Today on AirTalk, we discuss the latest on Attorney General William Barr and the Mueller Report, as Barr was summoned to Congress to talk about his department’s budget request. We also examine the recent guilty pleas in the college admissions cheating scandal; and more.
Barr testimony: redacted Mueller report to come out ‘within a week’
Attorney General William Barr said Tuesday that he expects to release a redacted version of the special counsel’s Trump-Russia investigation report “within a week” as he defended his handling of the document.
The nearly 400-page report is being scoured now to remove grand jury information and details relating to pending investigations.
Barr was summoned to Congress to talk about his department’s budget request, but lawmakers still asked about the Mueller report as they waited to see it. Barr’s opening remarks focused on funding requests for immigration enforcement and the fights against violent crime and opioid addiction, not mentioning the special counsel’s report at all.
Barr would not discuss the substance of Mueller’s findings but did explain his process for receiving and reviewing the report. He said he had offered Mueller the chance to review his four-page letter, but that Mueller declined. Asked about reports that members of Mueller’s team were unhappy with his handling of the report, Barr said he suspected any discontent may have reflected their desire to put out more information.
Barr also said that he could be open to releasing some redacted details after consulting with congressional leaders, though he said he did not have plans to ask a court for permission to disclose secret grand jury testimony.
Barr is to testify on the report itself at separate hearings before the Senate and House Judiciary committees on May 1 and May 2.
With files from the Associated Press
Guest:
Chris Megerian, Los Angeles Times reporter based in Washington, D.C. where he reports on the special counsel investigation; he tweets
A referendum on Bibi? We check in on the Israeli election
It’s a crowded field in Israel’s elections as over 40 parties will be slugging it out on Tuesday for seats in the country’s parliament.
There is the right-wing flagship, centrist newcomers, ultra-Orthodox parties, Arab parties and fringe movements. But only a handful will win the necessary 3.25 percent of total votes cast to cross the electoral threshold needed to enter the Knesset.
Israeli democracy operates on a parliamentary system of proportional-representation in which the government needs a majority to rule. Since no party has ever earned more than 61 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, a coalition is required.
Polls show Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rightist Likud in fierce competition with the centrist Blue and White party and their challenger for the presidential bid, Benny Gantz. Both camps are trying to rile up their bases to become the largest party in parliament while also convincing the smaller parties to join them in a coalition after the results become known.
We check in on the latest.
With files from the Associated Press.
Guests:
Daniel Estrin, international correspondent for NPR, based in Jerusalem; he tweets
Aaron David Miller, vice president for New Initiatives at the Wilson Center, a Washington-based non-partisan policy forum that tackles global issues through independent research; former advisor to Republican and Democratic Secretaries of State on Middle East policies; he tweets
Legal experts debate possible sentences for parents, orchestrators involved in college admissions scandal
Actress Felicity Huffman and a dozen other prominent parents have agreed to plead guilty in the sweeping college admissions cheating scam that has ensnared wealthy families and athletic coaches at some of the nation's most selective universities, federal authorities said Monday.
The "Desperate Housewives" star and the other parents will admit to charges in the scheme, which authorities say involved rigging standardized test scores and bribing coaches at such prestigious schools as Yale and Georgetown.
Huffman, 56, was accused of paying a consultant $15,000 disguised as a charitable donation to boost her daughter's SAT score. Authorities say the actress also discussed going through with the same plan for her younger daughter but ultimately decided not to.
Other parents charged in the scheme include prominent figures in law, finance, fashion, the food and beverage industry and other fields.
The consultant, Rick Singer, met with Huffman and her husband, 69-year-old actor William H. Macy, at their Los Angeles home and explained to them he "controlled" a testing center and could have somebody secretly change their daughter's answers, authorities say. Singer told investigators Huffman and her husband agreed to the plan.
Singer, the consultant, pleaded guilty to charges including racketeering conspiracy on March 12, the same day the allegations against the parents and coaches were made public in the so-called Operations Varsity Blues investigation. Singer secretly recorded his conversations with the parents, helping to build the case against them, after agreeing to work with investigators in the hopes of getting a lesser sentence.
With files from the Associated Press.
Guests:
Lou Shapiro, state and federal criminal defense attorney and former L.A. County public defender
Ambrosio Rodriguez, criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor with the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office; he tweets
CA DMV voter registration was rolled out despite compromised security -- how and why did that happen?
According to an L.A. Times investigation, California launched its Department of Motor Vehicles voter registration program in June of 2018 despite the fact that it had bugs and security issues.
For example, about a week before the program was to roll out, the computer network was found trying to connect to servers in Croatia. And this was one of many issues that came up as the program was rushed to be ready by the June 5 primaries.
According to the L.A. Times investigation, the program was a joint effort by the DMV, Chief Information Officer Amy Tong and Secretary of State Alex Padilla -- but no department seemed to have the lead or ultimate authority on the project.
So what went wrong? Why was the rollout rushed? And what does this portend for the future of the program?
We reached out to the California DMV, who were unable to join. They sent us this statement:
“We regret the issues that have occurred with the New Motor Voter rollout. We continue to actively work with the Secretary of State and other interested parties to ensure there are no errors in the information DMV sends to the Secretary of State moving forward. DMV takes this seriously and understands the importance of the integrity of voter registration data. As a Department, we are committed to getting this right.”
We also reached out to California Chief Information Officer Amy Tong, who was unable to join. Her communications deputy director Alice Scott-Rowe sent us this statement:
“Every large IT project has challenges that surface during development, and in this case, the California Department of Technology took immediate steps to address issues as they arose. The Department of Technology understands the importance of safeguarding voter registration data and building secure systems that can protect it.”
We also reached out to former DMV director Jean Shiomoto and Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who were unable to join.
Guest:
John Myers, Sacramento bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, where his recent piece is “California launched DMV voter registration system despite bugs and hackers”; he tweets
Making sense of the slew of bills in the California legislature seeking to improve affordability and accessibility
With more than 20 bills currently being debated in Sacramento, California lawmakers have made it clear that health care will be a key issue for the state in 2019.
The bills seek to make buying health coverage more affordable for more people in the hopes that it will draw more people into the statewide insurance exchange. How exactly to go about doing that, however, remains a subject of debate among lawmakers and state health policy watchers, some of whom argue these proposals would go too far and give the government too much control over.
Governor Gavin Newsom has suggested in the past he wants to move the state towards a single-payer system, but none of the legislation currently being discussed would address that. Instead, there are proposals to expand Medi-Cal to cover more people, regardless of immigration status, and to create an individual mandate that would impose a fee on Californians who opt out of purchasing coverage, with the revenue from that penalty going towards subsidizing insurance premiums for lower and middle-income families. There are also bills aimed at reducing surprise emergency room bills and bettering access to prescription drugs.
Today on AirTalk, we’ll get a sense of which of the bills are gaining traction in the legislature and hear both support for and critiques of the proposals.
Guests:
Michelle Faust Raghavan, health care reporter for KPCC; she tweets
Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, the statewide health care consumer advocacy coalition; they are part of Care4All California, a coalition of community, labor, progressive and health care organizations working to improve health access and affordability in the state; he tweets
Lanhee Chen, research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where one of his areas of study is health policy, and a former Senior Counselor to the Deputy U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services; he tweets
Is it time to rethink homework?
The debate over homework continues to surface as parents and educators alike contemplate its efficacy in the 21st century.
On average, American teenagers now spend about twice as much time on homework each day compared to students in the mid-1990’s. Researchers have conducted multiple studies looking into the impact of homework and its influence on students of all ages and backgrounds. A 2012 study found a positive link between time spent on homework and scores on standardized test scores, but “little correlation” between homework and high academic performance in science and math. Some teachers and schools have stopped assigning homework altogether, while others continue to assign it but in reduced amounts.
If you’re a parent or teacher, what are your thoughts on homework? What’s the ideal amount of homework, if any? And is there a link between achievement and homework? Weigh in and call us at 866.893.5722
Guests:
Janine Bempechat, clinical professor of human development at Boston University, who studies the influence of family and school on student motivation
Barbara Stengel, professor of secondary education at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee