Following a handful of news stories about tourist deaths in the Dominican Republic, the number of flight bookings to the Caribbean country dropped 84 percent during June, according to ForwardKeys, a business intelligence firm that tracks commercial air flights. While the country’s tourism industry appears to be bouncing back, new data analysis suggests there was never a good reason for Americans to fear traveling to the country.
While a number of unexplained deaths did occur at resorts in the Dominican Republic during the first half of 2019, there’s little to indicate that those incidents were out of the ordinary, or that more of deaths occurred than we should reasonably expect given that people die, even on vacation.
Using studies of Finnish, Scottish, and Australian tourist mortality, Daniel Engber of Slatearguesthat we should expect .0015 percent of tourists going to the Dominican Republic to die on their trip, with 73 percent of those deaths being from natural causes. Given that 2.7 million Americans go to the Dominican Republic, we should expect roughly 405 American tourist deaths a year, with 295 of them coming from natural causes—mostly heart attacks.
As of June 27th, nine Americans had gotten sick and died in 2019 in the Dominican Republic under supposedly “suspicious circumstances.” There’s no clear definition of what that means: many of the deaths seemed sudden, and the FBI is still conducting toxicology tests. Several of these deaths were ruled heart attacks until some family members questioned the official story. The Dominican Republic government’s response didn’t do much to tamp down the hysteria, with the Ministry of Public Health spokesman Carlos Suero dismissing reports of mysterious deaths as “fake news.” Despite his hamfisted handling of the media, he might be right.
For comparison, between the beginning of 2017 and the end of 2018, 30 Americans died in the Dominican Republic of non-natural causes, such as accidents, drownings, homicides, and suicides. The nine deaths that have occurred thus far in 2019 are tragic for the people who died and for their families, but they are not out of the ordinary, especially considering how many Americans visit the D.R. each year. Even if all nine of these suspicious deaths turned out to be from non-natural causes, that wouldn’t be a big divergence from previous non-natural death rates.
American politicians nevertheless added to the panic. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) said the “recent spate of sicknesses and several deaths” deserved a federal response. Rep. Frank Pallone (D–N.J.) called for the State Department to consider increasing its travel advisory for the Dominican Republic from “increased caution,” the second-least severe warning the department offers. Schumer called for an in-depth investigation that would feature the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms assisting the FBI and local law enforcement. The supposed pattern of incidents became the story itself, with pieces about fearamong tourists and advice for potential travelers.
As the fever increased, even non-mysterious deaths became part of the trend. The New York Post published a story in late June about a man who died of a heart attack in the Dominican Republic in 2017. Another report from Fox News brought up a death from 2016.
The entire story arc is a useful example of how media panics begin, escalate, and then subside, leaving a trail of economic pain in their wake. While ticket sales have begun to rebound, June’s dropoff will hurt in a country where tourism spending is directly or indirectly responsible for 22 percent of the economy.
Fortunately, it seems that Americans have moved past the sensationalism—until the inevitable next panic over nothing.
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Payrolls, Powell, and Panic at the Auction have sparked the biggest bond bloodbath since Trump was elected in Nov 2016…
And as bond yields exploded higher, something odd happened… stocks dumped too…
Suggesting Risk-Parity funds forced to delever/rebalance as the bond legs blow up.
30Y Yields exploded to 6-week highs…
The Dow managed to hold gains (thanks to United Health jumping on Trump’s backdown) and S&P limped back into the green but Nasdag ended red. Small Caps were worst on the day with Trannies best…
NOTE – around 1300ET, Trump tweeted about China disappointment and sparked selling.
Trannies and Small Caps remain red on the week.
Dow topped 27k for the first time…
And President Trump loved it…
The S&P closed at 2999.89!! As one veteran trader noted “this is all gamma trap!”
Defensive stocks were pummeled (interestingly catching down to unch for the week with Cyclicals)…
Bonds weren’t the only bloodbath of the day; Bed, Bath, & Beyond was battered…
UnitedHealth surged on the White House backpedal…
Chinese stocks have gone nowhere since Monday’s dump…
European markets continued to diverge dramatically with Germany slammed and Italy bid…
Banks and the yield curve…
Treasury yields exploded higher on the day with the long-end dramatically underperforming…
The yield curve (3m10Y) remains inverted… just…
The dollar ended marginally lower after scrambling up to unch after a weak overnight session…
Cryptos were down modestly on the day with Bitcoin the only major that remains green on the week…
With Bitcoin unable to scramble back above $12k for now…
Commodities rolled over today as the dollar recovered
Silver marginally outperformed gold today…
But gold held above $1400..
Finally, we note the following from Strategas:
“nearly all of the incremental news on China since the G-20 has been negative. There is no trade meeting set; China is questioning what the US said was agreed to .. The China hardliners seem to be taking over and trying to wait Trump out past the 2020 election.”
And this tweet from China’s current twitter mouthpiece:
“Congrats to American investors. But watch your President and don’t let him trigger recession with the trade war.”
As we have noted numerous times, it’s not the economy, or trade, or earnings, or sentiment… it’s central bank liquidity, stupid!
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2JBqpRJ Tyler Durden
Silver’s recent price performance has been disappointing. Normally, it is almost twice as volatile as gold, so when the gold price rises 11%, as it has since last December, you would expect silver to rise about 20%. Instead it has fallen marginally.
When we dig into the weekly Commitment of Traders’ Reports covering Comex futures, we see something very odd indeed.
The largest four traders, normally bullion banks or major producers hedging future output, almost always run short positions against speculators’ longs. The more bullish speculators are, the more shorts are carried by the big four to accommodate them. Equally, they only go net long when the speculators are extremely bearish and are collectively marginally long or exceptionally net short. Not now, as the following chart of the Largest Four Traders net positions shows.
The number of contracts either net long or net short are derived from the concentration ratios in the weekly COT releases. The net long position is standing at a record high, a move that started in March 2017, marked by the arrow.
With respect to the concentration ratios, the CFTC’s explanatory notes state the following:
“The report shows the per cents of open interest held by the largest four and eight reportable traders, without regard to whether they are classified as commercial or non-commercial. The concentration ratios are shown with trader positions computed on a gross long and gross short basis and on a net long or net short basis. The “Net Position” ratios are computed after offsetting each trader’s equal long and short positions. A reportable trader with relatively large, balanced long and short positions in a single market, therefore, may be among the four and eight largest traders in both the gross long and gross short categories, but will probably not be included among the four and eight largest traders on a net basis.”
So, anyone can be a large reportable trader. Gross positions include straddles and swaps between different silver futures, and do not concern us. It is the net position ratios that are relevant. Chart 1 above is of the four largest traders net positions in the markets calculated on this basis.
The next largest 4 traders can also be calculated by taking the concentration ratios of the eight largest and subtracting the four largest. It turns out, as one would expect when gold is very overbought, the silver positions of the next largest four at net short 40,305 contracts are close to a record short. The second four see prices have hardly moved, and the speculators in the Managed Money category are only moderately long. Despite their individual short positions, they don’t realise they are in acute danger of being victims of a major bear squeeze.
They appear to be blissfully unaware that they are as a group short to a very larger buyer in their own ranks. It is certainly possible no one has done the analysis covered in this article, because analysts and traders rarely look at the concentration figures. Furthermore, the correlation of the positions between the four largest and next four have not closely followed each other for some time as Chart 2 shows, which perhaps also encourages complacency.
We will return to that point later. However, it is only recently that the second largest four’s net shorts have exceeded those of the first largest four, and now we see the largest four traders are record long while the second largest four are record short.
This is the first time this has happened. It seems unlikely that in normal circumstances any of the largest eight would be running a diametrically opposed trading position to the other seven. Comex doesn’t work like that, consisting of distinct groupings: producers and merchants hedging their future deliveries, bullion banks acting as market-makers, and speculators, who take on the price risk by going long. They all tend to stick within their group motivations.
Given these normally clear distinctions we can probably rule out a collaboration between more than one large trader. If two or more large traders were involved, it would be known by insiders and the other large traders would not risk being short.
Therefore, it is likely to be only one long position, far larger than the charts above indicate, given the largest four traders will include three other large shorts. We can only guesstimate its size. However, if we assume that the other three largest trades are short in tune with the others, our long trader, our whale, is very long indeed. The long position probably began in March 2017, when collectively the large four were net short 39,215 contracts. This is marked by the up arrow in Chart 1, where the trend reversed. If we take that as our starting point, we can see that as of 2 July (the most recent COT figures) the swing is nearly 50,000 contracts. That is an indication of the long position of our large trader, accounting for over 20% of silver’s open interest. Since each contract is for 5,000 ounces, it represents as much as 7,775 tonnes, which is 28% of 2018’s global mine production of 27,550 tonnes.
In the context of the silver futures market it is huge. But it seems unlikely to be an attempt to corner the silver market, because Comex-registered vaults have about 9,500 tonnes of silver bullion and LBMA vaults at the end of March had 36,195 tonnes. In other words, there is 1.66 times annual mine supply in these two vaulting systems alone. Given healthy vaulting supply, someone attempting a repeat of the Bunker-Hunts’ attempt to corner the market in 1979 has a massive hill to climb, particularly when such an attempt might be thwarted by the regulators changing the rules.
Putting cornering the market aside, we can also rule out a large speculator taking a punt on silver. A look at the Managed Money category net position tells us our whale is not there. Nor does a whale this size show up in the Non-Reportable category either.
By a process of elimination, it looks like a commercial entity, which uses silver for manufacturing purposes and is a continuing buyer of the metal. It would make sense that such a buyer would wish to hedge against future price rises by going long of futures. This being the case, it is a behemoth, larger than any individual processor. And that leads to one conclusion: it is probably the Peoples’ Bank of China, the state institution charged with managing all China’s silver distribution. But with a purely circumstantial case, we need more evidence.
Why the trail of evidence leads to China
In 2012, I was speaking at a conference in New York at which a number of silver mining minnows had stands in the hope of attracting investors. I visited all of them to establish the answer to a simple question: how did they ship their silver out, who paid them, and when?
The reason for asking this question was there were allegations going the rounds about the dark deeds of JPMorgan manipulating the silver futures market. That the silver market was open to manipulation by the big banks there was little doubt, and JPMorgan was definitely a major force in the silver market. By not appearing to take credible allegations seriously, Comex and the CFTC as regulator gave the impression they were colluding with JPMorgan, giving the whole story an extra spin.
The assumption that JPMorgan could simply ride roughshod over the CFTC and Comex rulebook was really the weakness in the conspiracy theories. We are all aware of the crony capitalism between banks and regulators, but there are limits. Bending the interpretation of the rules is one thing. Flagrantly breaking them to create false markets is another.
However, there was little doubt JPMorgan dominated trading in Comex silver futures, and my feeling was they were acting for a legitimate client instead of its own trading book. This was confirmed when Blythe Masters, then head of global commodities at JPMorgan and a hate-figure for silver conspiracy theorists, a month earlier than the New York conference gave an interview where she clearly stated that JPMorgan acted only for clients and did not run directional positions as principal.
The outcry from conspiracy theorists was predictable, but I found it impossible to believe that Masters would give an interview, which appeared to be for the main purpose of refuting the rumours, and then tell a barefaced lie. When an interviewee says before answering, “that is a great question” you can be reasonably sure it was pre-agreed, so is an important and considered revelation. The recording of the interview confirms this is what happened.
The question then was what role was JPMorgan playing in the market? They had inherited their silver business from the acquisition of Bear Sterns in 2008 and continued to develop it. And there was no doubt that such a large investment bank had greater clout than Bear Sterns to manage silver positions. Given Blythe Master’s unequivocal denial that JPMorgan was running a trading position on its own book, it must have been acting for one very large client, and that was the evidence I was looking for at the New York conference.
The silver miners all told the same story. When they had enough doré to ship, a specialist from Glencore would assess and certify the value of the silver content and arrange for it to be shipped to a refiner. Glencore was working with JPMorgan, and the silver miner would be paid as soon as the doré was being shipped, enabling the miner to cover its day-to-day costs. Using the doré as collateral, JPMorgan would cover the price risk by selling Comex silver futures or possibly by selling silver on the LBMA for forward delivery. This was why Masters could truthfully say JPMorgan did not take a directional position.
We should bear in mind that Glencore’s assessors would also be assessing the silver content of base metal ores, because more than half of silver mine production is a by-product of base metal processing, and in total involves very large amounts of silver. The sale of large amounts of futures contracts would follow to offset price risk.
This is not the whole story, raising the question as to the doré’s destination. At the New York conference, there was no consensus among the silver miners. But at that time, as it still does today, China had a major position in the global silver market. Furthermore, China had invested in processing and refining facilities when environmental factors led to the closure of rival facilities in western nations, such as Canada. It was therefore almost certain that a big slug of the doré was bound for China, which not only had ample low-cost silver refining capacity, but had also invested heavily in base metal refining for the extraction of silver as well.
All purchases of silver imported into China are the responsibility of the Peoples’ Bank of China, and that would be JPMorgan’s underlying client, not Glencore. Given the standing and resources of the Peoples Bank, and the leading positions of JPMorgan and Glencore in their respective industries, it is easy to envisage the existence of this high-level partnership and the importance of confidentiality.
I could then conclude my own conspiracy theory, which seemed far more likely than the others swirling around: JPMorgan extended the miners credit against the collateral of doré shipments, the price risk being covered by selling futures on Comex and forwards on the LBMA. This was not JPMorgan as a principal, but on behalf of China’s central bank. China had a vested interest in keeping the price as low as possible, which is the natural consequence of this hedging activity.
In their conspiracy theories, frustrated silver bulls were missing the one obvious conclusion confirmed by the Blythe Masters interview, that JPMorgan was, and probably still is, working for the Chinese central bank as their client. China is the whale in the market, which explains why, in Chart 2 above, we see the lack of correlation between the largest four traders and the second four going back over a decade. Bear in mind also that the commitment of trader’s reports covering Comex are not the whole story. Forward trades in London on the LBMA are a significantly larger market and JPMorgan operates its own vaults in London as well.
Switching dealings between OTC forwards and regulated futures makes it very difficult to analyse silver markets. Analysing Comex is like observing the dog’s tail and not seeing the dog. The result is China has managed to import over half her silver needs at suppressed prices. By using both markets it appears that JPMorgan has discharged this role skilfully for the Peoples’ Bank, and it also explains why the regulators were unable to bring them to account, despite evidence that JPMorgan’s actions may have been suppressing the silver price: strictly speaking, there was no wrongdoing within Comex’s rules.
The change from bear to bull
Price management at the behest of the Peoples’ Bank, within certain limits, is a reasonable objective and the bedrock of all large client/broker relationships. In that context, the broker is often given a degree of discretion. Regular liaison between JPMorgan’s dealers and those of the client would be normal, perhaps monthly or quarterly to review both progress and objectives. This allows the broker to act on the clients’ behalf on a semi-discretionary basis within agreed guidelines.
In this case, the client (i.e. the Peoples’ Bank) would be an ongoing buyer of physical silver. In the past, silver prices have been suppressed in the futures market by selling enough futures to cover doré and silver-bearing base metal ore shipments. Doing business this way would have been a significant benefit to China.
None of this explains why a substantial long position appears to have now materialised on Comex. Instead of selling futures to suppress the price, our market whale appears to have turned buyer; buying enough to cover China’s annual silver imports, the equivalent of about 43,000 Comex contracts. Clearly, the new strategy is to hedge against rising prices instead of suppressing the silver price. Given this new development, one would have thought that the other seven large traders would have tried to limit their silver shorts and at least keep an even book. There are several reasons why they may not have not felt the need to do so:
There are ample quantities of bullion in the vaults in London and Comex depositories, currently totalling 1.66 years’ worth of mine supply, unlike gold where the underlying bullion stock is very small relative to the paper contracts based upon them.
They appear to be unaware of China’s actions and motives. They may not even be aware of the existence of this long position. If they are aware of it, they may think it is just a technical long, against a short in London’s OTC market.
With global commercial demand declining due to the economic slow-down, they probably feel relaxed about the price outlook for silver, which they will regard as an industrial metal. Base metals show little sign of entering a bull market.
Therefore, with the Swaps category only moderately oversold (net short 12,735 contracts) and the Managed Money category only average overbought (net long 21,923 contracts), the other seven largest traders are likely to feel individually comfortable with their short positions, unaware of the extent to which their fellow traders are also short. What they fail to realise is that they are the shorts against the one largest trader who is long.
Why is China now buying futures?
If I am correct in thinking the whale in the market is the Peoples Bank of China, then instead of suppressing the silver price, she is now hedging approximately one year’s silver imports against future price rises. Having pinpointed the switch from price suppression to futures accumulation to approximately March 2017, we can now say that courtesy of JPMorgan’s dealing skills, no one was aware of the Peoples Bank’s change in price strategy.
This was shortly after President Trump was elected and assumed office, which could have had a bearing. From China’s point of view, the geopolitical outlook had become very unstable, with its Washington sources reporting the Deep State’s conflict with Trump and its attempts to destabilise his administration. At the same time, the global economic outlook was improving, which would have led to greater global demand for silver, making it difficult for China to continue to suppress the price. These are good enough reasons to change price strategy and lock in silver prices by buying futures to cover future shipments.
More recently, China has begun to declare monthly additions of monetary gold reserves, a trend led by Russia and copied by other Eurasian central banks. Gold has suddenly caught a bid and having risen sharply become dangerously overbought. This is in sharp contrast to silver, which on the surface appears to have been side-lined.
The traders at the Peoples Bank now appear to have protected themselves against an increase in the silver price, which normally rises nearly twice as much as gold. Since the Peoples Bank also controls the nation’s gold, the silver desk could have known about the plans to announce monthly increases in China’s monetary gold reserves in advance. It would have been an added incentive for the desk to buy silver futures from the beginning of this year.
It will be interesting to see if this move, combined with China’s increasing gold reserves, results in a significant jump in the silver price. If the silver whale is China, then it’s a reasonable supposition that China is signalling by its actions that it expects dollar prices for gold, and therefore silver, to continue higher over time. An advantage of taking up a silver position is if things cut up rough in the gold market, China will not be implicated so far as Comex futures are concerned. Unlike large-scale dealings in Comex gold futures (which China appears to have studiously avoided), protecting prices on her silver imports is what the futures market is for and is unlikely to be politically contentious.
The message for silver investors is seven of the eight largest traders appear to have become complacent. If China is the whale in the market, then discovery could be a very painful process for them. Its unfolding could be dramatic, likely to coincide with the next move upwards in the gold price.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/32j7OCx Tyler Durden
“A true New Yorker,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio declared at a rally this February, “stands up against hate.” Unless, apparently, that hate is directed at people who successfully educate poor kids without unionized teachers.
At a Democratic cattle call last Friday in front of the National Education Association (NEA), the largest labor union in the country, de Blasio exceeded the contempt of even Bernie Sanders for public schools operated by non-governmental entities.
“I’m going to be blunt with you,” the fourth-tier Democratic presidential aspirant barked, loping around the stage and jabbing his finger for emphasis. “I am angry about the state of public education in America. I am angry about the fact that you are disrespected on a regular basis in this country, despite doing such important work. I am angry about the privatizers! I am sick and tired of these efforts to privatize a precious thing we need, public education. I know we’re not supposed to be saying ‘hate,’ our teachers taught us not to. I hate the privatizers, and I want to stop them.”
The mayor, whose school system of 1.1 million currently includes 123,000 kids attending charters, made it clear that it’s not just the comparatively narrow category of for-profit entities that he’s against, but the entire concept.
“We need a federal government that finally takes responsibility for funding education in the way it needs to be done in this country,” de Blasio said. “That’s what I want to focus on. Get away from high-stakes testing, get away from charter schools. No federal funding for charter schools. By the way, too many Republicans, but also too many Democrats, have been cozy with the charter schools. Let’s be blunt about it: We need to hold our own party accountable, too. And no one should ask for your support, or no one should be the Democratic nominee unless they’re willing to stand up to Wall Street and the rich people behind the charter school movement once and for all.”
Befitting a candidate hated nationally (and almost locally) even more than President Donald Trump, de Blasio came in for some hot fire from his hometown media. The New York Post editorialized against “De Blasio’s charter school lies.” The Daily News, not normally in political agreement with its tabloid rival, came at Hizzoner with receipts. “His anger isn’t aimed at the man in the mirror, who spent $800 million in taxpayer money promising and miserably failing to deliver ‘fast and intense improvement’ in struggling traditional public schools,” the paper snarled, before really getting personal:
Let the record show that a man wealthy enough to afford to buy a home in Park Slope, who was therefore able to send his son and daughter to fine public elementary and middle schools and then onto selective public high schools, now wants to deny alternatives to poorer families whose neighborhoods are often plagued with underperforming schools.
Quality educational options for me, not for thee. We know we’re not supposed to be saying “hate,” but we hate supposedly progressive hypocrites.
The open prejudice that New York progressives—especially white New York progressives—have against charters has already started to take its toll. The November 2018 election brought to Albany a bloc of anti-charter Democrats, some of whom campaigned “to get rid of” non-unionized public education. Sure enough, the legislature last month elected not to lift the cap on the number of charters allowed in New York City, despite clearly demonstrated demand from parents and a willingness to supply among operators. In 2018, nearly 53,000 students ended up on charter waitlists, unable to obtain the 27,000 available seats.
“Charters routinely outperform other public schools and have proven to be a lifeline for working-class black and Latino parents looking for a sound education,” wrote locally beloved NY1 News Political Anchor Errol Louis in a fiery Daily News piece. “In the 2017-18 school year, according to the New York City Charter School Center, an astounding 58.6% of black students in city charters scored at or above state achievement levels in math, compared with only 25.4% in regular district schools. For Latino students, 56.9% hit the mark in math at charter schools compared with 30% in district schools.”
Just last week, one of those charters, Success Academy Bronx 2, saw all 53 of its eighth-graders earn a five out of five on the state algebra exam, despite being situated in the nation’s poorest congressional district and having 90 percent of its population qualify for free or reduced student lunch. Half of the public school kids in the same district failed the test.
De Blasio was confronted about these glaring disparities Tuesday by Errol Louis:
Louis: … 53 percent of the charters kids are African American, 38 percent are Latino, 81 percent are low-income free and reduced lunch, and they’re outscoring the traditional public schools in every measurable dimension.
De Blasio: We know that.
Louis: I understand where there are problems, like, you know, there are 53,000 people on this waiting list and so forth, but there’s nothing you can learn from them?
De Blasio: We—again, I say we partner with the ones that share those values of inclusion. We work with them—best practices are shared both ways. I think there are some charter schools that do good work, I think there’s some charter schools that are test-prep factories, I think there are some charter schools that are exclusionary, and that goes against everything I believe in.
It’s bad enough that de Blasio’s policies are harming kids in New York. But the anti-charter prejudice he’s tapping into is rapidly becoming a core Democratic Party value. The other presidential candidates at the NEA forum—former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), former congressman Beto O’Rourke, Julián Castro, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D–Minn.), Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, and Rep. Tim Ryan (D–Ohio)—mostly piled on the charter movement. Only O’Rourke, who used to be a full-throated supporter of charters, dared to suggest that “there is a place for public, nonprofit charter schools,” but he quickly got to the “but”: “But private charter schools and voucher programs, not a single dime in my administration will go to them.”
What used to be a fairly mainstream Democratic idea, championed by the likes of Barack Obama, Biden, and pre-presidential-campaign Sen. Cory Booker (D–N.J.), has now become something candidates feel like they need to furiously backpedal from. This Chalkbeatsurvey of 2020 educational policy positions makes it clear the mildly reformist tendencies of Obama Education Secretary Arne Duncan are not likely to be seen again from a Democrat any time soon.
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“A true New Yorker,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio declared at a rally this February, “stands up against hate.” Unless, apparently, that hate is directed at people who successfully educate poor kids without unionized teachers.
At a Democratic cattle call last Friday in front of the National Education Association (NEA), the largest labor union in the country, de Blasio exceeded the contempt of even Bernie Sanders for public schools operated by non-governmental entities.
“I’m going to be blunt with you,” the fourth-tier Democratic presidential aspirant barked, loping around the stage and jabbing his finger for emphasis. “I am angry about the state of public education in America. I am angry about the fact that you are disrespected on a regular basis in this country, despite doing such important work. I am angry about the privatizers! I am sick and tired of these efforts to privatize a precious thing we need, public education. I know we’re not supposed to be saying ‘hate,’ our teachers taught us not to. I hate the privatizers, and I want to stop them.”
The mayor, whose school system of 1.1 million currently includes 123,000 kids attending charters, made it clear that it’s not just the comparatively narrow category of for-profit entities that he’s against, but the entire concept.
“We need a federal government that finally takes responsibility for funding education in the way it needs to be done in this country,” de Blasio said. “That’s what I want to focus on. Get away from high-stakes testing, get away from charter schools. No federal funding for charter schools. By the way, too many Republicans, but also too many Democrats, have been cozy with the charter schools. Let’s be blunt about it: We need to hold our own party accountable, too. And no one should ask for your support, or no one should be the Democratic nominee unless they’re willing to stand up to Wall Street and the rich people behind the charter school movement once and for all.”
Befitting a candidate hated nationally (and almost locally) even more than President Donald Trump, de Blasio came in for some hot fire from his hometown media. The New York Post editorialized against “De Blasio’s charter school lies.” The Daily News, not normally in political agreement with its tabloid rival, came at Hizzoner with receipts. “His anger isn’t aimed at the man in the mirror, who spent $800 million in taxpayer money promising and miserably failing to deliver ‘fast and intense improvement’ in struggling traditional public schools,” the paper snarled, before really getting personal:
Let the record show that a man wealthy enough to afford to buy a home in Park Slope, who was therefore able to send his son and daughter to fine public elementary and middle schools and then onto selective public high schools, now wants to deny alternatives to poorer families whose neighborhoods are often plagued with underperforming schools.
Quality educational options for me, not for thee. We know we’re not supposed to be saying “hate,” but we hate supposedly progressive hypocrites.
The open prejudice that New York progressives—especially white New York progressives—have against charters has already started to take its toll. The November 2018 election brought to Albany a bloc of anti-charter Democrats, some of whom campaigned “to get rid of” non-unionized public education. Sure enough, the legislature last month elected not to lift the cap on the number of charters allowed in New York City, despite clearly demonstrated demand from parents and a willingness to supply among operators. In 2018, nearly 53,000 students ended up on charter waitlists, unable to obtain the 27,000 available seats.
“Charters routinely outperform other public schools and have proven to be a lifeline for working-class black and Latino parents looking for a sound education,” wrote locally beloved NY1 News Political Anchor Errol Louis in a fiery Daily News piece. “In the 2017-18 school year, according to the New York City Charter School Center, an astounding 58.6% of black students in city charters scored at or above state achievement levels in math, compared with only 25.4% in regular district schools. For Latino students, 56.9% hit the mark in math at charter schools compared with 30% in district schools.”
Just last week, one of those charters, Success Academy Bronx 2, saw all 53 of its eighth-graders earn a five out of five on the state algebra exam, despite being situated in the nation’s poorest congressional district and having 90 percent of its population qualify for free or reduced student lunch. Half of the public school kids in the same district failed the test.
De Blasio was confronted about these glaring disparities Tuesday by Errol Louis:
Louis: … 53 percent of the charters kids are African American, 38 percent are Latino, 81 percent are low-income free and reduced lunch, and they’re outscoring the traditional public schools in every measurable dimension.
De Blasio: We know that.
Louis: I understand where there are problems, like, you know, there are 53,000 people on this waiting list and so forth, but there’s nothing you can learn from them?
De Blasio: We—again, I say we partner with the ones that share those values of inclusion. We work with them—best practices are shared both ways. I think there are some charter schools that do good work, I think there’s some charter schools that are test-prep factories, I think there are some charter schools that are exclusionary, and that goes against everything I believe in.
It’s bad enough that de Blasio’s policies are harming kids in New York. But the anti-charter prejudice he’s tapping into is rapidly becoming a core Democratic Party value. The other presidential candidates at the NEA forum—former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Kamala Harris (D–Calif.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), former congressman Beto O’Rourke, Julián Castro, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D–Minn.), Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, and Rep. Tim Ryan (D–Ohio)—mostly piled on the charter movement. Only O’Rourke, who used to be a full-throated supporter of charters, dared to suggest that “there is a place for public, nonprofit charter schools,” but he quickly got to the “but”: “But private charter schools and voucher programs, not a single dime in my administration will go to them.”
What used to be a fairly mainstream Democratic idea, championed by the likes of Barack Obama, Biden, and pre-presidential-campaign Sen. Cory Booker (D–N.J.), has now become something candidates feel like they need to furiously backpedal from. This Chalkbeatsurvey of 2020 educational policy positions makes it clear the mildly reformist tendencies of Obama Education Secretary Arne Duncan are not likely to be seen again from a Democrat any time soon.
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After AOC again attacked her in an interview with the Washington Post, Pelosi said during her regular press briefing on Wednesday that she is done talking in public about the New York City Congresswoman and her ‘girl gang’ of POC progressive lawmakers, the Hill reported.
Pelosi said she’d said what she wanted to say at a closed door caucus meeting, where she asked those in attendance to avoid attacking other party members with whom they don’t agree. The speaker shrugged off any offense that AOC, or the three other members of her ‘squad’, might have taken (for the record: that includes Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib and Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar.
Part of the impetus for Pelosi’s admonishment was a comment from AOC’s chief of staff comparing New Dems and Blue Dogs to pro-segregationist Southern Democrats.
“They took offense because I addressed, at the request of my members, an offensive tweet that came out of one of the members’ offices that referenced our Blue Dogs and our New Dems essentially as segregationists,” Pelosi said. “Our members took offense at that. I addressed that. How they’re interpreting and carrying it to another place is up to the.”
“But I’m not going to be discussing it any further,” Pelosi said. “I said what I’m going to say.”
Though AOC clarified this week that she doesn’t think Pelosi is a racist or has ‘racial animus’, in the interview with the Post published Wednesday, AOC accused Pelosi of ‘singling out’ women of color.
“When these comments first started, I kind of thought that she was keeping the progressive flank at more of an arm’s distance in order to protect more moderate members, which I understood,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “But the persistent singling out…it got to a point where it was just outright disrespectful…the explicit singling out of newly elected women of color.”
Pelosi said several Democrats had taken offense at the comment from AOC’s chief of staff, and asked her to do something to address it. Of course, this isn’t the first beef between Pelosi and arguably the only celebrity Democrat in the House. AOC kicked off her tenure in Congress by joining protests directed at Pelosi, and has repeatedly attacked more moderate Democrats for not backing Medicare for All and AOC’s green new deal.
And this likely won’t be their last spat, as AOC continues to drag the party further to the left, and into alignment with her socialist ideals. Pelosi explicitly rejected socialism and endorsed capitalism last year in a clip that was widely circulated by the fringe left. They will never forgive her for that.
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An amended class-action lawsuit filed by a former student against Michigan State University (MSU) could pave the way for more class actions against universities and colleges that violate the due process rights of students accused of sexual misconduct.
Filed by former MSU student “John Doe,” the lawsuit claims Doe was “denied equal protection under the law as well as the most fundamental guarantees of due process,” when MSU suspended him for two years without giving him a hearing or the opportunity to cross-examine the female student who accused him of sexual assault.
Doe seeks to prove that MSU denied him his rights in order to placate the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, which threatened to withhold funding from the university due to its handling of sexual assault cases, and in order to defuse criticism over “a widely publicized report alleging extraordinarily high levels of unredressed sexual assaults against female undergraduates at Michigan State.” The suit also says MSU denied Doe his rights in part to due to criticism of the university’s employment of Dr. Larry Nassar, the USA Gymnastics physician accused of molesting 250 female children.
Doe filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan, which is in the Sixth Circuit. A 2018 decision by the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit stated that if a student is accused of misconduct, the university must hold a hearing before taking disciplinary action. If the university’s decision is based on the credibility of the accuser or witnesses, the defendant must also be allowed to cross-examine the witnesses and the accuser. “Not only does cross-examination allow the accused to identify inconsistencies in the other side’s story, but it also gives the fact-finder an opportunity to assess a witness’ demeanor and determine who can be trusted,” the court said.
Andrew Miltenberg, the lawyer representing Doe who specializes in Title IX cases, said that they are not seeking money, “but to vacate and expunge disciplinary records for anyone that was put on probation, expelled, or any other type of suspension at Michigan State under the same policy of not being able to question the accuser.” Miltenberg suggested there could potentially be 200 affected students who might benefit from Doe’s case.
The class-action aspect of this case differentiates it from similar cases. Miltenberg says that no one has seen a class action for cases like this because they are generally reserved for consumer issues. “It’s not so easy to do a class action because traditionally consumer issues lend themselves to a class action, like breast implant litigation and tobacco litigation.” He said if this case is successful, it could open the door for other students in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee to sue, as those states are in the jurisdiction of the Sixth Circuit.
“Practically any university in those four states would be subject to the Doe v. Baumruling. If their policy didn’t allow for a live hearing and the ability to confront a witness, you could go to any school and raise this same issue,” Miltenberg says. “The hope is that other circuits take note of this and say ‘Hey this makes sense, this is right.’ I think in that case, it would spread to those other jurisdictions.”
Miltenberg explained that the next step in the case is for MSU to respond to Doe’s lawsuit, which it has 14 days to do. There is a court conference in September to get the case certified as a class action—although Miltenberg says ideally it would get certified sooner.
“What I hope, more than money or financial damages, is that we stop any erosion of due process,” Miltenberg says. “Because it is a very slippery slope.”
The Detroit Free Pressreports that Miltenberg and his team are looking into cases dating back to 2011, “when the then-Obama administration sent a ‘Dear Colleague’ letter to universities upping the pressure to run sex assault investigations and spelling out what needed to be done.”
As Robby Soave notes, the letter “lowered the burden of proof to a ‘preponderance of the evidence’ standard, which meant that accused students could be found responsible for sexual misconduct if administrators were only 51 percent convinced of the charges,” and “it discouraged allowing the accused and accuser to cross-examine each other.”
In 2017 Education Secretary Betsy DeVos withdrew the “Dear Colleague” letter policy saying that “these documents have led to the deprivation of rights for many students—both accused students denied fair process and victims denied an adequate resolution of their complaints.”
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An amended class-action lawsuit filed by a former student against Michigan State University (MSU) could pave the way for more class actions against universities and colleges that violate the due process rights of students accused of sexual misconduct.
Filed by former MSU student “John Doe,” the lawsuit claims Doe was “denied equal protection under the law as well as the most fundamental guarantees of due process,” when MSU suspended him for two years without giving him a hearing or the opportunity to cross-examine the female student who accused him of sexual assault.
Doe seeks to prove that MSU denied him his rights in order to placate the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, which threatened to withhold funding from the university due to its handling of sexual assault cases, and in order to defuse criticism over “a widely publicized report alleging extraordinarily high levels of unredressed sexual assaults against female undergraduates at Michigan State.” The suit also says MSU denied Doe his rights in part to due to criticism of the university’s employment of Dr. Larry Nassar, the USA Gymnastics physician accused of molesting 250 female children.
Doe filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan, which is in the Sixth Circuit. A 2018 decision by the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit stated that if a student is accused of misconduct, the university must hold a hearing before taking disciplinary action. If the university’s decision is based on the credibility of the accuser or witnesses, the defendant must also be allowed to cross-examine the witnesses and the accuser. “Not only does cross-examination allow the accused to identify inconsistencies in the other side’s story, but it also gives the fact-finder an opportunity to assess a witness’ demeanor and determine who can be trusted,” the court said.
Andrew Miltenberg, the lawyer representing Doe who specializes in Title IX cases, said that they are not seeking money, “but to vacate and expunge disciplinary records for anyone that was put on probation, expelled, or any other type of suspension at Michigan State under the same policy of not being able to question the accuser.” Miltenberg suggested there could potentially be 200 affected students who might benefit from Doe’s case.
The class-action aspect of this case differentiates it from similar cases. Miltenberg says that no one has seen a class action for cases like this because they are generally reserved for consumer issues. “It’s not so easy to do a class action because traditionally consumer issues lend themselves to a class action, like breast implant litigation and tobacco litigation.” He said if this case is successful, it could open the door for other students in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee to sue, as those states are in the jurisdiction of the Sixth Circuit.
“Practically any university in those four states would be subject to the Doe v. Baumruling. If their policy didn’t allow for a live hearing and the ability to confront a witness, you could go to any school and raise this same issue,” Miltenberg says. “The hope is that other circuits take note of this and say ‘Hey this makes sense, this is right.’ I think in that case, it would spread to those other jurisdictions.”
Miltenberg explained that the next step in the case is for MSU to respond to Doe’s lawsuit, which it has 14 days to do. There is a court conference in September to get the case certified as a class action—although Miltenberg says ideally it would get certified sooner.
“What I hope, more than money or financial damages, is that we stop any erosion of due process,” Miltenberg says. “Because it is a very slippery slope.”
The Detroit Free Pressreports that Miltenberg and his team are looking into cases dating back to 2011, “when the then-Obama administration sent a ‘Dear Colleague’ letter to universities upping the pressure to run sex assault investigations and spelling out what needed to be done.”
As Robby Soave notes, the letter “lowered the burden of proof to a ‘preponderance of the evidence’ standard, which meant that accused students could be found responsible for sexual misconduct if administrators were only 51 percent convinced of the charges,” and “it discouraged allowing the accused and accuser to cross-examine each other.”
In 2017 Education Secretary Betsy DeVos withdrew the “Dear Colleague” letter policy saying that “these documents have led to the deprivation of rights for many students—both accused students denied fair process and victims denied an adequate resolution of their complaints.”
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An Arizona cop acquitted of murder in 2017 for killing a man crawling on his knees, begging for his life, in a hotel hallway, was temporarily rehired by the city he worked for so that he could claim a disability pension and file for a medical retirement that will pay him more than $2,500 a month for the rest of his life.
Former Mesa Police Officer Philip Mitchell Brailsford drew national attention and outrage in December 2017 when a jury found him not guilty of second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Daniel Shaver. Brailsford shot Shaver in a confrontation in a hotel hallway in 2016 after police were called there by somebody who had seen Shaver holding a gun in his room.
The gun turned out to be a pellet gun, but police apparently didn’t know that. During the response, police ordered Shaver, who was unarmed, out into the hallway on his knees and ordered him to crawl in their direction while keeping his hands up, and they continued to bark confusing orders at him. As Shaver, clearly terrified, attempted to comply, at one point he gestured behind himself, possibly to pull up his pants, and Brailsford immediately opened fire, killing him.
The shooting was captured on police body camera footage, but it wasn’t released to the public until after the jury acquitted Brailsford. (You can watch the footage here.)
A jury might have decided not to convict Brailsford, but the Mesa Police Department fired him after the shooting for violations of department policy. That turned out not to be the end of Brailsford’s career in Mesa. ABC15 in Arizona reports that Brailsford appealed his termination and arranged for a special deal with the city to be rehired temporarily so that he could apply for a disability pension and retire for medical reasons.
Here’s the kicker: The justification for Brailsford’s medical disability and retirement is a claim that he has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from shooting and killing Shaver and the resulting prosecution, one of Brailsford’s lawyers told ABC15. This medical condition qualifies him for a monthly pension check of $2,569.21 for the rest of his life, which the taxpayers of Mesa are on the hook for. Brailsford is currently 28 years old. Furthermore, the City of Mesa agreed to spend up to $3 million to help Brailsford defend himself and pay lawsuit settlements.
The city has also agreed to give Brailsford a “neutral recommendation” for future employment references. Thank heavens for Google searches, right?
Read more about the shooting here. I predicted back in 2017 that Brailsford would try to get his job back. But I neglected to consider that he’d use the shooting to arrange for medical retirement.
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An Arizona cop acquitted of murder in 2017 for killing a man crawling on his knees, begging for his life, in a hotel hallway, was temporarily rehired by the city he worked for so that he could claim a disability pension and file for a medical retirement that will pay him more than $2,500 a month for the rest of his life.
Former Mesa Police Officer Philip Mitchell Brailsford drew national attention and outrage in December 2017 when a jury found him not guilty of second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Daniel Shaver. Brailsford shot Shaver in a confrontation in a hotel hallway in 2016 after police were called there by somebody who had seen Shaver holding a gun in his room.
The gun turned out to be a pellet gun, but police apparently didn’t know that. During the response, police ordered Shaver, who was unarmed, out into the hallway on his knees and ordered him to crawl in their direction while keeping his hands up, and they continued to bark confusing orders at him. As Shaver, clearly terrified, attempted to comply, at one point he gestured behind himself, possibly to pull up his pants, and Brailsford immediately opened fire, killing him.
The shooting was captured on police body camera footage, but it wasn’t released to the public until after the jury acquitted Brailsford. (You can watch the footage here.)
A jury might have decided not to convict Brailsford, but the Mesa Police Department fired him after the shooting for violations of department policy. That turned out not to be the end of Brailsford’s career in Mesa. ABC15 in Arizona reports that Brailsford appealed his termination and arranged for a special deal with the city to be rehired temporarily so that he could apply for a disability pension and retire for medical reasons.
Here’s the kicker: The justification for Brailsford’s medical disability and retirement is a claim that he has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from shooting and killing Shaver and the resulting prosecution, one of Brailsford’s lawyers told ABC15. This medical condition qualifies him for a monthly pension check of $2,569.21 for the rest of his life, which the taxpayers of Mesa are on the hook for. Brailsford is currently 28 years old. Furthermore, the City of Mesa agreed to spend up to $3 million to help Brailsford defend himself and pay lawsuit settlements.
The city has also agreed to give Brailsford a “neutral recommendation” for future employment references. Thank heavens for Google searches, right?
Read more about the shooting here. I predicted back in 2017 that Brailsford would try to get his job back. But I neglected to consider that he’d use the shooting to arrange for medical retirement.
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