Hasta La Gadget!

President Donald Trump plans to eliminate a popular federal program that helps small, rural communities — many of them Trump strongholds — to upgrade and maintain their water infrastructure systems. But his plan just got a bit more complicated.

This week, a bipartisan group of more than 60 U.S. representatives issued a letter to the House’s Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, writing in defense of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s water and wastewater loan and grant program.

The letter, signed by 49 Democrats and 13 Republicans as of Wednesday, calls for increased funding of the USDA rural water program, arguing that it and two other related initiatives are “essential in helping small and rural communities overcome their limitations in providing safe and affordable drinking water and sanitation.”

A failure to protect the program, the letter says, would result in “irreparable and long lasting harm to these water systems and the Americans who rely on them.”

In a statement, Mike Keegan, a spokesman for the National Rural Water Association, applauded the lawmakers who signed the letter ― a group led by Reps. Colleen Hanabusa (D-Hawaii) and John Katko (R-N.Y.) ― and expressed optimism that a majority of Congress would also back the threatened program.

“This federal initiative is a priority for [a] very diverse and large group of members of Congress, both regionally and politically,” Keegan noted in the statement, “and I think that bipartisan and broad support projects very positively for Congress funding the initiative this year.”

The USDA program, last funded with an annual budget of $498 million, was deemed “duplicative” of the Environmental Protection Agency’s state revolving water funds in Trump’s budget blueprint. The document called on small, rural water utilities otherwise served by the USDA program to turn to the EPA revolving funds, which are slated for a slight budget increase, for help.

But rural advocates like Keegan note that the EPA programs have typically allocated the bulk of their funding — as much as 77 percent — to larger, urban water systems. And smaller systems are less enticing candidates for private financing because they often lack the resources to repay the loans at the interest rates and on the payment schedules that private institutions prefer.

This makes the USDA program these utilities’ best — and often only — shot at support, as evidenced by its high level of demand. The lawmakers’ letter notes that the program already has a backlog of 805 applications from utilities requesting a total of $2.2 billion in loans and grants.

Leaving these small utilities to compete with larger systems for EPA revolving funds would leave many struggling to get the help they need to comply with federal standards, advocates say.

As seen in recent investigations, many of these utilities are already struggling to do just that, and their customers are paying the price.

“Elimination of the USDA rural water program will disproportionately impact the most economically disadvantaged communities in the country,” Keegan noted.

Other USDA initiatives are also slated to take a hard hit under the president’s budget blueprint, and rural communities would feel the brunt of the proposed 21 percent reduction in spending.

Among the additional cuts are $95 million in funding from supposedly “duplicative and underperforming” programs at the agency’s Rural Business and Cooperative Service, which provides job training and supports business development in rural communities.

Sonny Perdue, Trump’s nominee for agriculture secretary, could also play a part in determining the fate of initiatives like the water program.

In his confirmation hearing before the Senate’s Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee last month, Perdue appeared to share multiple senators’ concerns about the administration’s proposed cuts to the agency.

The former Georgia governor vowed to be a “strong and tenacious advocate” for farmers and small towns, though he did not speak in detail about any of the proposed cuts at USDA.

Perdue’s nomination is scheduled for a vote on April 24, following the conclusion of a two-week congressional recess.

type=type=RelatedArticlesblockTitle=Related… + articlesList=58d2c735e4b0b22b0d19390c,58b895bbe4b05cf0f3ff2c41,56cdf8b5e4b041136f1926e4

―

Joseph Erbentraut covers promising innovations and challenges in the areas of food, water, agriculture and our climate. Follow Erbentraut on Twitter at @robojojo. Tips? Email joseph.erbentraut@huffingtonpost.com.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

WASHINGTON ― Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) once told me that he wanted to be remembered as Kentucky’s second Henry Clay, the 19^th-century lion of the Senate known as the “Great Compromiser.”

But McConnell, now the Senate leader, on Thursday insured that his legacy ― and that of other recent leaders of both parties ― will be as the “Great Dividers,” amplifying partisanship in an era of rising, crippling conflict.

Following in the footsteps of an equally partisan Democrat, Harry Reid, McConnell reduced the Senate to a grayer, more verbose House. Congress as a whole now is less the deliberative engine the Founding Fathers envisioned than a de facto, dysfunctional parliament.

Democrats, now led by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), are part of this sad story. They demanded a filibuster-level 60-vote supermajority to confirm President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch. In so doing, they dared McConnell to use a procedural option that Reid had pioneered to reduce the needed vote to a mere majority. Despite his professed reverence for Senate tradition, the Kentuckian was happy to oblige.

The Supreme Court is collateral damage. In the process of ramming through Gorsuch, McConnell insured that the court will be seen even less as the above-it-all interpreter of the Constitution, and even more as a nakedly political, unelected legislative body filled with permanently partisan justices.

Does any of this matter? If you think the founders knew what they were doing, yes. We are heading down the road to what they feared: government by plebiscite. They were worried that a clever demagogue (can you think of one right now?) would overwhelm minority rights and views ― and even just plain common sense ― in the tide passion of a bare majority. 

The founders well knew the House of Commons in London, and they knew the monarchy, and they strove to avoid both in America.

In the U.K.’s House of Commons, political parties sit opposite each other, a sword’s length apart. They heckle and jeer across the distance like rivalrous football fans. But the parliamentary majority has total control, and can force its agenda through as long as its leaders hold their own troops in line.

It’s efficiency at the expense of a loud but powerless minority.

The Founding Fathers looked at this and wanted nothing of it. A new, diverse, continental country, they thought, needed practical engines of cohesion and consensus more than ideological (or in the case of England in the old days, religious) purity.

The founders feared both the monarchy and the mob. To counter the former, they substituted the Constitution for the divine right of kings (with justices as the secular, law-reading high priests). To cool the passions of the latter, they adapted an idealized view of the Roman Republic in the form of the U.S. Senate.

Now, both the Senate and the Supreme Court are in danger of losing what is left of their special character ― the character that made us what we were.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

With all the crazy that is out there now, it is easy to get distracted and forget what really matters: People are getting hurt. Families are being torn apart. Children are coming home from school to find their parents gone, swept up in a xenophobic-dystopian-fantasy-come-to-life that is the United States, 2017.

This is about why politics matters – because politicians create policy and policy can tear our country apart, turn us from what our country stands for toward what a few angry white men want us to stand for. That can’t happen. It is time to fight back with everything we have, and we have more than you think.

We have the tools – electronics, social media, media, and the First Amendment – still: Use them. Document everything. Use the rights we cherish in this country and still have to protect those immigrants whose rights are being violated. Videotape. Take pictures. Get details – badge numbers; license plates, faces and names. Share them widely on social media and on the news media.

There are practical reasons for this. Details will help families find their loved ones and figure out what happened, where they are being held and what they can do next.

We have the moral high ground – there are fewer apathetic Americans among us than there have been in years but even those who have not yet become angry and scared enough to participate in some way can be moved to action when this abstract idea “immigration” is presented to them as a human being, a neighbor or a co-worker being treated like a criminal, like an animal.

We have the numbers. Gather those newly awakened, newly angered, formerly apolitical friends and colleagues. Hit the streets, pick up the phones, work locally to get your voices heard, and heard loudly, saying “no,” and promising to deliver real consequences to those who would ignore you. Even in the reddest of states, cities and towns, there are enough of you to matter. Find each other and demand that local government stop communicating with ICE, that your city, your state even, become a sanctuary.

Finally, we have the future. Don’t lose sight of the big picture. We are doing this all now because this is the first step in the larger, long-term fight. We cannot let families be separated but we cannot assume either that when things quiet down – if things quiet down – that it is enough. The America we believe in, where diversity is valued, where every human being’s worth and contribution is recognized and celebrated, is not going to be restored by protecting those who are unfortunate enough to be targeted today. It will be restored when we all stand together, when the discrimination stops and our immigration system is fixed.

Watch this film, share it, and take action.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

NEW YORK ― Scarlett Johansson went all in on Ivanka Trump at Tina Brown’s Women in the World Summit in New York City on Thursday.

In a Q&A with Arianna Huffington at Thursday’s summit, Johansson talked about her now-famous “Complicit” parody commercial for “Saturday Night Live” last month, and her frustrations with the first daughter overall. 

“If you take a job as a public advocate, then you must advocate publicly,” Johansson said on Thursday. “You can’t have it both ways.” 

Johansson comments were in reference to Trump’s interview with CBS’s Gayle King on Wednesday, in which Trump said her impact in her father’s presidency would be more behind-the-scenes than overt.

Ivanka told King that she will be “advocating for the economic empowerment of women,” but that the impact won’t be a visible one. “I think most of the impact I have over time most people will not actually know about,” she said. 

But Johansson thinks Trump should be doing so much more, and called the interview “disappointing.” 

“It’s such an old-fashioned concept,” Johansson said. “Powerful women often get concerned with this idea that they’re going to be seen in this unforgiving light. Screw that. It’s so old-fashioned… it’s so uninspired and actually really cowardly. And I was so disappointed by that interview she gave yesterday.”

Johansson also said that Trump’s position of power as a close confidant of her father is a tremendous waste. 

“She has an opportunity to really make a big impact just by being vocal… I’ve met her several times in the past, and she’s a very well spoken, smart, intelligent woman… the whole situation baffles me.”

Johansson also told Huffington she has not yet ruled out running for office ― but wouldn’t consider it any time soon. 

“I’ve always been interested in local politics,” she said. “I never rule anything out, but I have a very full life right now, with a very young daughter. I have a lot that I want to do still with my career… I can’t imagine that would be a possibility for a long time.”

Check out the entire Q&A above. 

type=type=RelatedArticlesblockTitle=Related… + articlesList=58e50a97e4b0d0b7e166e5ac,58da73a1e4b018c4606b903f,58c6a89ce4b054a0ea6bf9f9

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

If 2016 was the year of, like, “realizing stuff” for Kylie Jenner, 2017 is the year of going out on her own. 

That’s right ― the social media star and lip kit mogul is reportedly getting her very own reality show, tentatively titled, “Life of Kylie,” according to Gossip Cop. The Huffington Post has reached out to Jenner’s reps, as well as a rep for E!, for more info and will update this post accordingly. 

The new show is being considered as a “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” spinoff, and will naturally live on E!, Gossip Cop notes. Shooting will reportedly start soon, but no timeline has been confirmed. 

As the show’s tentative title suggests, the show will apparently be all about the youngest Kardashian-Jenner’s life and will focus on her growing beauty empire. Her on-again, off-again boyfriend Tyga and some of her closest friends are expected to make an appearance. 

Jenner’s spinoff will be the latest in a long list of other shows starring her family members, such as “Kourtney and Kim Take Miami,” “Kourtney and Kim Take New York,” “Khloe & Lamar,” “Kourtney and Khloe Take The Hamptons,” “I Am Cait” and last year’s “Rob & Chyna.” 

It was really only a matter of time before she got her own series. It’s Kylie’s world, and we’re just living in it. 

H/T Gossip Cop

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.