It's only a huge lever because they allow it to be a huge lever. Taking federal funds in any program always comes with minimum standards. If you don't meet the standards in most federal funding the usual remedy is refunding the federal dollars you took. Just ask anyone who got funding from SSI or FEMA when they didn't meet the standard for those funds to find out just how vicious the feds can be in this area.

So, to sum it up don't take the money if you don't want to live up to the grant agreement.

The schools have the children for more hours a day than the parents do in most cases and some of that time has to go toward athletic activities, eating, bathing, and other activities. 7 hours in school 4 or 5 hours before bed. The schools are the ones who should be held directly accountable.

You need to readjust your math there bud...

School is in session from 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM 5 days a week with 180 education days a year in my state. That is 1080 hours they are in school. Compare that to the time they are home...

365 days a year = 8760 hours - 1080 hours spent in school = 7680 hours (320 full days) at home. Granted, some of that time is spent doing the activities you describe but the majority of the time is spent pursuing leisure activity (holidays, vacations, etc...)

I tried to unionize our shop (all I needed was 50%), and while the other coders agreed that it was a good idea in principle, less than half would sign up when the crunch came, even though the law prohibits firing for unionizing.

It isn't a fear of firing but the realization that unions are simply trading one management bureaucracy with another.And although they can't legally fire you for joining a union they certainly can eliminate your position and off-shore it with the net effect being the same.

While this general welfare clause has been expanded over the years, it still fails on several levels. The courts have only allowed the general welfare clause to be used with the taxing and spending powers of congress. No court and no competent constitutional authority has ever said it extends congress's powers to create departments that can make law independent of congress or constitutional processes nor have they used the clause to establish fines and/or imprisonment terms to anyone. There is simply no constitutional basis for it.

It is your reading comprehension that needs adjusting. The departments don't create the law. They enforce it. That is what I said. It was Congress that created the department as the Constitution allows.

Can congress create a department of the second amendment, staff it with a bunch of people who create regulation saying you have to own at least 3 guns per person in the household, molest your children at least once in their life time, spin in circles twice before taking a piss all without congressional action? Can the EPA make any of these regulations? The answer is no to all because there is no constitutional authority for it. The only difference is how silly the regulations might be but the general welfare claim can be made just the same.

Again, it isn't the EPA creating the regulations. It is Congress. The EPA is merely enforcing the regulations that Congress created. If you want to know the specific act it is NEPA. I leave it as an exercise for you to look it up.

The rest of your post is totally nonsense repeating the same line you refused to understand... Namely that Congress created the EPA and Congress has the power to destroy it. But know the consequences when you do. Things like the Gulf spill will go unaddressed. The Freedom Enterprises MCHM spill would have no legal recourse. The impoundment failure in Tennessee would be common place. Not to mention Love Canal...

I am not going to argue whether or not "secret science" should be used by the EPA. I will point out the hypocrisy in there is no difference between the EPA using "secret science" and the FDA using "secret science" when approving drugs. If you are going to ban it in one regulatory agency then you should ban it in all regulatory agencies.

There certainly is no constitutional basis for the EPA to exist anyways.

Why do people keep saying shit like this?

Section 8 - Powers of Congress
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States ; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

It's the Congress that created the EPA. It's the Congress that funds them. It's the Executive that controls them in accordance with the laws passed by... Wait for it... CONGRESS. All that based on the "General Welfare" clause of the Constitution.

Or maybe you are suggesting that control of commons should be relinquished to the corporations?

Yes it is when the choice is all or none. They have the end providers over a barrel in that regard. Just look what happened here in WV when Suddenlink got in a spat over the contract with Viacom. All the Viacom channels were removed hurting the business of that provider.

A contract by coercion is by definition a bad one.

PR or not, that is the reason they give which is why I say "Every statement they made says that". The point I was making was it isn't the EU stopping American drug companies from distributing them as the GP proclaimed.

The problem States are having is that companies refuse to sell the drugs to the States because of sanctions imposed on them by the EU.

Oh come on now. That isn't even bullshit. It is horse shit.

The drug companies that produce the drugs used for execution realized that their drugs, which were originally designed to save lives, was being used to take lives. Every statement made by those companies state that. In other words, they made a moral judgement that they didn't want to be seen as providing death on one hand and life on the other. Sure, the EU pharmacies were the first to refuse but your statement doesn't take into account the American companies refusals.

The problem is people DO believe a polygraph is "accurate" or it wouldn't be used to "weed out" suspects like it is. I watch Investigation Discovery all the time and I find it disturbing that a test that is invalid in a court is still use by police for this purpose. Things get worse if you refuse to take the test or, God forbid, request an attorney be present during questioning. Guilt is then further reinforced with a suspect that invokes those rights.

Who said anything about salinity change as the only thing doing the damage? The whole process ignores microscopic organisms from the intake to the filters to the osmosis process.

You might be able to push it up a little locally if you dump the salt in a harbor or something... soooo... don't do that. duh.

And that is exactly what they will do because it is the cheapest option that the lowest bid waste contractor has. It wouldn't be the first time humans created a toxic waste dump...

I can see another aspect besides the waste in electricity... The microscopic life in the ocean that is the foundation of the food chain that will eventually lead to us is not considered in the environmental assessments. They are only worried about the higher multi-cellular life. The ocean is one of the most diverse places on Earth. I can see us fucking up that diversity much like we fucked up everything else we touched in nature.

Five hundred IT workers at SCE were cut, and many had to train their replacements.

It is at this point that I would tell them to piss up a rope and suck on the dry end until it was wet...

It just adds insult to injury to expect a person you tell you are firing that they have to train their replacement. If forced by contract I would do the bare minimum required by the contract. Nothing compels me to divulge everything. They are, after all, supposed to be qualified for the job right?

Fines don't work at all. It is built into the price as a "cost of doing business".

Hit the corporation where it really does hurt. Suspend their corporate charter. That removes the legal protections the corporation has allowing the shareholders as well as the executives to be held liable for illegal misdoings. You will quickly see a change in their behavior once the shareholders can be sued for enabling the bad conduct...

Cheating on tests is not criminal.

It is when money is tied to it like it was in this case. You are acting as if it was the students that were cheating. It was the teachers changing wrong answers on the tests after the students were done. They did it for the money plain and simple since they got bonuses based on those test results.