Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations team is reading this week.
Next Steps? – The Senate is having some issues moving forward with the Obamacare repeal. Read more at The Hill.
Rolling Tide Lifts All Boats – University of Alabama has been a football powerhouse since the mid 1960s. First under legendary coach Bear Bryant and now under Coach Nick Sabin, the Crimson Tide football team earns nearly $95 million per year and is one of the best recruiting tools the university has for sports and academics. While the athletic department makes a tidy sum, the ancillary products and endorsement deals are truly where the revenue lies for the university, Tuscaloosa, and the state. Read more at The New York Times.
Mismatches – NCAA head Mark Emmert caution colleges and universities about recruiting student athletes that were academic “mismatches”. Read more at USA Today.
Clinton-type Money – Over the last 40 years in politics, Bill and Hillary Clinton have established a monumental network of donors and supporters in both high-monied and small individual donations. They’ve raised something to the tune of $3 billion. They have cultivated a vast network through charm, intellect, and personal interaction. How did they do it and who are these supporters? Read more in The Washington Post.
Hoppe To It – Speaker Ryan’s new chief of staff, David Hoppe, is an old political hand, who eschews interviews, keeps his calm and agrees to disagree. His current job is helping herd cats — something he’s already experienced at working for Senator Trent Lott. Read more in the Washington Post.
Roe v. Wade v. Texas – The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the latest challenge to abortion access. Two years ago, Texas passed legislation that severely limited who and where abortions could be provided. It catapulted Texas State Senator Wendy Davis, and her tennis shoes, in to the national spotlight. Now, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case challenging the restrictions. Read more from The Economist.
Geography Lesson – Presidential candidate Ben Carson’s campaign recently posted a map of all the states refusing to take in Syrian refugees. Unfortunately, he put some states in the wrong place. Read more at The Washington Post.
Nah… – Over a decade after the Attacks on 9/11, new information and correspondence has been declassified revealing the Bush Administration ignored detailed CIA warnings of an impending terrorist strike. Read more at Politico.
Missing Our Underestimation – Until the events of this week (Beirut, Paris, Egypt’s plan crash, and in March an attack in Yemen that killed 140) Western experts have routinely assumed ISIL efforts were successful in lone wolf attacks, and not as sophisticated at staging attacks like Al Quaeda. While we will learn a lot over the next weeks and months about the attacks, one immediate take away is that many in the West fundamentally misunderstood ISIL’s capabilities, behaviors and intentions. Read more at Politico.
Peace for Paris – The artist who created the much used and powerful Peace for Paris image, Jean Jullian, (see above) talks about creating the image minutes after hearing about the attacks in Paris. Read the story in Wired.
Getting Here – How do refugees actually get into the United States? What is the actual process? Read about it at Vox.
NY Times’s Table For Three series has a conversation with Gloria Steinem and the Notorious RBG.