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Los Alamos Track And Field Athletes … Wow!

LA Daily Post – I’m sending this email in regards to your Track and Field Athletes for Los Alamos High School.

On Wednesday, March 14, 2018, I took my daughter to Chill Zone (yogurt place) in Bernalillo. As we were enjoying our Froyo many students from Los Alamos entered Chill Zone – they literally packed the place. Looks like they ate at Dions Pizza first and then went to Chill Zone for dessert.

Anyhow, I was very impressed with the behavior of all the students. They were very well behaved and respectful. I actually had a conversation with a few of them and they were so polite.

I am an educator of 17 years and this just brought so much love and happiness to me to know that we ARE doing a great job with our kids. Way to go Los Alamos!!

These kids could have been easily messing around with the yogurt and toppings since it is a self-serve facility. They served their treat and stayed in line to pay, sat and ate with their friends and cleaned up when they left.

I hope that this message can reach their coaches and their parents (kudos to them).

A message to your students is … You never know who is watching!

I made it a point to discuss with my 13-year-old daughter that my hope is that she can behave the way they were when parents and coaches aren’t always around supervising.

These kids are role models no matter where they go. Someone is always looking up to them.

Source: US Government Class

LAPD Recommends Security Options To School Board

Los Alamos Daily Post – Perimeter security, access control and key card access are the three biggest needs in Los Alamos Public Schools and also the recommendations of the Los Alamos Police Department, Sgt. Chris Ross told school board members during their regular meeting Tuesday evening.

Ross, who is head of LAPD’s Community Liaison team, and Police Chief Dino Sgambellone addressed the board under an agenda item, “School Safety and Security Options”.

Chief Sgambellone said since the unfortunate events in Parkland, Fla., he has received a number of emails and phone calls from citizens, parents and students.

“What we have here is an opportunity not only to hear the ideas the police have but we have an opportunity to hear from the rest of the community and the student body on what their concerns are and what their expectations are moving forward,” he said. “As you look at safety and security from a broad perspective, there’s a lot of work to be done, not just here but in any district. And I just don’t want there to be a sense that it’s so overwhelming, that where would we even begin. We’ve already made great progress in many areas. I’d just like to continue the discussion and continue building on what we’ve got to date.”

Sgt. Ross began his presentation by saying the topic of safety and security has become more focused in the community in the last month or so but that from a police perspective, these are concerns, ideas and things LAPD has had for a while.

“The last time we had a child die in a school fire was in 1958, almost 60 years ago, at Our Lady of the Angels Catholic School in Chicago. Ninety two students and three nuns were killed in that fire. Basically, what I’ve read is that the school ignored a lot of the practices at that time for fire safety. After that fire, 16,500 school districts in the nation changed how they implemented fire codes within the schools. That’s almost 70 percent within one year,” Ross said. “Next year is going to be the 20-year anniversary of Columbine. One catastrophic fire and now we’ve gone 60 years without a child being killed at school by a fire.”

“They made a lot of changes that have been shown to be effective. We need to do the same thing as a community, as a nation, as a school district,” he continued.

In 15 years from 2000 to 2015, there have been 45 active shooter incidents within schools. Ross said the casualty number is what he looks at.

“We’ve had 120 kids killed and 242 injured. We saw what the nation did when 95 people were killed – in 15 years we haven’t done a lot.”

“I recommend we start to take this stuff very seriously because we can see it’s not slowing down. This calendar year alone, we’ve already had 23 kids killed on our campuses so that’s something we have to address. Any of these recommendations we put out there are not going to ever end these things. There always will be a threat but if we start looking at things in a layered approach, we can hopefully minimize our potential threat of being a victim,” Ross said.

Ross told the board that having a perimeter fence around schools is a requirement of the New Mexico Administrative Code. He said schools must be fenced not just for people but also for wildlife. He said when Poms and Associates, a risk management company used by the state Public Education Department, visited Chamisa Elementary School in December, it was their number one recommendation that the school grounds be fenced.

“This is the one argument I hear about fences. It’s going to feel like a prison. Our school is going to feel like a prison. In our community we already have fences at our homes, at our parks, at the pools we go to, Sullivan Field, the airport and all over the Lab. At any one of those locations, I don’t think anyone thinks they are in prison,” he said.

He went on to say that kids don’t even recognize there are fences at parks and pools, that they just have a great time.

Ross showed photos of the fencing at Sullivan Field saying some people may be surprised at the type of fencing around the facility for access control and to make sure people paid to get in to games. He also showed photos of a fence around a local pool and said he guarantees kids just have a good time there and don’t even think about the fencing. He said people don’t even realize Sullivan Field has a six-foot chain link fence with barbed wire on the top of it that goes three-quarters of the way around it.

Ross also showed an example of a fence that funneled people into the main access at a school, which enabled the school to know who was on or off campus and created access control.

“If we do perimeter security correctly, we create access control. We funnel everyone into one entrance so we know when parents are coming in, when visitors are coming in, when the maintenance crew is here. We need to have accountability, who’s in our schools, why they’re there and where they’re going. In the current set-up we have around our schools we don’t have that ability,” he said.

Ross also addressed key card access for access control, which he said would be one of LAPD’s last recommendations. He said the current system of using keys to lock doors is a hard thing to do. He said in a stressful situation when one loses their fine motor skills, keys are difficult to use.

In conclusion, Ross asked the board if they remembered what it was like before Sept. 11, 2001.

“What was it like going to the airport? You used to be able to walk your family right up to the gate, rarely going through a security screening. After that one incident, now look what we’ve done 17 years later. There’s not a single person here who would get on a plane if there was someone who hadn’t been checked in through security protocols,” he said.

“But if we go back to that, maybe Parkland, Florida is the schools’ Sept. 11. We haven’t had an incident yet in 20 years that’s made us do enough of these changes as a district and as a school. Let’s make Parkland be that incident. What we have to do is what’s right for our students. We’ve got to create that onion effect. We want to have a solid core. The more layers of security we have out there the stronger our core is going to be,” Ross said. “The less layers that we have the weaker the core is going to be.”

He said LAPD has already started working with the schools’ staff and some of the students training them on active shooter response.

“So we’re strengthening that core, strengthening those outer layers. That’s our recommendation to the school board. And I understand budget constraints – it’s just a priority. We’re getting ready for construction season for the schools, which is summertime. We can make this happen. This summer we can make it happen as long as we make it a priority,” Ross concluded.

Following the presentation, Sgambellone and Ross fielded questions from the board and members of the public. Board members applauded LAPD for their work to date on improving safety and security in the schools and for providing an additional resource officer for the elementary level.

Superintendent Dr. Kurt Steinhaus said Wednesday that the budget proposal for the 2018-2019 school year will include a line item for improving school safety, staff training and mental health. He said it will include the three items proposed Tuesday by LAPD.

“We are very appreciative of our partnership with the Los Alamos Police Department. They continue to provide outstanding training for our staff,” Steinhaus said.

Source: US Government Class

Gina Haspel, new CIA director, is a “seasoned spymaster”

CBS News – Gina Haspel, the newly named director of the CIA, and the first woman named to the position, is a career spymaster who once ran a CIA prison in Thailand where terror suspects were waterboarded — a harsh interrogation technique President Donald Trump has supported.

President Trump announced Haspel’s promotion Tuesday morning in the same tweet where he announced his ouster of embattled Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Mike Pompeo’s selection as his replacement.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo appointed Haspel as the first female CIA officer to be named deputy director on February 2, 2017, and at the time, his choice was widely praised by top national security officials including former CIA Director Michael Hayden and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who is a vocal Trump critic.

Haspel joined the agency in 1985 and has extensive overseas experience, including several stints as chief of station at outposts abroad. In Washington, she has held several top senior leadership positions, including deputy director of the National Clandestine Service and deputy director of the National Clandestine Service for Foreign Intelligence and Covert Action.

She also had a role in the CIA’s former covert program where suspected terrorists were subjected to harsh interrogation methods, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning. More than a decade after it was last used, the CIA is still haunted by the legacy of a tactic that the U.S. government regarded as torture before the Bush administration authorized its use against terrorist suspects.

Senate Intelligence Committee member Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, noted that the laws have been changed to bar such tactics. She offered some praise for Haspel but did not say whether she’ll support the nomination. “Since my concerns were raised over the torture situation, I have met with her extensively. Talked with her. She has been, I believe, a good deputy director. She seems to have the confidence of the agency, which is good,” Feinstein said.

NSA leaker Edward Snowden tweeted about Haspel’s role in the CIA program and her role in the destruction of the tapes of the interrogations.

There was speculation at the time of her appointment as to whether Pompeo’s pick signaled an attempt to restart the harsh interrogation and detention program. News organizations obtained a copy of a draft executive order that would study recommendations on whether the U.S. should reopen CIA detention facilities outside the United States. It would also have ordered a review of interrogation methods used on terror suspects and called for suggested modifications that would not violate the U.S. legal ban on torture.

Haspel briefly ran a secret CIA prison where accused terrorists Abu Zubayadah and Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded in 2002, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. She also helped carry out an order that the CIA destroy its waterboarding videos. That order prompted a lengthy Justice Department investigation that ended without charges.

Mr. Trump, who has pushed for tougher interrogation techniques, said he would consult with Pompeo and Defense Secretary James Mattis before authorizing any new policy. But he said he had asked top intelligence officials: “Does torture work? And the answer was ‘Yes, absolutely.’”

When asked if her appointment to the director role would see a return to the use of “black sites,” a CIA spokesperson told CBS News: “This appointment is simply about putting in place the best person for the job.”

Christopher Anders, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington office, said in February that he was “gravely concerned” about Pompeo’s decision to choose Haspel.

“Pompeo must explain to the American people how his promotion of someone allegedly involved in running a torture site squares with his own sworn promises to Congress that he will reject all forms of torture and abuse.”

Source: US Government Class

Expert warns of “terrifying” potential of digitally-altered video

CBS News – Alec Baldwin is to some a perfect stand-in for President Donald Trump. But in a digitally-altered video online, the president’s face has been digitally stamped onto Baldwin’s performance.

Trump | Deepfakes Replacement by derpfakes on YouTube

It’s part of a wave of doctored audio and video now spreading online.

“The idea that someone could put another person’s face on an individual’s body, that would be like a homerun for anyone who wants to interfere in a political process,” said Virginia Senator Mark Warner. He believes manipulated video could be a game-changer in global politics.

“This is now going to be the new reality, surely by 2020, but potentially even as early as this year,” he said.

“Derpfakes” is the anonymous YouTuber who has made fake videos of President Trump, Hillary Clinton and Vladimir Putin, based off of performances by the cast of “Saturday Night Live.”

Putin | Face Replacement by derpfakes on YouTube

In a message to CBS News, he said he does it for “fun.” And though he sees the potential for fake news, he adds: “People will have to adapt as the tech is here to stay.”

Hany Farid runs a lab at Dartmouth College aimed at exposing digital fakes.

Correspondent Tony Dokoupil asked Farid, “Are we ready for this?”

“No. We are absolutely not ready for this. We are absolutely not ready for it,” Farid replied. “On so many different levels, we’re not ready for it.”

nicolas-cage-as-tony-dokoupil.jpg

CBS News

For starters, Dokoupil asked Farid to make a fake video. “I want to replace your face with Nicholas Cage’s,” he said.

Why Nick Cage? “Just because it’s awesome,” Farid laughed. “No other reason.”

The result:  “You can look at that all day long, and that, I tell you, is a pretty compelling fake,” Farid said.

The method, recently published online by an anonymous developer, is one of several that Farid is tracking. This program demonstrated in the video below can change facial expressions in real-time.

Face2Face: Real-time Face Capture and Reenactment of RGB Videos (CVPR 2016 Oral) by Matthias Niessner on YouTube

And there is an Adobe program that can create new audio from written text.

“Right out of the gate, that’s terrifying,” Farid said. “I mean, that is just terrifying. Now I can create the president of the United States saying just about anything.”

Adobe calls this an “early-stage research project.” While the company acknowledges the potential for “objectionable use,” it believes “the positive impact of technology will always overshadow the negative.”

All these methods have legitimate uses in digital video and design. But Farid worries they’ll be weaponized, too.

“I think the nightmare situation is a fake video of a politician saying, ‘I have launched nuclear weapons against a country.’ The other country reacts within minutes, seconds, and we have a global nuclear war,” Farid said.

His lab is developing tools to quickly identify fakes. But Farid suspects this is just the beginning of a longer struggle.

“We have a ‘fake news’ phenomenon that is not going away,” he said. “And so add to that fake images, fake audio, fake video, and you have an explosion of what I would call an information war.”

Sen. Warner said, “There is no Democrat or a Republican that would be safe from this kind of manipulation. But, boy oh boy, we need as a country to get our act together.”

Warner is asking the major tech companies to work with Congress to rein in false news, and now also false video.

CBS News reached out to a number of tech companies for comment and heard back from Reddit and Facebook. Both companies are aware of this false video phenomenon and are looking for ways to regulate it.

Source: US Government Class

California bound: Trump heading to state he loves to hate

Santa Fe New Mexican – LOS ANGELES — Donald Trump is coming — at last — to the state he loves to hate, setting foot in California for his first time as president.

This is turf he lost to Democrat Hillary Clinton by more than 4 million votes in 2016. He has mocked its judges for blocking his agenda, sued over its lax enforcement of immigration laws and threatened to pull out federal agents.

But there’s something he’s dying to see here: the prototypes for his long-promised wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. And there’s something he’s eager to do here: raise cash from the Beverly Hills crowd.

Trump’s arrival Tuesday will come just days after his Justice Department sued to block a trio of state laws designed to protect people living in the U.S. illegally. Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown likened it to “an act of war” with Trump’s administration.

“The State of California is sheltering dangerous criminals in a brazen and lawless attack on our Constitutional system of government,” Trump complained in his weekly address, accusing California’s leaders of being “in open defiance of federal law.”

“They don’t care about crime. They don’t care about death and killings. They don’t care about robberies,” he said, calling on Congress to block the state’s federal funds.

Last week, Oakland’s mayor warned residents of an impending immigration raid — a move that Trump called disgraceful and said put law enforcement officers at risk.

The state has also joined lawsuits aimed at stopping construction of Trump’s stalled border wall. And its judges have repeatedly ruled against policies Trump has tried to enact.

In recent months, Trump and other administration officials have threatened both to flood the state with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and to pull ICE out of the state completely.

“I mean, frankly, if I wanted to pull our people from California, you would have a crying mess like you’ve never seen in California,” Trump said last month, predicting “crime like nobody has ever seen crime in this country.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s acting ICE director has repeatedly threatened to increase its enforcement footprint in the state in retaliation for its limited cooperation with federal immigration authorities — and he appears to be making good on his promise.

“California better hold on tight. They’re about to see a lot more special agents, a lot more deportation officers,” Thomas Homan said on Fox earlier this year before his agency conducted a series of raids.

White House officials said the trip has been in the works for months and the timing so close to recent flare-ups was coincidental.

When asked if Trump planned to play nice on the trip, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “Look, I think if anybody is stepping out of bounds here, it would be someone who is refusing to follow federal law, which is certainly not the president. And we’re going for what we hope to be an incredibly positive trip.”

Trump’s overnight visit will include a stop in San Diego to inspect eight sample designs for the wall he’s been raring to build. He will also be speaking with members of the military and traveling to Los Angeles for a splashy Beverly Hills fundraiser, where attendees will pay up to $250,000 per person.

Trump’s appearances in the left-leaning state during the 2016 campaign were marked by sometimes-violent clashes between his supporters and opposition groups. In some cases, protesters blocked traffic and threw rocks and beer bottles. Protests are expected during this trip.

Trump’s more than yearlong absence from the nation’s most populous state — home to 1 in 8 Americans and, by itself, the world’s sixth-largest economy — has been conspicuous but not surprising. Trump country, it’s not.

As a candidate, Trump suggested he could win California, a state that hasn’t supported a Republican for the White House in three decades.

Since his election, Sacramento has emerged as a vanguard in the so-called Trump resistance. Democratic state Attorney General Xavier Becerra has filed nearly 30 lawsuits to block administration proposals.

California was the home of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, but Republican influence here has been fading for years as a surge in immigrants transformed the state and its voting patterns. The number of Hispanics, blacks and Asians combined has outnumbered whites since 1998. Meanwhile, the state’s new voters, largely Latinos and Asians, lean Democratic, and Democrats hold every statewide office and control both chambers of the Legislature by hefty margins.

Polls have found Trump deeply unpopular in the state, with most residents opposed to policies he’s championed, such as expanding offshore drilling.

Jessica Hayes, chairwoman of the San Diego County Democratic Party, said Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric plays especially poorly in a state with close trade and tourism connections with Mexico.

“These are our neighbors. These are our friends,” she said.

Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of flying in to pick the winning design for the border wall, telling rallygoers last year in Alabama: “I’m going to go out and look at them personally and pick the right one.”

The Department of Homeland Security has said there’s nothing to stop Trump from turning the wall design contest into a Miss Universe-style pageant.

But the department also says it doesn’t anticipate that a single prototype will be selected. Instead, the samples are expected “to inform future border wall design standards,” said spokesman Tyler Houlton.

Source: US Government Class

Pick Your Story

Choose a story from the list below. These articles are from RealClearPolitics. Most of the stories are editorials or opinion pieces that do not cover the story in a non-bias approach. If there is an article that appears to have a view from the other side of the political spectrum, read both articles to see how the issues is covered.

Be sure to reference the article within your comment.

Saturday, March 10th

 

Source: US Government Class

Sick Venezuelans flee to Colombia in mounting refugee crisis

Santa Fe New Mexican – CUCUTA, Colombia — In a cramped hospital near Colombia’s border with Venezuela, migrants fill stretchers bearing the wounds of the deteriorating nation they left behind.

An 18-year-old woman rubbed her swollen belly after fleeing with her infant daughter when the wounds from her C-section began to ooze pus. A young man whose femur had torn through his skin in a motorcycle crash needed antibiotics for an infection. An elderly retiree with a swollen foot arrived after taking a 20-hour bus ride from Caracas because doctors there told his family the only treatment they could offer was amputation — without anesthesia or antibiotics.

“If you want to sign, sign. But we are not responsible for the life of your father,” Teresa Tobar, 36, quoted the doctors in Venezuela as telling her when they handed over the papers to authorize her father’s surgery.

As Venezuela’s economic crisis worsens, rising numbers are fleeing in a burgeoning refugee crisis that is drawing alarm across Latin America. Independent groups estimate that as many as 3 million to 4 million Venezuelans have abandoned their homeland in recent years, with several hundred thousand departing in 2017 alone.

Many of those migrants are arriving by foot in Colombia and landing in the Andean nation’s emergency rooms with urgent medical conditions that Venezuelan hospitals can no longer treat.

According to health officials, Venezuelans made nearly 25,000 visits to Colombian ERs last year, up from just 1,500 in 2015. At hospitals in border cities like Cucuta, patients are packed side by side on stretchers that spill into hallways, not much unlike the deplorable conditions they fled back home. Authorities project that Venezuelan admissions to Colombian hospitals could double in 2018 and say the nation’s already overstretched public health system is unprepared to handle the sudden swell.

“We are not in a position to assume the cost of the comprehensive care for the migrants arriving,” said Julio Saenz, an adviser on migrant affairs to Colombia’s Health Ministry. “That’s a very big concern.”

The Venezuelans are fleeing an increasingly authoritarian government that has been unable to halt skyrocketing inflation that renders wages nearly worthless and forces millions to go hungry. In Cucuta, ground zero for an exodus that has spread across Latin America, migrants say their nation’s rapidly deteriorating health system is also forcing them to leave as everything from simple antibiotics to critical chemotherapy drugs become hard to find or impossible to afford.

“I said to myself, ‘I have nowhere else to go,’” recalled Grecia Sabala, a 32-year-old mother who journeyed to Colombia seeking treatment for cervical cancer after doctors in Venezuela were unable to provide chemotherapy and her city’s only radiation machine broke. “I’m going to the border to look for a cure.”

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has refused to allow humanitarian aid to enter the struggling nation, denying there is a crisis and contending that permitting international relief could pave the way for foreign intervention. But what little data officials have released indicates Venezuelans are facing mounting health challenges. Cases of infant and maternal mortality have risen sharply and long-eradicated maladies like diphtheria have re-emerged.

At least one Venezuelan child has died in Colombia from malnutrition, seeking treatment too late, and officials say many others are arriving dangerously underweight.

Health officials are particularly concerned about the spread of infectious diseases. Authorities confirmed numerous cases of malaria, tuberculosis and HIV among Venezuelan migrants last year.

“It’s increasing the numbers of some illnesses that we had under control,” Saenz said.

By law, Colombia’s hospitals are required to treat any person, local or foreign, who shows up at an emergency room. But many Venezuelans are arriving with chronic conditions like cancer and diabetes that require expensive, continuing care. Health institutions in Colombia are not required to provide those treatments.

“We handle the emergency room care, but beyond that there is no more we can do,” said Juan Ramirez, director of the Erasmo Meoz Hospital in Cucuta.

Cucuta health officials estimate the cost of caring for Venezuelan migrants will climb millions of dollars this year. Most of that cost ends up being funded by cash-strapped local institutions that say they need the help of the central government and international community.

Aside from providing health care, border cities are also coping with an array of public safety issues, like a rise in prostitution and groups of men, women and children sleeping on the streets. There is also a widespread perception of worsening crime, though police in Cucuta say the incidents remain relatively isolated.

President Juan Manuel Santos is under pressure to declare a social emergency, freeing up additional resources, and the top U.S. Agency for International Development official for Latin America recently visited Cucuta to evaluate how the Trump administration can help its close ally respond to the growing crisis.

“At some point, it’s going to be unpayable,” said Juan Alberto Bitar, head of the health agency overseeing Cucuta.

Colombia’s health ministry is planning to deploy a half dozen mobile units near the border to treat minor conditions. A Colombia Red Cross medical tent stationed at the foot of the Simon Bolivar International Bridge where about 35,000 Venezuelans enter the country each day — most for short stays to find food or work — already treats several hundred each week. Workers said many of the patients arrive after fainting on the journey because they had nothing to eat.

Michel Briceno, the young new mother who fled to Colombia after the incision from her C-section became infected, said she knew she had to leave after learning that several other women at the same hospital in Venezuela had also gotten ill and died. When her pelvis began to swell, she and her husband gathered their toddler son and newborn daughter and boarded a small bus for a 12-hour ride into Colombia with excruciating pain she rated a nine on a scale of 10.

Seated on a hospital bed as her infant squirmed beside her, Briceno said she had no doubt about what the outcome might have been if she stayed in Venezuela.

“I would have died,” she said.

Source: US Government Class

Bill to protect tax revenue from lab gets vetoed by governor

Santa Fe New Mexican – Gov. Susana Martinez vetoed legislation Wednesday that would have ensured state and local governments would not lose tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue if a nonprofit university takes over operations of Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Senate Bill 17 might have been one of the more wonkish bills of the 30-day legislative session that ended last month, but its backers argued the measure could be key to funding government services in Los Alamos and other parts of Northern New Mexico after management of the national laboratory changes hands later this year.

The bill, which passed both chambers of the Legislature on bipartisan votes, was just one of several Martinez vetoed or signed Wednesday, the deadline for her to act on bills passed during the session.

Martinez was poised last year to claim from one of her predecessors, Gary Johnson, the mantle of “Governor No” for her liberal use of the veto pen. But this year, with the session focusing primarily on the state budget and a slate of bipartisan legislation, there was not nearly as much for the outgoing governor to nix.

Martinez signed a bill that will allow consolidation of nonpartisan local elections, such as for school boards, hospital districts and, potentially, some town governments. The governor signed, too, a bill that will change the state’s lottery scholarship program to provide college students with a flat amount of funding rather than a percentage of their in-state tuition.

Proponents of the scholarship measure, including university leaders and some student groups, had argued it would help control rising tuition costs at state schools.

Legislation Martinez left unsigned Wednesday was automatically vetoed, including a measure providing tax credits for households and small businesses that install solar panels.

Los Alamos

With several universities eyeing the contract to manage Los Alamos National Laboratory, concerns emerged among policymakers that local governments stand to lose a vital source of tax revenue.

The Los Alamos lab is now managed by a consortium that includes the University of California and the for-profit company Bechtel, as well as other corporations. Because the consortium includes for-profit firms, it is required to pay the state’s gross receipts tax.

But nonprofit organizations are not required to pay the tax, which could lead to Los Alamos County and the state losing tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue if a university is awarded the lab contract.

In vetoing SB 17, Martinez wrote that it was “poorly-crafted tax policy.”

She argued the loss would be less than expected because subcontractors working at the lab likely would be taxed.

And requiring a nonprofit to pay a tax that it currently is not required to pay could cost the state jobs and put New Mexico at a competitive disadvantage, she wrote.

The governor also suggested lawmakers should have ended the tax exemption for nonprofits altogether rather than creating legislation that only affected contractors at the lab and similar facilities.

Ultimately, Martinez raised a recurring grievance of lawmakers and the governor alike: that the Legislature had not passed a broader overhaul of the state’s tax code.

“It’s just a very sorry excuse for devastating a local government,” said Sen. Carlos Cisneros, a Democrat from Questa who co-sponsored the bill.

Rep. Stephanie Garcia Richard, a Democrat from Los Alamos, said the veto left her community “in limbo.”

Public safety

Fail to pay a fine for not maintaining working windshield wipers, and the state can suspend your driver’s license.

That practice could have ended under a bipartisan public safety bill approved during the session.

But Martinez, in signing the bill, used her veto pen to keep that policy in law.

She argued that ending the ability to suspend driver’s licenses in some cases would hamper the ability to enforce state laws.

Criminal justice reform advocates have argued, however, that the practice disproportionately punishes the poor, who are less able to pay monetary fines and may have limited means of transportation.

The governor’s line-item veto raised an interesting, if arcane, question about her authority.

Typically, the governor cannot use veto power to change the meaning of a bill and can only line-item veto a piece of legislation — or strike part of it — when the measure involves spending.

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, which had supported the crime bill, suggested lawmakers consider whether to sue over the partial veto.

“We were pleased to see the governor finally sign a public safety bill that contained smart criminal justice reform,” Executive Director Peter Simonson said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the governor struck some of the most important components of this bipartisan legislation, and in doing so, we have very serious concerns that she may have violated the New Mexico Constitution.”

The bill had won backing from an unlikely coalition.

Designed to advance a few ideas on public safety from the left and right, it will toughen penalties for violent felons caught with a firearm while ensuring many nonviolent, minor offenses, such as cruising, are no longer punishable with jail time. The bill also appropriates several thousand dollars to provide bonuses for senior police officers, expands behavioral health services for jail inmates and stiffens the rules for drunken drivers seeking to have an ignition interlock device removed from their vehicles.

Elections

Vote early and vote less often. That is the idea behind a bill the governor signed Wednesday that will consolidate local elections, such as school board and hospital district races, on a single day in the November of odd-numbered years.

Town governments may opt in, too, cutting down on what is now a seemingly never-ending cycle of elections for all manner of local boards.

Backers, including Democratic Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, argue the move will ensure more voters participate in decision-making that can affect their schools, environment and taxes.

“Consolidating nonpartisan local elections reduces confusion and election fatigue for voters, and will lead to increased voter participation in local elections,” Toulouse Oliver said in a statement.

Solar energy

Legislation the governor did not sign by the deadline Wednesday died by what is known as a pocket veto, or an automatic veto.

That was the case with a proposal to renew tax credits for homes and small businesses to install solar panels.

Martinez has been cool to such proposals in the past.

Backers had argued the measure was key to supporting the solar energy industry, especially as the federal government adopts tariffs on imported solar panels that are expected to raise the price of such technology for the average consumer.

Some solar energy companies backing Senate Bill 79, sponsored by Sen. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, warned that Martinez’s pocket veto of the measure might force them to lay off staff.

Infrastructure

Capital outlay is one of those arcane processes that has come to epitomize government inefficiency.

Each year, each legislator gets a portion of funds to dedicate to particular infrastructure projects.

Sometimes, lawmakers pool their money together for particularly big projects, such as building roads.

Other times, the money goes to smaller expenses, such as police cars and sewage system improvements.

There is plenty of pork, too. And often, lawmakers dedicate less money than a project might require, leaving public money dedicated to a cause that is not going anywhere anytime soon.

Martinez signed off on this year’s round of capital outlay spending, which totaled nearly $180 million in funds for projects around the state. But she scolded legislators for some spending.

She vetoed a long list of expenses, ranging from $50,000 for a bust of a Hispanic Civil War hero to $275,000 for docks on a lake near Dexter and $73,000 for a sound system at The University of New Mexico’s baseball facilities.

Martinez also nixed language that would have allowed for some funding to be used for playgrounds at nearly two dozen sites around the state. That action drew criticism from Rep. Matthew McQueen.

“The Governor goes on a veto rampage against children’s playgrounds. Why?” tweeted McQueen, a Democrat from Galisteo. “Construction of playgrounds creates work as much as any other capital construction project, even if in smaller units, and has lasting benefits for the health and wellbeing of our kids.”

Source: US Government Class

Trump Reaffirms Commitment to Tariffs but Opens Door to Compromise

FoxNews – WASHINGTON — President Trump, facing an angry chorus of protests from leaders of his own party, including the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, insisted on Monday that he would not back down from his plan to impose across-the-board tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. But the White House was devising ways to potentially soften the impact of the measures on major trading partners.

The intense maneuvering, which began before Mr. Trump’s unexpected announcement of the tariffs last Thursday, is likely to delay any formal rollout of the measures until next week, according to several officials who have been briefed on the deliberations.

On Monday, Mr. Ryan, the most powerful Republican in the House, broke with the president, declaring through a spokeswoman, “We are extremely worried about the consequences of a trade war and are urging the White House to not advance with this plan.” The tariffs, Mr. Ryan’s spokeswoman said, would “jeopardize” the economic gains from the recent Republican tax cuts.

Mr. Trump appeared little moved by the pushback. One of his all-important barometers — the stock market — rebounded on Monday after falling sharply immediately after the announcement of the tariffs last week as the Republican dissent fueled optimism that Mr. Trump would ultimately reverse course. Opponents of tariffs, including many economists, warn they could damage economic growth by igniting a ruinous trade war, a prospect that Mr. Trump has alternately welcomed or dismissed as unlikely.

But a person close to the White House said that the president was itching to impose tariffs, and that Monday’s stock market rebound had reassured Mr. Trump that he was in the right.

“We’re not backing down,” the president said at the White House on Monday, as he reeled off a familiar litany about trade deals that he said had driven out factories and deprived American workers of jobs.

But Mr. Trump did open the door to a compromise, at least with Canada and Mexico, which are in negotiations with the United States to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement. If the two countries agree to a “new & fair” Nafta, they could be exempt from the tariffs, Mr. Trump said in a tweet on Monday morning.

The debate over tariffs has become a litmus test for Mr. Trump, putting his longstanding suspicion of free trade up against the equally fervent support for it among Republicans and members of his own administration.

Inside the White House, the debate has pitted hard-liners like Peter Navarro, the president’s trade adviser, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross against more pro-trade voices, like Mr. Trump’s chief economic adviser, Gary D. Cohn, who argue that the measure could disrupt international alliances and global supply chains.

Republican lawmakers have criticized tariffs as undercutting the $1.5 trillion tax cut that they worked in lock step to pass last year, saying tariffs are essentially a tax increase that would slow economic growth. On Monday, they floated the idea of congressional action to try to block tariffs, should the president impose them.

Representative Kevin Brady, Republican of Texas and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, circulated a letter Monday expressing concern over the tariffs. Senator Dan Sullivan, Republican of Alaska, said he spent the weekend speaking with members of Congress and “senior administration officials” about his opposition to the president’s plan.

“As you know the administration is split itself,” Mr. Sullivan said from the annual CERAWeek energy conference in Houston, noting that details of the tariffs remain sparse.

Mr. Trump has heard all sides’ arguments, but his view has remained steadfast, one White House official said.

Still, the official said, the president is mindful enough of the arguments against potentially tanking the stock market that he has been somewhat open to a move to narrow the scope and effects of the tariffs while avoiding the perception that he was relenting. That would echo the approach the administration took to winding down the president’s promises on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which has protected young immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children.

The unsettled nature of a final policy was magnified by a conversation on Sunday between Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain.

Ms. May, a person briefed on the call said, warned Mr. Trump how dangerous the tariffs would be. Mr. Trump disagreed, but concluded the conversation by telling Ms. May that he had not made a final decision on what to do.

The president originally announced that he wanted to put new tariffs into effect this week, but a legal review has not been concluded. On Sunday, Mr. Navarro said the tariff announcement could come this week or the following week at the latest. He also reaffirmed that companies might be able to seek exemptions for certain foreign products they need for their business, a process likely to lead to months of furious lobbying.

A coalition of 25 industry associations representing farmers and companies that use steel and aluminum has started lobbying the administration and lawmakers, arguing that the tariffs are far broader than necessary and would create higher prices on American companies that buy and use metals.

The president and his advisers have repeatedly maintained that any tariffs will be imposed on imports from all countries without exception. The Commerce Department has concluded that imports of steel and aluminum pose a threat to national security, a determination that gives the president broad authority under United States law to impose tariffs.

But that legal standing will undoubtedly be challenged by other countries and companies, both in court and at the World Trade Organization, which requires that members treat all other members equally on trade. Creating exceptions for countries like Canada and Mexico for non-national security reasons like Nafta could invite challenges at the World Trade Organization, said Jennifer Hillman, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center.

“Unequivocally, I think there will be cases filed at the W.T.O., and there is plenty of ground to challenge this,” Ms. Hillman said.

On Monday, Robert Lighthizer, the United States trade representative, said Mr. Trump decided to link a tariff exemption to a revised Nafta deal “a couple of days ago” as Mr. Lighthizer prepared to travel to Mexico City to meet with his Mexican and Canadian counterparts.

“It makes sense, since this is a major irritant, to have it be considered,” Mr. Lighthizer said in Mexico City after meeting with Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo of Mexico and Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland of Canada. He said the situation could be modified for Mexico and Canada given a successful Nafta renegotiation, as well as “perhaps other countries in other contexts where we have those kinds of problems.”

Even if Canada and Mexico were exempted from the tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum, officials said the United States would impose a quota on those countries’ exports to prevent them from being used as a conduit for metals shipments from other nations.

Neither Canada nor Mexico appeared mollified by the prospect of a tariff exemption in exchange for bending to United States demands on Nafta. Ms. Freeland reiterated comments that any action that ensnared Canada would be “completely unacceptable.”

“México shouldn’t be included in steel & aluminum tariffs,” Mr. Guajardo said in a tweet. “It’s the wrong way to incentivize the creation of a new & modern #NAFTA.”

Michael Camuñez, a former Commerce Department official who advises international firms doing business in Mexico, called the proposed tariffs and the tweet a “terrible development” for the Nafta negotiations “because all parties have indicated that they will not negotiate with a gun against their head.”

The talks in Mexico City produced no meaningful progress, and ultimately would be decided by one man — Mr. Trump, Mr. Camuñez said. Negotiators have continued to clash over provisions in the pact, including rules for auto manufacturing, and the United States has continued to insist on changes that its trading partners say are nonstarters.

Mr. Camuñez said Mexico and Canada would retaliate “with good reason” if the steel and aluminum tariffs were imposed, an outcome that could lead to a breakdown in negotiations. “That would escalate tensions and that could lead the president to conclude that these negotiations aren’t going anywhere and blame the Mexicans and the Canadians,” Mr. Camuñez said.

Mr. Trump has threatened additional retaliation if other nations erect their own trade barriers, saying in a tweet over the weekend that the United States would make it harder for the European Union to sell cars in the country if it imposes tariffs on American imports.

Source: US Government Class