quote:

Even after controlling for poverty, a report from the Justice Policy Institute found schools with school resource officers have nearly five times the rate of arrests for disorderly conduct as schools without school resource officers, even though the prevalence of school resource officers in schools has little relationship to reported crime rates.

A study published in Sociology of Education analyzed a data set of more than 60,000 schools in more than 6,000 districts. It found schools with relatively larger minority and poor populations are more likely to implement criminalized disciplinary policies — such as suspensions, expulsions, police referrals, and arrests — and less likely to medicalize students by, for instance, connecting them to psychological or behavioral care.

quote:

1 The White House and Congress have reportedly struck a deal to raise the debt ceiling and fund the government through March 2017 — making it the last piece of budget policy in Barack Obama's presidency.

2 Spending will increase by $112 billion over two years. Next year, both defense and non-defense will get $25 billion more each, while the year after each will get $15 billion. Additionally, $32 billion will go to the "overseas contingency budget," a kind of war-related slush fund that the Pentagon gets to play with.

3 One of the main expenses: the deal would slow the rollout of scheduled hikes to Medicare premiums.

4 To pay for the additional spending, the deal would extend the sequester's cuts to Medicare, sell off some of the country's strategic petroleum reserve (even though oil prices are near rock bottom), do more telecommunications spectrum auctions, and change the crop insurance program which provides subsidies for farmers.

5 The deal will reportedly extend the solvency of the Social Security Disability Insurance program for six years by reallocating funds the Social Security old age trust fund and enacting several small disability reforms.

6 Conservatives in the House and Senate are already criticizing the deal.

quote:

In June, a scientist named Thomas Karl, along with colleagues, published a peer-reviewed paper in the journal Science called "Possible artifacts of data biases in the recent global surface warming hiatus." It cast doubt on the global warming "pause" that has become the latest cause cιlθbre for climate change, er, doubters.

That did not sit well with Smith, who is a doubter himself, like many of the Republicans on his committee and more than half of all House Republicans. And it was the subject of much heated attack in the denial-o-sphere.

So Smith has gone after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where Karl works as the director of the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). For a play-by-play, I recommend this scorching letter to Smith from committee ranking member Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX).

In it, she notes that Smith made three written requests for information about Karl's study, all of which NOAA responded to in writing and in personal briefings. "Moreover," she writes, "NOAA attempted to explain certain aspects of the methodology about which the Majority was apparently confused." (Imagine how that meeting went.)

Among Smith's repeated demands: access to the data and methods behind NOAA's work on climate. Except, as NOAA and Democratic members of the committee kept trying to explain, those data and methods are posted on the internet. Anyone can access them. Yet Republicans kept demanding them.

Unsatisfied with the total cooperation and untrammeled access his committee received, Smith issued a subpoena:

On October 13, the committee subpoenaed nearly seven years of internal deliberations and communications among scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including "all documents and communications" related to NOAA’s measurement of our climate.

"All documents and communications" would presumably include emails, preliminary drafts, peer review comments, notes, audio recordings, and a treasure trove of other material. This would mean thousands upon thousands of records for employees to identify and go through and analyze for no clearly stated purpose.

NOAA was given two weeks to comply.

quote:

Here's the most pointed part of Johnson's letter:

The baseless conflict you have created by issuing the October 13 subpoena is representative of a disturbing pattern in your use of Congressional power since your Chairmanship began. In the past two years and ten months that you have presided as Chairman of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology you have issued more subpoenas (six) than were issued in the prior 54 year history of the Committee. That prior Committee history is filled with extensive legitimate oversight concerning consequential events — oftentimes quite literally matters of life and death. Yet none of the prior eleven Chairs of our Committee exercised their authority with the degree of partisan brashness as is now the case in our Committee.

Bob Ojeda posted:

Cruz cannot win a general election.

Grand Theft Autobot posted:

All the news outlets reporting on this mention that the discussion bill has been posted online, but none of them provide a link. I can't find it on house.gov, and the majority leader's site is obviously filled with nonsense. Does anyone have a link to the bill itself? I want to read it.

Joementum posted:

Here's the full text of the debt ceiling deal.

Mr. Nice! posted:

Slaan posted:

So the plan is to save Medicare and Social Security by taking money out of them and cutting benefits?

Damnit Obama

Slaan posted:

So the plan is to save Medicare and Social Security by taking money out of them and cutting benefits?

Damnit Obama

Slaan posted:

So the plan is to save Medicare and Social Security by taking money out of them and cutting benefits?

Damnit Obama

KiteAuraan posted:

What is with the auctioning of airwave spectrums? Does that generate a lot of revenue or is it more of a "get rid of government control" thing?

Slaan posted:

So the plan is to save Medicare and Social Security by taking money out of them and cutting benefits?

Damnit Obama

euphronius posted:

There is a lot of spin on the deal to make it politically palatable but the main takeaway afaict is we just are going back to a pre tea party insanity status quo.

BI NOW GAY LATER posted:

The Sequestration cuts are already in place, they're just keeping them; there's no cuts to Social Security.

KiteAuraan posted:

What is with the auctioning of airwave spectrums? Does that generate a lot of revenue or is it more of a "get rid of government control" thing?

Raerlynn posted:

I don't know, I think that's not a bad price to pay for taking the gun away during the election year. As people constantly brought up, one of the ways to disrupt what looks like a lock for Hillary is to have some kind of economic crisis. I'm quite content to know that such a crisis can't be instigated by the HFC in a fit of pique.

Radish posted:

I'm not sure if it's realistic but the first thing Hillary needs to do if elected is work to put a stop to this nonsense. Letting maniacs play chicken with the world economy in exchange for chipping away at the US's meager safety net is not sustainable.

Slaan posted:

Ah, I read extend as more/extended cuts not length/extension of cuts, and the article was missing an important to/from. Given that Obama has made deals to cut benefits in the past, I read it that way.

BI NOW GAY LATER posted:

np, the NYT scared everyone yesterday with fearmongering

Gravel Gravy posted:

Between that and the Hillary Clinton op ed yesterday I think I'll go back to reading USA Today myself.

quote:

What Democrats got:

— $40 billion in additional non-defense spending, over and above the caps imposed by the sequester, over two years

— a debt limit hike through March of 2017, meaning no more conservative-manufactured debt limit extortion through that date

— an end to conservative-manufactured government shutdown drama through the election and beyond

— a solution to a glitch in cost-of-living calculations that threatened to hike premiums for millions on Medicare Part B

— a reallocation of Social Security funds that Dems had sought to keep disability insurance solvent

What Republicans got:

— $40 billion in additional defense spending, over and above the caps imposed by the sequester, over two years, plus an additional chunk of defense spending in a side contingency fund. That is to say, an increase in defense spending overall that is higher than the increase in non-defense spending

— Medicare cuts, but (according to reports and experts) only on the provider side

— A tightening of eligibility requirements to the Social Security Disability Insurance program that experts say does not equal a benefits cut

— a debt limit hike through March of 2017, meaning no more conservative-manufactured debt limit extortion through that date

— an end to conservative-manufactured government shutdown drama through the election and beyond

— a solution to a glitch in cost-of-living calculations that threatened to hike premiums for millions on Medicare Part B

quote:

— a debt limit hike through March of 2017, meaning no more conservative-manufactured debt limit extortion through that date

KiteAuraan posted:

What is with the auctioning of airwave spectrums? Does that generate a lot of revenue or is it more of a "get rid of government control" thing?

Massasoit posted:

My pediatrician on the other hand told me to be abstinent only. Or as he said it "penis in the pants" while wagging his finger.

KiteAuraan posted:

Have we always denied felons from getting SS benefits? Or is that something new put in there to gently caress them over further?

SquadronROE posted:

So a couple of years back, the Bush era tax cuts expired. I seem to recall there was a bit of consternation about this, but Republicans didn't really poo poo the bed as badly as they seem to be now.

Am I remembering that correctly, or was there a huge blow up about that too? I know I ended up paying a little more in taxes, so I'm sure that most people ended up having to kick a little bit more in too. That'd make a very easy attack ad.

SquadronROE posted:

So a couple of years back, the Bush era tax cuts expired. I seem to recall there was a bit of consternation about this, but Republicans didn't really poo poo the bed as badly as they seem to be now.

Am I remembering that correctly, or was there a huge blow up about that too? I know I ended up paying a little more in taxes, so I'm sure that most people ended up having to kick a little bit more in too. That'd make a very easy attack ad.

BI NOW GAY LATER posted:

Remember when CARLY was the new shiny object? http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/27/politics/carly-fiorina-republican-debate/index.html

Joementum posted:

Fun bit of the deal: the Small House Rotunda will now be named the "Freedom Foyer".

It was apparently Boehner's idea to include that.

Massasoit posted:

I had very good sex ed in MA and they taught us how to use condoms.