Happy Friday! The partial government shutdown lasted two weeks, but we’re not out of the woods yet. A massive GOP fight over funding the “great wall” with Mexico is still looming. And Washington’s (and D.C.’s) winter “winter bummer” seems far from over — with fewer days with temperatures above freezing in the forecast. Follow the shutdown: It’s been two weeks and the wheels are falling off. As The Washington Post’s Philip Bump noted, that still leaves 13 government agencies (both U.S. and federal) open. And 13 furloughed federal workers with bank accounts are winners.
Why do you keep dreaming? Thirteen federal government agencies (both U.S. and federal) are still open. Not so that you can get your photo taken on the front steps of the Supreme Court. The top 15 (out of hundreds) in today’s Essential Politics Congressional Delegation Row: https://goo.gl/s2hVM5 Image via WashPost
Then there’s North Korea, which appears to be back in nuclear-war mode. Its nuclear test site — which was closed in August — has been flooding. Satellite images show a debris field of a steel building housing cooling towers, AFP reports. They hope the once closed facility can be opened in one day to allow more nuclear tests. If this sounds like an act of desperation and propaganda, it is. Despite widespread concern over its nuclear weapons program, Pyongyang is still pushing a path toward disarmament. The E-Ring has written about North Korea’s apparent nuclear gamesmanship before, but this latest move raises the stakes as the clock ticks toward the April.
Other education news: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said she had contacted teachers and school leaders around the country about how to deliver school-choice programs. But the watchword for many is: Don’t be short on volunteers. CNN reports on the growing scarcity of volunteers to help the government-funded programs that offer free or reduced-cost school choices.
New York Times report says, “An unknown number of highly paid government executives, officials and lobbyists” — related to or linked to the Trump administration — have been on the take. In part, that’s because, as a Democrat Washington Post’s Paul Kane says, the Trump White House “has downplayed the need for transparency.” See additional revelations at the New York Times.
The Federal News Service’s Gretchen Livingston looks at the latest statistics on the homeless: The number of homeless individuals in D.C. — excluding the homeless in the Office of U.S. Homelessness — increased by nearly 1,600 people in just one year.
And finally: Heads up: A handful of Washington, D.C., CVS’s have potentially been compromised in data breach. So did Amazon. Amazon is refunding customers who had their credit card info compromised, after customers found that credit card numbers, email addresses and other sensitive data were stored in plain text on Amazon Web Services infrastructure. http://goo.gl/a5S6RQ
Evening reading: The Atlantic’s Bruce Bartlett wrote about President Donald Trump’s embrace of trade protectionism.
Mood: Before the year’s final primaries were over, The News Tribune (Minneapolis) columnist E.J. Dionne wrote that “even if we accept that the neo-isolationist wing of the GOP, now led by Trump, means business, the Democratic party will be unified — as will all partisan factions within the Republican Party — against it.” He said there’s simply too much at stake.
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ONLINE TRENDS:
A Trump-less ‘Roseanne’ is being hyped as a hit. Too bad it’s based on a lie. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/02/20/roseanne-fall-out-raw-feeling-can-shock-people-if-it-starts-really-amid-the-incoherence-that-is-the-only-thing-kind-of-president-trump/
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) voiced hope that an agreement would be reached on the partial government shutdown. But Democratic leaders took to social media to voice that hope.
It seems like Wednesday will be something I have never quite seen