The Hill
McConnell blocks bill to reopen most of government
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blocked legislation on Thursday that would have reopened most of the federal government impacted by the partial shutdown.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) tried to get consent to take up a House-passed bill that would reopen all agencies except the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is at the center of the shutdown fight. But McConnell objected.
The Senate GOP leader didn’t explain his objection from the Senate floor but he has warned for weeks that he will not bring up a government funding bill unless it’s the product of an agreement between congressional Democratic leadership and … Trump.
Study finds twice as many asteroids striking Earth as dinosaur era
Large asteroids have been striking Earth more than twice as often in the past 290 million years than in the previous 700 million years, according to a new study published Thursday in the journal Science.
But asteroids still only hit the planet on average every million at the most, and NASA’s list of potential crashes shows no strikes in the near future.
“It’s just a game of probabilities,” the study’s lead author Sara Mazrouei said. “These events are still rare and far between that I’m not too worried about it.”
The Washington Post
State Dept. employees ordered back to work as Trump nixes Pelosi trip and Davos delegation, citing shutdown
The State Department ordered its employees to return to work next week, saying it has found money to cover a half-month in salary, as the Trump administration continued to grapple with a federal shutdown that shows no sign of ending. […]
Senior White House officials receive frequent updates on how many Transportation Security Administration staffers are calling in sick to work, aware that major delays at airports could prompt a huge backlash.
To try to contain other fallout, thousands of federal workers are being rushed back to work, almost always without pay, to prevent the shutdown from having a cascading effect on the economy and the United States’ standing in the world.
But it’s unclear how long this piecemeal approach will work.
Republican lawmaker who yelled ‘go back to Puerto Rico’ apologizes to Latino colleague
A Republican lawmaker apologized Thursday for shouting “Go back to Puerto Rico!” on the House floor earlier that day, said Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.), who Democrats initially suspected was the target of the verbal attack.
The remark came after Congress had adjourned for the week, as lawmakers traded barbs in a fight over issues related to a bill to fund the government through the end of February, according to Politico.
“I was shocked, because I often heard those kinds of comments when I was a kid growing up in Pacoima, California, where I was born and raised,” Cárdenas said in an email. He added that he had been waiting to speak at that moment. […]
Rep. Jason T. Smith (R-Mo.) later admitted making the statement.
VA security staff compromised safety and Shulkin violated ethics rules, oversight report says
Members of the security detail tasked with protecting senior leaders at the Department of Veterans Affairs followed questionable procedures that put officials' safety at risk, abused rules governing overtime pay, and acted as chauffeur for former Secretary David Shulkin’s wife, according to a new investigation.
The alleged failures, documented by VA Inspector General Michael Missal in a report released Thursday, detail missteps that went on for years and came to a head under Shulkin. The investigation was commissioned after “various complaints” alleged broadly that VA’s protection division was being grossly mismanaged, the report says.
The Los Angeles Times
Big earthquake would topple countless buildings, but many cities ignore the danger
The Northridge earthquake that hit 25 years ago offered alarming evidence of how vulnerable many types of buildings are to collapse from major shaking. It toppled hundreds of apartments, smashed brittle concrete structures and tore apart brick buildings.
Since then, some cities have taken significant steps to make those buildings safer by requiring costly retrofitting aimed at protecting those inside and preserving the housing supply.
But many others have ignored the seismic threat. And that has created an uneven landscape that in the coming years will leave some cities significantly better prepared to withstand a big quake than others.
House Intelligence Committee prepares to reopen Russia inquiry without GOP support
Newly empowered Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee are preparing to reopen the panel’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, seeking new interviews and financial records even as Republicans appear ready to boycott the inquiry. […]
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) said Republicans had no interest in participating in the revived inquiry, which will be led by Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), the new chairman.
“Now they just want to do something they've already investigated before?” McCarthy said. “I don't think that's what the American public would think is the right thing to do with the majority.”
House opposes Trump administration plan to lift sanctions on companies run by Putin ally
In a rebuke to the Trump administration, more than 130 Republicans joined House Democrats in opposing a Treasury Department plan to lift Russian sanctions against companies controlled by a Vladimir Putin ally.
The 362-53 vote registers formal House disapproval of plans to relax sanctions against companies controlled by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, and comes despite last-minute appeals by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. A similar measure narrowly failed in the Senate this week, despite 11 Republicans breaking ranks to vote with Democrats.
The Treasury Department said it intends to lift sanctions the U.S. imposed last year against Deripaska's companies, including a major aluminum producer, while keeping sanctions intact against Deripaska himself.
The Guardian
Thousands more migrant children separated under Trump than previously known
The Trump administration may have separated thousands of migrant children from their parents at the border for up to a year before family separation was a publicly known practice, according to a stunning government review of the health department’s role in family separation.
A report by the health department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) published on Thursday said officials at the health department estimated “thousands of separated children” were put in health department care before a court order in June 2018 ordered the reunification of 2,600 other children.
“The total number of children separated from a parent or guardian by immigration authorities is unknown,” the report said.
Trump's war on science: how the US is putting politics above evidence
Trump’s administration is cutting programs scientists say are proven to protect Americans, from pollution safeguards to teen pregnancy prevention and healthier school lunches, with effects that could last for years.
Experts who have worked in the federal government under Republicans and Democrats say both have sometimes put politics ahead of science but none have done so as blatantly as Trump. And they warn the consequences could continue long into the future.
“It’s as egregious as I’ve ever seen it, starting from the very top with the president just denying the existence of science, manipulating the system on behalf of special interests,” said the former surgeon general Richard Carmona, who testified to Congress that the George W Bush administration pushed him to weaken or suppress public health findings.
Andrew Wheeler: Trump's EPA pick says climate change 'not the greatest crisis'
A former coal lobbyist Donald Trump has nominated to run the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday touted rolling back pollution standards and declined to identify climate change as a crisis requiring unprecedented action from the US.
Andrew Wheeler, the deputy administrator who took over when his predecessor Scott Pruitt resigned after months of controversy, said in his confirmation hearing that he is carrying out the president’s “regulatory reform agenda”. Wheeler called the US the “gold standard for environmental progress”. […]
Asked if he agreed with the president’s past statements that climate change is a Chinese “hoax”, Wheeler said he would “not use the hoax word, myself”.
But Wheeler said he would “not call it the greatest crisis”.
“I consider it a huge issue that has to be addressed globally,” Wheeler added.
Reuters
North Korea envoy in U.S. for talks with Pompeo, possibly Trump
A North Korean envoy arrived in Washington on Thursday for expected talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a possible encounter with … Donald Trump aimed a laying the groundwork for a second U.S.-North Korea summit.
The envoy arrived on the same day Trump unveiled a revamped U.S. missile defense strategy that singled out North Korea as an ongoing and “extraordinary threat,” seven months after he declared after his first summit with leader Kim Jong Un that the North Korean threat had been eliminated.
Former Trump lawyer reconsidering plan to testify to Congress - adviser
Donald Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen is reconsidering his plan to testify publicly to the U.S. Congress next month because of intimidation by the president, an adviser to Cohen said on Thursday.
Lanny Davis, an attorney who has been advising Cohen on his media strategy, said in an interview with MSNBC that some remarks made by the Republican president about Cohen amounted to witness tampering and deserved to be criminally investigated.
Bloomberg
Wall Street Grows Antsy as Shutdown Threat to Stocks Intensifies
A growing group of analysts and investors is warning that the U.S. government shutdown could soon hurt stocks.
Already confronting an increase in volatility, an uncertain outlook for interest rates and a trade war that threatens to damp global growth, traders now have to factor in the economic effects of the partial closure, in its record 27th day.
“The impact can become meaningful as the shutdown continues,” said Max Gokhman, the head of asset allocation for Pacific Life Fund Advisors. “The longer we go, the more we delve into uncharted waters and, as we all know, this market hates uncertainty.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is the Darling of the Left, Nightmare of the Right
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might not have seen eye to eye with Joseph Overton, the late free-market advocate. But she has a firm grasp of the concept for which he is best known: the Overton Window. The term refers to the range of ideas that are at any given time considered worthy of public discussion. Thanks largely to her, the Overton Window on tax rates has just been moved significantly to the left.
Ocasio-Cortez, the mediagenic 29-year-old from the Bronx, N.Y., is the youngest woman ever elected to the House of Representatives. In an appearance on 60 Minutes with Anderson Cooper that aired on Jan. 6, she was talking up the Green New Deal, a plan to move the U.S. to 100 percent renewable energy by 2035. Cooper challenged her by saying the program would require raising taxes. “There’s an element, yeah, where people are going to have to start paying their fair share,” she replied. Asked for specifics, she said, “Once you get to the tippy tops, on your 10 millionth dollar, sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60 or 70 percent.”
Seventy percent! For perspective, the top rate under the tax law that passed in December 2017 is 37 percent. And now, suddenly, a number so extreme that no one in polite society dared utter it became a focal point of debate. Ocasio-Cortez’s fans—she has 2.4 million followers on Twitter alone—loved it. Some pundits dug up economic research defending rates in the 70 percent range. Others pointed out that Ocasio-Cortez was actually lowballing the historical comparison: Top rates were 90 percent or higher as recently as the 1960s. Defenders of low tax rates heaped abuse on her, which backfired on them by inflaming her supporters.
Ars Technica
Where will NASA go in 20 years? It may depend on private space and China
Anniversaries offer a moment for reflection, so when Ars Technica reached the start of its 20th anniversaryrecently, I inevitably paused to consider the state of US human spaceflight in 1998.
In 1998, NASA launched the Lunar Prospector mission, which found water on the Moon. It was also the year when 15 countries came together to agree upon a framework for the International Space Station and later launched the first piece of the laboratory into orbit. And also that year, promisingly, NASA’s new X-38 spacecraft made its first successful test flight. All of these events would, in various ways, help determine the course of US spaceflight development that led us to today.
Looking back, one thing soon became clear: past is prologue, and the rhythm of history repeats itself. The human spaceflight achievements of 20 years ago seemed to foreshadow the current state of play in space, so seeing how the seeds planted then have both bloomed and withered likely offers some helpful perspective on what may happen in the future.
If we stopped upgrading fossil-fuel-using tech, we’d hit our climate goals
Because climate change is such a complex, globe-spanning problem, it’s hard to really wrap your head around possible future scenarios. A future where no action is taken to slow greenhouse gas emissions is easy enough to grok, but what exactly does a “middle-of-the-road emissions world” entail?
These scenarios work well for outlining the range of futures available to us, but it can be hard to understand the steps necessary to get to that future. “What if?” scenarios are often easier to think about. What if we eliminated all greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow? Or, if those rainbow unicorns are too impractical for you, what if we didn't replace fossil fuel infrastructure when it reached the end of its life, replacing it with clean alternatives instead?