It was all about the Donald once again Tuesday night in Nevada; discussing how New Deal Democrats compare to Clintonian Democrats and debating the decision to release millions of California students' sensitive information.
Analyzing the GOP presidential landscape after Trump chalks up another win in the Nevada caucuses
After handily securing wins in the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries, it was all about the Donald once again Tuesday night.
Just over 45 percent of registered Nevada Republicans caucused for the New York real estate mogul. Marco Rubio finished a distant second, just shy of 24 percent of the vote, and Ted Cruz came in third with 21 percent.
Trump’s win in The Silver State make the climb back to the top that much harder for the rest of the field. Super Tuesday is looming large and could still swing the delegate balance, but it won’t be an easy path back to the top for any of the remaining candidates.
What are the implications of Trump’s win in Nevada? What changes about the lay of the land for the GOP candidates? Do you think there’s any chance Super Tuesday will swing the balance of delegates to another candidate?
Guests:
Lisa Camooso Miller, Republican strategist and partner at Blueprint Communications, public affairs firm based in D.C.; she tweets
Robert de Posada, president of ONE Marketing & Research Inc., a public relations and communications firm in D.C., founder of the nonprofit The Latino Coalition, and had served on the National Commission to Save and Strengthen Social Security under George W. Bush; he tweets
Sanders, Clinton supporters battle over Democrats' core ideology
As presidential hopefuls Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton continue to vie for Democratic donors, voters, delegates, and endorsements, a battle over their party's core dogma is also playing out.
From regulations on Wall Street to foreign policy and social welfare, their policies diverge but each has its roots in different eras of the Democratic Party. How do New Deal Democrats compare to "Clintonian" Democrats? As Thomas Frank opines in “The Guardian:”
“The figure that brought triumphant closure to that last internecine war [among Democrats] was President Bill Clinton, who installed a new kind of Democratic administration in Washington. Rather than paying homage to the politics of Franklin Roosevelt, Clinton passed trade deals that defied and even injured the labor movement, once his party’s leading constituency; he signed off on a measure that basically ended the federal welfare program; and he performed singular favors for the financial industry, the New Deal’s great nemesis.”
However, in op-ed in “The Hill,” Sanders is branded as a “neo-progressive” and “socialist” rather than a Democrat, by Joshua Block - the CEO of The Israel Project and a former Clinton administration official. He argues:
“During the Obama presidency, this rising band of isolationist neo-progs have seen their ideas nourished and been drawn to the Administration’s rationalizations for shirking America’s role as leader of the West. These deliberate choices, which Sanders applauds and would accelerate, have increased human suffering, war and famine, deepened instability, and undermined trust in global systems that we need to constrain behavior by bad actors and maintain a system of enforceable mores.”
In your opinion, how do the respective Clinton and Sanders campaigns represent the Democrats’ historical ideologies?
Guests:
Peter Dreier, Professor of Political Science, Occidental College; Activist
Michael Tomasky, Editor, "Democracy" - a quarterly journal focused on the progressive movement; Contributor, “The Daily Beast”
Mayor Garcetti and LA City Council consider a bond or tax in the November ballot to generate funds to help the homeless
Faced with a budget shortfall, Los Angeles politicians are seeking about $2 billion in funding to help provide aid to the city’s growing homeless population.
L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti and the L.A. City Council are pondering whether to put the decision to voters.
Is a tax or bond the right way to generate the funds? What do listeners think about paying the costs for homeless services? On today’s show, Larry was joined by guests including Garcetti to weigh in on the measure and how it will affect the city.
Garcetti says he, like many in the city, wants to provide more services for the homeless, but doesn’t want the average citizen to foot the bill.
"I don’t want to see a general tax that the regular person has to pay, but perhaps a recording fee on general real estate transactions is an appropriate place, because people who own commercial real estate are definitely making some money and they can help chip in ... to help us all get rid of this stain on the city right now, which is homelessness," Garcetti said.
The mayor also stressed the realistic value of the plan, which entails both the city and county of L.A. working together.
"People of good will across the city keep coming up to me and saying ‘I want to do something on homelessness ... but I want to know it’s effective. Now that we’ve actually put a plan forward ... that people have lauded as the most focused by city and county together ... I think we’re well prepared to say to the voters, ‘If you want to get even more services to end this for those people on the street, let’s do this together in a smart way and let’s do that this November,’" Garcetti said.
President of the Small Business Action Committee Joel Fox disagrees with Garcetti and said property tax payers won’t be able to escape paying for the bond.
"The city is looking at a $2 billion bond. In the end, with interest, they’re gonna be paying $4 billion, and that’s gonna be on the back of the property tax payers," Fox said.
Fox also had reservations about the effect Garcetti’s commercial real estate recording fee would have on local businesses.
"How much does that [fee] add to the reputation of Los Angeles not being so business friendly?" Fox said.
Civil Rights Attorney Carol Sobel, who has represented L.A.’s homeless in federal courts, said Garcetti’s plan would take too long to be implemented.
"It would take years for that [plan] to be put into effect … we don’t have the time to wait anymore," Sobel said.
Sobel also suggested a more timely solution in lieu of the both the bond and the commercial fee plan.
"They’re sitting on $5.9 billion in reserves in the states. Give Los Angeles a loan," Sobel said.
Guests:
Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Los Angeles; he tweets from
Joel Fox, President of the Small Business Action Committee
Carol Sobel, a civil rights attorney who has represented L.A.'s homeless in federal courts
Concerns over privacy raised in judge’s decision to release sensitive information of 10 million CA students
In 2012, The California Concerned Parents Association and the Morgan Hill Concerned Parents Association, two parent-run non-profit organizations dedicated to promoting the rights of disabled children in the classroom filed a lawsuit against the California Department of Education (CDE) alleging that the department was failing to provide students with disabilities free and appropriate public education.
To prove their claim, the two plaintiffs requested the records of every public school student in California. Earlier this month, a California federal judge granted a “Special Master,” a court-appointed expert in cyber security and data breach prevention, access to the names, social security numbers, addresses, mental and physical assessments of every student who went to public school in California since Jan.1, 2008 to analyze that data on behalf of the two plaintiffs, roughly 10 million students.
This special master will ensure the security of information upon transfer.
Parents have until April 1st to mail a form objecting to having their child’s records released to Judge Mueller’s office. It is unclear what actions the judge will take with the opt-out forms.
The Calif. Concerned Parents Assn and the Morgan Hill Concerned Parents Association argue that the information they seek is not going to involve individual information, only aggregate data. The Calif. Concerned Parents Assn stated that they had suggested multiple scenarios in which the CDE could provide student statistics without disclosing individual students data including an an offer to receive the information with fake names, but were refused by CDE attorneys.
Critics, including many parents, are concerned that the release would jeopardize the privacy of their children.
Guests:
Stephen Rosenbaum, Co-Counsel for Plaintiffs, the Morgan Hill Concerned Parents Association and a lecturer in law at UC Berkeley
Vanessa Hatch, president of the Newport-Mesa district's Harbor Council PTA
Teachers unions head back to court to fight for tenure rights
Teachers unions will go to appeals court Thursday to regain job protections that were lost in the landmark 2014 case, Vergara v. California.
In the original case, nine public schools students argued that teacher tenure was a threat to their constitutional right to a public education. If teachers unions lose the appeal, changes could include laying off teachers based on job performance instead of seniority and putting a less complicated process in place to fire them.
The California Teachers Association, the California Federation of Teachers and other state officials who filed the appeal argue that the previous ruling may discourage talented teachers from entering the workforce. Larry Mantle discusses the case today and what we expect to see in court Thursday.
Guest:
Steve Barr, founder of Green Dot Public Schools, a charter school organization. He also heads the nonprofit school reform organization, Future Is Now Schools
Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers
PBS doc explores the bad — and the good — of Big Data
Paper trails are a thing of the past.
Today, everything we do leaves a digital trace; whether you’re updating your Facebook status, using your credit card at a parking meter or wearing a heart monitor.
Some data, like your browser history, is collected and sold to advertisers, while other data is collected to predict natural disasters. But in a world that relies on technology for virtually everything, why are other people determining what is done with the data we’ve produced?
The documentary “The Human Face of Big Data” sheds light on how our information is being used and the anticipated dangers of collecting such an overwhelming amount of data. Filmmakers Sandy and Rick Smolan join us today to discuss their documentary.
“The Human Face of Big Data" will premiere nationally on PBS on Wednesday, Feb. 24 10 p.m. PT and will be available online beginning Feb. 25, at CuriosityStream.com. Use promo code "Humandata" for a free 60-day subscription.
Guests:
Sandy Smolan, director and producer of the PBS documentary, "The Human Face of Big Data"
Rick Smolan, co-author of the book “The Human Face of Big Data” and executive producer of the documentary; he is also a former TIME, LIFE and National Geographic photographer; Rick tweets from