Thursday’s scheduled vote on judge Brett Kavanaugh’s supreme court nomination is up in the air, as the judge is accused of sexual assault. We’ll look at the many complex aspects of this development.
We also examine why so many Californians don’t have earthquake insurance; and more.
Week in politics: Will allegation of sexual misconduct derail Kavanaugh confirmation?
Thursday’s scheduled vote on judge Brett Kavanaugh’s supreme court nomination is up in the air.
The Bay-area professor accusing the judge of sexually assaulting her says she’s willing to testify about the alleged incident before the committee. Kavanaugh denies the event took place and says he’ll answer questions about it, as well.
We’ll look at the many complex aspects of this development.
Guests:
Ange-Marie Hancock-Alfaro, professor of political science and chair of gender studies at USC; she tweets
Lanhee Chen, research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University; he was an adviser for Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign and served as policy director for the Romney-Ryan 2012 presidential campaign; he tweets
Luke William Hunt, assistant professor of criminal justice at Radford University in Virginia; he is a former FBI Special Agent and Supervisory Special Agent in Charlottesville, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
Shannon Pettypiece, White House reporter, Bloomberg News; she tweets
Lisa Tucker, associate professor of law at Drexel University in Philadelphia
Earthquake insurance, why so many Californians don’t have it and why that might be a national problem
According to many seismologists, California is long overdue for a major earthquake, which would make you think that most homeowners in the state are insured for the next “big one.”
But actually, about 87 percent of homeowners do not have earthquake insurance -- and a new report from free-market think tank R Street Institute looks at what implications that might have on the national scale.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac own a significant portion of these uninsured mortgages in California, and according to the report they could stand to lose between $50 and $100 billion in the next earthquake. (Assuming that homeowners without earthquake insurance make the decision to walk away from their mortgages.) And because Fannie and Freddie are federally supervised mortgage finance institutions, the government may in turn bail them out -- meaning that financial cost would fall on taxpayers.
Will the next big financial crisis come from California’s “big one?’ Why has it been so difficult to get California’s homeowners to buy earthquake insurance? And what are some potential solutions to consider ahead of the impending earthquake’s financial fallout?
We are making a podcast about what would happen in Los Angeles and to the world if The Big One did hit and we would love your questions and stories. if you have questions about earthquakes, how FEMA works or just a story you’d like to share you can write to us. The email is TheBigOne@kpcc.org
Guests:
R.J. Lehmann, co-author of the report “Take a Load Off Fannie: The GSE’s and Uninsured Earthquake Risk,” which will be released Tuesday; he is the director of finance, insurance and trade policy at R Street Institute, a free-market think tank based in D.C
Glenn Pomeroy, CEO of the California Earthquake Authority
Daniel Farber, professor of law and director of the environmental law program at UC Berkeley
The latest on safe injection sites in Orange County, plus a new study that’s challenging their efficacy
A little over two years ago, Santa Ana saw the opening of the Orange County Needle Exchange program, which was backed by public health voices who pushed for it as an effective intervention method.
But the program has been under fire since, from community members, as well as the Orange County Board of Supervisors.
In 2017, Santa Ana chose not to renew the program’s permit, but the effort stayed alive thanks to California’s Department of Public Health authorization to have it operate as a mobile program, serving Santa Ana, Anaheim, Orange and Costa Mesa. The Orange County Board of supervisors is suing to have it shut down before it starts operating. The first hearing on the case is scheduled later this month.
In August, the DOJ has said it’s considering cracking down on cities that operate drug injection sites -- though it’s unclear what that will mean on the ground in Orange County.
Meanwhile, a meta-study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy is questioning whether these supervised drug injection sites are effective at preventing overdose deaths.
We look at the latest on the drug injection program in Orange County, as well as the recent developments in the public health research.
UPDATE: Since the airing of this segment, the meta-study referenced in this article has been retracted by the International Journal of Drug Policy, who issued this statement:
In light of two critical reviews received by the journal after publication (available on request), and additional commissioned independent assessments, the Journal has retracted the following paper from publication: May, T., Bennett, T. and Holloway, K. (2018) The impact of medically supervised injection centres on drug-related harms: A meta-analysis, 59: 98-107.
This action is supported by the authors’ acknowledgement of methodological weaknesses linked to the pooling of diverse outcomes into a single composite measure (authors’ response to critical reviews also available on request from the Editor). The authors have acknowledged that these analyses should not have been undertaken in this way and resulted from honest human error in the use of methods. Accordingly, the authors acknowledge that the combined effect size reported in the original paper should be discounted. Given that the composite measure was a key finding reported by the original paper, the decision to retract the paper from publication had been made, including with the consent of the authors. The journal acknowledges that the peer review process did not pick up on the specific methodological weaknesses identified post publication. The journal takes its peer review process extremely seriously. It is for this reason that the journal commissioned an independent assessment of the original paper in addition to the original peer review reports in order to assess whether to retract the paper.
Guests:
Jill Replogle, KPCC’s Orange County reporter; she tweets
Shawn Nelson, vice chair of the Orange County Board of Supervisors; he is the Supervisor of the 4th District in OC, which includes Brea, Fullerton, La Habra and Placentia, and portions of Anaheim and Buena Park
Ricky Bluthenthal, professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California, his research focuses on the effectiveness of needle exchange programs
Keith Humphreys, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and director for Mental Health Policy at Stanford University; his focus includes federal mental health and drug policies