Today on AirTalk, Nobel Laureate and Caltech chemistry professor Frances Arnold joins Larry to discuss her research and experience being lauded. We also discuss a new report from the Federal school safety panel detailing suggestions for policy changes and best practices for improving school safety across the country; and more.
Shutdown showdown: White House reignites border wall fight as Congress votes on stop gap funding
President Donald Trump is facing scathing criticism from conservative supporters after backing away from his threat to shut down the government over border wall funding, with some aggressively lobbying the president against signing a short-term deal with no wall dollars.
Trump has not said if he will support a temporary funding measure approved by the Senate, though his White House has made clear it will review whatever can pass Congress. Urging him to veto, Trump's critics argue he will have even less leverage when Democrats take control of the House on Jan. 3, and they worry that the unfilled pledge for a U.S.-Mexico border wall could hamper his re-election campaign.
As the chorus of discontent echoed on Twitter and Fox News on Wednesday and Thursday, the president seemed to be mounting a defense. He tweeted angrily at Democrats, declaring "I will not sign any of their legislation, including infrastructure, unless it has perfect Border Security." He also argued that border security is "tight" due to military and law enforcement efforts.
Throughout Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, "Build the wall!" was a rallying cry for his supporters. Trump supporters sought to remind him of that as they pushed him to veto the short-term plan.
With files from the Associated Press.
Guest:
Laura Litvan, congressional reporter for Bloomberg News who’s been following the vote; she tweets
Trump administration wants tighter work restrictions on SNAP recipients
The Trump administration is setting out to do what this year's farm bill didn't: tighten work requirements for millions of Americans who receive federal food assistance.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday is proposing a rule that would restrict the ability of states to exempt work-eligible adults from having to obtain steady employment to receive food stamps.
The move comes just weeks after lawmakers passed a $400 billion farm bill that reauthorized agriculture and conservation programs while leaving the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which serves roughly 40 million Americans, virtually untouched.
Passage of the farm bill followed months of tense negotiations over House efforts to significantly tighten work requirements and the Senate's refusal to accept the provisions.
Currently, able-bodied adults ages 18-49 without children are required to work 20 hours a week to maintain their SNAP benefits. The House bill would have raised the age of recipients subject to work requirements from 49 to 59 and required parents with children older than 6 to work or participate in job training. The House measure also sought to limit circumstances under which families that qualify for other poverty programs can automatically be eligible for SNAP.
None of those measures made it into the final farm bill despite being endorsed by President Donald Trump. Now the administration is using regulatory rulemaking to try to scale back the SNAP program.
With files from the Associated Press
Guests:
Robert Doar, fellow in poverty studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a Washington-based conservative public policy research institute; he was a former commissioner of social services in New York City, where he ran the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) eligibility process (2007-2013)
David Super, professor of law at Georgetown University who specializes in food assistance law
Federal school safety panel created post-Parkland recommends better mental health services, more teacher training, downplays gun control in final report
A commission created by President Trump in the wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida has released its final report detailing suggestions for policy changes and best practices for improving school safety across the country.
Among the panel’s recommendations, in addition to increasing the capacity of schools to address students’ mental health issues and better training for school personnel, the report also recommends that the Obama-era guidelines on school discipline that were designed to decrease instances of racial discrimination in disciplining students.
Do you agree with the commission’s recommendations on best practices and policy changes aimed at improving school security? What about potential unforeseen consequences? How would these recommendations, if implemented, change the way schools handle student discipline? Do you think they would improve school security or put students, faculty and staff at more risk?
We reached out to the Federal School Safety Commission and the U.S. Department of Education to request someone be made available to discuss the final report, but we did not receive a response to our request.
Guests:
Max Eden, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where his work includes researching federal education policy and school discipline; he tweets
Kristen Harper, director for policy development at Child Trends, a nonprofit research organization based in Bethesda, Maryland; she was a senior policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Education from 2009-2016; she tweets
San Francisco Mayor London Breed asks Governor Brown to commute jailed brother’s sentence
San Francisco's mayor has joined other members of her family in requesting an early release from prison for an older brother who has served nearly two decades of a 44-year sentence on a manslaughter conviction.
Mayor London Breed sent a letter to outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown in late October asking him to "consider leniency" and commute the sentence of Napoleon Brown, who struggled with drugs from a young age, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Wednesday.
In a statement on Tuesday, Breed said people who break the law should face consequences, but also have a chance at redemption.
"Too many people, particularly young black men like my brother was when he was convicted, are not given an opportunity to become contributing members of society after they have served time in prison," she said.
Brown, who is now 46, pushed Lenties White from a getaway car on the Golden Gate Bridge after an armed robbery in June 2000. The 25-year-old woman was struck by an oncoming driver and died.
The newspaper reports that documents in Brown's commutation application indicate that his attorneys expected to negotiate for a 20-year sentence. But the San Francisco district attorney's office would only consider a "package deal," with both Brown and a co-defendant pleading guilty.
The mayor's letter was first reported Tuesday night by KNTV. The television news station reported that court records say Brown was recently caught with heroin in prison and had two years added to his sentence, a detail not included in the mayor's letter to the governor.
Sandra McNeil, the mother of the victim, said Brown does not deserve early release.
"I don't think it would be justice," she said. "She's the mayor, so she's got a little power, so she thinks she can get her brother out."
A spokesman for Gov. Jerry Brown, Brian Ferguson, said Wednesday that the governor's office does not comment on individual cases.
With files from the Associated Press
Guest:
Dominic Fracassa, reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle who’s been following the story
Interview with Nobel Laureate and Caltech chemistry professor Frances Arnold
This year’s nobel prize winner in chemistry was awarded to Frances H. Arnold for her work in the directed evolution of enzymes. She is the fifth woman to be a Nobel Laureate in chemistry in its 117-year history.
Arnold first pioneered “Directed Evolution” in the early 1990s. Now, the technique is widely used in laboratory settings to make everything from laundry detergent to renewable fuels. She shares the award with George P. Smith of the University of Missouri in Columbia.
Arnold recently returned from the Nobel presentation held in Stockholm, Sweden on December 10th. She joins Larry to discuss her research and experience being lauded.
Guest:
Frances H. Arnold, professor of chemical engineering, bioengineering and biochemistry at Caltech; she won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry; she tweets
Outdated mores or harmless entertainment? We talk to parents about princess movies
While promoting “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms,” Keira Knightley told Ellen DeGeneres that she bans her 3 year-old-daughter from watching certain princess movies – namely, “Cinderella” and “The Little Mermaid,” both of which she sees as sending dangerous messages to young girls.
As live-action remakes of princess movies keep coming, there’s continued conversation as to whether fairy tale movies, especially the 2D Disney fare of the 80s and 90s, is acceptable content for the modern child. Some parents are switching out the mermaid princess who, as Keira Knightley puts it, gives up her voice for a man, for what they feel are more empowering narratives like “Moana” and “Frozen.”
But in her recent article for Quillette, Amy Alkon steps in to defend the fairy-tale move, saying there are still valuable lessons to be learned – and if they’re not all savory, then at least they can start a conversation.
If you’re a parent, how do you treat princess movies in your household? Are there certain films that you feel area too problematic to allow?
Guest:
Amy Alkon, writer whose recent piece in Quillette is “Don’t Deny Girls the Evolutionary Wisdom of Fairy-Tales;” she is author of many books, including her latest, “Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence” (St Martin’s Griffin, 2018)