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Gay sex is punishable by life imprisonment in Uganda and a proposed law would impose the death penalty for ‘aggravated homosexuality’. An LGBTQ-led church held in a safe house supporting transgender people in Kampala is defying the threats and providing a space for worship for Uganda’s Christian sexual minorities
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#Sunday #church #LGBTQ #Ugandans #pictures
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
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Bengaluru: In the absence of his son H.D. Kumaraswamy who has been hospitalised with exhaustion symptoms, JD(S) leader and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda has taken up full-fledged election campaigning at the age of 89 years in Karnataka against the doctors’ advice.
Kumaraswamy has been hospitalised with exhaustion symptoms following a hectic campaigning schedule. He took up the challenge against the campaigning blitzkrieg of two national parties single-handedly. He is strategising for the party from the hospital.
To make up for his son’s absence at this crucial juncture, Deve Gowda, who is not physically fit to take up campaigning, has decided to pitch in for the party.
On Monday, he will campaign in Sira, Koratagere, Madhugiri cities in Tumakuru district which has 11 Assembly seats and is considered a stronghold of JD(S). Deve Gowda will reach Mysuru district on Tuesday and campaign for the party in Piriyapatna, Hunsur, K.R. Nagara towns.
As Deve Gowda is taking up campaigning against the advice of doctors, a team of medical experts are also following him. Deve Gowda had campaigned in Padmanabhanagar constituency in Bengaluru on Sunday. He was brought on a wheel-chair for the recently-held public rally of JD(S) and is attracting huge crowds and his appeals to see JD(S) in power for the last time are finding traction among masses in Vokkaliga heartland.
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#Karnataka #polls #son #hospital #JDS #supremo #Deve #Gowda #takes #campaigning
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )
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Baghdad: The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said that it is working to evacuate its nationals from Sudan, where clashes continued for a ninth day.
“We are working to achieve a very urgent response, and the safety of our community is a top priority,” ministry spokesman Ahmed al-Sahaf was quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying.
The ministry has succeeded in evacuating “14 Iraqi citizens from Khartoum to a safe place in the Port Sudan area. We continue our efforts to evacuate the remaining individuals,” according to al-Sahaf, noting that there are about 300 Iraqis in Sudan.
Clashes between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) continue in the capital Khartoum and adjoining cities for the ninth successive day due to disagreement over the RSF’s integration into the army.
According to Sudan’s health ministry, the deadly clashes have left at least 424 people killed and about 3,730 wounded by Saturday.
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#Iraq #evacuates #nationals #Sudan #fighting #continues
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )
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How Wall Street investors react to a possible default is crucial because they’re the ones who finance the country’s enormous debt by buying the securities that Treasury sells to fund the government. If they shy away from the market, interest rates could skyrocket, squeezing the government, businesses and consumers.
That’s why their level of confidence can serve as the strongest force to drive Washington partisans to make a deal.
For most of this year, many on Wall Street assumed that lessons learned from the 2011 crisis — including voters furious over declines in their retirement accounts as stocks plunged — would prevent such an event from happening again. That faith is starting to fade.
“Debt ceiling negotiations are essentially nowhere,” Brian Gardner, chief Washington policy strategist at investment bank Stifel, wrote in a note to clients. Gardner added that while a last-minute deal could certainly emerge, “the GOP’s narrow majority and the Speaker’s tenuous political position make the pathway to an agreement more uncertain than usual.”
To be clear, it’s nowhere near all-out panic. The government has until the summer to strike a deal, when the Treasury Department is likely to run out of room to keep paying the nation’s bills and servicing its existing debt.
But signs of stress are piling up, especially after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy came to the New York Stock Exchange on April 17 to make the GOP case that any hike in the borrowing limit must come with significant spending cuts. That’s something the White House and congressional Democrats say they won’t consider.
The shift from general nonchalance to rising concern can be seen in an obscure corner of the markets: the soaring cost of insuring against exposure to U.S. debt through instruments called credit default swaps, which mitigate risk for large holders of Treasury securities.
The cost of insuring against a U.S. default rose to its highest level in over a decade on Thursday as JPMorgan analysts said there was a “non-trivial risk” of at least a technical default on the government’s debt in which the nation runs out of borrowing ability for even a short period before a deal is reached.
Darrell Cronk, chief investment officer of Wells Fargo’s wealth and investment management division, said his biggest worry is that the “X-Date” — the moment when emergency moves to forestall default are exhausted — gets pulled forward to early-to-mid June with 2022 tax receipts likely weak after a brutal year for markets.
Goldman Sachs researchers said they also expect a much shorter timeline due to a steep reduction in capital gains revenue. And McCarthy’s hardline position — as well as questions about whether he can unify House Republicans over any strategy at all — have amped up alarms. “People seem to be dug in a little bit more in the trenches,” Cronk said.
Some bank executives said they are growing more concerned about the state of play in Washington but remain unsure how to inject themselves into the debate. Speaking out would be unlikely to sway hard-line conservatives, they fear, given that such calls would probably be dismissed as special pleading by rich Wall Streeters.
So for now, they are mostly issuing anodyne statements arguing for the importance of not allowing the U.S. to default, in a bid to nudge the two sides toward a solution.
Following McCarthy’s address, congressional Republicans urged bankers to press Biden to engage with the GOP.
“Obviously, people [on Wall Street] are worried,” Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio said in an interview. “We’ll just say, ‘Look, it’s a two-party system. And Kevin McCarthy gets to make the first shot across the bow, but they need to put pressure on Joe Biden, to the extent they’re able to, to actually come to the negotiating table.’”
Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio said he’s telling bankers that “the only way that we’re going to not default later is if we start taking corrective action now.”
“Joe Biden’s plan is to not take corrective action now,” said Davidson, a member of the House Freedom Caucus. “That’s a nonstarter. We’re not going to move his ‘no action now’ bill,” he said, referring to Democrats’ hopes of passing a “clean” debt limit hike with no spending cuts.
Democrats expressed frustration that the financial world hasn’t exerted more pressure on Republicans.
“Wall Street and business need to start getting energized and put pressure on Republicans to do what we’ve done all these years, which is pay for the debt that we incurred and not hold the American people hostage,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said he was confident Wall Street would eventually speak up. “But I think that it’s telling that McCarthy went to Wall Street to talk about all this because he’s Wall Street’s guy,” Brown added. “So we’ll see.”
Meanwhile, concerns over the impact that a nasty fight over the debt limit could have on the economy are showing up on bank earnings calls.
Goldman CEO David Solomon identified uncertainty over the debt limit as a potential source of volatility during the bank’s call on Tuesday. An hour earlier, responding to a question from POLITICO, Bank of America CFO Alastair Borthwick told reporters he didn’t have much to say on the status of non-existent negotiations between the White House and McCarthy.
“Obviously, we’re all hoping that gets resolved successfully,” he added.
Citi CEO Jane Fraser said her bank believes it’s “now more likely that the U.S. will enter into a shallow recession” later this year. “The biggest unknown,” she told analysts on the bank’s recent earnings call, is “how the debt ceiling plays out.”
BlackRock Vice Chair Philipp Hildebrand warned at the Bloomberg New Economy Gateway Europe Forum on Thursday that default would undermine “a basic anchor” of the world’s financial system and “must not happen.”
“All we can do is to pray that everyone in the United States understands how important the sanctity of the sovereign signature of the leading currency, of the leading bond market, of the leading economy in the world is,” Hildebrand said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
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At least, not enough for Congress to re-up the program without changes, according to some of the intelligence community’s biggest allies.
“The FBI is absolutely the problem child in FISA and 702. The abuses are abhorrent. Director [Christopher] Wray is not a compelling advocate for FISA or 702, because he’s not been a compelling advocate for reform,” House Intelligence Chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said in an interview.
Turner added that while Wray had “attempted and advanced” some reforms, the FBI director’s effort was “disconnected” from congressional oversight.
Another lawmaker, who also supports extending the program with reforms, put it more bluntly: “I don’t think the FBI, the DOJ, has the credibility with the Republican side any longer to make an argument.”
Back in 2020, then-Attorney General Bill Barr was deeply involved in making the pitch to Republicans during a fight on an unrelated surveillance provision. Yet the lawmaker, granted anonymity to speak frankly, warned Attorney General Merrick Garland against trying to play a similar role this time: “Bill Barr among Republicans is very different than Merrick Garland.”
In the meantime, negotiators are already signaling that they will likely miss the Dec. 31 deadline to re-up the warrantless surveillance program. There’s no chance Congress would agree to a long-term extension as is, but lawmakers are quietly making backup plans to avoid a lapse.
Congress’ tensions with the FBI are multi-faceted, encompassing both Section 702 and the broader surveillance law it’s housed under, known as FISA. That’s in addition to the political tensions that have further frayed the relationship between some House Republicans and law enforcement agencies like the FBI and DOJ.
When it comes to 702 specifically, lawmakers don’t believe the FBI stays within the guardrails of a highly shrouded surveillance program, pointing to a bulk of reported abuses. And it’s gotten personal, too: An FBI analyst used the program to improperly search for a U.S. lawmaker’s name about three years ago, reportedly over fears that he was being targeted by a foreign government.
Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) recently disclosed he believed he was the one who was the subject of the search. Now, LaHood is leading the House Intelligence Committee’s 702 talks.
But even more pervasive among Republicans, both in and outside of the Capitol, is a general distrust of the FBI fueled in part by the bureau’s clashes with Trump. House Republicans are conducting a sweeping probe into claims of politicization of the Justice Department and the bureau, which fringes of the conference have backed Trump’s calls to “defund.”
The skepticism over the FBI played out publicly when Wray testified before both the House and Senate Intelligence committees, fielding warnings from both sides of the aisle.
He responded to those red flags by touting recent improvements to the surveillance program, pointing to a 93 percent decrease between 2021 and 2022 in the number of FBI searches for U.S. persons — a statistic critics have argued belies how large the number was to begin with. He also noted the creation of an Office of Internal Audit that he said is focused specifically on FISA.
Administration officials are also expanding their scope as they try to make the case for 702 reauthorization, arguing that it is critical on everything from countering cyberattacks and China to tracking Russia’s moves in Ukraine.
The Justice Department has also been offering lawmakers briefings to walk them through the compliance changes they have made in recent years. Those changes include new internal guardrails, like requiring additional layers of review before certain searches can take place, as well as new mandatory training, according to a DOJ memo released earlier this year.
“We clearly have work to do, and we are eager to do it with this committee, to show that we can be worthy stewards of these important authorities,” Wray told House lawmakers.
He’ll be back soon, too. House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), said he expects both Wray and Garland to appear before his panel for routine oversight hearings.
The FBI declined to comment for this article.
Data and talking points are unlikely to tamp down tensions; House Republicans say there’s little the FBI or DOJ could say to regain the conference’s favor. Rather, an appearance before Jordan’s panel, which is stocked with surveillance skeptics, is likely to showcase why the bureau shouldn’t be making the direct pitch about extending the program.
“When Jim Jordan is out there talking about cutting the funding for the FBI, you know, and there’s … intense skepticism about the FBI, I’m not sure that the right first step for my Republican colleagues is to spend a lot of time with the leadership of the FBI,” Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said in an interview.
And the House GOP has another relevant appearance coming up on their docket: DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz will testify before a Judiciary subpanel on Thursday, an appearance first reported by POLITICO, as the committee launches its formal work on 702. He’s all but guaranteed to face questions about his previous findings of widespread errors within warrant applications made to the shadowy FISA surveillance court.
It’s left the Biden administration with a tricky question: If the FBI or DOJ can’t be called upon to make the case, who can?
Turner pointed to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and CIA Director Bill Burns as two people who are having to “overcome” some of the frustrations with the FBI. Jordan, meanwhile, asked who in the administration he could work with on 702 reauthorization, only pointed to Turner.
Indeed, it seems unavoidable that the Intel chair and other lawmakers who are committed to renewing the program in some form will have to lead the sales pitch.
That rough sledding doesn’t even factor in negotiations with a Democratic-controlled Senate and White House. And supporters are likely to have to contend with a coalition of libertarian-minded Republicans and privacy-minded Democrats in both chambers who are likely to want to go further if not let the program sunset altogether.
“At this point, we’re pulling together all of our partners that are necessary to find a clear path for reauthorization that also satisfies the real need for reform and … people’s perception that reform and reauthorization cannot be separated,” Turner said.
But he acknowledged that renewing Section 702 in some form is “certainly going to be difficult to accomplish” by year’s end.
One option lawmakers have mulled is passing a short-term extension of the program, giving Congress more time to craft a deal on a longer reauthorization with changes. But questions remain about the viability of such a move and what supporters might trade in exchange for more time.
Himes, who is working closely with Turner, also floated Washington’s favorite back-up plan — a discharge petition, which would allow Republicans to work with Democrats to force a vote — in case GOP detractors make it otherwise impossible to bring to the floor.
“Because this authority is so important, I do think we need, you know, a Plan A, a Plan B and a Plan C,” Himes said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
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One side will say that Ukraine’s advances would’ve worked had the administration given Kyiv everything it asked for, namely longer-range missiles, fighter jets and more air defenses. The other side, administration officials worry, will claim Ukraine’s shortcoming proves it can’t force Russia out of its territory completely.
That doesn’t even account for the reaction of America’s allies, mainly in Europe, who may see a peace negotiation between Ukraine and Russia as a more attractive option if Kyiv can’t prove victory is around the corner.
Inside the administration, officials stress they’re doing everything possible to make the spring offensive succeed.
“We’ve nearly completed the requests of what [Ukraine] said they needed for the counteroffensive as we have surged weapons and equipment to Ukraine over the past few months,” said one administration official who, like others, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal considerations.
But belief in the strategic cause is one thing. Belief in the tactics is another — and behind closed doors the administration is worried about what Ukraine can accomplish.
Those concerns recently spilled out into the open during a leak of classified information onto social media. A top secret assessment from early February stated that Ukraine would fall “well short” of its counteroffensive goals. More current American assessments are that Ukraine may make some progress in the south and east, but won’t be able to repeat last year’s success.
Ukraine has hoped to sever Russia’s land bridge to Crimea and U.S. officials are now skeptical that will happen, according to two administration officials familiar with the assessment. But there are still hopes in the Pentagon that Ukraine will hamper Russia’s supply lines there, even if a total victory over Russia’s newly fortified troops ends up too difficult to achieve.
Moreover, U.S. intelligence indicates that Ukraine simply does not have the ability to push Russian troops from where they were deeply entrenched — and a similar feeling has taken hold about the battlefield elsewhere in Ukraine, according to officials. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the U.S. hasn’t adequately armed his forces properly and so, until then, the counteroffensive can’t begin.
There is belief that Kyiv is willing to consider adjusting its goals, according to American officials, and a more modest aim might be easier to be sold as a win.
There has been discussion, per aides, of framing it to the Ukrainians as a “ceasefire” and not as permanent peace talks, leaving the door open for Ukraine to regain more of its territory at a future date. Incentives would have to be given to Kyiv: perhaps NATO-like security guarantees, economic help from the European Union, more military aid to replenish and bolster Ukraine’s forces, and the like. And aides have expressed hope of re-engaging China to push Putin to the negotiating table as well.
But that would still lead to the dilemma of what happens next, and how harshly domestic critics respond.
“If the counteroffensive does not go well, the administration has only itself to blame for withholding certain types of arms and aid at the time when it was most needed,” said Kurt Volker, the special envoy for Ukraine during the Trump administration.
A counteroffensive that doesn’t meet expectations will also cause allies in foreign capitals to question how much more they can spare if Kyiv’s victory looks farther and farther away.
“European public support may wane over time as European energy and economic costs stay high,” said Clementine Starling, a director and fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, D.C. “A fracturing of transatlantic support will likely hurt U.S. domestic support and Congress and the Biden administration may struggle to sustain it.”
Many European nations could also push Kyiv to bring the fighting to an end. “A poor counteroffensive will spark further questions about what an outcome to the war will look like, and the extent to which a solution can really be achieved by continuing to send military arms and aid alone,” Starling said.
Biden and his top aides have publicly stressed that Zelenskyy should only begin peace talks when he is ready. But Washington has also communicated to Kyiv some political realities: at some point, especially with Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, the pace of U.S. aid will likely slow. Officials in Washington, though not pressing Kyiv, have begun preparing for what those conversations could look like and understand it may be a tough political sell at home for Zelenskyy.
“If Ukraine can’t gain dramatically on the battlefield, the question inevitably arises as to whether it is time for a negotiated stop to the fighting,” said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “It’s expensive, we’re running low on munitions, we’ve got other contingencies around the world to prepare for.”
“It’s legitimate to ask all these questions without compromising Ukraine’s goals. It’s simply a question of means,” Haass said.
Earlier this month, Andriy Sybiha, a deputy head in Zelenskyy’s office, told the Financial Times that Ukraine would be willing to talk if its forces reach Crimea’s doorstep. “If we will succeed in achieving our strategic goals on the battlefield and when we will be on the administrative border with Crimea, we are ready to open [a] diplomatic page to discuss this issue,” he said.
That comment was quickly rebuffed by Tamila Tasheva, Zelenskyy’s Crimea envoy: “If Russia won’t voluntarily leave the peninsula, Ukraine will continue to liberate its land by military means,” she told POLITICO earlier this month.
It doesn’t help America’s confidence that the war has slowed to a brutal slog.
Both sides have traded punishing blows, focused on small cities like Bakhmut, with neither force able to fully dislodge the other. The Russian surge ordered up earlier this year, meant to revitalize Moscow’s struggling war effort, seized little territory at the cost of significant casualties and did not do much to change the overall trajectory of the conflict.
The fighting has taken a toll on the Ukrainians as well. Fourteen months into the conflict, the Ukrainians have suffered staggering losses — around 100,000 dead — with many of their top soldiers either sidelined or exhausted. The troops have also gone through historic amounts of ammunition and weaponry, with even the West’s prodigious output unable to match Zelenskyy’s urgent requests.
U.S. officials have also briefed Ukraine on the dangers of overextending its ambitions and spreading its troops too thin — the same warning Biden gave then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani as the Taliban moved to sweep across the country during the U.S. military withdrawal in 2021.
But the chances of Ukraine backing down from its highest aspirations is, to say the least, unlikely. “It’s as if this is the only and last opportunity for Ukraine to show that it can win, which of course isn’t true,” said Alina Polyakova, president and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington, D.C.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
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That includes the seats held by a diverse group of GOP freshmen across the state, from more well-known faces like Rep. Marc Molinaro in the Hudson Valley, who previously ran for governor against Andrew Cuomo, to first-time-winner-turned-ultra-beleaguered George Santos in Long Island.
“Glass half empty, it’s disappointing,” Ryan said of Democrats’ performance in November. Speaking from his new district office along the Hudson River in Newburgh during the April recess, he said Democrats need a course correction. “I think many of [the New York seats] were and should have been winnable races, especially given the stakes.”
The path to victory for either party is full of pitfalls, according to interviews with more than 15 local and state level party leaders, elected officials and consultants. New York Democrats are rebuilding at every level — and plagued by state party infighting. Republicans fear being lumped in with the more extreme members of their caucus and abortion politics may destroy the gains they’ve made in the Empire State. And Democrats are worried that their own party will cause them to face plant once more.
“We don’t have a functioning state party,” said Michael Blake, a former Democratic assemblyman from the Bronx and vice chair for the Democratic National Committee. “I’ve seen what real parties do, real parties across the country have consistent elections, they have full time staff and compensated chairs because they make that a job. It’s not a hobby.”
For both parties, the journey to victory in New York will be long, tough and expensive.
“There’s no shortcut. There’s no easy button,” Ryan said.
Democrats not only need to protect Ryan’s seat, but also win back the ones Republicans flipped last cycle in the buoy of a presidential year. The House Majority PAC, the main Democratic super PAC in House campaigns, has already announced a $45 million investment into New York and is already hiring a war room.
The Congressional Leadership Fund, the Republican side super PAC, has not yet released its budget for New York.
“They’re going to have to come up with the money to fund these races because they’ve all gotten enormously expensive,” said Brent Bogardus, the Greene County Republican Party Chair.
Local Democratic leaders are ready for the flood of resources likely to come to their districts, but are worried about execution. Local party chairs fear waste without proper coordination and that redder and more rural areas won’t see the benefits of New York’s new battleground status.
“There’s going to be money coming from all sides. Well, why don’t we spend it efficiently? Why don’t we spend it effectively?” said Jennifer Colamonico, the Putnam County Democratic Party chair, and part of NY-17, where Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) won by fewer than 2,000 votes. “I think that’s the most important thing the state party can do, especially going into next year because there’s a huge opportunity to waste money to be honest.”
There was a coordinated effort last cycle between Gov. Kathy Hochul’s campaign and down ballot candidates but Democrats are already stressing the need to have stronger coordination across the ticket to share resources and free up candidates to focus on being in the district.
“I joke it’s a fly-over county; it’s north of Westchester and everybody kind of zips right through it,” Colamonico said. “But I think Sean Maloney learned the hard way, you can’t write off any part of your district. Like the old Howard Dean 50-state strategy, we need a 62-county strategy in New York.” (Maloney, who was also the DCCC chair, lost his newly redrawn district to Lawler by 1.6 percent of the vote.)
Much of the blame for the losses New York Democrats suffered has been heaped on state party chair Jay Jacobs, who survived calls for resignation after last cycle.
“If you listen to the critics, we did absolutely nothing. Nothing,” Jacobs said in an interview with POLITICO. “Even though they knew about it and read about it in the papers.”
A coalition of Hudson Valley Democratic county party chairs sent an open letter to the state party leaders to submit a list of proposals they’d like the state party to adopt to grow its operation and impact in the 2024 election cycle. The letter called for the state party executive committee to meet more frequently, provide an internal communication structure for organizing at all levels of Democratic Party membership and to develop an action plan for the next cycle among other suggestions.
The chairs represent New York’s 17th, 18th and 19th congressional districts, represented today by Reps. Molinaro and Lawler and Ryan, all of whom are on party target lists.
Ulster County Democratic Party chair Kelleigh McKenzie said some of their organizing has been hamstrung by lack of investment in basic infrastructure. Her county office uses Slack to communicate within the office, but she can’t afford a version of the software that keeps messages for more than 90 days or even for everyone on her team to use it — let alone a version that would include multiple county offices.
“Some of us, like the Hudson Valley Chairs Coalition, we’re doing this ourselves. But we would like to see the state party put the infrastructure in place,” McKenzie said.
Jacobs said he finds the Hudson Valley Chairs coalition to be helpful collaborators and agrees with the need to build a more robust party infrastructure. His action plan and the first stages of implementation are expected to be launched this summer. He dismisses the criticism directed his way as a part of the job.
“We had all of this criticism but I, for one, felt it was unfair,” Jacobs said, referencing a December report that analyzed the Midterm results. “The problem was not what was alleged that the state Democratic Party failed to bring out the Democratic vote. A number of critics said we were absent, we did nothing. That was not the truth.”
Jacobs has already released a post-election report analyzing voter turnout and is soliciting feedback from Democratic county leaders on a statewide strategy to prepare for next year, but stressed that changes are not in direct response to last year’s results (even if other party leaders see them this way).
Colamonico, who is a member of the Hudson Valley Chairs coalition, is a convert. At first, she said she was in favor of Jacobs resigning in the aftermath of last year’s election, but is now cautiously optimistic after seeing how Jacobs is taking the post-election response.
As Republicans set about defending their seats next cycle, they (and many Democrats) credit gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin for his help at the top of the ticket.
Zeldin had disciplined messaging focused on crime, policing and bail reform, and many of his campaign events featured down ballot candidates. He lost to Hochul by six points, but helped House candidates sweep the four seats in his native Long Island.
“People starting their day or ending their day catching up on the news or what they might have missed, the top story would often be whatever it was our campaign was talking about in that press conference we hosted that day,” said Zeldin in an interview with POLITICO. “We were driving the message” in close races.
Republicans hope they can replicate the success of last cycle by once more focusing on crime and cost of living. But with Trump and abortion already setting up as chief issues in 2024, they face strong headwinds.
“There’s no doubt that New York State is a pro-choice state, every poll that I read indicates as such, but we’re really going to be focusing on public safety, and providing more economic opportunity and lowering the cost of living for folks,” said Benji Federman, Broome County Republican Party chair. “That message seems to resonate really well with Broome County voters and we’re going to continue talking about those things.”
When asked about how Republican frontlines will respond to abortion in their campaigns, National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) said to POLITICO, “I’m not going to answer hypotheticals about all the different races.”
For Hudson Valley Republicans, what they think might differentiate them even in a presidential election year is something not always emphasized by Republicans elsewhere: bipartisanship.
“It’s very important,” Federman said. He highlighted that his county’s representative, Molinaro, is a member of the Problem Solvers caucus. “He’s crossed party lines when he feels like it’s in the best interest of the community. And the bottom line is he doesn’t get caught up in the politics of the day.”
Ryan, defending a seat next cycle, also sees the value in bipartisanship. He spent the afternoon touring an affordable housing and cultural center with Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus, a Republican. The two developed a close relationship during the pandemic when Ryan was also a county executive in neighboring Ulster County.
Neuhaus described his relationship with Ryan akin to President Ronald Reagan and Speaker Tip O’Neill.
But when asked about supporting Ryan’s reelection bid, Neuhaus demurred. “Last year, I didn’t get involved,” he said. “And as probably the top Republican in the area, for me, not getting involved is probably the most I could do for anybody.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
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The sponsors and industry backers say that by allowing Medicare to pay for at-home care for more patients, Congress can reduce expensive hospitalizations and help stabilize Medicare’s teetering finances. “When you look at the numbers and demands on Medicare in the years on the horizon, we need to innovate,” Smith said.
The legislation would create a new Medicare benefit allowing certain beneficiaries not eligible for Medicaid to have a home health worker for up to 12 hours a week. It would facilitate house calls by allowing doctors to receive a monthly payment, in place of the existing fee-for-service structure. And it would broaden reimbursement for home-based services, including dialysis, lab tests and infusions.
The bill would also task the Department of Health and Human Services with studying additional procedures that could move to the home, such as X-rays.
Consulting firm McKinsey estimated last year that more than $250 billion worth of care in Medicare and Medicare Advantage could shift to the home over three years, including primary care, emergency visits, long-term care, infusions and acute care at home.
The timing is fortuitous. The pandemic forced providers to move more care to the home and created momentum for a long-term shift. Many elderly people embraced the change. It also spawned innovation in the private sector, as venture capitalists poured money into telehealth and at-home care startups.
The federal and state governments are “the single-biggest payer of long-term care in this country,” Dingell said. “It’s institutionally focused, period. That’s not where most people want to be. They want to be in the home in their own setting with people they know and love.”
But even as cash flows into the sector and patient demand for at-home care rises, health economists say it’s not clear this future is imminent.
While advocates tout potential cost savings, there’s scant data to back up those claims. How much money the changes would cost or save remains a crucial question as lawmakers look to rein in health care spending.
“There is potential for cost savings,” said Rachel Werner, executive director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, but Werner also said the package is difficult to assess as a whole.
“The cost implications probably vary across the different provisions and it’s hard to know what the total costs might be,” she said.
“Among the proposed programs, the one for which there will be the biggest demand is personal care services, which will be expensive and raises questions about whether there will be overall cost savings,” Werner said.
Werner expects that personal care services — help with daily activities — would cost, rather than save money, in part because of what economists call the “woodwork effect.” When presented with the opportunity to get at-home help, people who weren’t previously paying for services come out of the woodwork to get it.
Robert Burke, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, said he was “intrigued” by personal care services’ inclusion in the bill. Those services could be especially useful for older adults leaving the hospital who need a combination of skilled home care and help with nonmedical needs.
But while fewer stays at skilled nursing facilities may offset costs, Burke said the 12-hours-a-week of personal care the legislation outlined isn’t likely to work. A better approach would offer more care up front and less support over time, he suggested.
Supporters of the package argue that expanding payment for personal care services could prevent costly hospital readmissions.
Beyond cost, Werner, Burke and other analysts questioned whether there are sufficient workers to execute the vision.
“I am concerned we lack the workforce to do it effectively or to scale the programs to have a meaningful impact,” Werner said.
The ratio between home care workers and people who need services is worsening, according to a study Werner published this week in Health Affairs. The number of workers per 100 participants in Medicaid’s home and community-based services programs fell by 11.6 percent between 2013 and 2019, a trend that suggests it might be hard for Medicare patients to find home health aides.
Technology like remote monitoring and telehealth could scale certain services. But others, like labs, diagnostic testing and at-home primary care, need skilled workers to carry out, in person, Burke noted.
Others said the success of the lawmakers’ vision depends on execution and could be better or worse than existing care models.
“It could help or exacerbate [workforce shortages],” said Julian Harris, former health care team lead at the White House Office of Management and Budget under former President Barack Obama and CEO of ConcertoCare, which cares for patients with complex conditions in the home. “We will likely have challenges as the Baby Boomers continue to age into Medicare with staffing and care needs of patients who want to receive care in the home with some of our legacy approaches.”
The legislation would provide grants to organizations like health systems and home health agencies to build the workforce and create a task force for nursing certification standards for home care, which could result in a larger supply of workers. The Biden administration also recently directed HHS to look into regulations and guidance to improve home-care jobs.
Dingell said paying health care workers more would help address these issues, touting her legislation introduced last month that aims to boost wages via more funding.
Finally, there’s the question of cost-shifting, and whether moving care into the home will ultimately transfer labor costs to family members as they take on additional hours of informal caretaking.
“Across most of these, I would expect increased caregiver burden,” Werner said.
Supporters of the legislation contend that caregivers actually would feel more supported in this model, given the extra technology and supporting staff in the home that wouldn’t otherwise be there.
While some health economists are skeptical of the House bill’s promises, a growing lineup of health care companies are enthused.
Moving Health Home, a coalition of tech-enabled home care companies including Best Buy’s Current Health, health system Intermountain and dialysis provider DaVita, has backed the push. It’s a sister organization of the Alliance for Connected Care, a prominent telehealth lobbying group.
Both groups are led by Krista Drobac, a lobbyist who once worked for the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under Obama.
Drobac’s groups see moving care into the home as a way to improve patients’ outcomes, reduce costs and bolster access. The organization points to Morning Consult polling commissioned by home health care leaders showing that about three quarters of Democrats and three in five Republicans say the federal government should prioritize boosting access to care in the home.
“Seniors and their caregivers want the option to stay home. It’s better for overall health and recovery,” said Drobac. “The pandemic showed us it is possible, and we need to build on that.”
Backers acknowledge that the empirical evidence base for home care needs to be developed more, but point to studies showing that moving care to the home doesn’t compromise patient safety.
A 2021 meta-review published in BMJ Open on hospital at-home care found that the practice “generally results in similar or improved clinical outcomes” and said expansion should be considered amid spiking health care costs. The Congressional Budget Office scored an extension of hospital at-home care through 2024 as costing $5 million — a drop in the bucket of overall health care spending.
Meanwhile, the pandemic demonstrated it’s doable and that patients want it, the industry advocates said.
“The Covid pandemic put lighter fluid on the importance of care delivery in the home and meeting patients where they’re at,” said Kevin Riddleberger, co-founder of coalition member DispatchHealth, which brings lab tests, X-rays and other urgent care into the home.
At-home testing company ixlayer, which is part of Moving Health Home, hopes bringing lab testing into the home can help treat chronic conditions by making it easier to get tested. Emcara, which provides home-based primary care, has seen 40 percent growth year over year, said Eric Galvin, the company’s CEO, largely driven by demand for care in the home.
Backers hope that leaning on technology like remote patient monitoring to track patients’ health can help reduce costs by catching issues sooner and forestalling the need for expensive drugs and treatments.
Cheryl Stanton, chief legal and government affairs officer at home care company BrightStar Care, pointed to a study by Avalere her firm commissioned that found that early intervention with targeted personal care services significantly reduced costs.
“If you’re in the home and see someone is sluggish and starting to go to the bathroom much more than usual, you can say something is wrong and have them tested early to find a UTI, rather than wait until they’ve gone into crisis and have to be hospitalized,” Stanton said.
And there’s a ready constituency for that message on Capitol Hill and at the White House, given the Medicare hospital insurance trust fund’s looming insolvency, and the impasse in Washington around another possible solution: raising taxes.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
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After throwing cold water on Arrington’s plans to move a budget, McCarthy reached out with a peace offering and consolation prize, making him chief sponsor of the 320-page fiscal measure House Republicans will push to pass this week. When the speaker called about that gesture, Arrington said in a recent interview, he did not address the private drama that escalated over the past several weeks as McCarthy spurned Arrington’s eagerness to vote on a budget and relied increasingly on his own posse of advisers.
That leaves Arrington in a touchy spot. He’s still publicly committed to drafting a budget that could lay out the GOP’s fiscal aspirations for the next decade — even as McCarthy forges ahead with his own separate plan. The chair is still meeting with his committee about advancing his budget.
“These budget resolutions are not easy,” Arrington acknowledged in an interview. “They’re complicated by the fact that you have a diverse group of members, it touches virtually every policy in every program in the federal government, and we are so deep in the debt hole.”
While Arrington wouldn’t commit to a future markup of a House GOP budget, he stressed that “we are making very good headway.” But even if he can finish writing one, a budget would promptly saddle Republicans with political liabilities galore: Including internal fights over taxes, entitlements and the desire among some conservatives to pare back Pentagon spending.
Knowing those drawbacks, President Joe Biden has spent months calling on House Republicans to release a budget as a marker in the debt talks. McCarthy has sidestepped that gambit by rallying his members instead around the package of spending cuts, deregulatory moves and a short-term debt hike that is slated for a floor vote this week.
All of that makes Arrington’s entire effort now appear fruitless, with GOP appropriators preparing to write annual spending bills based on the funding totals outlined in the McCarthy-driven package.
Still, a number of Republicans say they want to adopt a budget, even if it amounts to more of a pure party messaging exercise than in years past. Arrington said friends in the conference have flooded him with calls and texts of support amid rumors of conflict with McCarthy.
The 51-year-old chair is hardly the first budget chair who’s seen tension with House leaders. The role is often seen as undesirable, rendered feckless by an eroded federal budget process but still serving as a mouthpiece for the majority party’s fiscal goals.
Four years ago, then-Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) faced a similar quandary as Democratic Budget Committee chair. Leaders of Yarmuth’s party in 2019 wanted to lay down an opening bid as they faced off with the Trump administration over the debt limit and budget caps. After weeks of painstaking work and a nail biter of a committee vote, Democrats were forced to yank the budget from the floor amid a revolt from progressives and moderates.
“That’s the position I found myself in,” Yarmuth said in a phone interview. Arrington, he observed, is “just going to have to sit there and take the abuse.”
Yarmuth said he recommended Arrington for the Budget gavel before retiring last year “because he’s basically a reasonable person and someone I never had a problem talking to or working with.” Lately, the Kentucky Democrat sees Arrington’s predicament as even tougher than his own previous dilemma.
“He has a double-edged problem,” Yarmuth said. “One is that leadership is trying to herd more cats than we ever had to herd, and he’s got mandates to [enact] things that would be highly unpopular and can never get done.”
Arrington didn’t dispute that passing a budget would force his colleagues to make painful, potentially unpopular choices to back up their goal of massively paring back federal spending.
“These are not easy decisions. So most people, they avoid them,” the 51-year-old said in last week’s interview.
He sent confusing signals earlier this year — first promising to release a budget in April and then May, only to later walk back any definitive timeline. Arrington also told reporters that Republicans were preparing a “deal sheet” outlining the party’s debt limit demands, prompting confusion when McCarthy later said he had no knowledge of any such thing.
Arkansas Rep. Steve Womack, a former GOP budget chief and top Republican appropriator, said he has spoken to Arrington about how to navigate the “gymnastics” of writing a budget, keeping leadership happy and shepherding Republicans’ debt limit offer.
“He has advocated for some things and put some talking points out that may have ruffled a few feathers — I don’t know, that’s between Jodey and the leadership team,” Womack said. “You’re the budget chair. You need to lead your committee to do its mandated duty.”
Arrington vowed that he has “the confidence and trust of the members” in doing that job. Yet it’s undeniable that the budget chair can most effectively wield power when one party holds both chambers of Congress, thereby putting the party-line maneuver known as reconciliation into play.
Democrats used that filibuster end-around during the last Congress to pass last year’s health, climate and tax bill without a single GOP vote, in addition to Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid relief plan. Republicans tapped the process in 2017 to pass a massive tax overhaul.
But under divided government, Arrington’s influence is limited — if still meaningful. He’s a senior lieutenant in McCarthy’s drive to force Democrats into spending concessions in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling.
And the speaker’s recent repair of their relationship underscores how crucial Arrington’s buy-in is to projecting the appearance of harmony among House Republicans, despite internal dissonance amplified by the slim margin of their majority.
Asked about McCarthy’s call to seek his chief sponsorship of the debt bill, Arrington downplayed any fractiousness with McCarthy: “No, no, no, no. Look, he and I are both focused on the mission,” he said. “And the mission is to rein in the spending, reduce our debt, grow our economy, and save this country from a debt crisis.”
“All this other stuff,” he added, “is a distraction.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
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New Delhi; Cloud major Oracle on Monday introduced new AI and automation capabilities across its Fusion Cloud Supply and Manufacturing (SCM) applications to help customers accelerate supply chain planning, increase operational efficiency and improve financial accuracy.
Supply chain disruptions have become a business reality, amplified by global and domestic socio-economic dynamics, trade restrictions, compliance issues.
“India being a key player in the Asian region and global trade ecosystems, there is a massive need for both public and private sector to have supply chain frameworks that drive system integration, identify risk concerns, and produce leads to drive efficiency,” said Kaushik Mitra, Senior Director, Cloud ERP, Oracle India.
Given the complexities, stakeholders are required to have effective technologies that are innovative and sound enough to handle the complex processes, identify and reduce bottlenecks and track the movement across supply chains accurately.
“With latest enhancements in Oracle SCM solution and Oracle’s complete suite of integrated Fusion applications, organisations can manage supply chain data on the same platform as finance, HR, and customer experience to accelerate the quote-to-cash process, break down silos within operations and remove barriers that have traditionally existed between various business functions,” Mitra explained.
New AI features help customers improve the accuracy of lead time assumptions by using machine learning to highlight variances based on actual performance.
“The last few years have highlighted the value of supply chain insights, efficiency, and accuracy, and the consequences of moving too slow when a disruption occurs,” says Jon Chorley, senior vice president of supply chain applications and chief sustainability officer, Oracle.
Part of Oracle Fusion Applications Suite, Oracle Cloud SCM helps organisations seamlessly connect supply chain processes and quickly respond to changing demand, supply, and market conditions,” said the company.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )