US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1082

WASHINGTON -- Early Friday morning, House Republicans voted down a measure that would have discouraged the government from giving contracts to companies that have committed wage theft.

The Democratic-sponsored amendment to a funding bill would have denied taxpayer money to firms with documented wage violations while under government contract. The idea, championed by members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, was to make sure public dollars don't go to companies with low-road labor practices.

The amendment, proposed for the commerce, justice and science appropriations bill, failed by a vote of 196-211. All Democrats who cast votes supported it, while 10 Republicans crossed the aisle to join them.

On the House floor before the vote, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), chairman of the subcommittee handling the bill, suggested he was surprised by the amendment's introduction late Thursday and urged his colleagues to vote it down out of caution.

"No one knows what the amendment does. If you know what this amendment does, you should vote for it, because nobody else seems to know. That's one of the problems [that] these things come rolling in at 10:15," Wolf said. "I don't know what it does, so I don't want to vote for it. I strongly urge, in the interest of making sure that this place does not mess up, a no vote."

In a joint statement, Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), chairmen of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said House Republicans voted "to continue wage theft."

WASHINGTON -- The House passed a spending bill Friday that would modestly increase NASA's budget next year but would not fully fund a program to replace the space shuttle with a new vehicle to carry astronauts to the International Space Station.

The measure, adopted 321-87, would provide $17.9 billion for the civilian space program in fiscal 2015, about $250 million more than NASA received this fiscal year and roughly $400 million more than President Barack Obama has requested.

But the House bill would give NASA less than it wants for the shuttle replacement program, called Commercial Crew. Agency officials have warned Congress that any amount smaller than the $848 million NASA is seeking will delay a launch from U.S. soil, now forecast for 2017, to at least 2018.

The bill includes $785 million for the Commercial Crew Program, which is more than the House has ever approved for the venture. The Senate Appropriations Committee, which has traditionally approved more for the program than the House, is expected to reveal its spending proposal for NASA next week.

Commercial Crew has received renewed interest in the wake of simmering tensions between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine.

A new Department of Health and Human Services regulation would slow the growth of premiums charged to subsidized ObamaCare shoppers, shifting more costs to the government.

Over 10 years, the regulation would add about $7 billion to ObamaCare's budgetary cost, an IBD analysis finds.

That's a relatively small change. But the regulation, contrary to how the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) interpreted the law, is another demonstration of the power that the Affordable Care Act has granted to the HHS secretary. The Senate is expected to approve the nomination of White House budget office director Sylvia Burwell to replace Kathleen Sebelius at HHS in the coming week.

The regulation involves the method for determining the annual growth in average premiums for private insurance, a key variable influencing how the size of ObamaCare subsidies changes from year to year.

The surprise — at least compared to CBO expectations — is that HHS plans to base this key indexing factor only on average premium growth in employer-sponsored coverage, excluding the individual market for now because of the ObamaCare-related jump in premiums.

CLEVELAND (AP) — A police car chase that ended in a schoolyard with two unarmed suspects dying in a hail of 137 bullets is part of a wide-ranging federal investigation into the Cleveland Police Department's use of deadly force and its pursuit policies.

Six officers in the police department were indicted Friday on charges related to the chase, Cuyohoga County prosecutor Tim McGinty said. Patrol officer Michael Brelo, who the prosecutor said stood on the hood of the suspects' car and fired at least 15 shots through the windshield, has been charged with two counts of manslaughter. Five supervisors have been charged with dereliction of duty for failing to control the chase.

McGinty cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this week that said police can't fire on suspects after a public safety threat has ended. He said the other officers on the scene had stopped firing after the November 2012 chase ended.

"This was now a stop-and-shoot — no longer a chase-and-shoot," McGinty said. "The law does not allow for a stop-and-shoot."

WASHINGTON (AP) — The new pollution rule the Obama administration announces Monday will be a cornerstone of President Barack Obama's environmental legacy and arguably the most significant U.S. environmental regulation in decades.

But it's not one the White House wanted.

As with other issues, the regulation to limit the pollution blamed for global warming from power plants is a compromise for Obama, who again finds himself caught between his aspirations and what is politically and legally possible.

It will provoke a messy and drawn-out fight with states and companies that produce electricity, and may not be settled until the eve of the next presidential election in 2016, or beyond.

"It's going to be like eating spaghetti with a spoon. It can be done, but it's going to be messy and slow," said Michael Gerrard, director of the Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.

At the crux of the problem is Obama's use of a 30-year-old law that was not intended to regulate the gases blamed for global warming. Obama was forced to rely on the Clean Air Act after he tried and failed to get Congress to pass a new law during his first term. When the Republicans took over the House, the goal became impossible.

The new rule, as the president described it in a news conference in 2010, is another way of "skinning the cat" on climate change.

On May 31 2014 10:56 aksfjh wrote:

Jobs that suck don't always have to come with their attached pay stub and social status. That's what unions did for large scale manufacturing up through the 70s. Those jobs are absolutely awful, but at some point, people were allowed to have dignity and a comfortable lifestyle while working those awful jobs. At some point, they even became attractive to a degree with their benefits and paycheck, but never have they not ultimately sucked.

Stinnett Elementary School in Hyden, Kentucky, took second graders on a field trip to the Creation Museum as part of its science curriculum. In one program, entitled "Evolution: Not a Chance," a museum official purportedly "illustrates the improbability of evolution" by entertaining children with magical illusions. In the "Monkey Business" workshop, "kids will learn that Lucy and other so-called ape men are not in the human family tree" and instead will be taught that "people were created specially in God's image."

On June 02 2014 08:31 GreenHorizons wrote:
Meanwhile in an American 'scientifically and historically accurate museum'

+ Show Spoiler +

With gems like that we have to bring the kids right?



Source

No field trip is complete without a test to make sure you retain your 'knowledge' right? (A 4th grade 'Science Quiz' from a NC private school)

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Source

Wouldn't want something like Common Core to interfere with quality education like that right...?

Good luck children of Kentucky/North Carolina/etc... You'll need it.

On June 02 2014 09:56 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

It's not considered legal for a public school to send students to a creation museum. It sounds like they thought they were getting around it by having the trip privately funded and got caught. Their website says they have a new principal now, so hopefully things will be corrected.

Not much you can do about private schools.

On June 02 2014 08:31 GreenHorizons wrote:
Meanwhile in an American 'scientifically and historically accurate museum'

+ Show Spoiler +

With gems like that we have to bring the kids right?



Source

No field trip is complete without a test to make sure you retain your 'knowledge' right? (A 4th grade 'Science Quiz' from a NC private school)

+ Show Spoiler +

Source

Wouldn't want something like Common Core to interfere with quality education like that right...?

Good luck children of Kentucky/North Carolina/etc... You'll need it.

On June 02 2014 10:22 Bigtony wrote:


I pretty much guarantee you that whatever private school that test came from has high levels of student achievement than the local public school.

WASHINGTON –- The Environmental Protection Agency's proposed standards for power plants will call for a 30 percent cut in emissions by 2030, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal on Sunday afternoon.

The piece cites two unnamed sources who were briefed on the rule's contents. The sources said the plan will lead to a 25 percent cut in emissions by 2020. The standard would use a 2005 baseline for the cuts, according to the piece.

In a statement to The Huffington Post on Sunday afternoon, the EPA declined to comment on the information in the Wall Street Journal piece. "EPA will release its proposed carbon pollution reduction rule on Monday," EPA spokeswoman Liz Purchia said. "Until then the agency will not comment on any information that may or may not be in the proposal."

The draft rules coming Monday will be the first-ever carbon standards for the fleet of existing power plants in the U.S., which generate 39 percent of total emissions in this country, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Economy wide, U.S. emissions already declined 10 percent between 2005 and 2012, due in large part to increased use of natural gas and lower overall energy consumption. The United States has committed to a 17 percent overall cut by 2020.

On June 02 2014 10:21 GreenHorizons wrote:


Well luckily for those parents (not so much their defenseless children), they don't have to expose their children to those 'lies straight from the pit of hell' they might find in legal public school field trips, by just sending them to private indoctrination centers schools. And if that is a bit to pricey, perhaps they could get a group of their YEC friends (~40% of America) together and pitch in on these YEC brainwashing homeschooling materials...?

+ Show Spoiler +

Or I suppose we could discourage people from brainwashing innocent children into believing this total non-sense, that even many prevalent religious leaders (Christians included, see: The Pope/Pat Robertson) have said is ridiculous and isn't necessary for people to be 'Christian'?

On June 02 2014 11:13 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

I'm not sure what your point is. Only a small minority of students are in private schools, and not all private schools are religious.

If you're just looking to take a dump on religion you can go to the Atheism subreddit for that.

On June 02 2014 10:22 Bigtony wrote:


I pretty much guarantee you that whatever private school that test came from has high levels of student achievement than the local public school.

On June 02 2014 12:14 GreenHorizons wrote:



Putting my general contempt for most organized religion aside, why I bring it up is, it's not some phenomenon limited to private schools or deluded homeschooling.

There are several state party platforms that encourage/expect that garbage to be taught in public schools as science.

Do you think it is science or should be taught as such? Because the GOP in the listed states do.

State Republican platforms that specifically state that teachers should be able to teach creationism or intelligent design in science classes include:
Alaska;
Iowa;
Minnesota;
North Dakota;
Oklahoma; and
Texas.
In Missouri and Wisconsin Republicans think that the local school boards should have discretion about whether they should teach “the controversy.”

Of course those are not the only places Republicans are arguing to have it...

Do you not think it is a problem for generations of children to be taught that Creationism is science? Do you not see a problem with telling those children, from when they are first able to understand, that if they believe the snake oil that's being peddled to them, they will go to the best place imaginable full of all the loved ones they lost, and if they don't/stop believing in the snake oil they will never see their dead family again and will suffer the worst possible feeling for eternity?

Do you not see a problem with politicians pushing children to have those beliefs reinforced in a public education setting?

Your initial response indicates that none of those things concern you. That you see no problem with Republicans pushing to have Creationism taught in public school classrooms? Perhaps I am wrong, but since you didn't express any concern about those points, you couldn't decipher why it might be relevant, and you showed contempt at me mentioning that it's an issue, I currently have the aforementioned interpretation until shown otherwise.

On June 02 2014 12:31 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
a) trying to paint all Republicans as bible thumping extremists

On June 02 2014 12:34 farvacola wrote:
Tell me, Jonny, where is there a push to teach feminism as "science"?