A bipartisan budget deal has arrived. House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray have come together on a 2-year budget agreement. The Los Angeles City Council approved a $6 million settlement for the case surrounding ticket quotas. As the world continues to mourn Nelson Mandela's death, we discuss South Africa's future. As the end of the year approaches, Congress debates whether or not to extend unemployment benefits again. Later, we look at the impact that taking photos has on your memory.
The long-awaited bipartisan budget deal is finally here
It's finally happened - a Republican and a Democrat have come together and agreed on a 2-year budget agreement. It still needs to get through a contentious House vote but so far its prospects are promising. The agreement was the brainchild of House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray. The budget has a little something for each side but no one was a clear winner here. It cuts the deficit by $23 billion but also sets new higher spending levels for the next two years. That'll replace the automatic spending cuts set to take effect in the new year. After years of fighting across the aisle it's a major accomplishment that Ryan and Murray were even able to come up with an agreement. So how did it happen? What is it about Ryan and Murray that made them work well together? Will each side have the political power to convince their respective parties to actually vote for the bill? Is this a sign of a political thaw between Republicans and Democrats?
Guests:
Rachel Van Dongen, Congressional reporter for POLITICO
Jim Brunner, political reporter for the Seattle Times
LA settles for $6 million over traffic ticket quota allegations
Eleven LAPD officers who claim they were forced to meet a quota of traffic citations each shift have been awarded nearly $6 million in a settlement that was approved by the L.A. City Council on Tuesday.
RELATED: Los Angeles to settle officers' lawsuits for $6M
The officers allege their superiors imposed a secret quota system to boost the number of tickets even though those quotas violate state law. Two lawsuits claim Capt. Nancy Lauer required officers in the West Traffic Division motorcycle unit to write at least 18 tickets each shift with at least 80 percent of them being for major violations.
The settlement brings the total of taxpayer money spent on payouts and legal fees from the case to $10 million. The settlement decision follows a 2011 jury award of $2 million to two motorcycle officers in a similar case.
The LAPD denies it used quotas and Chief Charlie Beck described them as "goals" to reduce traffic accidents.
"It is unfortunate that this case cost the city hard-earned taxpayers money," Beck said in a statement. "The goal has always been to improve the productivity and accountability of our officers in order to reduce serious and fatal traffic collisions."
Beck said that the West Traffic Division gave officers the goal of spending 80 percent of their time on traffic code violations that could lead to serious injuries or deaths, but that, "this was not a quota system under the law."
Weigh In: Should taxpayers be on the hook for the LAPD's mistakes? Should issues like this be handled inside the LAPD without going to court? Does this confirm many Angeleno's suspicions that officers write more tickets because of quotas?
Guest:
Dennis Zine, former City Council member who served 33 years with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), 18 years on a motorcycle
With contributions from the Associated Press
How will modern South Africa fill the void left by Mandela?
It was an emotional memorial service for Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg yesterday - from the inspiring to the sour. South Africans booed their president, Jacob Zuma, who has presided over state corruption scandals. The rowdiness in the stadium crowd, prompted loud pleading from retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu: “I want to show the world we can come out here and celebrate the life of an icon. You must show the world that we are disciplined. I want to hear a pin drop." The world is watching South Africa this week, as the memorial continues and looking for signs of whether Mandela's passing was a catalyst - and if so, for good or bad. His death reminds South Africans of the promises made after apartheid, and promises unfulfilled. What has become of the post-Apartheid slogan for "Peace, jobs, justice?"
Guest:
Edward Alpers, Research Professor of history at UCLA. history with a focus on Africa formerly based at the UCLA. He's followed Nelson Mandela's career through the decades and was one of the participants in the Nelson Mandela tribute in Los Angeles in 1990.
Frank Wilderson, Professor, UC Irvine - African American Studies and Drama departments; Wilderson lived in South Africa in the early 90s and was the second American ever elected to the African National Congress.
Should Congress extend unemployment benefits yet again?
An eligible unemployed worker could typically receive up to 26 weeks of unemployment insurance benefits. Congress put in place the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program in 2008 that extended jobless benefits to long-term unemployed workers for up to 99 weeks. The program has been renewed multiple times since.
The deadline for this year’s extension is December 28 and 1.3 million Americans would be affected if the program expires. President Obama has called on Congress to push through the extension, which has become a sticking point in the latest budget deal negotiations between the two parties to avoid another government shutdown. Democrats vowing to vote down any budget proposal without a jobless benefits extension, but many Republicans are resistant to the idea. Their rationale could best be summed up by senator Rand Paul’s characterization of an extension as being a “disservice” to workers.
With November’s better-than-expected jobs report and the current national unemployment rate at a 5-year low of 7%, should extended unemployment benefits be continued?
Guests:
Gary Burtless, a senior fellow of Economic Studies at Brookings Institution. He worked as an economist at the US Department of Labor from 1979 to 1981
Casey Mulligan, Professor in Economics at the University of Chicago and the author of “The Redistribution Recession: How Labor Market Distortions Contracted the Economy (Oxford University Press, 2012)
A photo might be worth a thousand words, but study shows it also ruins your memory
Ours has become a culture that frames all experiences through the rectangle of a camera viewfinder. How many times have you seen someone holding up a phone to take a picture at a concert, an event, a tourist spot instead of just being there and taking things in? Our impulse to record every moment of our lives is not only making us less present, a new study published in the journal Psychological Science finds that it also makes less likely to remember the very thing, the very experience, we are trying to capture.
Guest:
Linda Henkel, Professor of Psychology at Fairfield University in Connecticut and author of the study
The modem dial tone and other sounds of obsolescence
When was the last time you heard that distinctive clunk of a pay phone hanging up? Or the screech of a modem coming to life?
They're the sounds we lived with for decades and once represented cutting edge technology. But as our world gets more connected and our technology gets quieter, these sounds may soon be lost forever.
Technology makers are increasingly trying to make silent products that don't annoy consumers (remember that Nokia ringtone, anyone?) but what will be lost without the audible reminders that our products are doing their jobs?
That thunk of a cassette tape sliding into a VCR or the shutter click of a manual camera were comforting because we knew our technology was working.
What sounds of technology past do you miss hearing? Will they be replaced with the "bleep" of an iPhone keypad? Gmail chat notifications?
Guest:
Roberto Baldwin, reporter at Wired