chose to. Whitehouse: So, if we don’t stop it now, it’s going to get exponentially worse. Watts: Yes. And I think the one thing that we should recognize is even in the U.S. political context, if we don’t put some sort of regulation around it, if bodies like this don’t decide how we want American politics to work, everybody will be incentivized to use this same system against their political opponents, and if you don’t, you will lose. 2:51:35 Sen. John Kennedy (LA): The First Amendment implications of all of this concern me as well. I mean, what’s fake news? What do you think fake news is? Clint Watts: Fake news, over the years since I’ve been involved and talking about this, is any news the other side doesn’t like, doesn’t matter what side it is. Kennedy: That’s right. Michael Smith: Senator, if I may. I’m teaching undergrads a course at Georgia State University this semester titled Media, Culture, and Society; and we’re about to start classes focused on fake news later this week. I would submit that fake news might best be defined as deliberate mis- or disinformation, which is tailored or engineered to achieve a particular outcome in the way of behaviors, to persuade perceptions in a manner that lead to behaviors such as perhaps a vote for or against somebody. Kennedy: Well, that’s a good definition, but I’ll end on this: in whose opinion? Watts: But I think there are parameters that we could come around. I mean, reporting versus opinion is a key point of it. I think also in terms of fact versus fiction, I’ve actually set up rating systems on foreign media outlets before the U.S. Government’s paid me to do that, you know, in the Iraq/Afghanistan campaigns. House Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee: FCC Oversight; October 25, 2017 Witnesses: Ajit Pai: FCC Chairman 14:00 Rep. Greg Walden: Ultimately, Congress is the appropriate forum to settle the net neutrality debate. I think you hear a little of that passion here on both sides. And I’ve been continuing my efforts to negotiate a compromise. Although my staff continues to engage in the various affected parties in productive discussions toward that end, my colleagues in the minority have, unfortunately, seemed largely uninterested at this point. Love to see that change, by the way. Door remains open. We’re willing and able to codify net neutrality protections and establish a federal framework in statute for providing certainty to all participants in the Internet ecosystem. I don’t think we need Title II to do that. 1:31:45 Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH): Voice-activated virtual assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are becoming an increasingly popular consumer gateway to the Internet. Some day soon they might even become consumer-preferred interface with the Internet, leaving the age of the desktop Google Search behind. You get Yelp results in Siri, OpenTable in Google, TuneIn radio from Alexa. These interactions are occurring through private partnerships among these companies to have their apps interact. However, it creates a situation where, by definition, the consumers’ access to other Internet content is limited or completely blocked. It’s the question of, who answers Siri’s question when you ask Siri something? Chairman Pai, can the FCC do anything about this? Ajit Pai: Congressman, under our current Internet regulations, we cannot. Those do not apply to edge providers. 1:36:12 Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA): Will you commit to us that you’ll apply or consider applying broadcast-transparency requirements to state-sponsored media outlets like RT? And if not, why not? Ajit Pai: Congresswoman, thank you for the question. As I under— Eshoo: Uh-huh, you’re welcome. Pai: As I understand the law— Eshoo: Uh-huh, mm-hmm. Pai: —there is no jurisdictional hook at this point, no transfer of a license, for example, that allows the FCC to a certain jurisdiction. Eshoo: But what about those that have a license and carry them? Do you have—doesn’t the FCC have any say so in that, or is this, as the Intelligence Community said, that they are a principle international propaganda outlet? So are they just going to operate in the United States no matter what? Pai: Congresswoman, again, under the Communications Act and the Constitution, the First Amendment, we do not have currently a jurisdictional hook for taking and doing an investigation of that kind. If you’re privy to, obviously, classified or unclassified information that suggests that there might be another agency that has, obviously, a direct interest in the issue—and we’re, obviously, happy to work with them—but at the current time, as I’ve been advised, neither under the First Amendment nor under the Communications Act do we have the ability to— Eshoo: Well, First Amendment applies to free speech in our country. It doesn’t mean that the Kremlin can distribute propaganda in our country through our airwaves. I just—I don’t know if you’re looking hard enough. 1:40:05 Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY): In 2013, and I was one of the households affected by this, there was a carriage dispute between CBS and Time Warner Cable. And CBS blocked Time Warner Cable Internet customers from viewing its shows online through a CBS.com website. So I couldn’t get any of CBS or SHOWTIME or any of that on TV. If you went to the website, because Time Warner Cable was our cable provider and Internet service provider, you couldn’t go to CBS.com—it was blocked. Or SHOWTIME to watch any of the shows that was coming out. And that was when some new ones were coming out that August, so we were trying to find that. But some members of Congress said, bring this up, and I think Chairwoman Clyburn was acting chairwoman at the time and said that she didn’t believe the agency had the jurisdiction to intervene in this situation. And Chairman Pai, do you think if it happened now, do you think the FCC would have the opportunity to intervene in a similar case? Ajit Pai: Congressman, I think the legal authorities have not changed to the extent that the FCC gets a complaint that a party is acting in bad faith in the context of retransmission dispute, then we would be able to adjudicate it. But absence to such a complaint or additional authority from Congress, we couldn’t take further action. Guthrie: But currently the Title II, open Internet, is still in effect. Is that—how would that affect it? Pai: Oh, currently, yes. Just to be clear, I should have added was well then, our Internet regulations would not apply to that kind of content to the extent you’re talking about, the blocking of online distribution of [unclear]. Guthrie: Because it only applies to the service provider, not to the content provider? Pai: That is correct, sir. Federal Communications Commission: Open Internet Rules; February 26, 2015 (Open Internet Rules) Witnesses: Agit Pai: FCC Commissioner 38:05 Ajit Pai: For 20 years, there has been a bipartisan consensus in favor of a free and open Internet. A Democratic president and Republican Congress enshrined in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 the principle that the Internet should be a vibrant and competitive free market “unfettered by federal and state regulation.” And dating back to the Clinton administration, every FCC chairman—Republican and Democrat—has let the Internet grow free from utility-style regulation. The results speak for themselves. But today the FCC abandons those policies. It reclassifies broadband Internet access service as a Title II telecommunications service. It seizes unilateral authority to regulate Internet conduct to direct where Internet service providers, or ISPs, make their investments and to determine what service plans will be available to the American public. This is not only a radical departure from the bipartisan market-oriented policies that have serviced so well over the past two decades, it is also an about-face from the proposals the FCC itself made just last May. So why is the FCC turning its back on Internet freedom? Is it because we now have evidence that the Internet is broken? No. We are flip-flopping for one reason and one reason only: President Obama told us to do so. Barack Obama: I’m asking the FCC to reclassify Internet service under Title II of a law known as the Telecommunications Act. Pai: On November 10, President Obama asked the FCC to implement his plan for regulating the Internet, one that favors government regulation over marketplace competition. As has been widely reported in the press, the FCC has been scrambling ever since to figure out a way to do just that. The courts will ultimately decide this order’s fate. Litigants are already lawyering up to seek a judicial review of these new rules. And given this order’s many glaring legal flaws, they’ll have plenty of fodder. 40:46 Ajit Pai: This order imposes intrusive government regulations that won’t work, to solve a problem that doesn’t exist, using legal authority the FCC doesn’t have. Accordingly, I dissent. 1:03:15 Ajit Pai: And I’m optimistic that we will look back on today’s vote as an aberration, a temporary deviation from the bipartisan consensus that has served us so well. I don’t know whether this plan will be vacated by a court, reversed by Congress, or overturned by a future commission, but I do believe its days are numbered. Telecommunications Bill Signing: February 8, 1996 (Bill Signing) 4:59 Vice President Al Gore: I firmly believe that the proper role of government in the development of the information superhighway is to promote and achieve at every stage of growth, at every level of operation, at every scale, the public interest values of democracy, education, and economic and social well-being for all of our citizens. If we do not see to it that every project, every network, every system addresses the public interest at the beginning, then when will it be addressed? How can we expect the final organism to express these values if they are not included in its DNA, so to speak, at the beginning? For that reason, in 1993, on behalf of the president, I presented five principles that the Clinton administration would seek in any telecommunication reform legislation: private investment, competition, universal service, open access, and flexible regulations. Telecommunications Act Conference: December 12, 1995 (Conference) 22:15 Rep. Rick Boucher: In the very near future, most homes are going to have two broadband wires that will offer the combination of telephone service and cable TV service. One of those will have started as a telephone wire; the other will have started as a cable television wire. The programming that is affiliated with the owners of those wires obviously is going to be available to consumers in the homes, but other programmers may very well be denied access. And if access to other programming is denied, consumers will be deprived of video offerings to which they should be entitled. Telecommunications Act Conference: December 6, 1995 (Conference) 27:14 Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL): No one has a right to give pornography to children. While we have not previously criminalized this area on the federal level, it’s necessary to do so now. This is because of the advent of the Internet, which enables someone in one location to instantly send or make available pornography to children in every city in America. Children don’t have the right to buy pornography in any store in America, yet some would argue there’s a right to give it to them free, delivered to their home by computer. Telecommunications Act Conference: Telecommunications Reform Act of 1995; October 25, 1995 8:58 Sen. John McCain: I believe the Senate bill in its present form is far too regulatory. Any bill that gives 80 new tasks to the Federal Communications Commission, in my view, does not meet the standard that we have set for ourselves of trying to allow everyone to compete in a deregulated—in an environment that is changing so quickly that none of us predicted five years ago that it would look like it is today. And today we have no idea what the industry will look like in five years. 32:00 Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN): One thing that does please me is when I think about one of the last renaissance of electricity, electricity goes to the big cities and leaves out the rural areas, and then we have to come up with the REMCs. When we move America to the World Wide Web, though, we’re not allowing cherry-picking and to move to the great resources in the big cities, but the rural areas will be included in the World Wide Web. And so I congratulate both of you to making sure that that happens, that some of the strength of this country lies in the heart of America, and I think that’s pretty exciting. House Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance: Telecommunications Act Part 1; May 11, 1995 1:25:36 Rep. Dan Schaefer (R-CO): Unlike the case for telephone service, every American household has access to at least one, and soon many more, competitive video providers today. The case simply has not yet been made that the federal government has a duty to do anything other than provide for access to alternative in the case of a purely entertainment service like the upper tier of cable. We have provided that access. We will expand that access in this bill. It is time we focus on the real issues addressed by 1555, the building of advanced broadband networks and the benefits that it will bring to all Americans. House Energy & Commerce Committee: Cable Television Deregulation; February 2, 1994 Witnesses: Bill Reddersen - Bell South Corporation Senior Vice President Jeffery Chester - Center for Media Education Executive Director Edward Reilly - President of McGraw-HIll Broadcasting 7:27 Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA): As telephone companies are able to offer cable TV service inside their telephone-service areas, they’ll have the financial incentive to deploy the broadband technology that will facilitate the simultaneous transport of voice and cable TV service and data messages, building out the infrastructure, creating the last mile of the information highway, that distance from the telephone company’s central office into the premises of the user homes and businesses throughout the nation. 24:36 Bill Reddersen: It is our goal to have you pass legislation this year that enables us to deploy a second broadband network that will compete effectively with cable and bring consumers new and innovative educational healthcare information and entertainment services. 25:12 Bill Reddersen: However, unless you eliminate the competitive advantages this bill confers upon cable companies, our industry will not be able to compete effectively against companies that already have a dominant, if not monopoly, position in programming markets, nor will the bill encourage telephone companies to make or continue the substantial investments required for widespread development of broadband networks. Cable companies are formidable competitors and do not need protection. Cable is a 21-billion-dollar-a-year-gross business, passing over 90% of U.S. homes. According to a recent survey, only 53 out of over 10,000 cable systems compete against a second cable operator. Cable has vertically integrated and diversified into multi-billion-dollar programming and communications businesses. Cable companies and the emerging cable telco alliances clearly do not need protection from telephone companies that currently have no video programming market share, virtually no broadband facilities to the home, and little or no operational experience in the video marketplace. 37:55 Jeffrey Chester: While we share the goal of this committee that every community be served by at least two wires, there are no guarantees that this will be achieved in the near future, even with the proposed legislation. We are also troubled by the unprecedented wave of mergers and acquisitions taking place in the media industries. Serious concerns are raised by the emergence of new media giants controlling regional Bell operating companies, cable systems, TV and film studios, newspapers, broadcasting properties, and information service providers. Without federal intervention, control of the nation’s media system will be in the hands of fewer and less-accountable companies, possessing even more concentrated power. 40:45 Bill Reddersen: Just as we have established private librar—public libraries—and public highways, we need to create public arenas in the electronic commons in the media landscape. A vibrant telecommunication civic sector will be an essential counterbalance to the commercial forces that will dominate the information superhighway. 2:24:38 Bill Reddersen: The common carrier requirements of this legislation are essentially, if executed the way they have in the telephone industry, the second model that you articulated, and that is that if additional capacity was required and someone shows up, we build. Okay? That is the fundamental premise underlying common carrier regulation. 2:30:04 Rep. Michael Oxley (R-OH): Does it really matter if BellSouth builds the wire, the limitless wire, or the cable industry builds the limitless wire if indeed it is essentially a limitless technology that is open to everyone who wants to sell his or her product, including Mr. Reilly, on that particular technology? If you have the common carrier status and you have the ability to deliver your programming, is it really relevant whether BellSouth owns the wire or Mr. Angstrom owns the wire, and if it is indeed relevant, why is it relevant, Mr. Reilly? Edward Reilly: Well, it’s relevant in any instance where the company that owns the wire is also engaged in the programming business at all. If someone is prepared to build a wire and agree that they would never want to be in the programming business, and that we were given very strong safeguards— Oxley: Why is that a problem? Reilly: Well, because we end up inevitably competing with our programming— Oxley: Of course you do. Reilly: —against someone who owns both the wire and the programming content that goes on that wire. Reilly: Why is it relevant, though, if BellSouth owns the wire and you’ve got limitless access and limitless capacity, why does it make any difference that the people who supposedly own the wire are competing against you? They’re competing head to head. You are simply paying the same shelf space for your product as the owner of the product that’s providing that kind of service. Oxley: Well, we have—we believe that there is ample opportunity in that type of environment for a number of anti-competitive activities that would certainly damage our ability to try and be an equal player. Where we get positioned on the wire, what comes up when the menu first comes up, how the billing is organized—there’s a whole host of issues that go along with owning the wire and setting up the infrastructure that can create a significant competitive advantage to someone who chooses to use that for their own program service. 2:38:47 Rep. Billy Tauzin (D-LA): I think the key for us here is to guarantee that there are comparable providers of services and how they get it to us, as long as it’s comparable and we have choice and all people have access to it. If we guarantee that kind of policy for America, we don’t much have to worry about the risk. Consumers take over from there as long as we guarantee, if we do have common carriage on a line, that the owner of the line can’t discriminate; can’t play games with the competitors who own that line; that you can’t play bottleneck games, as publishers are complaining about in the other bill we’re going to debate pretty soon on MMJ; that, in fact, there’s fairness on the playing field. Here’s a question for you in regard to that fairness: If the telephone companies or the utility companies can in fact do what you can’t do—produce their own programs and send them over those lines, even if we restrict them in the number of channels they can use, which I really have a problem with, as Mr. Boucher does—are we going to make sure that the same provisions of program access apply to those producers of programs that we’ve applied to the cable producers? You raised the issue in your testimony. You talked about the problems we had in cable where they own both the software and the hardware—in essence, the content and the conduit—and the problems consumers had as a result of that. Are we going to require the cable companies make 75% of their channels available to competitors? Are we going to require that the utility companies, when they build lines, fiber optic lines, are going to be similarly required to make access available to their competitors? If we’re talking about a real competitive world here, are we going to build a world where some have obligations others don’t have? Some must carry and some don’t? Some must give access to their programs to competitors, as cable is now required to do because of the bill we successfully passed over the president’s veto last year, and over cable’s objection? Are we going to make that same requirement now available—enforced upon other competitors who build wires, or who build some other systems, who decide to deliver it under some particle-beam technology we haven’t dreamed of yet, or the satellite delivery systems that are coming into play? Are we going to create some real equality in this competition, that’s going to give consumers comparable choices? That’s the key word to me—comparable choices. Are we going to do that? Or are we going to dictate the technology, confine you to so many channels, not require you to carry what others have to carry, put requirements on one competitor—the cable company can get on the telephone company’s lines, but the telephone company can’t get on the cable system’s line? Come on. It seems to me if we’re going to build policy that gets consumers real, comparable choices out there, we have to answer all those questions. Video: What the world looks like without net neutrality Video: Net Neutrality II: Last Week Tongight with John Oliver Special Thanks! To Adam Hettler for performing The Most Dangerous time of the Year! See more of Adam here! Background music for The Most Dangerous Time of the Year. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)  

Caroline Marcus is the "Political Reporter for the People" for Sky News and an opinion columnist for The Daily Telegraph. Caroline joined me live onstage at the Giant Dwarf theatre in Redfern in front of a lively crowd on Wednesday July 12th. We touch on the media landscape, bias, identity politics and her experience reporting on the Australian detention centres on Nauru for A Current Affair. Our disagreement occasionally got heated, but I really appreciated the chance to explore this stuff with Caroline in detail.  A huge thank you to the Giant Dwarf for having us. You can hear the first episode recorded on the night with Tanya Plibersek here.  Problematic is coming to Edinburgh Fringe 2017, starts August 2nd Problematic is coming to London's Soho Theatre, starts August 29th @carolinemarcus Article: If you disagree with me, you're a racist  Article: Why are activists so afraid of the truth about Nauru? A Current Affair: Inside Nauru's Detention Centre My episodes on cultural appropriation with Gay Alcorn, Yassmin Abdel-Magied  Cause of the Week: Lifeline (lifeline.org.au)  

We have the first wave of the Trump laws! In this episode, highlights of the most impactful laws from the first three months of the 115th Congress, which include favors to the fossil fuel industry, gun industry, telecommunications industry, and defense contractors. In addition, learn about a law (that’s flown completely under the radar) that fundamentally changes how NASA operates. Please support Congressional Dish: Click here to contribute using credit card, debit card, PayPal, or Bitcoin Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Mail Contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North #4576 Crestview, FL 32536 Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD124: The Costs of For-Profit War CD135: Education is Big Business Bills Outline S. 84: A bill to provide for an exception to a limitation against appointment of persons as Secretary of Defense within seven years of relief from active duty as a regular commissioned officer of the Armed Forces. Exempts General James Mattis from the law that prohibits anyone from serving as Defense Secretary within seven years of leaving military service (Mattis had retired less than four years before his appointment). H.R. 72: GAO Access and Oversight Act of 2017 Gives the Government Accountability Office (GAO) more power to get federal agency records for audits and investigations Requires agency heads to report their plans - not just their actions - that the agency will take when given recommendations by the GAO and requires the reports to be given to more Congressional committees Makes it easier for the GAO to sue federal agencies that don't comply Gives the GAO access to the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH) H.J.Res. 41: Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of a rule submitted by the Securities and Exchange Commission relating to “Disclosure of Payments by Resource Extraction Issuers”. Repeals an Obama administration rule requiring companies listed in the stock market to publicly report payments by the fossil fuel and mineral industries to the US or foreign governments if the payments are over $100,000 in a year. H.J.Res. 38: Disapproving the rule submitted by the Department of the Interior known as the Stream Protection Rule. Repeals a Department of Interior regulation known as the "Stream Protection Rule" which aimed to reduce pollution from coal mining by blocking mining within 100 feet of streams and requiring coal mining companies to restore the land their use to it's pre-mining condition. H.J.Res. 40: Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Social Security Administration relating to Implementation of the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007. Repeals a Social Security Administration rule that never went into effect that would have prohibited approximately 75,000 people who receive disability checks for mental illness from buying guns. H.R. 321: Inspiring the Next Space Pioneers, Innovators, Researchers, and Explorers (INSPIRE) Women Act Orders the NASA administrator to create a plan to use current and former NASA employees to engage with K-12 female students to encourage them to pursue careers in aerospace. The plan must be submitted in 90 days. H.R. 255: Promoting Women in Entrepreneurship Act "Encourages" the National Science Foundation to recruit women to work in commercial science and engineering - S. 442: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Transition Authorization Act of 2017 Authorizes $19.5 billion for NASA operations for 2017 Declares that it will be US policy that we will support the International Space Station through at least 2024 Sense of Congress: "Commercially provided crew transportation systems" should be the primary means of transporting US astronauts to and from the International Space Station and reliance upon Russian transportation should be ended as soon as possible. Commercial providers of NASA services will have to provide "evidence-based support for their costs and schedules" only "in a manner that does not add costs or schedule delays" NASA will have to create a plan to "transition in a step-wise approach from the current regime that relies heavily on NASA sponsorship to a regime where NASA could be one of many customers of a low-Earth orbit non-governmental human space flight enterprise." The first report on progress will be due December 1, 2017 Contracts between NASA and private providers are allowed to give immunity to the private providers from lawsuits for "death, bodily injury, or loss of or damage to property resulting from launch services and reentry services carried out under the contract" for any amount over what their insurance covers. The maximum amount of insurance a provider will have to obtain is for $500 million The immunity may exclude claims resulting from willful misconduct by the private provider Establishes long term goals for NASA, which include "to enable a capability to extend human presence, including potential human habitation on another celestial body and a thriving space economy in the 21st Century." There will be a specific focus on enabling humans living on Mars Repeals provisions of law that required the government specifically to have the ability to restart the Space Shuttle program, if needed. Authorizes the NASA Administrator to conduct long-term medical monitoring and treatment of astronauts with no out-of-pocket costs for the astronauts for space flight related ailments only. H.J.Res. 44: Disapproving the rule submitted by the Department of the Interior relating to Bureau of Land Management regulations that establish the procedures used to prepare, revise, or amend land use plans pursuant to the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. Repeals a Bureau of Land Management Rule that would give the public a larger and earlier role in management plans for public land. The public would have been able to submit data & other information. The public also would have been given information as the plans were developed, allowing the public to comment during the planning process instead of after. H.J.Res. 37: Disapproving the rule submitted by the Department of Defense, the General Services Administration, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration relating to the Federal Acquisition Regulation. Repeals a rule written by the Department of Defense, the General Services Administration, and NASA that would have made federal contractors prove their compliance with fourteen Federal labor laws, which would then be taken into consideration by agencies when awarding contracts. The contractors would also have to report their wages paid to employees to the agencies and would have limited forced arbitration of employee claims. H.J.Res. 57: Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Education relating to accountability and State plans under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Repeals a Department of Education rule that would have pushed states to weigh student achievement via test scores of 95% of their students and graduation rates when determining which schools are "underperforming". The rule also would have required schools to provide parents and the public with more information on their annual report card. H.J.Res. 58: Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Education relating to teacher preparation issues. Repeals a Department of Education rule that outlined indicators that states would have to use to judge teacher performance and tied results to some Federal aid funding. H.J.Res. 42: Disapproving the rule submitted by the Department of Labor relating to drug testing of unemployment compensation applicants. Repeals a Department of Labor rule that allowed but limited the drug testing of people receiving unemployment benefits. People could only be tested if they were dismissed for substance abuse related reasons and only if their jobs required carrying a firearm, aviation flight crews, air traffic controllers, commercial drivers, railroad crews, pipeline crews, and commercial maritime crews. S.J.Res. 34: A joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission relating to “Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services” Repeals a Federal Communications Commission rule that would have required Internet service providers to obtain our approval if they were going to share our information, and not condition service on an acceptance of data sharing, and to notify us if our data was compromised. Additional Reading Article: Congress Votes To Expand Drug Testing For Unemployment Recipients by Kelly Mcevers, NPR, March 27, 2017. Article: Why you should take a closer look at this week's NASA bill by Andrew Wagner and Nsikan Akpan, PBS, March 24, 2017. Article: Obama Education Rules Are Swept Aside by Congress by Dana Goldstein, The New York Times, March 9, 2017. Article: The Senate just voted to overturn another environmental rule - sending it to Trump's desk by Chelsea Harvey, The Washington Post, March 8, 2017. Article: Senate overturns Obama-era regulations on teacher preparation by Emma Brown, The Washington Post, March 8, 2017. Congressional Record: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Transition Authorization Act of 2017, House of Representatives, March 7, 2017. Article: Trump Signs Bill Revoking Obama-Era Gun Checks for People with Mental Illnesses by Ali Vitali, NBC News, February 28, 2017. Article: FCC Chairman Goes After His Predecessor's Internet Privacy Rules by Alina Selyukh, NPR, February 24, 2017. Article: Why Trump just killed a rule restricting coal companies from dumping waste in streams by Brad Plumer, Vox, February 16, 2017. Article: Trump signs Sasse's bill to let GAO access massive financial database by Joseph Morton, Omaha World Herald, February 3, 2017. Article: Goodbye, Stream Protection Rule by Paul Rauber, Sierra, February 1, 2017. Article: On the same day Rex Tillerson is confirmed, the House votes to kill a transparency rule for oil companies by Brad Plumer, Vox, February 1, 2017. Article: Republicans will try a little-used tactic to kill five Obama regulations this week by Brad Plumer, Vox, February 1, 2017. Press Release: Bill Johnson Leads House Effort to Protect Coal Jobs by Overturning Ill-Advised "Stream Protection Rule" by Representative Bill Johnson, January 30, 2017. Press Release: Chairman Huizenga, Senator Inhofe Move To Eliminate Resource Extraction Rule via CRA, Chairman Bill Huizenga, January 30, 2017. Op-Ed: The Congressional Review Act, rarely used and (almost always) unsuccessful by Stuart Shapiro, The Hill, April 17, 2015. References U.S. Dept of Labor: Unemployment Insurance Senator Al Franken: Arbitration Amendment OpenSecrets: Rep. Liz Cheney - Top Industries, 2015-2016 OpenSecrets: National Rifle Association - 2016 Contributions OpenSecrets: Rep. Bill Johnson - Top Industries OpenSecrets: Rep. Bill Johnson - Top Industries, 2015-2016 OpenSecrets: Rep. Bill Huizenga - 2014 Assets OpenSecrets: Rep. Bill Huizenga - Top Industries OpenSecrets: Senator Jeff Flake - Top Industries OpenSecrets: Rep. Marsha Blackburn - Career Profile OpenSecrets: Communications/Electronics - Money to Congress Sound Clip Sources Hearing: NASA: Past, Present, and Future, House of Representatives, Committee on Science, Space and Technology, February 16, 2017. Video: NASA Authorization Bill Signing, Oval Office, March 21, 2017. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations

What is Puerto Rico? Many Americans - if not most - are unaware that Puerto Rico is a part of the United States. In this episode, learn the history of our scandalous treatment of the US citizens living in Puerto Rico and explore how Puerto Rico’s past foreshadowed the United States' present… and possibly our future. Please support Congressional Dish: Click here to contribute with PayPal or Bitcoin Click here to support Congressional Dish for each episode via Patreon Mail Contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North #4576 Crestview, FL 32536 Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD128: Crisis in Puerto Rico Additional Reading Book: War Against All Puerto Ricans by Nelson A. Denis, March 2016. Article: Puerto Rico Warning Congress Its Health Crisis Will Impact U.S. States by Suzanne Gamboa, NBC News, March 22, 2017. Document: Testimony of Jose B. Carrion III, Chairman, Financial Oversight & Management Board for Puerto Rico, March 22, 2017. Article: Why the GOP's proposals to cap Medicaid funding won't work by Ana Mulero, Healthcare Dive, March 21, 2017. Article: Fed Raises Interest Rates for Third Time Since Financial Crisis by Binyamin Appelbaum, The New York Times, March 15, 2017. Letter: Fiscal Plan Certification, Financial Oversight & Management Board for Puerto Rico, March 13, 2017. Press Release: Jenniffer Gonzalez Calls for Fiscal Oversight Board Action to Prevent Medicaid Crisis by Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, March 13, 2017. Article: Tensions heighten following control board rejection of fiscal plan by Luis J. Valentin, Caribbean Business, March 9, 2017. Article: A bad deal for Puerto Rico, Globe control board opinion, The Boston Globe, March 5, 2017. Article: Quest for statehood: Puerto Rico's new referendum aims to repair economic disaster by Danica Coto, Salon, February 3, 2017. Letter: Letter to Governor Rossello Nevares, Financial Oversight & Management Board for Puerto Rico, January 18, 2017. Article: Puerto Rico's New Governor Takes Over as Debt Crisis Reaches Climax by Tatiana Darie, Bloomberg, January 3, 2017. Article: Puerto Rico Control Board Names Carrion Chair Amid Protests by Katherine Greifeld, Bloomberg, September 30, 2016. Article: Puerto Rico's Invisible Health Crisis by Valeria Pelet, The Atlantic, September 3, 2016. Op-Ed: Understanding Puerto Rico's Healthcare Collapse by Johnny Rullan, Morning Consult, June 20, 2016. Article: Puerto Rico not sovereign, Supreme Court says by Richard Wolf, USA Today, June 9, 2016. Article: US supreme court says Puerto Rico must abide by federal double jeopardy rule by Alan Yuhas, The Guardian, June 9, 2016. Op-Ed: No More Colonialism Disguised as Financial Assistance: The US Must Relinquish Puerto Rico by Nelson A. Denis, Truthout, May 19, 2016. Article: Sea Turtles Delay Debt-Ridden Puerto Rico's Gas-Switching Plan by Jonathan Crawford, Bloomberg, March 23, 2016. Article: There's a big sale on Puerto Rican homes by Heather Long, CNN Money, February 21, 2016. Article: The US shipping industry is putting a multimillion dollar squeeze on Puerto Rico by Rory Carroll, Business Insider, July 9, 2015. Article: Harvard's billionaire benefactor also a GOP sugar daddy by Vanessa Rodriguez, OpenSecrets.org, June 4, 2015. Interview: How the United States Economically and Politically Strangled Puerto Rico by Mark Karlin, Truthout, May 24, 2015. Article: Why Have So Many People Never Heard Of The MOVE Bombing? by Gene Demby, NPR, May 18, 2015. Article: Puerto Rico Expands Tax Haven Deal For Americans To Its Own Emigrants by Janet Novack, Forbes, January 27, 2015. Article: Citizenship Renunciation Fee Hiked 422%, And You Can't Come Back by Robert W. wood, Forbes, January 13, 2015. Article: Puerto Rican Population Declines on Island, Grows on U.S. Mainland by D'Vera Cohn, Eileen Pattien and Mark Hugo Lopez, Pew Research Center, August 11, 2014. Article: Puerto Rico woos rich with hefty tax breaks by Sital S. Patel and Ben Eisen, Market Watch, April 22, 2014. Article: Bankers Crashed the Economy - Now They Want to Be Your Landlord by Rebecca Burns, Michael Donley, and Carmilla Manzanet, Moyers & Company, April 2, 2014. Article: 'Backdoor bailout' boosts Puerto Rico's revenues, Bond News, Reuters, February 10, 2014. Article: Economy and Crime Spur New Puerto Rican Exodus by Lizette Alvarez, The New York Times, February 8, 2014. Article: Everything You Need to Know About the Territories of the United States, Everything Everywhere, June 27, 2013. Document: Puerto Rico's Political Status and the 2012 Plebiscite: Background and Key Questions by R. Sam Garrett, Congressional Research Service, June 25, 2013. GAO Report: Economic Impact of Jones Act on Puerto Rico's Economy by Jeffry Valentin-Mari, Ph.D. and Jose I. Alameda-Lozada, Ph.D. April 26, 2012. Article: Massive Puerto Rico pipeline triggers debate by Danica Coto, The San Diego Union-Tribune, May 14, 2011. Article: Island residents sue U.S., saying military made them sick by Abbie Boudreau and Scott Bronstein, CNN, February 1, 2010. Article: At Riggs Bank, A Tangled Path Led to Scandal by Timothy L. O'Brien, The New York Times, July 19, 2004. Case Study: Money Laundering and Foreign Corruption: Enforcement and Effectiveness of the Patriot Act by the Minority Staff of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, United States Senate, July 15, 2004. Article: MIT to Pay Victims $1.85 Million in Fernald Radiation Settlement by Zareena Hussain, The Tech, January 7, 1998. Article: Police Drop Bomb on Radicals' Home in Philadelphia by William K. Stevens, The New York Times, May 14, 1985. References U.S. Energy Information Administration Puerto Rico Territory Energy Profile Puerto Rico Territory Profile and Energy Estimates Average Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers by End-Use Sector Video: 1985 Philadelphia MOVE bombing This Day in History: March 2, 1917: Puerto Ricans become U.S. citizens, are recruited for war effort FBI Files Pedro Albizu Campos - includes letter about his radiation torture Pedro Albizu Campos - full files Luis Munoz-Marin 1986 Congressional Report: US Army & US Atomic Energy Commission radiation experiments on US citizen prisoners 1995 Dept of Energy Report: Human Radiation Experiments OpenSecrets Excelerate Energy: Profile for 2016 Election Cycle Crowley Maritime Excelerate Energy Company website Lobbying Report American Maritime Partnership Company website Lobbying Report Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico Control Board Website Control Board Document List Website: Puerto Rico Tax Incentives Law 20: Export Services Act Law 22: Individual Investors Act Department of Economic Development & Commerce: Act 73: Economic Incentives for the Development of Puerto Rico 26 US Code 936: Puerto Rico and possession tax credit IRS: Expatriation Tax Forbes Company Profiles Johnson & Johnson Pfizer GlaxoSmithKline Travelponce.com: Ponce Massacre Museum Sound Clip Sources Hearing: Oversight Hearing on The Status of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) Restructuring Support Agreement, Subcommittee on Indian, Insular and Alaska Native Affairs, March 22, 2017. Witnesses Panel I The Honorable Ricardo Rossello, Governor of Puerto Rico Mr. Gerardo Portela-Franco, Executive Director - Puerto Rico Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority Panel 2 Mr. Jose B. Carrion III, Chairman - Financial Oversight and Management Board of Puerto Rico Mr. Luis Benitez Hernandez, Chairman - PREPA Governing Board Mr. Stephen Spencer, Managing Director - Houlihan Lokey Mr. Adam Bergonzi, Managing Director & Chief Risk Officer - National Public Finance Guarantee Corporation Mr. Rob Bryngelson, President & CEO - Excelerate Energy Ms. Ana J. Matosantos, Member of Financial Oversight and Management Board of Puerto Rico Interview: Interview with Luis M. Balzac, March 7, 2017. Luis: Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico, contrary to common opinion, we do pay some federal taxes. What we don’t pay is federal income tax. Jen: Okay. Luis: So we don’t pay federal income tax. However, Puerto Ricans pay Medicare at the same rate that you pay in San Francisco/California. Jen: Do Puerto Ricans get the same benefits that I get in San Francisco? Luis: No, we do not get the same benefits that you get in San Francisco. Jen: Oh. Luis: So, for example, there are states like California, New York, and other states that I believe get about an 83 percent federal subsidy for Medicare expenses. There are other states—and I realize I’m being recorded, but don’t quote me on it. This you can check, also, very easily— Jen: Sure. Luis: Other states—I think it’s Tennessee— Jen: And you don’t have to give me exact numbers. Just go ahead and, like, big picture, tell me the situation. Luis: Got it. Jen: Yeah. Luis: Even better. So, there are states like California and New York that get about 80-some percent of reimbursement on their major expenses from the federal government. There are other states that get less. I think Tennessee gets less; I think Tennessee gets, like, 50-some percent. Puerto Rico, I think it gets about 23 percent. Jen: Oh, god. Luis: It’s important to understand that, where does the other—if we use 23 percent as an example for Medicare—where does the other 77 percent come from? State funding. Jen: Okay. Luis: So, please understand that if you move to Puerto Rico as a U.S. citizen, and you, for any reason, need Medicare, and you go to the hospital, those hospitals that you go to have to comply with MCS, which is part of HHS—Health and Human Services. And you have to comply with all the regulations and requirements of a hospital to be reimbursed and enjoy federal dollars. However, that institution/Puerto Rico is only getting cents on the dollar compared to other states, but someone needs to make up for that short fall. Jen: Yeah. Luis: The state does. Jen: Well— Luis: That lack of equality translates to Puerto Rico’s budget. Luis: I’m a proud American, and I will defend our country wherever I go. Jen: Mm-hmm. Luis: But I’m also a realist. I cannot expect Congress to give the people in Puerto Rico a fair share of the pie when we don’t have a delegation sitting at the table when the pie is divided. Luis: When I ran the office of the governor of Puerto Rico in New York, and we were lobbying to be included into the Affordable Care Act, my biggest argument, when I met with members of the Senate or the House, in states that had a large Puerto Rican population—Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, by way of example—my point to these members of Congress was, I need your help; I need you to be a voice to Puerto Rico to be included in the Affordable Care Act. And the staff would be like, are you kidding me, Luis? That is none of our business. And I will be like, well, let me—give me an opportunity to maybe convince you that it is your business. The problem is— Jen: Yeah, because you’ll pay for them when they come here. Luis: —you will pay for it. And by the way, we don’t even have a way to qualify because guess what, a lot of them are coming in, getting services, and going back to Puerto Rico once they’re done. Some are staying— Jen: Yeah, that's what I would do. Luis: Some are staying, but others are just coming here, and you have no way of qualifying and quantifying it because they’re United States citizens. You can’t stop it. Jen: Yeah— Luis: And how could you blame them? How could you blame them if Puerto Rico does not have the facilities to treat a cancer or SSI or any other initiative and my mother is risking her life? I’m going to take her to Orlando— Jen: Mm-hmm. Luis: —without a doubt. Jen: Yeah. Luis: I will say that Puerto Rico, even though we have all the issues that you and I have been talking about, we are still part of the United States, and it’s somewhat similar to the changes that we see here, stateside, in the contiguous 48 states, where I would say that from coast to coast, from Florida to California, I think the middle class in the United States has been shrinking. Jen: Mm-hmm. Luis: Likewise in Puerto Rico. Jen: Okay. Luis: But I would say that it is more like the United States, and we are not like Latin America and other third-world jurisdictions. We have a decent-size middle class because we don’t have the IRS because we are not paying federal income tax. There is in Puerto Rico a large underground economy where people work on the side, get paid in cash, and don’t report their earnings to the—there's no IRS—or to the local version of the IRS which is the Treasury Department. So, what you have in Puerto Rico is that you see somewhat of a thriving economy. So those people that are in commercial real estate and they’re doing business with big national chains like Macy’s and JCPenney and all that stuff, you will see in Puerto Rico sales records being broken and people spending a lot of money in the island. So, it’s not like the Dominican Republic. Even people in the projects that are subsidized by state and federal dollars, you can see that they have a/c in the walls, the projects are made out of cement, and you will be able to see all that when you go there in person. So, when you drive around Puerto Rico, all over the island, it is nothing like the Dominican Republic. We are way better, and— Jen: Well, I’ve never been there, either, so a comparison doesn’t really… Luis: Yeah. We are way better—and I realize that I’m about to contradict myself, okay?—we are way better, and it is thanks to the United States. So even though inequality has got all these problems and it’s affected the debt and all that stuff and we are looking now at serious issues, Puerto Rico is still better than—I will never move to Cuba because I think Cuba is better than Puerto Rico, so I get it— Puerto Rico is United States, and we’re doing better than most. Jen: So that brings me to the control board, because now we have Puerto Ricans saying on paper, no doubt, we want to become a state, and yet Congress just did this thing where your government, your state government, or closest thing—what do you call it? Territorial government? Luis: Yeah. Jen: Is that the proper phrase? Luis: Territory. Jen: Okay. Luis: Yeah. Jen: So your territorial government was, basically just taken over by this weird board that has some dictatorial powers. Is there any one in Puerto Rico that’s happy about this? Is there something I’m not seeing? Luis: Yeah. Okay, so, I’m going to compare that. First of all, let’s be fair, and we’re not the first jurisdiction that, let’s say, enjoys the benefit of a control board, because D.C., New York City, have both had it in different jurisdiction relationships, but they did, and it helped. Okay? Jen: O-kay. Luis: The difference between New York City is the following: you have a city that imposed a board by the state. So people in the city of New York, even though they had a control board years back, they had a control board what was decided by politicians who they elected. Jen: Yeah. Luis: Okay? Jen: Mm-hmm. Luis: So, that makes it—but it’s still the same in that you have a higher jurisdiction imposing a control board for fiscal reasons over a lower jurisdiction. Correct? Jen: Yes. Luis: And then you have D.C. They also had a control board, and the list goes on and use the federal government, if I’m not mistaken. So there you have a jurisdiction of a federal imposing in D.C., which is not independent. Now, let me tell you where emotions can go a little crazy here. And remember I’m a stakeholder; I’m pro American. Jen: Yeah. Luis: However, we did not invite the United States of America, back a hundred-and-some years ago; we were invaded. Jen: Yeah. Luis: So, we are invaded, we are treated unequally, that inequality causes financial chaos. We are told by the Supreme Court that our constitution is not really a constitution—you should research that; that was recent—an opinion by the Supreme Court. So, really, our constitution, that we thought we had a constitution, is not worth anything on paper because Congress has complete control of that jurisdiction. Jen: Mm-hmm. Luis: So, what we have is, back to your question about a board, is a federal government imposing a board on people who did not vote for those that imposed that board. Jen: Yeah. And I know that in Congress Puerto Rico has a representative at the time that this was created—I think it was Pedro Pierluisi—but he didn’t have a vote, so— Luis: No. Jen: And even on the board, the governor gets to sit at the table, but the governor of Puerto Rico doesn’t get a vote of the board. Luis: No. And there’s a slight correction to what you said about Pierluisi in your podcast: the resident commissioner does have a vote in Congress—not on committees, on subcommittees. Okay? Jen: Okay, so he has a vote on a subcommittee but not— Luis: No. Jen: —in the committee or the main House. Luis: Correct. Now, are you ready for the kicker? Jen: Yes. Luis: If the vote on a subcommittee comes to a point where the resident commissioner becomes the deciding vote, it doesn’t go. You’ve got to vote again. Jen: No! Luis: Yeah. Jen: So, that’s— Luis: Can I give you an— Jen: —kind of not really having a vote. I mean— Luis: No. Jen: —he does— Luis: No, I know. Luis: Let’s talk for a second about the pharmaceutical industry, okay? Jen: Yeah, because— Luis: Not to be confused— Jen: —just so that I’m on the same page as you, you worked for Pfizer for a while, too, right? Luis: I directed governor affairs for Pfizer, and that included jurisdictions of New York City and Puerto Rico. Jen: Okay— Luis: And San Francisco. Jen: —and when did you do that? Luis: I did that in 20—I took a year off of the government and I went to Pfizer, did not like it, then went back to Puerto Rico government. So that was 2011. Jen: So was that before the Clinton administration took away the tax credits or after? Luis: Oh, no, after. Oh, yes. Jen: Okay, okay. Luis: 2011, before I became a deputy secretary of the United States. Jen: Okay, got you. Luis: Okay. Jen: So this is after all the tax benefits were gone, and was Pfizer still—when did the pharmaceutical industry, like, leave Puerto Rico? When did they leave? Luis: No way. Why are you saying that? Jen: Because that's what I read. Luis: That's wrong. Jen: Is that not what happened? Luis: No! That’s wrong. I’m about to clarify that. Jen: Okay. Luis: All right. So, if you look at the pharmaceutical industry, if you search, let’s say, BIO, I believe BIO is still the pharmaceutical, big pharma association, the industry association, trade association, okay? If you look at that, you will see that in Puerto Rico BIO had a membership of a huge number of pharmaceuticals. And then you may look at BIO now, and the Puerto Rico chapter, which has another name, has way less pharmaceuticals. So the normal person that doesn’t understand how things work will say, well, everyone left. Well, let’s slow down and look at what are the names that are missing. Well, some of those names don’t exist anymore because the industry has completely merged and consolidated their resources. By way of example, I will tell you that in Puerto Rico alone, Pfizer bought Wyeth. Jen: Pfizer what? Luis: Pfizer bought Wyeth. Jen: Oh, okay. So, okay. Luis: Okay? Jen: Gotcha. So Pfizer got bigger by eating a smaller company. Luis: Correct. And there’s nothing wrong with that. So what happened was that I believe at that time when that happened, Pfizer had three operations in Puerto Rico, Wyeth had three operations in Puerto Rico, okay? So now when they merge, they have six plants in Puerto Rico. So what do they do? They are able to— economies of scale and to do streamline, and they are able to close two and stay with four. And now Wyeth is not in Puerto Rico— Jen: But the effect— Luis: —and people think Wyeth— Jen: Is the effect of that, of the people of Puerto Rico, that the people that worked in those two plants are now out of a job? Luis: But it has nothing to do with 936. Jen: Remind me. I did that episode, like, eight months ago. 936 was the tax credits disappearing? Was that…? Luis: That’s exactly—they disappeared with a coin toss, you said. Jen: Okay, okay. Thank you. Luis: So, so, that consolidation, that example that I’m sharing with you, I believe all happened after 936 stopped, but the reason why Pfizer and Wyeth consolidated was for reasons that had nothing to do with 936. Jen: Yeah. Luis: It had a lot to do with being more productive and being able to share assembly lines and being able to share resources and the same CEO and all that stuff. And so, to the untrained eye, to the Puerto Rican, what they think or see is, oh, Wyeth left. No, they didn’t leave; it was absorbed by a larger pharmaceutical. Jen: So, is the pharmaceutical industry still a major employer in Puerto Rico? Luis: Yes, it is. And I will tell something else: Pfizer and many pharmaceuticals, for many years, are enjoying tax benefits on—there’s something called CFC—controlled foreign corporations—and they are able to enjoy benefits that are comparable to 936. It’s just a different name; a different loophole, you want to call it—I don’t want to call it a loophole—it’s a different tax advantage. Luis: Remember, the pharmaceutical industry, way back when—and we’re talking about right after Puerto Rico changed from an agricultural economy to a manufacturing economy, okay? Jen: Mm-hmm. Luis: I really need you to follow me on this. Puerto Rico used to be sugarcane industry. Jen: Yeah. Luis: And we changed. Take my great uncle. He was the governor of Puerto Rico for the other party, the commonwealth party, and him and Governor Luis Munoz Marin came up with this tax incentive with the federal government and 936 were invented, and Puerto Rico changed—completely—and became a manufacturing economy. Jen: Okay. Luis: No more sugar cane; now we’re manufacturing. And when that happened, pharma came to Puerto Rico. What we have to remember is manufacturing industry also included, probably, the largest textile industry. Textile was huge in Puerto Rico. Now— Jen: Is it still there? Luis: No! Why—now, you’re smart. Why do you think textile is gone in Puerto Rico? Where is textile nowadays? Jen: Probably China, India. Luis: Yes, yes! So, in this case, it left to other jurisdictions for minimum wage and for a bunch of other reasons. 936? Yes! It was not great when it left, but the industry changed. Textile goes wherever you have the cheapest labor. And Puerto Rico— Jen: So— Luis: —cannot compete with India, China, Dominican Republic, where people get paid a dollar an hour. Forget it. You can’t compete with that. Jen: And it sounds like the same problem we’re having in California, in Texas, and Massachusetts, and everywhere. Luis: Yeah, yes. Jen: What would you like to see happen on the island? What do you think could help? Luis: Becoming a state. Jen: So that's the goal. Luis: Yes, without a shadow of a doubt, because if we become a state, we are able now to have the congressional mitigation to help us, and we’re able to fight for equal funding so that the state does not need to subsidize such huge percentages. And now we have an equal playing field. Now if I get in debt— Jen: Okay. Luis: Now if I get in debt, go ahead and criticize me all you want. Jen: Well, then you have bankruptcy protection if you go into debt. Luis: Also. Luis: So, you understand the reason why people are going to Puerto Rico is because of Law 20 and 22, right? Jen: Um, I don't know. No. Luis: So, I’m going to share with you the Law 20 and Law 22. Both laws were passed by Governor Luis Fortuno, which is a governor that I worked for. Jen: Okay. Luis: And those two laws were used, pushed, and promoted big time by the previous governor, Alejandro Garcia Padilla. You can do a quick Google, and you will see how most people went nuts over those two laws, and those two laws is the sole reason why people in stateside, mainland U.S., are fleeing to Puerto Rico to enjoy those tax benefits. Jen: Well, what are those benefits? Luis: I'm going to tell you. Jen: Okay. Luis: So, first, you have Law 20. Law 20 is better known as Export Services law, meaning you and I can open a corporation in Puerto Rico that exports services outside of Puerto Rico. Services, not manufacturing. So you and I can open a consulting firm that consults on any issue, and if our clients are not in Puerto Rico, if our clients are in Europe or New York or California, when that company in Puerto Rico bills those accounts, that corporation will only pay local four percent tax and no sales tax. Wow! Jen: Okay. That's crazy. Luis: Okay? So that means that you and I can have an existing company and have a law firm in New York, and you and I are the partners, and we’ll make—and let’s say that half of our clients are not in Puerto Rico, so why don’t we just open an office in Puerto Rico and do all the billing out of Puerto Rico and serve those clients from Puerto Rico—by the way, you and I can hire attorneys in Puerto Rico that are bilingual; graduated from Harvard, Yale, all those popular universities; pay even a fraction of what you and I would pay a lawyer in New York, and we bill them to the clients that are outside Puerto Rico, and we only pay four percent tax. That’s Law 20. It’s beautiful. Jen: Wow. Okay. Luis: All right. So, now, Law 20 was supplemented, complemented, by Law 22. Law 22 is called the Investor Act. So, now, you and I are the partners of that law firm, and we’ve moved operations and the corporation is only paying four percent tax, local tax, okay? Jen: Okay. Luis: Got it. You and I have not lived in Puerto Rico for the last 15 years. Jen: Okay. Luis: So we, you and I, have our attorneys will review Law 20, and what Law 20 says is you and I can move to Puerto Rico personally, and when we’re in Puerto Rico, our Puerto Rico-sourced income will be tax free. Jen: So the income—so, it’s the Investment Act. So are you talking about, like— Luis: Yes. Jen: —instead of paying capital gains tax, they pay nothing. Luis: Nothing. Now, it needs to be Puerto Rico-sourced income. That means that if you and I own Apple shares, or Microsoft, and we move to Puerto Rico, that’s passive income. We’ll pay taxes because that income is generated outside of Puerto Rico. Jen: Okay. Luis: But if you and I go to Puerto Rico like Paltry and Paulson moved to Puerto Rico, and we invest in property, and we invest in the business of Puerto Rico, that Puerto Rico-sourced income will be tax free. Jen: Federally or are there any state taxes? Luis: Both. Jen: Wow. So the state— Luis: I don’t have the law— Jen: —doesn’t even get anything from that. Luis: Well, yeah, they do because think about all the jobs. You know it’s crazy how much money is generated by having those people in Puerto Rico. Of course it generates— Jen: Yeah. I guess that makes sense. Luis: It’s called economic development. Yes, it generates—I have a lot of people that have new accounts with those individuals all the way from real estate, legal fees, engineering. They’re all millions and millions and millions of dollars that were not moving around the economy until they moved there. Jen: And so, are these two laws something that you personally support? Are they a good idea? Luis: I think it’s a good idea. We somehow need to generate some federal activity. Jen: We do, but at the same time, your government is broke. So isn’t raising revenues, isn’t that a solution? Luis: Well, no. Well, you know what? It’s a little contradicting, so when I say I endorse it, but I just told you a little while ago that I want to be a state. And if I was a state, that would probably not be possible. Jen: Yeah. Luis: Those two laws would not be possible if we’re a state, but guess what—we’re not a state. Jen: Yeah. Luis: And what the heck are we supposed to do? Jen: Yeah. I guess that’s true. You’ve got to play the hand you’re dealt. Okay. Luis: I would rather not have those two laws and be a state. Jen: Okay. That's fair. Luis: Education. I think that your podcast touched on education about 100 schools being closed. Jen: Yeah. Luis: Yeah, but how many people have moved to Orlando? We do not have— Jen: So there's not as many kids? Luis: No! No! Now, I’m going to defend, I’m going to defend this. With me, you may go crazy because I jump from side to side, so for one, one part of me says— Jen: I do that, too. I totally get it. Luis: One part of me says, the student body—I think the island student population went down from half a million to 400,000 students. That’s 25 percent. Jen: Okay. Luis: Okay. That means that I should be able to cut 25 percent of schools and 25 percent of my budget. Right? Well, let’s look at the other side. You and I, again, are married, right? Jen: Uh-huh. Luis: And you and I have a boat, and we have two kids, and the schools that we have our kids are three blocks away. Beautiful. Well, you and I bought a house because it was right next to the school. So now they’re going to close that school, and the next school is five miles away. Jen: Yeah. Luis: Are you and I pissed? Jen: Of course. Luis: I don’t give a crap that there’s less students. I’m going to picket, and I’m going to make a lot of noise, and I’m going to make it impossible for the government to close that school, which is what happens. You know what? Somebody else should sacrifice, not my wife and I. We have it good. I like to be able to walk three blocks and grab my children by the hand, have a beautiful conversation with them while we eat cookies, and we go to the school right next door. Well, guess what? The population is so much smaller now that somehow we cannot justify having the same number of schools open. I believe that happened in Chicago under new jurisdictions. We have to adjust. So guess who needs to deliver those bad news? The fiscal control board, because you cannot possibly justify having all those schools open. So who’s going to be the bad guy? Thank God there’s a fiscal control board, because if you leave, you allow the local elected official to make those decisions, it would be political suicide. And that transfers to any state. Ask any governor to close down 25 percent of schools, and they’re going to lose the election. Jen: Well, I mean, I think that’s just a part of the job. The problem— Luis: I know! Jen: —that I’m seeing as— Luis: No, but wait a second the problem is that the governor can’t do it because when you commit political suicide, and you need to support the legislature to do that, the elected officials in the legislative body would be the first ones that won’t back you up. They’ll say, you crazy? I’m not going to back you up; I want to get elected next time. That’s a huge problem. He says, I can’t do it without you. People are like let’s not do it; let’s let the other guy do it. And he’s like, no, we don’t have enough money. The students are leaving Orlando and New York. They moved away. We don’t need so many schools; we need to close. And the senators will be like, I’m not going to pass that law; are you kidding me? We’re all going to be out of a job. Jen: Well, I mean, and that’s the thing, like, maybe you’re not supposed to serve forever. Like, I just feel like those tough decisions are a part of a job of being elected, and one of my concerns of this control board is that those families, they can’t petition to this board. There is no voice for the Puerto Ricans where the governor doesn’t have a vote. I guess I’d feel more comfortable with it if I thought that those families could petition to their governor, and it would be one vote at the table that would have those political calculations in mind. But with these seven people that were selected by Congress, I mean, is there any concern that they’re going to prioritize the bankers over the Puerto Rican people? Luis: I think a lot of people are concerned about that. Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations

Playwright, Black Comedy writer, tweeter and Aboriginal not-activist Nakkiah Lui joins me for a chat ahead of that ugly date, January 26th. Nakkiah reveals how she and her family mark Invasion Day and we discuss the merits of even having a national day at all. We also touch on ideological diversity within Indigenous Australia, the "personal responsibility" narrative, deconstructing whiteness, the myth of multiculturalism, Bill Leak and the new TV series we're now going to pitch all over town, Blackfulla Mirror. Reconciliation Comedy Gala at at the Malthouse Theatre on Invasion Day Invasion Day Melbourne Event on Facebook My Work in Progress show starts at Perth Fringeworld next week Article: Why are we fighting Islamaphobia at the expense of Indigenous Australians? by Sara Saleh   @nakkiahlui Nakkiah on The Osher Günsberg Podcast Article: It's not racism that Australia needs to get rid of - it's the privilege of whiteness Article: As an Aboriginal teen I thought about killing myself every day Article: Australia Day is a time for mourning not celebration  Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie  Black Is The New White coming to Sydney Theatre Company An Octoroon coming to Queensland Theatre Company Cause of the Week: Butucarbin Aboriginal Corporation (butucarbin.org.au)  

The Every Student Succeeds Act was signed into law at the end of 2015 and is a major overhaul of education policy in the United States. In this episode, find out how the new law will likely lead to a massive transfer of taxpayer money into private pockets. Please support Congressional Dish: Click here to contribute with PayPal or Bitcoin Mail Contributions to: Congressional Dish 5753 Hwy 85 North #4576 Crestview, FL 32536 Thank you for supporting truly independent media! S. 1177: Every Student Succeeds Act Bill Highlights Section 4: Transition Ends previous funding programs on September 30,2016 The Statewide Accountability System created by this law will be effective starting in the 2017-2018 school year Title I: Improving basic programs operated by State and local educational agencies Funding Provides an average of $15.5 billion per year for 2017-2020 At least 7% of the funding must be reserved by States and granted to local educational agencies, who will be allowed to hire for-profit organizations for "improvement activities" States are allowed, but not required, to reserve 3% of their funding for direct student services, which includes AP courses, college courses, transportation to another school as needed, and tutoring. 50 local educational agencies will be allowed to create their own per-pupil method of distributing funds State Plans To receive funding, States must submit a peer-reviewed plan to be approved by the Secretary of Education. State plans will be available online for the public Plans will be required to include "challenging academic content standards" but the State won't be required to submit their standards to the Secretary of Education. Academic standards are only required for mathematics, reading or language arts, and science. Alternate academic standards can be developed for students with disabilities. Testing States will be required to test students in math, reading, and science and is allowed to test in any other subject. Math and reading tests are required each year from grades 3 through 8, and once in high school. Science tests will be required once during grades 3 through 5, once during grades 6 through 9, and once during grades 10 through 12. Results will be reported by race, ethnicity, wealth, disability, English proficiency status, gender, and migrant status. State and local educational agencies must include a policy that allows parents to opt their child out of mandated tests. School Choice Students can choose to attend an another public school controlled by the "local education agency" and the local education agency is allowed to pay for student transportation, but there is a funding cap. Secretary of Education's Role The Secretary of Education is prohibited from intervening or adjusting State plans The Federal Government can't force or encourage States to adopt Common Core standards. "No State shall be required to have academic standards approved or certified by the Federal Government in order to receive assistance under this Act." Accountability The State will publish a detailed annual report card on the State's educational agency's website. Local Educational Agency Plans Local educational agencies can only get Federal funding if they have State-approved plans Parents Right to Know Local educational agencies that receive Federal funds will have to provide parents with information about their kids' teachers, including if the teacher has met State qualifications for the grade level and subject and if the teacher is teaching under emergency or provisional status. Parents will also be informed if a student has been taught for 4 or more consecutive weeks by a teacher who does not meet State certification for the grade level or subject. Parents must give written consent in order for their child to participate in any mental health assessment, except for in emergencies. Children can not be forced to take a prescription medication as a condition for attending a Federally funded school. Schoolwide Programs Can be administered by for-profit providers Funds from Federal, State, and local grants can be consolidated and used to upgrade the entire educational program of schools where at least 40% of the children come from low income families. Schoolwide programs can be exempted by the Secretary of Education from regulations governing education grant programs. Activities can include mental health counseling, mentoring services, "specialized instructional support" services, college courses, activities for teachers, and preschool programs for children under 6 years old. High schools can use the money for dual enrollment of underperforming kids and can pay for teacher training, tuition and fees, books, "innovative delivery methods", and transportation to and from the program. "Targeted Assistance Schools" Can be administered by for-profit providers. Local agencies will decide the criteria that determines which kids are eligible Funds can pay for before and after school programs, summer programs, "activities", academic courses, and this law added "family support and engagement services". Children Enrolled in Private Schools Upon request, local educational agencies need to provide children in private schools with services including testing, counseling, mentoring, one-on-one tutoring, dual or concurrent enrollment, radio equipment, televisions, computer equipment, and other tech to "address their needs" "Educational services and other benefits for such private school children shall be equitable in comparison to services and other benefits or public school children..." An investigator will be employed to ensure equity for private school children and teachers A complaint and appeal process will be created for those who think the private school kids are not getting their share of money. Private school children's share of funds will be based on the number of low income children who attend private schools. Funds to private school children can be provided directly or through an "entity" or "third party contractor". State educational agencies must provide services to private school children if the local agencies don't, and they can do so by contracting with private organizations. Title II: Preparing, training, and recruiting high-quality teachers, principals, or other school leaders Creates a public or non-profit teaching academy which will award certificates or degrees equivalent to Masters degrees. The Federal funding provided is a little under half a billion per year. Contracts can be given to for profit entities for teacher testing, training, technical assistance, program administration, and mentoring. For-profit entities can also be hired by local education agencies to develop and implement processes for hiring and paying teachers. Partnerships between schools and private mental health organizations may be formed. The Federal government is prohibited from oversight Teacher and School Leader Incentive Program States, local educational agencies, and non-profit organizations will be given three year extendable grants to create and implement "performance based compensation systems" for teachers, principals and other school leaders in schools with at least 30% of students coming from low income families. Government agencies and charter schools and partner with for-profit entities Civics Courses 12 grants will be awarded to create summer school courses for 50-300 teachers that will inform them how to teach American history and civics. 100-300 junior or senior year students will also get intensive civics courses Title III: Language Instruction for English learners and immigrant students Funding Between $756 million increasing to $885 million per year through 2020. Some grant money will go to "institutions of higher education or public or private entities" for a National professional development project that will train & certify teachers, and pay for tuition, fees, and books. Process All students who may be English learners will be assessed within 30 days of enrolling in a new school. To determine how much money each State gets, data from the American Community Survey, conducted by the Department of Commerce will be used. Title IV: 21st Century Schools Funding $1.6 billion per year through 2020 Grants will be awarded to States to increase student access to education on technology, computer science, music, arts, foreign languages, civics, geography, social studies, environmental education and other experiences that contribute to a well rounded education. Local education agencies need to apply to get the money Local education agencies are allowed to partner with private entities Community Learning Centers Funding $1.1 billion per year through 2020 Purpose Private entities are eligible for 5 year grants to operate Community Learning Centers for extra education programs. State applications will be deemed approved if the Secretary of Education takes no action within 120 days. Applying entities get to decide the purpose of the Community Learning Centers they will operate and must include that information in their application. Activities can include tutoring, mentoring, financial and environmental literacy programs, nutritional education, physical education, services for the disabled, after school English learning classes, cultural programs, technology education programs, library services, parenting skills programs, drug and violence prevention programs, computer science, and career readiness programs. Charter Schools Purpose "To increase the number of high-quality charter schools available to students across the United States" "To encourage States to provide support to charter schools for facilities financing in an amount more nearly commensurate to the amount States typically provide for traditional public schools" Funding $270 million increasing to $300 million per year through 2020 Five year grants will be awarded to open and expand charter schools The Secretary of Education is required to award at least three charter school grants per year and give out every penny allocated for the first two years. Priority will go to States that give charter schools the most, including funding for facilities, free or low cost use of public buildings, or first-in-line privileges for buying public school buildings. Taxpayer funded grants will pay for hiring and paying staff, buying supplies, training, equipment, and educational materials - including development of those materials - building renovations, start up costs for transportation programs, and student and staff recruitment costs. Grant money will go towards getting loans and issuing bonds to the private sector for charter school facilities. National Activities Funding $200 million increasing to $220 million per year through 2020 Programs Grants for experimental programs Businesses will be eligible if they partner with a government organization "Full service community schools" that coordinate community services Private entities will be eligible if they partner with a government organization National activities for school safety to improve students safety during and after the school day The Secretary of Education can use contracts with private entities Awards to provide arts education Private organizations are eligible Awards to create educational programming for pre-school and elementary school aged children on television and the Internet Money will go to a public telecommunications entity that will contract with producers. Awards will to go programs for gifted students Contracts can be given to private organizations Title VIII: General Provisions Department of Education Staff Within one year of enactment (December 2016), the Secretary of Education must identify all projects that were consolidated or eliminated by ESSA and fire the number of employees who were employed administering or working on those programs. Control of Funds Removes the requirement that States provide assurances that funds will be controlled by public agencies or non-profits Military Recruiters Each local educational agency accepting Federal funds must give military recruiters the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of each high school student in the district, unless the parents have previously opted out. Opt-out process:: Parents must submit a written request to the local education agency that their child's information not be released to military recruiters without the parent's consent. Each local educational agency must notify parents of the option to opt-out of recruitment. State Opt-Out Any State that refuses Federal funds "shall not be required to carry out any of the requirements of such program." Title IX: Education for Homeless and Other Laws Creates rights to education for homeless children, which will be distributed to the public Sound Clip Sources Forum: Charter and Private Schools, Forum hosted by Senator Tim Scott (GA), February 9, 2015. Panelists: Frederick "Rick" Hess, American Enterprise Institute Ann Duplessis, Former Louisiana State Senator, Senior Vice President for Liberty Bank & Trust, President of Louisiana Federation for Children Emily Kim, Executive Vice President of Success Academy Charter Schools Timestamps and Transcripts {14:15} Rick Hess: Sitting immediately next to me, we’ve got Ann Duplessis. Ann’s a former state senator in Louisiana. She’s president of Louisiana Federation for Children, where she partners with local and national policy leaders to promote educational options. She continues to work full time while she does this, as Senior Vice President for Liberty Bank & Trust in New Orleans. Oh! She’s also the chair of the Louisiana State Board of Supervisors. Following Hurricane Katrina, it was Ann who authored a bill which allowed the state to take over the majority of schools in New Orleans Parish, which lead to the thriving charter-school movement that you see in New Orleans today. {40:50} Ann Duplessis:Unfortunately, where we are today is, this is big business. Unknown Speaker: That’s right. Duplessis: Education is big business. We are fighting money; we are fighting tradition; we are fighting people’s jobs; and so until and unless we can get past the issues that this is some tradition that we must maintain, until we can have people understand that we need to create new traditions, until we can get past that the jobs that we’re talking about are not jobs that we need to protect, if those jobs aren’t protecting our kids, we have to get past that. And unless we can get our elected officials to understand that, this will all continue to be more of a challenge. {48:00} Emily Kim-Charters: I want to give one example of a piece of paper that we really, truly dislike, and it’s—every year there is this requirement that teachers who are not certified have to send home in the backpack folder for their scholars a piece of paper saying, just wanted you to know, parents, I’m not highly qualified. So, yes, I’ve been teaching for five years, and my scholars are in the top one percent in the state of New York, but I just wanted you to know that I didn’t have that thing called highly qualified, and somebody thought that I should write you and tell you and let you know. I mean, it’s to a level that is truly, truly absurd; whereas, we would want the teacher to write home and say, look, this is what we are doing to get your scholar to the highest potential, and I’ve been doing it for five years very successfully, and this is what you need to do is bring your child to school on time, pick your child up from school on time, get the homework done, and make sure that they are motivated at school. And that’s what we’d like to do, and we have to do the other thing instead. Hearing: Expanding Educational Opportunity Through School Choice, House Education and the Workforce Committee, February 3, 2016. Watch on Youtube Witness: Gerard Robinson: American Enterprise Institute Timestamps and Transcripts {27:15} Gerard Robinson: I can tell you quite clearly that school choice is not a sound bite; it’s a social movement. From 1990 to 2015, over 40 states have introduced different types of school-choice legislation, both public and private. Video: Interview with David Brian, President & CEO of Entertainment Properties Trust, August 15, 2012 Video: Three-Minute Video Explaining the Common Core State Standards by CGCS Video Maker, 2012. Additional Reading Article: Lawsuit accuses Arizona charter schools of teaching history with religious slant by Garrett Mitchell, The Arizona Republic, September 16, 2016. Article: LA charter school abruptly closes for lack of students by Brenda Gazzar, Los Angeles Daily News, September 15, 2016. Article: Lake Forest Charter School, Liberty Bank & Trust Present 4th Annual 'Cocktails And Blues' Benefit Featuring Gina Brown, Biz New Orleans, August 31, 2016. Article: A Sea of Charter Schools in Detroit Leaves Students Adrift by Kate Zernike, New York Times, June 28, 2016. Article: Inside the Hedge Fund Infatuation with Charter Schools by Stephen Vita, Investopedia, March 9, 2016. Article: GOP Candidates Probably Can't Repeal Common Core by Lauren Camera, US News & World Report, March 4, 2016. Article: Why Education Activists Are Furious at ExxonMobil's CEO by Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post, December 29, 2015. Article: Business Gets Schooled by Peter Elkind, Fortune, December 23, 2015. Article: 10 Years After Katrina, New Orleans' All-Charter School System Has Proven a Failure by Colleen Kimmet, In These Times, August 28, 2015. Article: The Big Easy's Grand Experiment by Thomas Toch, US News & World Report, August 18, 2015. Report: Brought to You by Wal-Mart? How the Walton Family Foundation's Ideological Pursuit is Damaging Charter Schooling, American Federation of Teachers, June 2015 Article: Charter groups top unions in lobbying, campaign spending by Bill Mahoney, Eliza Shapiro, and Jessica Bakeman, Politico, February 20, 2015. Article: Who Is Profiting From Charters? The Big Bucks Behind Charter School Secrecy, Financial Scandal and Corruption by Kristin Rawls, AlterNet, January 21, 2015. Report: A Growing Movement: America's Largest Charter School Communities by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, December 2014. Article: 120 American Charter Schools and One Secretive Turkish Cleric by Scott Beauchamp, The Atlantic, August 12, 2014. Article: A dozen problems with charter schools by Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post, May 20, 2014. Blog post: Big Profits in Not-for-Profit Charter Schools by Alan Singer, The Huffington Post, April 7, 2014. Article: Why wealthy foreigners invest in U.S. charter schools by Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post, February 15, 2013. Article: KKR Partnership Makes an Education Push by Gregory Zuckerman, The Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2011. Article: U.S. Gives Charter Schools a Big Push in New Orleans by Susan Saulny, The New York Times, June 13, 2006. Article: N.O. Teachers Union Loses Its Force in Storm's Wake by Michael Hoover, Times-Picayune, March 5, 2006. Article: Students Return to Big Changes in New Orleans by Susan Saulny, The New York Times, January 4, 2006. Commentary: The Promise of Vouchers by Milton Friedman, The Wall Street Journal, December 5, 2005. Additional Information OpenSecrets.org: Lobbying Information for S. 1177: Every Student Succeeds Act OpenSecrets.org: Lobbyists representing National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, 2015 Website: Walton Family Foundation: K-12 Education(http://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/our-impact/k12-education) Website: American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC): Education Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio) Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations

Do you feel like your kids can’t wait for anything? We do too. In this episode we talk about an article written by an occupational therapist who gives us some solutions to helping our kids learn to wait. Article: Why are our children so bored at school, cannot wait, get easily frustrated and have no real friends? http://yourot.com/parenting-club/2016/5/16/why-our-children-are-so-bored-at-school-cant-wait-and-get-so-easily-frustrated --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Our nutritionists discuss a low carb lifestyle. ARTICLE: Why low carb eating might be right for you http://www.lifetime-weightloss.com/blog/2016/3/13/why-low-carbohydrate-eating-might-be-right-for-you.html ARTICLE: Healthier carb substitutes  http://www.lifetime-weightloss.com/blog/2015/2/26/eat-this-not-that-healthier-carb-substitutes.html RECIPE: Mexi-Cauli-Rice http://www.lifetime-weightloss.com/blog/2011/12/2/mexi-cauli-rice.html RECIPE: Low Carb Granola http://www.lifetime-weightloss.com/blog/2011/12/23/gluten-free-low-carb-granola.html