Justice Department set to free 6,000 prisoners, largest one-time release

Source: Washington Post

The Justice Department is set to release about 6,000 inmates early from prison — the largest one-time release of federal prisoners — in an effort to reduce overcrowding and provide relief to drug offenders who received harsh sentences over the past three decades.

The inmates from federal prisons nationwide will be set free by the department’s Bureau of Prisons between Oct. 30 and Nov. 2. Most of them will go to halfway houses and home confinement before being put on supervised release.

The early release follows action by the U.S. Sentencing Commission — an independent agency that sets sentencing policies for federal crimes — which reduced the potential punishment for future drug offenders last year and then made that change retroactive.

The commission’s action is separate from an effort by President Obama to grant clemency to certain nonviolent drug offenders, an initiative that has resulted in the early release of 89 inmates.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-department-about-to-free-6000-prisoners-largest-one-time-release/2015/10/06/961f4c9a-6ba2-11e5-aa5b-f78a98956699_story.html?postshare=4601444149297022

Democrats let $612B defense bill advance despite Obama veto threat

Source: The Hill

Legislation that would set the nation’s defense policy overcame a key procedural hurdle in the Senate on Tuesday despite a looming veto threat from the White House.

Senators voted 73-26 to end debate on the $612 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with 60 votes needed to move forward.

Twenty-one Democrats broke ranks on the procedural vote, siding with Republicans to let the bill advance. Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), who is running for president, was the only Republican to vote no. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), another White House hopeful, missed the vote.

The legislation is expected to pass by Thursday, which would send it to President Obama’s desk.


Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/256061-dems-let-defense-bill-advance-despite-obama-veto-threat

NZ government leaks on TPP: copyright terms will go to life plus 70 years

An official New Zealand government bulletin on yesterday's conclusion of the still-secret Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement negotiations accidentally confirmed something we all believed was in there all along: an extension of copyright terms to match the USA's bizarre, evidence-free, century-plus terms.

According to the bulletin, the TPP signatories will have to retroactively extend their copyright terms, giving longer copyrights to works that were created before the agreement was struck, and taking works out of the public domain and putting them back into copyright's restrictions.

This is likely to bite even the USA in the ass, as there are many works that are in the public domain because they were not registered with the Copyright Office (prior to the abolition of the registration requirement in 1976) or didn't have their copyrights renewed.

New works that were derived from these public domain works will become, at the stroke of a pen, illegal. That means that living, working artists will have their new works banned so that dead artists' descendants can try their hand at the extremely unlikely business of breathing economic life into titles that were created generations ago. Even where no descendants are in evidence to exploit the works (as is the case with more than 90% of copyrighted works today, which have no discernible rightsholders), new works based on those (currently public domain) orphan works will become illegal.

more
http://boingboing.net/2015/10/06/nz-government-leaks-on-tpp-co.html?utm_source=moreatbb&utm_medium=nextpost&utm_campaign=nextpostthumbnails

Why is Donald Trump's tax plan ridiculed but the TPP deal gets a pass?

Dean Baker
Tuesday 6 October 2015

Trade deals seem to enjoy a special status among economists. While they are happy to use the economic toolbox to take apart policy proposals on minimum wage, financial regulation or almost anything else, for some reason they don’t like to use standard economic tools when it comes to the impact of trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

There was no shortage of economists who were prepared to ridicule Donald Trump’s claim that his tax cut proposal would lead to 6% annual GDP growth. But where are the economists who will ridicule the Obama administration’s claims that the this new trade deal will lead to more rapid growth?

There is an argument that lower trade barriers increase growth, but this story doesn’t really apply in this case. The problem is that most of the barriers between the countries in the new pact have already been removed. The agreement will not do much to lower barriers to trade between the US and Canada since Nafta already eliminated most barriers. We currently have trade deals with six of the 11 TPP countries. The existing tariff barriers with Japan and New Zealand are already low. Reducing barriers with Vietnam might have some impact, but it is not that large an economy and it is located on the other side of the planet.

This is why efforts to analyze the impact of the TPP on growth have found little or no effect. An analysis by the United States Department of Agriculture found the impact would be negligible. An analysis by the Peterson Institute found that the cumulative gains after 12 years, when most of the trade deal’s impact will have been seen, were just 0.07%. A more recent study upped this to 0.4%.


more
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/06/why-is-donald-trumps-tax-plan-ridiculed-but-the-tpp-deal-gets-a-pass

Huckabee picks a fight with a bag of chips

It’s not unusual in an election cycle for national candidates to pick some fights. Usually, though, candidates are strategic about the confrontations, taking on primary rivals, the other party, occasionally a critical news outlet, etc.

Leave it to Mike Huckabee, however, to start a feud with a bag of chips. Time magazine reported yesterday:

Maine Governor Revives Old Rule To Punish Poor People For Saving Money

Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) has already knocked tens of thousands of people of his state’s food stamps rolls through a variety of stringent new rules for the program, but he’s not done. At a hearing Tuesday, state officials will lay out a new barrier to entry for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) applicants that most other states have abandoned in recent years.

Under the new rules, anyone without dependent children who’s managed to save $5,001 will get kicked out of the SNAP system, losing access to a benefit that averages $116 per person per month in Maine. The asset test will look at the combined value of a person’s bank accounts, second vehicles, and recreational property like snowmobiles. The state intends to exempt several categories of assets from the test: The value of a person’s burial plot or their tax-exempt savings accounts for retirement and education won’t be counted as evidence they’re too well-off to receive food stamps. Personal homes and a household’s primary vehicle are also excluded, but additional vehicles or residences count against an applicant.

But for households without dependents that have managed to sock away emergency savings, the new rules will require spending down those savings before receiving a meager food allowance from the government. And for the many who have no such savings, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities food stamps expert Stacy Dean told ThinkProgress, the policy discourages them from building up assets that can make them more self-reliant.

“It forces people to choose between saving to create financial stability for myself and my family, and participating in this program,” said Dean. The hardest-hit population will be the very same people intended to be buoyed by SNAP and other safety net systems: low-wage workers, retirees, and the disabled.

more
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/10/06/3709260/maine-food-stamps-asset-test/

Ben Carson advocates arming kindergarten teachers

Just days after a gunman killed nine people at an Oregon community college, Dr. Ben Carson advocated arming school staff – even kindergarten teachers – to prevent more school shootings.

The Republican presidential candidate said it would make him “much more comfortable” to know there were more guns in schools if he were a parent, in an interview with USA Today published Tuesday.

“If I had a little kid in kindergarten somewhere I would feel much more comfortable if I knew on that campus there was a police officer or somebody who was trained with a weapon,” Carson said. “If the teacher was trained in the use of that weapon and had access to it, I would be much more comfortable if they had one than if they didn’t.”

Carson’s far-right views and soft-spoken geniality have helped him surge to the front of the crowded Republican field. In the wake of the Oregon shooting, he has reiterated his argument that gun control is useless – “it doesn’t work for crazies,” he said in Iowa last week – and that mental health care should be strengthened to stop the frequent shootings in schools.

more
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/ben-carson-advocates-arming-kindergarten-teachers

Toon: Opus N Bill 2015

Tuesday Toon Roundup 3: The Rest

War Crime










Middle East







Pharma





PP




HRC




Trade

Tuesday Toon Roundup 2: Bush Happens