Mississippi has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancies in the U.S., according to a Guttmacher Institute (PDF) report on national and state trends of pregnancies, births and abortions, released in January 2010. According to the report, in 2005, Mississippi ranked fifth among states, with a rate of 85 pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19. The state was behind New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and Texas.

Up to this point, no Mississippi schools have been required to teach any type of sex ed, according to the AP. Schools that elected to provide information on sex could only offer abstinence-only education.

The education bill, authored by Rep. Alyce G. Clarke (D-69th District), would amend the Mississippi Constitution to require each local school board to adopt a sex-related education policy, giving them the option to teach abstinence-only education or “abstinence-plus” education.

Districts who choose the latter form of sex ed would provide education that emphasizes abstinence until marriage but also includes health information on contraceptives. Districts with abstinence-plus education policies would be required to teach about the risk and failure rates of contraceptives, according to changes the Senate made to the bill.

It’s not entirely unheard of. Members of the press corps who have been around for awhile are noting that this practice was common under Jeb Bush, though it was reduced considerably under Charlie Crist, whose staff would sometimes go out of their way to process requests quickly at no charge. #

The release notes that “recently, processing a tremendous increase in public records requests has taken a great toll on existing information technology and other labor resources.” #

Here’s the full text: #

Governor Rick Scott is committed to providing Floridians with access to information with which they can hold government accountable.  To provide full and expeditious compliance with Florida’s open government and public records laws, Governor Scott issued Executive Order 11-03, re-establishing the Office of Open Government. #

Recently, processing a tremendous increase in public records requests has taken a great toll on existing information technology and other labor resources.  The nature and volume of requests and a need for legal review of certain documents and files, combined with duplicating and other material costs, significantly increase the cost to the taxpayer. #

Under these circumstances and in recognition of our need for fiscal restraint, taxpayers can no longer absorb all of these costs. #

Therefore, in accordance with section 119.07, Florida Statutes, the Executive Office of the Governor has adopted a cost recovery policy, effective immediately.  This policy will enable the office to properly respond to all requests while remaining accountable to taxpayers. #

Cost Recovery Charges #

#

Estimates: #

Upon receiving requests for public records, the Office of Open Government will provide an itemized estimate to the person initiating the request. The estimate will include the hours required, the estimated service charge for extensive labor, and actual duplicating or other material costs. #

If upon receiving an initial estimate of charges a request is changed or otherwise limited in scope (limiting individuals or agency divisions, for example), the person initiating the request will be provided with a new estimate of charges. #

Fee Guidelines – Special Service Charge: #

The Executive Office of the Governor is committed to being as accessible as possible while remaining accountable to taxpayers. Therefore, the following cost recovery policy has been established: #

#

• A special service charge will be imposed if the nature or volume of public records requested to be inspected or copied is such as to require extensive use of information technology resources or extensive clerical or supervisory assistance by personnel of the agency involved, or both.
• Clerical or supervisory assistance includes searching for and or locating the requested record, reviewing for statutorily exempt information, deletion of statutorily exempt information, and preparing, copying, and re-filing of the requested record.
• Such charge is in addition to the actual cost of duplication.

o   A special service charge will be warranted if the nature or volume of the public records requested to be inspected or copied requires more than 30 minutes of agency resources. #

o   If multiple agency divisions are involved, the special service charge will be based on the aggregate amount of time expended by all personnel and information technology resources, if applicable. #

o   The charge for clerical or supervisory resources will be no greater than the hourly rate, including benefits, of the lowest paid personnel capable of providing such services. #

o   In those cases where legal review is necessary, the charge will be at the lowest attorney rate (salary and benefits) in the Office of General Counsel. #

o   The Office of Open Government will not pass along its costs for processing and facilitating requests. #

• When documents can be sent by email, we will do so in the interest of efficiency and to minimize costs.  In these cases we will only charge a service charge for extensive time.  However, when a large volume of documents is requested and must therefore be placed on a CD or DVD, the costs of those materials will be recovered.
• If the record is in electronic form, then we will copy onto CD or DVD, as needed.  You will be charged for the actual costs of the disk, not for the time to copy the documents onto the media.
• If the cost for providing paper or electronic copies of records is less than $5.00, including postage and special service charges, the records will be provided at no charge as long as it is not cost-effective to collect such fees.

Collecting Recovered Costs: #

• If fees are imposed for copies and/or the special service imposed, the requestor will be advised of estimated costs.
• Payment will be collected before documents are copied, reviewed, redacted, or otherwise processed for release if their production meets the threshold for extensive time or material costs.
• If the actual costs incurred are less than such payment as estimated, the overpayment will be refunded to the requestor. The requestor will be required to remit additional monies upon release of the documents to pay for any costs in excess of the estimate.
• In the event the requestor fails to remit additional monies to cover costs in excess of the deposit, the requested public records will not be released.

Material Costs: #

One-sided Copy:	$ 0.15 per page of not more than 8½ x 14 inches
Double-sided copy:	$ 0.20 per page of not more than 8½ x 14 inches
All other copies	Actual cost of duplication (material and supplies, not labor)
CD-ROM:	$0.85 each
DVD:	$1.15 each
Certified Copies:	$1.00 per page
Packaging and shipping charges:	Estimated costs may be changed to reflect actual cost incurred.

Reducing Costs and Limiting Charges: #

• Labor costs can be reduced significantly if requests include keywords as opposed to “all documents or emails.”  Similarly, narrowing a request to certain individuals or divisions can greatly reduce the use of extensive labor.
• Many easily accessible records are available online for no charge.  We will continue to add documents and information as we identify some of the most frequently requested public records.
• We will help direct you to free, online sources whenever possible.
• Consider refining your requests for documents to provide better results and reduce unnecessary or duplicative costs.

#

The initiative is a move to ask Americans to help local law enforcement by keeping their eyes peeled for “suspicious activity,” DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and NBA Commissioner David Stern told press at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. The emphasis toward civilian “suspicious activity reporting” has surged in recent years, but advertising campaigns and high-profile partnerships have really begun to take off.

In December, DHS joined forces with Wal-Mart, launching the ‘If You See Something, Say Something’ campaign initially in 230 Wal-Mart stores, with a target of 588 sites in 27 states. A short video plays at select checkout stations, telling shoppers to call local police if they see something suspicious. (The term “suspicious,” by the way, is rarely elaborated on or defined by DHS in campaign messages.)

Moving on to sports, DHS partnered with the NFL with its campaign at the Super Bowl in Dallas early this month. And now the NBA.

“We hope that this partnership will emphasize basically that security is a shared responsibility,” said NBA Commissioner David Stern at yesterday’s press event. “We think that sports is a terrific way to send messages, and to get people who go to events to focus on this very important message.”

Or maybe Napolitano is just a big sports fan.

“Our partnership with the NBA to bring the ‘If You See Something, Say Something’ campaign to professional basketball events throughout the nation is a vital part of our efforts to ensure the safety of players, employees and fans,” she told the press.

Inquiries have begun over how effective these campaigns are at protecting the country from terrorism. With sports fans and budget-conscious shoppers reporting “suspicious” activities every 10 minutes, does that help the security agencies or overwhelm the system?

David Rittgers, a legal policy analyst for the Cato Institute, said he thinks the national security agencies are overwhelmed with information.

“While there is value in getting a person on the street to be aware and report suspicious activities, you can also create too many false positives,” Rittgers said.

Rittgers said the Federal Bureau of Investigations receives about 700 messages a day, and the National Counterterrorism Center receives about 10,000 pieces of information daily. Clogging the system with even more reports of indiscriminate “suspicious activities” won’t necessarily bring these agencies closer to the information they need to prevent terrorist plots.

“People talk about connecting dots,” he said. “But it’s knowing which dots to connect that has value. …. The commitment to simply collect all the dots might not be as useful as a lot of people would propose.”

For example: “It’s not illegal to purchase a ski mask, it’s not illegal to purchase a gun, it’s not illegal to sit outside a bank. But it’s when you put those all together.”

The measure of success is still to be seen, but meanwhile the money is flowing.

“If You See Something, Say Something” are now being posted all over the country, according the DHS: on 9,000 federal buildings nationwide, at the Mall Of America, the American Hotel & Lodging Association, Amtrak, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and the general aviation industry.

DHS allocated $2.9 million for the campaign in 2009, but an official told CNSNews.com that the agency has only spent $500,000 on the campaign to date, saying it is focusing its efforts on partnerships –- outsourcing security, if you will. And while Napolitano told the network the campaign has resulted in the launch of several investigations, she said it’s still difficult to measure whether it will effectively deter would-be terrorists.

An analysis by the National Council on Aging highlights what will hit low-income older Americans the hardest, emphasizing the 45 percent cut to the Senior Community Service Employment Program, a 45-year old program funded by the U.S. Department of Labor to help unemployed people over the age of 55 find part-time jobs for community service organizations. Eligibility is limited to 125 percent of the poverty line (more on that later).

“This jobs program works,” said Sandra Nathan, NSCOA’s senior vice president for economic security at NCOA, in a statement. “SCSEP not only helps mature workers make the transition from unemployment to self-sufficiency, it also helps them develop new skills that the economy needs. There are workers in our jobs program in North Carolina right now who are getting trained to install solar panels – just the kind of ‘green’ jobs that the President mentioned in his State of the Union address.”

The National Council on Aging predicts the cut would translate to 55,000 lost part-time jobs.

A recent report from the policy research group the Urban Institute (PDF) shows that 8.9 percent of Americans over 65 live in poverty — $10,289 for a single individual living alone at or over the age of 65, and $12,968 for a couple with at least one spouse at or over 65. The official federal poverty measure considers only pre-tax cash income, not out-of-pocket medical expenses that many older adults pay. The report found that 13 million out of 38 million Americans over 65 live in families earning less than twice the federal poverty rate.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services explains two different ways the government measures poverty in its 2009 Poverty Guidelines (latest available):

The poverty thresholds are the original version of the federal poverty measure. They are updated each year by the Census Bureau. The thresholds are used mainly for statistical purposes — for instance, preparing estimates of the number of Americans in poverty each year. (In other words, all official poverty population figures are calculated using the poverty thresholds, not the guidelines.)

The poverty guidelines … are issued each year in the Federal Register by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The guidelines are a simplification of the poverty thresholds for use for administrative purposes — for instance, determining financial eligibility for certain federal programs. … The poverty guidelines are sometimes loosely referred to as the “federal poverty level” (FPL), but that phrase is ambiguous and should be avoided, especially in situations (e.g., legislative or administrative) where precision is important.

So there you have it: The Census figures that estimate how many Americans are living in poverty are used for statistics, while the simplified figures are used to determine things like financial eligibility.

In 2009, the federal government developed a supplemental poverty measure, which factors in non-cash income from food, housing and energy-support programs and subtracts income and payroll taxes, child care and work-related expenses, child support payments to other households and out-of-pocket medical expenses. This was the measure the Census Bureau used in its 2009 estimates to come up with a 16.1 percent poverty figure (compared to the federal 9 percent) pertaining to Americans over age 65. The Urban Institute indicates in its report that medical spending was a major contributor to the higher poverty rate for people over 65.

The AARP, the loudest defender of senior rights, has been speaking out about the impact of some of the president’s budget proposals.

“AARP is deeply troubled … by the disproportionately large cuts in the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which would mean that millions of Americans, particularly older Americans, would have a hard time paying their heating and cooling bills next year,” said AARP Executive Vice President Nancy A. LeaMond in a statement. “With heating costs rising for many this past winter, cutting $2.5 billion from this program is unfair and potentially dangerous, and would mean that millions of households wouldn’t get the help they need to keep their homes warm in the winter months.”

The bill is considered the Democrats’ last chance to enact any form of stimulus before the November mid-term elections, once the state aid bill becomes law next week. It creates a $30 billion lending fund to encourage small community banks to grant cheap loans to small businesses. It also includes a number of other provisions aimed at helping small businesses thrive and hire: $12 billion in targeted tax cuts and an increase in Small Business Administration loan limits, for instance.

“It is so important to pass this jobs bill for America’s small businesses. That’s where most of our jobs are created. And small businesses have been especially hard-hit by the economy,” Obama said at Gelberg Signs. “And yet, a minority in the Senate is standing in the way of giving our small businesspeople an up or down vote on this bill.  And that’s a shame.  These kinds of delays mean contracts are being put off, debts are adding up, workers are going without a job –- and we can’t afford it.  We need to do what’s right, not what’s political, and we need to do it right now.”

But today, the Senate left without voting on the provision — though Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has paved the way for the Senate to take it up as soon as it returns from the August recess on Sept. 14. Yesterday, he filed for cloture, meaning the Senate will vote on whether to end debate the day it returns. Over the recess, Senate Democrats hope to convince Sens. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) and George LeMieux (R-Fla.) to vote for cloture, which requires 60 yeas in the Senate.

Republicans have not supported the bill because they have argued that Reid has not given ample enough time for them to offer amendments. Reid prevented Republicans from offering amendments because they kept offering controversial and non-germane provisions, such as a permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts. The bill has been held up for four weeks.

To win over Voinovich, LeMieux and possibly others, Senate Democrats have assured Republicans a vote on an amendment by Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.). The amendment, pressed for by small business organizations and supported by some Democrats, takes on the 1099 information reporting requirement expanded by the health care reform bill, signed into law this spring.

The expanded reporting requirement, due to take effect in 2012, requires businesses to document any purchase of more than $600 in goods or services to the IRS — meaning a lot more paperwork. The Johanns amendment strips that requirement for purchases under $5,000. It pays for the estimated $10 billion in lost tax revenue in part by eliminating the $15 billion Prevention Trust Fund, which pays for cancer screenings, smoking secession and other programs.

Democrats refuse to kill the Prevention Trust Fund. So, they have offered a substitute amendment — keeping most of Johanns’ changes to the 1099 reporting requirement, but paying for it by repealing taxes on the five biggest oil companies. An explanation from Senate Finance:

[The Democrats' plan] would repeal Section 199 of the tax code, which currently allows these corporations to deduct six percent of their income from oil and gas production from their tax liability, effective December 31, 2010.  This repeal would only apply to the five largest corporations with more than $1 billion of before-tax income.

The five major integrated oil companies, which include BP, had a combined profit of $25 billion in the first quarter of 2010.  And, in the five years since enactment of the Section 199 deduction, these major integrated oil companies have posted $521 billion in profits.  The profitability of these companies has been so robust that in the first quarter of 2009, when the U.S. GDP shrank by 6.4 percent and corporate profits decreased by 5.25 percent, these companies still earned more than $13 billion in profits.  Furthermore, it is not clear the goal of this deduction, which is to improve America’s energy security by promoting domestic production, has been reached.   When the Section 199 deduction took effect in 2005, domestic oil production averaged about 5.5 million barrels per day.  Now, five years after the deduction took effect, domestic oil production has actually fallen slightly, to 5.48 million barrels per day.

In a statement today, referencing the dismal jobs report, Reid pushed Republican senators to support the bill. “More work lies ahead of us to repair our economy, and we cannot rest until every worker who wants a job can find one,” Reid said. “But Republicans must stop putting special interests before working Americans and work with us to pass bipartisan measures that will energize small businesses and the middle class, the engine of America’s economy. Small businesses are responsible for creating almost two-thirds of the jobs in our country, and I hope that every senator will return to Washington in September ready to pass critical support to boost our nation’s small businesses.”

A peaceful demonstration of at least a million — hey, if we can get 10 million, even better — but at least one million armed militia men marching on Washington. A peaceful demonstration. No shooting, no one gets hurt. Just a demonstration. The only difference from any typical demonstration is we will all be armed.

Today, the 27-year-old Sickles is one of nine militia members charged with conspiracy to overthrow the government. Also, I can’t help but notice that the commentary about this on fairly mainstream conservative sites is more skeptical of the FBI than of Sickles and the militias. Neither the left nor the right takes this stuff as seriously as law enforcement does.

Arizonans with concealed weapons permits will be able to take a handgun into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.

That’s under a bill signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer on Monday.

It would require bar and restaurant owners who want to ban weapons to post a sign next to their liquor license. Drinking while carrying a weapon would be illegal.

The last point is a nice gesture, but it’s not unthinkable that such a law will greatly increase the likelihood that people will, in fact, drink alcohol while carrying a loaded firearm in a bar.

Opponents have said mixing guns and alcohol could cause violence, but supporters said people should be able to protect themselves at businesses that serve alcohol.

It’s a self-evidently bad idea for several reasons, not the least of which is the possibility that bartenders might be a bit more reluctant to cut off customers who have had too much if they think their patrons might be packing. It might be a good idea to keep an eye on the number of DUI-related traffic fatalities in the coming months.

It’s probably worth pointing out that as governor, Napolitano served as a check on the unique brand of wingnuttery found in the Republican-dominated Arizona state legislature, and she used her veto pen generously — including on a very similar guns-in-bars bill in 2005.

Now, with Brewer — a conservative Republican — in charge, Arizona has no voice of sanity at the top-levels of state government.

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Now, the Obama campaign is circulating a photograph of Palin literally bragging about her support for the bridge, with a note titled “I supported the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt.”

Here’s the picture worth a thousand fact-checks:

It’s from Palin’s 2006 campaign, explains an Obama aide, where “she’s proudly posing with a T-shirt that reads, ‘NOWHERE ALASKA 99901.’”

Now, from a distance, the entire fight over the bridge earmark could look silly, compared to bigger problems facing the country.

Obama is arguing, however, that the McCain campaign’s blatant lies, about issues small and large, reveal the GOP nominee’s approach to governance.

It is indeed striking that McCain picked this fight, touting his running mate’s “reform” record not through spin, or selective biography, but by flatly lying about her recent actions.