New evidence shows that the Boeing Co. 737 MAX which crashed in Ethiopia on Sunday may have experienced similar technical difficulties as the 737 MAX that crashed off Indonesia last year. The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) cited similarities with in-flight data of both planes when it spoke to global regulators about grounding the jet. With the company facing a pr disaster and loss of confidence with global airline carriers, there could be more than $600 billion in orders at risk of cancellation, reported Bloomberg.
VietJet Aviation JSC doubled its 737 MAX order last month to $25 billion, now the Vietnamese low-cost airliner is having second thoughts. Kenya Airways Plc is reviewing its contracts to purchase billions of dollars of the MAX and could even switch to Airbus SE’s rival A320. Russia’s Utair Aviation PJSC is expected to take delivery of 30 MAXs but wants to seek guarantees the planes are not defective.
Indonesia’s Lion Air has informed Boeing that they plan to cut a $22 billion order and will instead buy Airbus jets. Garuda Indonesia, the national airline of Indonesia, will reduce most MAX orders.
Flyadeal, a unit of Saudi Arabian Airlines, said in December, it would purchase 50 MAX jets, but the company is now waiting on results of the investigation before taking the order.
“We’re closely monitoring the situation and are in constant contact with Boeing,” the company said in an email. “There are no conclusions to be drawn at this time.”
Bloomberg said the MAX version of the 737 MAX has more than 5,000 orders outstanding, worth more than $600 billion. To put that number in perspective, it is more than the GDP of Switzerland.
From Christmas to early March, Boeing’s stock advanced 53% in 44 trading sessions due to billions of dollars in stock buybacks. News of the second crash collapsed the stock, tumbling more than 18% and is now on the cusp of a bear market. The stock ended up slightly higher Wednseday after the FAA grounded all MAX planes over the US.
The deadly crash in Ethiopia comes five months after the Oct. 29 crash of another MAX plane, operated by Indonesia’s Lion Air. Boeing pointed to maintenance issues and human error at Lion, even though the plane’s pilots had reported computer issues before the crash.
Boeing is in a crisis as most of the world have grounded the MAX planes. The FAA Wednseday grounded the aircraft, citing evidence showing the Ethiopian Airlines flight may have experienced the same problem as the plane that went down five months ago off Indonesia.
“With extensive grounding of the 737 Max, near term news could get worse for Boeing before it improves,” Cai von Rumohr, an analyst with Cowen & Co., said in a note.
With $600 billion in orders at risk, the loss of two MAX airplanes has severely damaged Boeing’s credibility. It has even caused jitters at the White House, as two people familiar with the Trump admin told the Washington Post that President Trump did not want to ground the planes because it would damage the stock market.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XUafJj Tyler Durden
1. Since 1916, the Dow has made new all-time highs less than 5% of all days, but over that time it’s up 25,568%. 95% of the time you’re underwater. The less you look the better off you’ll be.
2. The Dow has compounded at less than 3 basis points a day since 1970. Since then its up more than 3,000%. Compounding really is magic.
3. The Dow has only been positive 52% of all days. The average daily return is 0.73% when it’s up and -0.76% when it’s down. See above.
4. The Dow has spent more time 40% or more below the highs than within 2% of the highs (20.6% of days vs. 18.4% of days) No pain no gain.
5. The Dow gained 38 points in the 1970s See above.
6. Why am I using the Dow instead of the S&P 500? They’re effectively the same thing. The rolling one-year correlation since 1970 is .95. Stop wasting your time on this.
7. At the low in 2009, U.S. stocks were back to where they were in 1996. Stocks for the long-run. The very long-run. Usually. Sometimes.
8. At the low in 2009, Japanese stocks were back to where they were in 1980. See above.
9. U.S. one-month treasury bills went 68 years with a negative real return. What’s safe in the short-run can be risky in the long-run.
10. At the bottom in 2009, long-term U.S. government bonds outperformed the stock market over the previous 40 years Stocks generally outperform bonds, but there are no guarantees.
11. Gold and the Dow were both 800 in 1980. Today Gold is $1,300/ounce, the Dow is near 26k. Cash flows > commodities.
12. Over the last twenty years, Gold is up 340%. Stocks are up 208%, with dividends. You can support any argument by changing the start and end dates.
13. Since 1980, Gold is up 153%. Inflation is up 230%. See above.
14. CTAs gained 14% in 2008 when stocks lost 37%. Since 2009 they’re up 2.5%. Stocks are up 282%. Non-correlation cuts both ways.
15. If you had invested from 1960-1980 and beaten the market by 5% each year, you would have made less money than if you had invested from 1980-2000 and underperformed the market by 5% a year (A Nicky Numbers Special) When you were born > almost everything else.
16. The Dow lost 17% in 1929, 34% in 1930, 53% in 1931 and 23% in 1932. Be grateful.
17. Warren Buffett is the greatest investor of all-time. In the 20 months leading up to the dotcom peak, Berkshire Hathaway lost 45% of its value. The NASDAQ 100 gained 225% over the same time. No pain no premium.
18. 96% of U.S. stocks generated a life-time return that match one-month treasury bills. The reason why so many mutual funds fail to beat the market is because so many stocks fail to beat the market.
20. In 1949 the stock market was trading at 6.8x earnings and had a 7.5% dividend yield. 50 years later it reached a high of 30x earnings and carried just a 1% dividend yield. You can calculate everything yet still not know how investors are going to feel
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2O4G11Q Tyler Durden
The Senate yesterday approved a resolution to end U.S. support for bombings and other acts of war in Yemen. With a 54–46 vote, lawmakers said the U.S. must block further military support for Saudi Arabia’s and the United Arab Emirates’ bombings and other acts of aggression in Yemen.
Congress never authorized the U.S. to enter this conflict. Yet as Mike Lee (R–Utah) said, “We have been supporting and in some case actively participating in this war.” He was one of seven Republicans in the Senate who voted for the resolution, which invokes the War Powers Act. (The others were Susan Collins of Maine, Steve Daines of Montana, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Todd Young of Indiana.)
“Since March 2015, members of the United States Armed Forces have been introduced into hostilities between the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis, including providing to the Saudi-led coalition aerial targeting assistance, intelligence sharing, and mid-flight aerial refueling,” the resolution states.
Yet “no specific statutory authorization for the use of United States Armed Forces with respect to the conflict between the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis in Yemen has been enacted, and no provision of law explicitly authorizes the provision of targeting assistance or of midair refueling services to warplanes of Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates that are engaged in such conflict.”
“Nothing in this joint resolution shall be construed to influence or disrupt any military operations and cooperation with Israel,” another section explicitly stipulates.
“Debate on the resolution, as in the past, centered on arguments that the US involvement isn’t technically a war in and of itself, and that ending the war would be bad for Israel,” writes Jason Ditz at Antiwar.com:
The resolution came with an amendment by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), which seeks to ensure that no language in the bill inadvertently authorizes any other wars. An alternative amendment by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), aiming to keep the US involved in the name of saving American civilians from conceivable missile fire, narrowly failed.
This is the second time in a month that Congress has voted on a War Powers Act challenge to the Yemen War, with the House having had such a vote in mid-February. The House will still have to reconcile itself to another vote, however, because Senate leadership prevented debate on the House version and forced war opponents to start with a fresh challenge.
The White House has said President Donald Trump will veto the bill. As of now, it has far from the two-thirds majorities it would require in both houses to overcome the veto.
Newly released records suggest Polk State *contacted law enforcement* to review the work and decide if it was obscene. (Spoiler alert: They claimed it was!)https://t.co/mflsF6sOOZpic.twitter.com/F5i0GFLmDU
Dick’s Sporting Goods is pulling guns from 125 more stores. “Late last year, the sporting goods retailer stopped selling guns, ammunition and hunting gear at 10 of its 700-plus stores,” reportsMarketplace. “Now, it’s going to do the same at 125 more stores.” That’s not necessarily a political move. “Dick’s hopes replacing that merchandise with experiential things, like baseball batting cages, will combat sluggish store sales,” Marketplace says.
QUICK HITS
Just how many journalists are jailed in China? CPJ’s correspondent explains all the reasons why we have no idea. https://t.co/5OaJX8smZB via @pressfreedom
• Here’s just one quote to entice you into an all-around fascinating interview with documentary filmmaker and Richard Pryor’s ex-wife Jennifer Lee Pryor:
It was the ’70s! Drugs were still good, especially Quaaludes. If you did enough cocaine, you’d fuck a radiator and send it flowers in the morning.
• “Until now, the excessive-fines clause in the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment had languished in obscurity, the Rodney Dangerfield of constitutional rights,” Institute for Justice lawyers write in TheAtlantic. But a recent Supreme Court decision related to civil asset forfeiture “has gone some distance to restoring its prominence.” Here’s where they suggest we go next.
• In other good news on asset forfeiture reform:
And the Arkansas House just unanimously approved (93-0) civil asset forfeiture legislation with a conviction requirement—two unanimous votes! The bill now beads to the Governor for his signature. So huge! https://t.co/FATeVrc57e
President Trump fired off a fresh warning that he is ready to veto a measure in the Republican-led senate to rebuke him over his national emergency declaration at the southern US border.
“A big National Emergency vote today by The United States Senate on Border Security & the Wall (which is already under major construction),” Trump tweeted early Thursday. “I am prepared to veto, if necessary. The Southern Border is a National Security and Humanitarian Nightmare, but it can be easily fixed!”
A big National Emergency vote today by The United States Senate on Border Security & the Wall (which is already under major construction). I am prepared to veto, if necessary. The Southern Border is a National Security and Humanitarian Nightmare, but it can be easily fixed!
While Trump has framed the border crisis as a matter of national security, Democrats and some Republicans argue that his Feb. 15 national emergency to circumvent Congress over border wall funding is unconstitutional.
Meanwhile, Trump shot down a compromise by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) which would defeat the Democratic resolution to overturn the national emergency in exchange for an agreement that Trump will rein in his power to declare future national emergencies.
On Wednesday, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who was leading an effort to craft a compromise aimed at curtailing presidential emergency powers in the future, became the latest Republican to announce plans to defect and vote for a resolution to nullify Trump’s declaration when it comes to the floor on Thursday.
Lee made the announcement shortly after hearing directly from Trump that his legislation was not acceptable.
Lee’s position all but ensures there will be majority support in the Senate on Thursday for the disapproval resolution, which has already passed the House. Senate passage would send the measure to Trump, forcing him to issue the first veto of his administration to strike it down. –Washington Post
While Congress will not likely be able to override Trump’s veto, a successful vote by the Republican-controlled Senate will serve as an embarrasing reminder that the president doesn’t have the support of his party.
GOP members of Congress, meanwhile, will have to return to their districts and explain why they voted against the wall that Trump was elected to build.
“What we want to see the Senate do this week is stand with the president, to stand with the president’s declaration of a national emergency,” said Vice President Mike Pence in a Thursday interview with Fox News. “A vote against President Trump’s national emergency is a vote against border security. A vote against the president’s national emergency declaration is a vote to deny the humanitarian and security crisis that’s happening at our Southern border.“
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Hu5T62 Tyler Durden
So much stuff going on.. it’s shaping up to be a very interesting weekend.
But, let me start with a diversion…
There is a story of the Great Scottish King – Robert the Bruce. Having been defeated by the English multiple times, his family captured and executed, (or in the case of his daughter, left suspended in an open cage thru the winter), his army was scattered, the clans turned against him, on his own and without any support – he was on the verge of giving up. As he contemplated a bleak future, he watched a spider struggle to construct a web in the dank cave he was hiding in. The beastie failed again and again.. Finally, Bruce reached his decision. If the Spider succeeded, he would carry on.
He went on to become Scotland’s Greatest King.
Try, Try, Try again…? Perhaps Scotland will pull an unlikely win at Twickenham on Saturday? She-who-is-now-Mrs-Blain did warn me not to “bore everyone about Brexit…”, but needs must.
Even though a No-Deal Brexit is ruled out in the short-run, where do we go from here?
Or, perhaps, Theresa May is set to surprise us all. She really doesn’t know when to give up. The scuttlebutt round Westminster is she’s going to take her Brexit agreement back to the House for a third time – and is currently scaring the Rees-Moog loonies with the threat of a long extension leading to NO-Brexit and second referendum, and the Remoaners with the threat of a short-extension leading to No-Deal Brexit. At least 70 Labour MPs want to avoid a second referendum and could, perhaps, vote with her.
Of course, my above simplistic analysis ignores the EU.
“It is a very grand plan, but what about the Germans?” asked a famous Polish General in WW2…
How the EU reacts to the likely request for an extension is going to be fascinating..
Meanwhile, there is a bit of a political stramash brewing in the US after a number of fund managers and “actresses” (heaven forbid) were arrested for fraudulently bribing universities to give their kids places. Some of my more “right of centre” US correspondents are full of righteous indignation that such obvious Democrats – on the basis the whole of Hollywood are goddam-lefty-commies – are dishonestly getting their kids opportunities they don’t merit. Bribery, criminal corruption, hidden influence, the haves and have nots. Oops… I think one of their heads just indignantly exploded.
But this is important stuff. Firstly, isn’t it obvious that any society with an ounce of common sense would make education the core of its development strategy? It’s the single most important factor likely to improve an economy and raise the prospects of its population. Yet, here in the UK, the government has seen fit to chain students to years of debt and penury for pretty average university courses? Its madness. In the States, its gone a step further – another way for the rich to raise themselves higher.
The fact the monied and the wealthy across US society think its somehow acceptable to pay-to-play for the top educational places and they advantages these confer for life, sums up a moral corruption and is yet another symptom of the entitlement and pernicious income inequality now at the core of the “Land of the Free”. As a chum told me yesterday.. “its last stage empire” stuff. Its neither a Democrat or Republican thing – although it doesn’t help when the President is such a clearly negative role model. If its ok for the boss to lie and cheat.. then what I do wrong?
(You could argue nepotism is the ultimate and absolute corruption – the rich ensuring the rich get the best of everything and deny deserving poorer folk places they’ve earned. But, where does guilt begin? What’s so different from those of us who paid over expensive school fees to give our kids the best chance in life? I could just about afford it. Single Parent in Brixton could not. My kids got a better start. Whether the Brixton kid now runs past them is entirely their responsibility now… )
Its stories like this that are stoking the inequality bonfire. If it burns out of control… then markets will have nothing to say as the global reset is pressed!
* * *
Meanwhile… in a Galaxy Far Far Away…
I will be eternally grateful if someone would translate the following into plain English: “new customer needs and market structures will force asset managers to adapt their value propositions and business models in order to remain vibrant and valuable.”
I know what I need from an asset manager: them to understand how much risk I’m willing to take with my meagre savings, make my money work as hard as it possibly can, and turn my pennies into squillions. I pay them fees to be clever.
I’ve taken that impenetrable line from a paper from a well known consultancy: “Industrial Evolution – Securing Profitable Growth in Tomorrow’s Asset Management Industry.” (There is a link to the paper on the Morning Porridgewebsite.)
I eagerly opened it, looking for a serious market driven investigation into how Pension funds will provide the returns we need for extended retirements when interest rates remain, essentially, the square root of nothing, while financial assets remain distorted and inflated by the pernicious and unintended consequences of QE, in a world where political uncertainty and the risk of wildcard populism is rising, and rising social inequality is threatening revolution and a global financial reset. More to the point, I want to know how my pension pot is going to fund my next 20 years of doing absolutely anything I want to do.. (mainly sailing and skiing…)
Instead, I found myself plodding through a sea of consultant double-speak. I scanned the report for interesting themes and came up equally baffled. I will remain ignorant of “Higher-demand investment strategies supported by strong product management and development”, of “Strong pricing policies”, “customised client experiences build with proprietary data” and the “strategic use of technology”. No doubt the BS merchants of the asset management world know exactly what these mean, and can wield them expertly in management meetings. But, I don’t think any of these strategies will make my pension pot bigger.
If new success metrics, well-articulated strategic choices, modernised operating models, cultural evolution and the usual crap about change, agile decision making, and project execution skills, will make my pension pot bigger – Excellent. Otherwise, I’d rather my fees are spent on smart investment decisions made by experts who understand markets and what they are doing, and why. In a market where most fund managers have less than 8 years tenure – and therefore just about understand how to identify when investment bankers are lying (clue – their lips move) – I seek out the smart ones who understand the real world and not what investment banks tell them. (A good example is Shard’s Rubrics AM credit fund – they got a strategy, it works and beats the herd!)
Out of time, back to the salt mines..
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2TKQrce Tyler Durden
Andrew Weissmann, perhaps the ‘angriest‘ Democrat on special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, is leaving the investigation and will return to the private sector, according to NPR, citing two sources.
Considered the “architect” of the case against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort – who was sentenced to a combined 7.5 years in prison for financial crimes related to his private business dealings, Weissmann will now study and teach at New York University. He will also embark on several public service projects, such as how to prevent wrongful convictions by improving forensic science standards.
As NPR notes, “The departure is the strongest sign yet that Mueller and his team have all but concluded their work.“
Weissmann – who wasn’t able to link Manafort to collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, has come under fire from conservatives for his extreme liberalism. He attended Hillary Clinton’s election night party in 2016, and was one of several officials told by then-DOJ #4 Bruce Ohr prior to the DOJ obtaining a FISA surveillance warrant that the ‘Steele Dossier’ was opposition research connected to Clinton and might be biased. Weissmann was the head of the DOJ’s fraud section at the time.
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon also issued a warning about Weissmann and other senior members of the special counsel team when they were named in 2017.
Other departures signaling the end of Mueller’s probe
While Weissmann’s departure is the largest indication to date that the Mueller probe is near its end, several other investigators have already left the special counsel’s office – including the senior-most FBI agent working the case; David Archey. Archey will head up the FBI’s Richmond, VA office.
Another prosecutor, Brandon Van Grack, is now leading a DOJ effort to enforce compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) – a law requiring that people disclose if they are representing foreign powers in the United States. Created in 1938, the law remained virtually unenforced until the DOJ was able to nab Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates, who failed to register as foreign agents while representing the government of Ukraine. Notably, lobbyist Tony Podesta – who worked alongside Manafort, had the uncanny foresight to retroactively file as a foreign agent months before Manafort was charged.
Weissmann’s past successes
One of the reason Andrew Weissmann was considered such a threat to the Trump team is his long history of unraveling complex financial ties and securing cooperative witnesses in order to build criminal cases against higher-ups.
As a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, Weissmann won a conviction against the head of the Gambino crime family, using testimony from Sammy “The Bull” Gravano and others.
He went on to lead the Justice Department task force investigating fraud at Enron Corp., a high-flying energy company whose chief executives, Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, were convicted by a jury in Houston.
Lay died before he could be sentenced. Skilling served 12 years behind bars before his recent release. –NPR
“Throughout his career, Andrew has had unparalleled success in building case after case against the most sophisticated criminals in the world,” said former colleague Leslie Caldwell. “He took on New York’s most feared organized crime families, unraveled the incredibly ornate frauds at Enron, and has tracked international criminals, exposing their carefully concealed financial dealings in many dark corners of the world.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2u85e2e Tyler Durden
After comfortingly disappointing (for the ‘patient’ Fed) CPI and PPI data, import and export prices beat expectations in February (both rising 0.6% MoM) – the largest monthly increase since May.
However, on a year-over-year basis – despite the modest rebound – import and export prices are decidedly non-inflationary…
Import prices YoY are down 1.3% and Export prices YoY are up just 0.3%
However, China continues to push the most disinflationary price pressure since Nov 2007…
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XXZc1S Tyler Durden
The US equity markets – despite slumping earnings expectations, disappointing macro data, US-China trade deal uncertainty, and Brexit chaos – has surged this week (in the face of total denial by the bond market).
Every dip has been bought and every ‘worry’ excused – except bonds ain’t buying it.
So what is going on?
Nomura’s Charlie McElligott, managing director of cross-asset strategy, has the answer. First things first, the catalysts are:
Buybacks (Healthcare, Tech, Industrials and Fins are the top 4 S&P sectors today and are 4 of the top 5 Buyback desk ‘executed’ sectors, with Mutual Fund Overweights / Megacaps +1.4% vs S&P +1.0% and RTY +0.8%, respectively)
Overwriters continue to systematically roll-out into Friday’s Quad Witch OpEx, driving a dealer “delta-grab” and further spurring mkt gains
Finally, VIX term-structure continues to compress and steepen further into contango, with systematic roll-down strats in “high cotton” again shorting volatility (VIX back to Oct 3rd / pre-Powell “a long way” from neutral on interest rates comment the following day)
But the big driver is more simple – its March Quad Witch Week!
The “March Surprise” window-for-stock-pullback scenario has of course anticipated this type of “melt-up” into Friday’s options expiration, as that’s the seasonality of“up into OpEx, down out of OpEx.”
There is ‘extreme’ gamma and delta – sum of QQQ (Nasdaq) $Gamma within 1% of spot currently 98th %ile, while the sum of QQQ $Delta across strikes is 96th %ile), especially as the forced dealer delta grab via overwriter roll-outs CEASE and aligns with the buyback blackout commencement…
…On top of our systematic trend “sell trigger” levels being mechanically “pulled-higher” looking-out the next ~9-16 days which means only a modest move lower could risk of a repeat of last week’s “flip sellers” behavior from CTAs
In the interest of being ‘fair and balanced’ however, McElligott lays out the current consensus “Goldilocks narrative”
In Rates, the US yield curve is again attempting to steepen post the slightly tailing 30Y auction earlier…but still struggling to break meaningfully higher without either 1) a ‘bad data’ acceleration which would see the mkt “pull-forward” / grow Fed easing expectations (bull-steepener)…or from the opposite side of the spectrum, 2) a further ‘reflationary’ impulse (bear-steepener), whether driven from an actual inflation data upside surprise, an escalation of Chinese easing / stimulus or a “hard shift” in the Fed inflation framework
This then again speaks to the current ‘goldilocks’ stasis (today’s CapEx (+) US Durable Goods “Orders” and “Shipments for Non-Defense,” versus misses again in PPI after yday’s CPI whiff as well) of “slowing-but-still-expansive US econ with decelerating inflation,” but still with the ongoing support of the strong consumer and labor mkts—which then reiterates the rationale behind the multi-year legacy US Equities portfolio positioning “long Growth, short Value” which remains a “Seculars over Cyclicals” bet into an increasingly “end-of-cycle”- looking economy
These “Growth Longs” are known / high-conviction names which are “comfort blankets” for Equities PM’s due to their past performance and thanks to their ability to grow profits without a “hot” economy and their “quality-like” high cash levels (which come via a funding-advantage vs Cyclicals—thus Growth’s positive correlation to a flattening yield curve)…and thus are de facto “long-duration” assets as they benefit from lower-yields, which justify their valuations
This “low rates supporting current market valuations” then has become a common refrain from the Equities buy-side, which realizes that thus far in 2019, US stock markets are up because of multiples, not earnings
So what happens next week is clear – and returning to the first chart above, what will The Fed’s reaction be if stocks catch down to bonds’ pessimistic perspective?
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XZz5ra Tyler Durden
In retrospect, the biggest surprise was that Beto O’Rourke did not announce his long-expected (though recently denied) presidential candidacy last week in his native habitat of South by Southwest, while he was promoting an HBO documentary about his stirring failure to unseat one of the most reviled incumbents in American politics.
Wednesday evening, the inevitable was confirmed: He’s running. “I’m really proud of what El Paso did and what El Paso represents,” O’Rourke said in a text to KTSM.com. “It’s a big part of why I’m running. This city is the best example of this country at its best.” An official announcement came this morning.
Because America is still a great country, there is already a robust #SaveBetosDog hashtag and a sky full of mirth opening up over the head of the toothsome Texan. Including this bizarre, pre-emptive shot across the bow by the Club for Growth, in which the fiscally conservative group goes after the New Democrat Coalition member for taking advantage of his “white male privilege” and being a pale imitation of Barack Obama. No, really:
The attack ad points to several of O’Rourke’s vulnerable points in the crowded Democratic primary. He clearly wants to tap into the Obama vein of American politics without, as a white man who married into wealth, having endured or accomplished as much. He supported as El Paso city councilman an eminent domain deal that would have (but never did) bulldoze the homes of barrio Latinos to the benefit of his own father-in-law. He was arrested for drunk driving in 1998 after hitting a truck at a high rate of speed and (according to one witness) trying to drive away from the scene, though the charges were ultimately dismissed after he completed a court-supervised diversion program.
Living as he does across the fortified border with Ciudad Juarez, and speaking pretty good Spanish, O’Rourke has also prioritized an immigration reform that includes fewer Border Patrol agents, freer trade, and (most recently) some torn-down walls. (Read his immigration-related interviews with Reason from 2013, 2015, and 2018.) His highest-profile pre-campaign public appearance this season was an El Paso immigration counter-rally last month at which he reportedly outdrew a same-day, same-city event by President Donald Trump. In a Democratic field comparatively heavy on women but light on Latinos, you can bet that O’Rourke will make immigration enforcement and reform a central issue.
Anything else of interest to libertarians? Well, O’Rourke has been known to consort in a friendly way with the Rep. Justin Amash (R–Mich.). Like Amash, he has been a persistent critic of U.S. interventionism abroad:
[A] member of the House Armed Services Committee, [O’Rourke is] a withering critic of both the Iraq and Libya interventions (“two incredibly ill-conceived regime change wars ”), opposed bombing Syria, and has consistently called on Congress to end the open-ended post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force (“blank check for endless war“) and reassert its war-declaration powers. “Troubling, unconstitutional, to be at war in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen & Somalia, in addition to Afghanistan, w/out informed authorization,” he tweeted in 2017. “Why do we have such a hard time admitting the West’s role and culpability in the problems in the Middle East?” he wrote in 2016.
He also greeted the entrance of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) into the race by declaring that “I’m a capitalist,” though this was only days after gushing over the Green New Deal. And as I wrote earlier this month,
[L]ike vanishingly few politicians from either major party, O’Rourke speaks as if there are budgetary constraints on the federal level. “We are $21 trillion in debt,” he lamented at a town hall in December, commenting further that “we are projected to add $1 trillion in deficit spending to that debt just in this next fiscal year.” He’s also a comparatively lonely pro-trade voice in the Democratic field.
Chances are that not much of O’Rourke’s policy priors will be discussed in the coming days, if ever. Not when the commanding heights of the Conde Nast empire are disgorging Gen X hagiography like this:
[I]n the O’Rourke living room, a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf contains a section for rock memoirs (Bob Dylan’s Chronicles, a favorite) and a stack of LPs (the Clash, Nina Simone) but also a sizable collection of presidential biographies, including Robert Caro’s work on Lyndon B. Johnson. Arranged in historical order, the biographies suggest there’s been some reflection on the gravity of the presidency. But there’s also some political poetry to it, a sense that O’Rourke might be destined for this shelf. He has an aura.
Conservative trolls will have a field day at this and other unintentional embarrassments. But one also can smell just a whiff of fear. If somehow O’Rourke can recapture the history-making fundraising and liberal knee-weakening prowess that he exhibited in 2018, if his Up With People shtick can mask his comparative centrism enough to win a Democratic primary in a socialist year, then Republicans might face a tough challenge in reelecting a persistently unpopular president. Beto O’Rourke is a target-rich environment for mockery, yes, and mockery may also be the best weapon for taking out what could be a formidable candidate.
Since at least 2004, when the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Pennsylvania’s congressional district boundaries because there was not a good enough way to quantify gerrymandering, the problem facing would-be reformers is this: How do you measure something that’s best understood by how it affects other things?
Last year, reformers thought they had solved that conundrum. Armed with a new metric called the “Efficiency Gap”—a formula that claims to demonstrate how gerrymandering makes congressional races less competitive—they asked the Supreme Court to toss out Wisconsin’s congressional map, writes Eric Boehm.
The Senate yesterday approved a 
Living as he does across the fortified border with Ciudad Juarez, and speaking 
Since at least 2004, when the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Pennsylvania’s congressional district boundaries because there was not a good enough way to quantify gerrymandering, the problem facing would-be reformers is this: How do you measure something that’s best understood by how it affects other things?