US Politics Mega-thread - Page 9471

On December 09 2017 07:47 LegalLord wrote:

If there is any significance to this it is lost upon me. He spent his time under house arrest... writing!

a K-9 officer in 2012. He received 15 commendations during that time and was the subject of 12 complaints, of which six cases resulted in discipline.

The lawsuit says Schmidt’s dog bit another innocent person in August 2016, and “he received supervisory counseling on ‘leash handling and K-9 control at that time,’ ” according to the lawsuit.

In Schmidt’s one-day suspension in October in the Collins case, the Axtell wrote to the officer that he had allowed the dog “to go around a blind corner which you had neither visually checked nor announced a canine presence.”

“Your actions and failure to adequately control your canine partner will not be tolerated,” Axtell wrote to Schmidt. “Failure to follow department policy and training standards provided by the canine unit will result in further discipline, up to and including termination.”

Schmidt received two reprimands for preventable squad crashes in 1999, and a reprimand for not waiting with a vehicle that needed to be towed in 2002. He was issued a two-day suspension in 2006 after being in a crash while he was off duty — not in a squad — and pleading guilty to DUI.

Before the Collins case, Schmidt’s last discipline was in 2006 — it was a written reprimand after a complaint was lodged that police employees were drinking in a police station, and Schmidt admitted to consuming alcohol at least one time on city property.

The Trump administration has scrapped an Obama-era proposal requiring airlines and ticket agencies to disclose baggage fees as soon as passengers start the process of buying a ticket.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) posted a notice on the Federal Register this week that it is withdrawing the proposed rule, along with another plan to force air carriers to disclose how much revenue they make from charging other ancillary fees.

The administration, which has made easing regulatory burdens for businesses a top priority, said the rules would have “limited public benefit.”

Airlines are already required to disclose information about optional service fees on their websites. But consumer groups say it’s still difficult for passengers to compare airfare ticket prices, fees and associated rules, and have pushed for more transparency at the start of the process.

And while airlines are required to disclose to federal regulators how much money they make from baggage fees, they are not required to report how much they charge for “optional” services, such as carry-on bags, seat selection and priority boarding, which have grown in recent years.

The DOT’s effort to kill the pair of Obama-era proposals drew ire from Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who has been one of the leading voices in Congress pushing for airline consumer protections

“Unbelievable. Pulling the plug on rules that would ensure airlines are open and honest about bag fees and other charges is about as anti-consumer as it gets,” Blumenthal tweeted. “The Trump Admin’s reckless reversal is a gift for the airlines’ bottom line — and a slap in the face for travelers who deserve clarity when buying a ticket."

On December 09 2017 07:56 KwarK wrote:
I love dogs but that one needs to be euthanized.

It's sad because doing that was the result of the training it was given, but that's how it goes. It's a defective piece of equipment and needs to be decommissioned.

Obviously throw dollars at the woman too.

On December 09 2017 07:51 GreenHorizons wrote:
Not all shitty police end up killing people, some just fuck up over and over injuring and terrifying innocent people

https://twitter.com/pdxlawgrrrl/status/939229911469899776



Source

A review by The New York Times of daily mortality data from Puerto Rico’s vital statistics bureau indicates a significantly higher death toll after the hurricane than the government there has acknowledged.

The Times’s analysis found that in the 42 days after Hurricane Maria made landfall on Sept. 20 as a Category 4 storm, 1,052 more people than usual died across the island. The analysis compared the number of deaths for each day in 2017 with the average of the number of deaths for the same days in 2015 and 2016.

Officially, just 62 people died as a result of the storm that ravaged the island with nearly 150-mile-an-hour winds, cutting off power to 3.4 million Puerto Ricans. The last four fatalities were added to the death toll on Dec. 2.

“Before the hurricane, I had an average of 82 deaths daily. That changes from Sept. 20 to 30th. Now I have an average of 118 deaths daily,” Wanda Llovet, the director of the Demographic Registry in Puerto Rico, said in a mid-November interview. Since then, she said on Thursday, both figures have increased by one.

Data for October are not yet complete, and the number of deaths recorded in that month is expected to rise. Record-keeping has been delayed because Puerto Rico’s power grid is operating at less than 70 percent of its capacity and swaths of the island still do not have power.

The deadliest day was Sept. 25, the day the governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo A. Rosselló, warned that a looming humanitarian crisis could prompt a mass exodus from the island.

President Trump responded that night by taking to Twitter to say the island had to deal with its massive debt: “Food, water and medical are top priorities - and doing well. #FEMA.”

It was over 90 degrees, and power was out on most of the island, even in most hospitals. Bedridden people were having trouble getting medical treatment, and dialysis clinics were operating with generators and limiting treatment hours. People on respirators lacked electricity to power the machines.

On that day, 135 people died in Puerto Rico. By comparison, 75 people died on that day in 2016 and 60 died in 2015.

One local mayor went to the Federal Emergency Management Agency command post that day and shouted for help. Statistics show his city, Manatí, had among the highest mortality rates in September.

With communications down throughout the island and bodies piling up in hospital morgues, the government was still clinging to its early death count estimate of 16.

On Sept. 29, Héctor M. Pesquera, Puerto Rico’s public safety secretary, said in an interview that the death count would not swell by much.

“Will it go up? I am pretty sure it will go up,” he said. “It won’t double or triple. It’s not like an earthquake where you have a building and you don’t know whether there were 20 in the building or 300 in the building until you get all the rubble out.”

The day he said that, 127 people died, 57 more than the year before.

On Oct. 3, nearly two weeks after the storm, Mr. Trump visited the island and praised the low official death toll. He referred to the 1,833 deaths in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina as a “real catastrophe.”

“Sixteen people certified,” Mr. Trump said. “Sixteen people versus in the thousands. You can be very proud of all of your people and all of our people working together.”

By that visit, an additional 556 people had died in Puerto Rico compared with the same period over the two prior years.

The Times estimates that in the three weeks after the storm, the toll was 739 deaths. If all those additional deaths were to be counted as related to the hurricane, it would make Maria the sixth deadliest hurricane since 1851.

The method used to count official storm deaths varies by state and locality. In some parts of the United States, medical examiners include only direct deaths, such as those caused by drowning in floodwaters. In Puerto Rico, however, Mr. Pesquera said, the medical examiner includes deaths caused indirectly by storms, such as suicides. That is why the gap between the official death toll and the hundreds of additional deaths is so striking.

A study, which has not been peer-reviewed, by a Pennsylvania State University professor and an independent researcher estimated that the death toll could be 10 times higher than the government’s official count.

The Center for Investigative Journalism published its own estimate on Thursday, finding that nearly 1,000 more people than usual died in the months of September and October.

Records from Puerto Rico’s government show that some of the leading causes of death in September were diabetes and Alzheimer's disease, although the causes of death are still pending for 313 of the September deaths. The number of diabetes deaths was 24 percent higher than it was last year — and 39 percent higher than it was in 2015.

But the highest surge was in deaths from sepsis — a complication of severe infection — which jumped 50 percent over last year. That change is notable and could be explained by delayed medical treatment or poor conditions in homes and hospitals.

For weeks, Puerto Rico’s Department of Public Safety insisted that the surge was coincidental: Government officials believed hundreds of additional people had died of natural causes. But the news media continued to investigate — CNN surveyed half the island’s funeral homes to come up with an additional 499 deaths the funeral directors believed were related to the storm.

Under pressure, the government called for morticians and family members to come forward with more information, and it says its forensic science office is reviewing cases.

As more instances have come to light of deaths because of power failures at local hospitals, or oxygen tanks that ran out, the government has said that it is willing to revise the death count upward.

“What we said is, ‘Give us the information,’ ” the governor, Mr. Rosselló, told The Times.

Robert Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch of the National Center for Health Statistics, said Puerto Rico’s spike in deaths is statistically significant and unlikely to be the result of an unlucky fluke. Not even a bad flu season would make the mortality rate increase that much, he said.

“I think there’s fairly compelling evidence that that increase is probably due to the hurricane,” Mr. Anderson said. “That’s a lot.”

He said getting the number right was important.

“From the standpoint of prevention and preparedness, I think understanding the circumstances behind the deaths that occur is extremely important,” Mr. Anderson said. “If we have a lack of information, we can’t adequately prepare for the next disaster. We can’t put measures in place to prevent deaths occurring in the future.”

On December 09 2017 08:09 buhhy wrote:


I like how he crashed in a DUI and only got a 2-day suspension.

On December 09 2017 06:41 mozoku wrote:

The fact that your response is focused on one scenario assuming a present-day ISIS exactly illustrates my point. You and Zlefin don't know what you're doing.

If you ask anyone with the faintest competence in statistics to estimate (using data) whether the War on Terror is justified, you're going to be responded to with a long explanation similar to the one I just gave you and no answer.

On December 09 2017 08:28 brian wrote:


if you ask any statistician for any significant results and he concludes an affirmative answer, it is nonsense. the famous line of all statistics papers is such that they will never definitively state something is significant and instead say ‘well it looks funny but there’s no conclusive evidence.’

so this rings rather hollow.

On December 09 2017 07:49 MyTHicaL wrote:


Yep but no one else in the international community believes that. The three most popular relligions all hold claim to that area. Doing this is not fulfilling campaign promesses, it is however, a very facilitating reason to unite all arab countries against the US. GL if the Saudis, Turks, Persians ever get together...

On December 09 2017 09:00 Danglars wrote:

If we can agree on four presidents from current day and past all agreeing publicly that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, then we're getting somewhere.

Secondly, I don't see any reason to deny the narrow case: Trump promised to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, Trump did start the process of moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. I think it's an important point in treating all presidents fairly and not in a partisan manner to admit the basic fact.

On December 09 2017 08:28 brian wrote:
if you ask any statistician for any significant results and he concludes an affirmative answer, it is nonsense. the famous line of all statistics papers is such that they will never definitively state something is significant and instead say ‘well it looks funny but there’s no conclusive evidence.’

so this rings rather hollow.

On December 09 2017 09:12 mozoku wrote:

Excludos is correct, but I want to add that you're fighting a massively uphill battle if you want to argue the biggest problem with statistics in 2017 is too much caution about results.

On December 09 2017 09:14 brian wrote:

i’d make no such claim. but if your argument rests on ‘ask any statistician and you’ll hear that they can make no such conclusion’ than you have a bad argument.