Important Takeaways:
- A 1,547-page spending deal was released Tuesday night will give members of Congress a raise.
- Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), the top Democrat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, explained in 2023 that the so-called “Member Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) automatically takes effect unless it is blocked.”
- “News flash: a COLA is a pay increase for Members of Congress,” she stated unequivocally.
- Congress often cleverly rebrands politically toxic items like congressional pay raises, as when they began referring to earmarks as “congressionally directed spending.”
- This is not the first time in recent memory Congress has taken advantage of a last-minute lame-duck spending bill to benefit itself.
- In the 2022 lame-duck spending bill, Congress snuck in a provision to allow reimbursement for a number of living expenses, including lodging, food, and travel while on the job in Washington, DC.
- According to the New York Times, individual members could be reimbursed up to about $34,000 in the first year.
- Most members of Congress earn $174,000 annually, although some in leadership positions receive higher salaries. The Speaker of the House receives $223,500, while the Senate president pro tempore receives $193,400.
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Important Takeaways:
- In a statement, the Israeli Government Press Office said:
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara, last night (Tuesday, 23 July 2024), in Washington, met with US evangelical community leaders.
- The Prime Minister expressed his appreciation to the community leaders for their strong and constant support of Israel but especially in these complicated times.
- Minister Netanyahu heard from them about their prayers for the return of the hostages, the wellbeing of the soldiers and the security of the State of Israel.
- The Prime Minister also thanked the evangelicals for their vigorous activity among the community’s young people to encourage continued support for Israel.
- Prime Minister Netanyahu added that he is well aware of their deep commitment to Israel and how strong their support is for the truth and our common values.
- Netanyahu is set to address Congress on Wednesday afternoon, before meetings with President Joe Biden and (separately, and privately) Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.
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Important Takeaways:
- Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin will preside over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s joint address to Congress on Wednesday as he faces calls to boycott the speech.
- The Maryland office of Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, urged the Maryland senator to boycott what the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization referred to as Netanyahu’s “war criminal” address to Congress.
- “It is deeply troubling that Sen. Cardin would choose to lend legitimacy and support to a war criminal who is responsible for egregious violations of human rights and international law,” said CAIR’s Maryland Director Zainab Chaudhry.
- Netanyahu arrived Monday in Washington, D.C., where he will hold meetings with the Biden administration and will address the joint session of the House and Senate on Wednesday, as he seeks bipartisan support for Israel just days after President Joe Biden announced he would end his re-election bid.
- As Netanyahu addresses the joint Congress on Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson has warned lawmakers that there will be a “zero-tolerance” policy for anyone who disrupts the speech and that law enforcement “will remove … offending visitors from the gallery and subject them to arrest.”
- On Tuesday, hundreds of members of the group Jewish Voice for Peace were arrested during a demonstration inside the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C., according to the group.
- “Arrests are beginning as over 400 American Jews refuse to leave Congress, but we won’t leave until our government stops arming Israel and ends the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza!” the group wrote Tuesday in a post on X.
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Important Takeaways:
- Erin Fox has tracked drug shortages for more than 20 years, and she sees no easy solutions for what has become a record run.
- Total active shortages hit an all-time high of 323 in this year’s first quarter, according to the University of Utah Drug Information Service. That’s up about 86% from a 10-year low of 174 last reached in 2017.
- There were 48 new shortages recorded this year through March, according to the data, published by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
- Q: Is there any good news?
- A: Last year, Congress held four hearings on shortages. They’re still very interested. People are really starting to talk about doing hard work both on the policy side but also maybe a little bit of Congressional action to really try to move this problem forward.
- I’ve been leading our efforts to provide data on drug shortages since 2001. This is truly the most interest I’ve ever seen.
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Important Takeaways:
- Iranian Opposition Leader and former political prisoner Vahid Beheshti called on the American leadership and decision-makers to wake up, directly face the threat of the Iranian regime, and act to defeat it.
- “Israel knows that they are not fighting Hamas solely, they are fighting Iran. Without Iran, Hamas wouldn’t have survived a few weeks”
- Beheshti explained that the massacre and hostage-taking on October 7th were inspired by the Iranian success in gaining access to significant funds by releasing the Islamic Republic’s Western hostages.
- “Three weeks before October 7th, the current U.S. administration released $6 billion in exchange for five hostages. Of course, they will push Hamas to take 250 hostages, imagine what they can get for that many hostages.”
- “If we don’t defeat it now, soon it will be too late when they gain nuclear weapons capability. They will use it.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Campaign opens for performance-based congressional pay and 70% raise
- A campaign has started to raise the salaries of House and Senate members by 70% to $294,000 from the current $174,000 in return for better “performance.”
- Federal analyst Steven Kopits, the president of Princeton Policy Advisors, argued that since most members are lawyers, salaries should at least be equal to what first-year associates in Manhattan receive, plus a 20% bump up.
- “Most legislators are lawyers by trade, and we — or at least I — would hope that the public would prefer the best and the brightest to become members of Congress. First year law associates in New York are the best and brightest of their year, typically from Ivy League universities, and their salaries are tied to the market for premium legal services in the U.S. Therefore, if we believe we would like to recruit top-line legal professionals to serve in Congress, then first year associate salaries are a plausible comparable,” Kopits said in a memo.
- “I would argue that a senator should make considerably more than a first year lawyer, perhaps twice as much, but the political equilibrium seems to fall considerably lower. Even so, a congressman should make at least 20% more than a first year lawyer, about the same ratio as in the 1980s. If we apply that metric, congressional salaries should be set at $294,000 for 2024, a 70% increase over the current pay level,” he said.
- “It’s one thing to bad mouth your opponents when it’s costless. But when your bonus depends on using money wisely, well, people find a way to cooperate. If you’re a burn-it-to-the-ground MAGA Republican, the most revolutionary thing you could do is introduce a performance-based bonus. Democrats might have to go along with it. After all, they want a pay raise, too,” Kopits argued.
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Important Takeaways:
- Shocking report from Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, indicates that federal law enforcement agencies wanted financial institutions to identify potential extremists by flagging otherwise benign purchases and search terms affiliated with former President Donald Trump in the wake of the incident at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
- On Wednesday, Jordan sent an alarming letter to Noah Bishoff, the former director of the Treasury Department’s Office of Stakeholder Integration and Engagement in the Strategic Operations Division of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, better known as FinCEN. According to the letter, Jordan’s committee and select subcommittee have collected documents which suggest that FinCEN was targeting law-abiding Americans “on the basis of protected political and religious expression.”
- One FinCEN document referenced in the letter allegedly urged financial institutions to query “Zelle payment messages” for terms such as “TRUMP” and “MAGA.” Another FinCEN analysis mentioned in the letter apparently suggested that these same institutions could identify possible “Lone Actor/Homegrown Violent” extremists by examining customers’ transactions, looking for the purchase of “religious texts” — including the Bible, Jordan said — or “bus tickets, rental cars, or plane tickets, for travel areas with no apparent purpose.”
- The letter also alleges that Key Bank created presentation slides about merchant category codes and keywords that financial institutions could use that might identify “potential active shooters” or other “dangerous International Terrorists / Domestic Terrorists / Homegrown Violent Extremists (‘Lone Wolves.’)” The MCCs Key Bank suggested supposedly included “3484: Small Arms” and “5091: Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies,” and the keywords supposedly included the names of notable national gun stores, such as “Cabela’s” and “Bass Pro Shops.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Nearly 75% of the U.S. could experience damaging earthquake shaking, according to a recent U.S. Geological Survey-led team of more than 50 scientists and engineers.
- This was one of several key findings from the latest USGS National Seismic Hazard Model (NSHM). The model was used to create a color-coded map that pinpoints where damaging earthquakes are most likely to occur based on insights from seismic studies, historical geologic data, and the latest data-collection technologies.
- The congressionally requested NSHM update was created as an essential tool to help engineers and others mitigate how earthquakes affect the most vulnerable communities by showing likely earthquake locations and how much shaking they might produce. New tools and technology identified nearly 500 additional faults that could produce a damaging quake, showcasing the evolving landscape of earthquake research.
- Key findings from the updated seismic hazard model include:
- Risk to people: Nearly 75% of the U.S. could experience potentially damaging earthquakes and intense ground shaking, putting hundreds of millions of people at risk.
- Widespread hazard: 37 U.S. states have experienced earthquakes exceeding magnitude 5 during the last 200 years, highlighting a long history of seismic activity across this country.
- Structural implications: The updated model will inform the future of building and structural design, offering critical insights for architects, engineers, and policymakers on how structures are planned and constructed across the U.S.
- Unified approach: This marks the first National Seismic Hazard Model to encompass all 50 states simultaneously, reflecting a massive collaborative effort with federal, state, and local partners.
- Not a prediction: No one can predict earthquakes. However, by investigating faults and past quakes, scientists can better assess the likelihood of future earthquakes and how intense their shaking might be
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Important Takeaways:
- White House warns it is ‘out of money and nearly out of time’ to aid Ukraine
- The warning, issued on Monday in a letter to congressional leaders, laid out how the government had already gone through about $111bn appropriated for Ukraine military aid.
- “I want to be clear: without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from US military stocks,” Shalanda Young, director of the office of management and budget, wrote in the letter, parts of which were published by the Hill.
- The latest plea for money comes after the White House asked Congress to act on a $100bn supplemental funding request in October, arguing that it “advances our national security and supports our allies and partners”.
- The request identified border security, allies in the Indo-Pacific, Israel and Ukraine. About $61bn covered money for Ukraine, which included $30bn to restock defense department equipment sent to support the country after Russia invaded in February 2022.
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Important Takeaways:
- Facing a likely roadblock from House Republicans on aid for Ukraine, President Joe Biden said Wednesday he’s planning to give a major speech on the issue and suggested there may be “another means” to provide support for Kyiv if Congress continues to balk.
- “There is another means by which we may be able to find funding, but I’m not going to get into that right now,” he said.
- Last week’s deal to keep the government open through mid-November excluded the $13 billion in supplemental aid that the Biden administration sought last month, raising questions about just how long the U.S. could continue to send money to Ukraine.
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