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Another vessel has been seized on the high seas…but the parties involved might be surprising to some.
Sputnik reports that Libya has seized an Italian vessel in the Gulf of Sirte.
The seizure comes as tensions between Iran and the UK climb as both countries have seized oil tankers affiliated with the other.
More details to come…
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/32JrJuo Tyler Durden
Almost eight year ago, we first presented a chart first created by JPMorgan’s Michael Cembalest, which showed very simply and vividly that reserve currencies don’t last forever, and that in the not too distant future, the US Dollar would also lose its status as the world’s most important currency, since it is never different this time.
As Cembalest put it back in January 2012, “I am reminded of the following remark from late MIT economist Rudiger Dornbusch: ‘Crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.'”
Perhaps it is not a coincidence then that in light of the growing number of mentions of MMT and various other terminal, destructive monetary policies that have been proposed to kick on the current financial system the can just a little bit longer, that the topic of longevity of reserve currency status is once again becoming all the rage, and none other than JPMorgan’s Private Bank ask in this month’s investment strategy note whether “the dollar’s “exorbitant privilege” is coming to an end?”
So why is JPM, after first creating the iconic chart above which has since spread virally across all financial corners of the internet, not only worried that the dollar’s reserve status may be coming to an end, but in fact goes so far as to state that “we believe the dollar could lose its status as the world’s dominant currency (which could see it depreciate over the medium term) due to structural reasons as well as cyclical impediments.”
Read on to learn why even the largest US bank has started to lose faith in the world’s most powerful currency.
Is the dollar’s “exorbitant privilege” coming to an end?
In Brief
The U.S. dollar (USD) has been the world’s dominant reserve currency for almost a century. As such, many investors today, even outside the United States, have built and become comfortable with sizable USD overweights in their portfolios. However, we believe the dollar could lose its status as the world’s dominant currency (which could see it depreciate over the medium term) due to structural reasons as well as cyclical impediments.
As such, diversifying dollar exposure by placing a higher weighting on other currencies in developed markets and in Asia, as well as precious metals makes sense today. This diversification can be achieved with a strategy that maintains the underlying assets in an investment portfolio, but changes the mix of currencies within that portfolio. This is a completely bespoke approach that can be customized to meet the unique needs of individual clients.
The rise of the U.S. dollar
It is commonly perceived that the U.S. dollar overtook the Great British Pound (GBP) as the world’s international reserve currency with the signing of the Bretton Woods Agreements after World War II. The reality is that sterling’s value was eroded for many decades prior to Bretton Woods. The dollar’s rise to international prominence was fueled by the establishment of the Federal Reserve System a little over a century ago and U.S. economic emergence after World War I. The Federal Reserve System aided in the establishment of more mature capital markets and a nationally coordinated monetary policy, two important pillars of reserve-currency countries. Being the world’s unit of account has given the United States what former French Finance Minister Valery d’Estaing called an “exorbitant privilege” by being able to purchase imports and issue debt in its own currency and run persistent deficits seemingly without consequence.
The shifting center
There is nothing to suggest that the dollar dominance should remain in perpetuity. In fact, the dominant international currency has changed many times throughout history going back thousands of years as the world’s economic center has shifted.
After the end of World War II, the U.S. accounted for biggest share of world GDP at more than 25%. This number is brought to more than 40% when we include Western European powers. Since then, the main driver of economic growth has shifted eastwards towards Asia at the expense of the U.S. and the West. China is at the epicenter of this recent economic shift driven by the country’s strong growth and commitment to domestic reforms. Over the last 70 years, China has quadrupled its share of global GDP to around 20%—roughly the same share as the U.S.—and this share is expected to continue to grow in the years ahead. China is no longer just a manufacturer of low cost goods as a growing share of corporate earnings is coming from “high value add” sectors like technology.
China regaining its status as a global superpower
Earnings in China are becoming more balanced
In addition to China, the economies of Southeast Asia, including India, have strong secular tailwinds driven by younger demographics and proliferating technological know-how. Specifically, the Asian economic zone—from the Arabian Peninsula and Turkey in the West to Japan and New Zealand in the East and from Russia in the North and Australia in the South—now represents 50% of global GDP and two-thirds of global economic growth. Of the estimated $30 trillion in middle-class consumption growth between 2015 and 2030, only $1 trillion is expected to come from today’s Western economies. As this region grows, the share of non-USD transactions will inevitably increase which will likely erode the dollar’s “reserveness”, even if the dollar isn’t replaced as the dominant international currency.
In other words, in the coming decades we think the world economy will transition from U.S. and USD dominance toward a system where Asia wields greater power. In currency space, this means the USD will likely lose value compared to a basket of other currencies, including precious commodities like gold.
Dollar’s declining role already under way?
Recent data on currency reserve holdings among global central banks suggests this shift may already be under way. As a share of overall central bank reserves, the USD’s role has been declining ever since the Great Recession (see chart). The most recent central bank reserve flow data also suggests that for the first time since the euro’s introduction in 1999, central banks simultaneously sold dollars and bought euros.
Central banks across the globe are also adding to gold reserves at their strongest pace on record. 2018 saw the strongest demand for gold from central banks since 1971 and a rolling four-quarter sum of gold purchases is the strongest on record. To us, this makes sense: gold is a stable source of value with thousands of years of trust among humans supporting it.
USD share of central bank reserves, %
Trade Wars have long-term consequences
The current U.S. administration has called into question agreements with nearly all of its largest partners—tariffs on China, Mexico and the European Union, renegotiating NAFTA, as well as abandoning the Trans Pacific Partnership. A more adversarial U.S. administration could also encourage countries to reduce their reliance on USD in trade. Currently 85% of all currency transactions involve the USD despite the U.S. accounting for only roughly 25% of global GDP.
Countries around the world are already developing payment mechanisms that would avoid using the dollar. These systems are small and still developing but this is likely to be a structural story that will extend beyond one particular administration. In a recent speech on the international role of the euro, Bank for International Settlements Chief Economist Claudio Borio brought up the benefits of pricing oil in the euro saying, “Trading and settling oil in the euro would move payments from dollars to euros and thereby shift ultimate settlement to the euro’s TARGET2 system. This could limit the reach of U.S. foreign policy insofar as it leverages dollar payments.” The European Central Bank also alluded to this theme in a recent report saying that “growing concerns about the impact of international trade tensions and challenges to multilateralism, including the imposition of unilateral sanctions seem to have lent support to the euro’s global standing.”
We believe we are at an important juncture. On a real basis, the dollar stands currently more than 10% above its long-term average and on a nominal basis has actually been trending lower for 50 years (see chart below).
Given the persistent—and rising—deficits in the United States (in both fiscal and trade), we believe the U.S. dollar could become vulnerable to a loss of value relative to a more diversified basket of currencies, including gold. As we scan client portfolios, we see that many of them have far more U.S. dollar exposure than we feel is prudent. At this stage of the economic cycle, we believe this exposure should be more diversified. In many cases, our recommendation would likely be to place a higher weighting on other G10 currencies, currencies in Asia and gold (see chart).
FX exposure
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2y7Qlit Tyler Durden
On Fox News last night, between the commercials for self-lubricating catheters and class-action lawsuits over defective hip replacements, you may have seen Tucker Carlson ranting about the release of “hundreds of violent criminals” onto the streets of America.
In a segment on his show, Carlson said that a source within the Trump administration had provided his show with exclusive data on crimes committed by the roughly 3,100 federal inmates who were released earlier this month under the FIRST STEP ACT, a criminal justice reform bill passed by Congress last December.
Tucker Carlson blasting the First Step Act tonight.
The bill was sold as a way to give a second chance to nonviolent offenders.
Instead “that law has allowed hundreds of violent criminals & sexual predators back onto the streets.” pic.twitter.com/9ZR0LytYtl
— The Columbia Bugle ???????? (@ColumbiaBugle) July 23, 2019
“So far this year, more than 2,000 federal prisoners were put on the nation’s streets thanks to the FIRST STEP Act,” Carlson begins. “You might remember that law. It was sold to lawmakers and the rest of us a way to ease overcrowded prisons and give a second chance to nonviolent offenders. That’s not what it’s turned into.”
Carlson continues:
In fact, that law has allowed hundreds of violent criminals and sexual predators back on the street. An administration official provided this show exclusively with data on what crimes were committed by the felons being released under the FIRST STEP Act. Turns out most of them were not in jail for smoking a joint 30 years ago. Instead, of the roughly 2,200 inmates who’ve been set free so far, 496 of them were in prison on charges related to weapons or explosives. Huh. Two hundred and thirty nine had committed sex offenses such as rape and sexual assault, 106 committed armed robbery, and 59 had committed aggravated assault or murder. That’s not what we were promised.
This is the part where gentle viewers are supposed to clutch their hearts and say, “My God, what’s happening to my country?”
The actual story is much less alarming.
All of the inmates Tucker is referencing had their release dates moved up because the FIRST STEP Act forced the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to change the way it calculates the amount of “good time” credits inmates can earn through good behavior to shave days off their sentence.
You see, in the federal prison system, inmates were supposed to be eligible for 54 days of good time credits a year. Keeping a clean disciplinary record is one of the only ways federal inmates can reduce their sentences, since there is no parole in the federal system.
In practice, however, they could only accrue 47 days a year, thanks to the absurdly complicated way BOP calculated the credits. (If you’re really a glutton for punishment, you can read a long summary of BOP’s good time credit formula in a 2010 Supreme Court ruling upholding it, which includes an appendix entry about the algebra equations involved.)
For a federal inmate doing 10 years of hard time, that meant losing 70 days of potential credit toward an earlier release.
The FIRST STEP included a provision to ensure that inmates can now actually receive 54 days of good time credit a year, and it required BOP to retroactively recalculate credits for current inmates and adjust their release dates accordingly. Because of a drafting error in the bill, that provision didn’t go into effect until July 19.
Lawmakers and advocacy groups who supported the FIRST STEP Act say the provision was simply a fix to clarify Congress’ original legislative intent. In other words, these inmates were getting out exactly when they should have under the spirit of the law.
“Every single office we met with during the course of the FIRST STEP Act was told about that provision,” says Jason Pye, vice president of legislative affairs at FreedomWorks, a conservative group that supported the legislation. “Virtually every communication we sent to the Hill about the FIRST STEP Act at least mentioned this provision, explained what it was, and why it was included in the bill. It was a feature of the FIRST STEP Act, and it was included to fix a misapplication of law by the Bureau of Prisons, which had calculated the 54 days of good time credit that could be earned by a prisoner to mean 47 days.”
All of the inmates Carlson is fulminating about were going to be released anyway—and sooner rather than later. Most were released from halfway houses or home confinement where they were finishing out their sentences. And they’re all still subject to three to five years of supervised release.
Naturally, Carlson’s millions of viewers were left without this information.
Does Carlson think these inmates are at a higher risk of committing new crimes because they were released a few months earlier than they would have previously been? Or is he simply outraged that they were released at all? If it’s the latter, his beef goes far beyond the modest FIRST STEP Act. More than 10,000 inmates are released from U.S. state and federal prisons every week, according to the Justice Department, for all manner of crimes. More than 95 percent of all state prisoners will eventually be released.
It’s unclear exactly what Carlson wants us to be upset about—only that he wants us to be upset.
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On Fox News last night, between the commercials for self-lubricating catheters and class-action lawsuits over defective hip replacements, you may have seen Tucker Carlson ranting about the release of “hundreds of violent criminals” onto the streets of America.
In a segment on his show, Carlson said that a source within the Trump administration had provided his show with exclusive data on crimes committed by the roughly 3,100 federal inmates who were released earlier this month under the FIRST STEP ACT, a criminal justice reform bill passed by Congress last December.
Tucker Carlson blasting the First Step Act tonight.
The bill was sold as a way to give a second chance to nonviolent offenders.
Instead “that law has allowed hundreds of violent criminals & sexual predators back onto the streets.” pic.twitter.com/9ZR0LytYtl
— The Columbia Bugle ???????? (@ColumbiaBugle) July 23, 2019
“So far this year, more than 2,000 federal prisoners were put on the nation’s streets thanks to the FIRST STEP Act,” Carlson begins. “You might remember that law. It was sold to lawmakers and the rest of us a way to ease overcrowded prisons and give a second chance to nonviolent offenders. That’s not what it’s turned into.”
Carlson continues:
In fact, that law has allowed hundreds of violent criminals and sexual predators back on the street. An administration official provided this show exclusively with data on what crimes were committed by the felons being released under the FIRST STEP Act. Turns out most of them were not in jail for smoking a joint 30 years ago. Instead, of the roughly 2,200 inmates who’ve been set free so far, 496 of them were in prison on charges related to weapons or explosives. Huh. Two hundred and thirty nine had committed sex offenses such as rape and sexual assault, 106 committed armed robbery, and 59 had committed aggravated assault or murder. That’s not what we were promised.
This is the part where gentle viewers are supposed to clutch their hearts and say, “My God, what’s happening to my country?”
The actual story is much less alarming.
All of the inmates Tucker is referencing had their release dates moved up because the FIRST STEP Act forced the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to change the way it calculates the amount of “good time” credits inmates can earn through good behavior to shave days off their sentence.
You see, in the federal prison system, inmates were supposed to be eligible for 54 days of good time credits a year. Keeping a clean disciplinary record is one of the only ways federal inmates can reduce their sentences, since there is no parole in the federal system.
In practice, however, they could only accrue 47 days a year, thanks to the absurdly complicated way BOP calculated the credits. (If you’re really a glutton for punishment, you can read a long summary of BOP’s good time credit formula in a 2010 Supreme Court ruling upholding it, which includes an appendix entry about the algebra equations involved.)
For a federal inmate doing 10 years of hard time, that meant losing 70 days of potential credit toward an earlier release.
The FIRST STEP included a provision to ensure that inmates can now actually receive 54 days of good time credit a year, and it required BOP to retroactively recalculate credits for current inmates and adjust their release dates accordingly. Because of a drafting error in the bill, that provision didn’t go into effect until July 19.
Lawmakers and advocacy groups who supported the FIRST STEP Act say the provision was simply a fix to clarify Congress’ original legislative intent. In other words, these inmates were getting out exactly when they should have under the spirit of the law.
“Every single office we met with during the course of the FIRST STEP Act was told about that provision,” says Jason Pye, vice president of legislative affairs at FreedomWorks, a conservative group that supported the legislation. “Virtually every communication we sent to the Hill about the FIRST STEP Act at least mentioned this provision, explained what it was, and why it was included in the bill. It was a feature of the FIRST STEP Act, and it was included to fix a misapplication of law by the Bureau of Prisons, which had calculated the 54 days of good time credit that could be earned by a prisoner to mean 47 days.”
All of the inmates Carlson is fulminating about were going to be released anyway—and sooner rather than later. Most were released from halfway houses or home confinement where they were finishing out their sentences. And they’re all still subject to three to five years of supervised release.
Naturally, Carlson’s millions of viewers were left without this information.
Does Carlson think these inmates are at a higher risk of committing new crimes because they were released a few months earlier than they would have previously been? Or is he simply outraged that they were released at all? If it’s the latter, his beef goes far beyond the modest FIRST STEP Act. More than 10,000 inmates are released from U.S. state and federal prisons every week, according to the Justice Department, for all manner of crimes. More than 95 percent of all state prisoners will eventually be released.
It’s unclear exactly what Carlson wants us to be upset about—only that he wants us to be upset.
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Mayor de Blasio should probably stop bragging about the fact that crime in his city has fallen to all-time lows.
In a series of shocking videos, NYPD officers can be seen being doused with buckets of water and pelted with projectiles as they tried to do their jobs (in one video, the officers were in the middle of making an arrest).
The stunning footage, which was first spotted online on Monday, shows the brazen young men in Harlem and Brooklyn dousing cops with water and, in one frame, an officer gets beaned in the back of the head with an empty red plastic bucket. The attacks on the officers started as they were arresting another young man, and in the video, they can be seen handcuffing the man while he was splayed out on the hood of a car.
Sources from within the NYPD and the officers union spoke with the New York Post about the “outrage” they felt toward both the criminals who carried out the attacks and the mayor, Bill de Blasio, who was out-of-state when the attacks occurred. Senior NYPD officials and union leaders have repeatedly criticized de Blasio for going easy on criminals and undoing some of the progress that happened under Mayors Bloomberg and Giuliani, where crime rates in the city began a dramatic slide (though, in recent years, crime rates have started ticking higher again).
“Everybody’s outraged,” an NYPD source said. “It’s disgusting, embarrassing. There’s lawlessness around here now.”
Police Chief Terence Monahan called the footage reprehensible and said every New Yorker must show respect for NYPD officers.
The videos of cops being doused with water and having objects hurled at them as they made an arrest in #Harlem is reprehensible. NYC’s cops & communities have made remarkable progress — together — but EVERY New Yorker MUST show respect for our cops. They deserve nothing less. pic.twitter.com/mPtPPbUSGZ
— Chief Terence Monahan (@NYPDChiefofDept) July 22, 2019
Another officer blamed the incidents on the NYPD’s “hands-off approach to these guys” that Mayor de Blasio first advocated.
“Who does that in their right frame of mind? People who believe there’s no consequences,” the anonymous officer said. “It’s total anarchy. This is very sad.”
Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association head Pat Lynch, a longtime NYPD labor leader, called the water bucket attacks “the end result of the torrent of bad policies and anti-police rhetoric that has been streaming out of City Hall and Albany for years now.”
The PBA Twitter account tweeted one of the clips, and insisted that we are approaching “the point of no return.”
The videos of cops being doused with water and having objects hurled at them as they made an arrest in #Harlem is reprehensible. NYC’s cops & communities have made remarkable progress — together — but EVERY New Yorker MUST show respect for our cops. They deserve nothing less. pic.twitter.com/mPtPPbUSGZ
— Chief Terence Monahan (@NYPDChiefofDept) July 22, 2019
Lynch added that politicians don’t care about the dangers of being an NYPD officer.
“As police officers, we need to draw a line. In situations like this, we need to take action to protect ourselves and the public. The politicians may not care about the dangerous levels of chaos in our neighborhoods, but police officers and decent New Yorkers should not be forced to suffer.”
But de Blasio didn’t mention the videos on his Twitter.
The two videos were initially posted on separate Instagram accounts, but they first picked up traction after being shared by a Twitter account devoted to NYC emergencies.
Both videos were initially posted on separate Instagram accounts, then re-posted on a Twitter account devoted to New York City emergencies. Across all the platforms, the videos have racked up hundreds of thousands of views.
Watch parts of the videos below:
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2GpnACy Tyler Durden
The Tron Foundation is pushing back the Warren Buffett Lunch and press conferences to an unspecified date, claiming it is due to medical issues, but is also facing multiple allegations of money-laundering.
image courtesy of CoinTelegraph
CoinTelegraph’s Max Boddy reports that, according to an official Twitter post, Justin Sun – who successfully procured the lunch with Buffett by winning the affiliated charity auction – is currently out of commission due to kidney stones, and associated parties have agreed to reschedule the lunch.
In June, Tron founder and CEO Justin Sun won a charity auction on eBay to have lunch with Buffett, the famously successful investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. Sun’s winning bid was apparently $4,567,888 – the highest bid in the event’s 20 year history.
On July 19, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire accepted Sun’s invitation to join him at the lunch. In addition to Allaire, Litecoin creator Charlie Lee will also reportedly attend the event.
Warren Buffett has notoriously voiced some incendiary anti-cryptocurrency views. Last May, Warren said that cryptocurrencies will end badly, and called Bitcoin “probably rat poison squared.”
More recently, Warren claimed in February that Bitcoin (BTC) is a delusion, apparently because blockchain does not depend on BTC or actively produce something. Warren said:
“You can stare at it all day, and no little Bitcoins come out or anything like that. It’s a delusion, basically.”
However, while the kidney stones are a good reason to postpone a lunch, one can’t help but wonder if there are other issues that make the lunch ‘awkward’ as CoinTelegraph’s Adrian Zmudzinksi reports that Sun denied illegal fundraising, porn transaction facilitation, gambling and money laundering accusations in a post on Chinese social media platform Weibo published on July 23.
image courtesy of CoinTelegraph
Earlier today, Chinese media 21st Century Business Herald claimed in an article that unspecified sources informed its reporters that Justin Sun is still on Chinese territory. The website also cites concerns over alleged pornography-related transactions in his Peiwo social media, fundraising and gambling.
The outlet further suggests that Sun cannot leave the country, and this is the real reason why Sun decided earlier today to postpone the Warren Buffett Lunch and press conferences to an unspecified date. The outlet rhetorically asks whether Sun will be able to meet Buffett without first resolving the aforementioned concerns.
In the aforementioned Weibo post, Justin addresses the accusations.
According to his post, the illegal fundraising accusations are false since – after the Chinese government banned initial coin offerings in September 2017 – the Tron Foundation returned the funds. Sun also says that also the money laundering accusations have no basis since the Tron Foundation is located in Singapore, complies with local regulations, and does not involve fiat on or off-ramp services.
He also noted that, when it comes to Peiwo allegedly facilitating illegal porn-related transactions, the company collaborates with regulators, monitors users and tries to ensure that the content is positive.
Sun also more broadly addressed the accusations of facilitation of illegal activities by pointing out that Tron is a decentralized internet network and that the Foundation opposes the unlawful use of the protocol. Lastly, Sun declares:
“We understand the concerns over the development of blockchain technology, and we are willing to open up and communicate to jointly promote the development of blockchain technology in China.”
Tron (TRX) price has plunged over the last 24 hours, trading at about $0.024, according to Coinbase.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Y0qsjK Tyler Durden
Former vice president and current presidential candidate Joe Biden has a new criminal justice reform plan. It aims to remedy many injustices caused by policies backed by…Joe Biden.
“Equality, equity, justice—these ideas form the American creed. We have never lived up to it and we haven’t always gotten it right, but we’ve never stopped trying,” said Biden in a video released today. “The public is ready. They’re ready. They’ve had enough.”
Today I released my plan to reform our criminal justice system.
Equality, equity, justice—these ideas form the American creed. We have never lived up to it and we haven’t always gotten it right, but we’ve never stopped trying. Learn more about my plan at https://t.co/fsdoT58qYL pic.twitter.com/qAJoFa5CqN
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 23, 2019
In the video, Biden endorses the SAFE Justice Act. That bill, first introduced in 2017, would limit the application of mandatory minimum sentences to the highest-level drug offenders, according to a summary by the criminal justice reform group FAMM.
Biden has also endorsed a list of other, more substantive reforms, including the elimination of mandatory minimums, the abolition of private prisons, the expanded use of drug courts, and the end of the death penalty. He would also eliminate the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine, and he thinks states should be allowed to pursue their own cannabis legalization policies without federal interference.
That last item is more tepid than what we’ve heard from some of his opponents, several of whom have endorsed the full legalization of recreational marijuana. It would nevertheless represent a significant step toward more liberalized cannabis laws nationwide.
Indeed, reformers will no doubt find a lot to like in Biden’s criminal justice plan. (His endorsement of expanded drug courts, which have a very mixed record when it comes to keeping people out of jail, is an arguable exception.)
The most striking thing about Biden’s proposals is how much they are a rejection of the candidate’s own legacy. As former Reason criminal justice reporter Radley Balko once put it, “The martial/incarceral state has had no greater friend in Washington over the last 35 years than Joe Biden.”
When he was a senator from Delaware, Biden was one of the original co-sponsors on the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. That law imposed mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders and created the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine, two policies Biden now says should be eliminated completely.
Biden was also a sponsor of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, which expanded the application of the death penalty—another policy he now says should be abolished.
In this 1991 floor speech, Biden defends both policies:
In 1991, Joe Biden boasted of expanding the death penalty for major drug dealers and widening asset forfeiture, as well as restricting judges' discretion in sentencing. "The government can take everything you own, from your car to your house to your bank account!" pic.twitter.com/juKJhEQ8Ep
— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) April 3, 2019
Biden also supported the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act—indeed, he sometimes calls it the Biden Crime Law. That piece of legislation helped to drive mass incarceration at the state level by expanding federal funding for prison construction.
He now wants to that as well, with a $20 billion grant program encouraging states to shift their crime focus from incarceration to prevention.
Biden has not been totally devoid of self-reflection on his criminal justice record. He has described some of the harsh penalties for crack-cocaine as “a big mistake.” Even as a senator, he criticized some mandatory minimums.
Still, it’s breathtaking just how much Biden’s criminal justice platform implicitly repudiates his own record. Voters will have to decide for themselves whether this represents a genuine change of heart or a more cynical attempt to stay in tune with a party base hungry for reform.
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Former vice president and current presidential candidate Joe Biden has a new criminal justice reform plan. It aims to remedy many injustices caused by policies backed by…Joe Biden.
“Equality, equity, justice—these ideas form the American creed. We have never lived up to it and we haven’t always gotten it right, but we’ve never stopped trying,” said Biden in a video released today. “The public is ready. They’re ready. They’ve had enough.”
Today I released my plan to reform our criminal justice system.
Equality, equity, justice—these ideas form the American creed. We have never lived up to it and we haven’t always gotten it right, but we’ve never stopped trying. Learn more about my plan at https://t.co/fsdoT58qYL pic.twitter.com/qAJoFa5CqN
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 23, 2019
In the video, Biden endorses the SAFE Justice Act. That bill, first introduced in 2017, would limit the application of mandatory minimum sentences to the highest-level drug offenders, according to a summary by the criminal justice reform group FAMM.
Biden has also endorsed a list of other, more substantive reforms, including the elimination of mandatory minimums, the abolition of private prisons, the expanded use of drug courts, and the end of the death penalty. He would also eliminate the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine, and he thinks states should be allowed to pursue their own cannabis legalization policies without federal interference.
That last item is more tepid than what we’ve heard from some of his opponents, several of whom have endorsed the full legalization of recreational marijuana. It would nevertheless represent a significant step toward more liberalized cannabis laws nationwide.
Indeed, reformers will no doubt find a lot to like in Biden’s criminal justice plan. (His endorsement of expanded drug courts, which have a very mixed record when it comes to keeping people out of jail, is an arguable exception.)
The most striking thing about Biden’s proposals is how much they are a rejection of the candidate’s own legacy. As former Reason criminal justice reporter Radley Balko once put it, “The martial/incarceral state has had no greater friend in Washington over the last 35 years than Joe Biden.”
When he was a senator from Delaware, Biden was one of the original co-sponsors on the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. That law imposed mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders and created the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine, two policies Biden now says should be eliminated completely.
Biden was also a sponsor of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, which expanded the application of the death penalty—another policy he now says should be abolished.
In this 1991 floor speech, Biden defends both policies:
In 1991, Joe Biden boasted of expanding the death penalty for major drug dealers and widening asset forfeiture, as well as restricting judges' discretion in sentencing. "The government can take everything you own, from your car to your house to your bank account!" pic.twitter.com/juKJhEQ8Ep
— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) April 3, 2019
Biden also supported the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act—indeed, he sometimes calls it the Biden Crime Law. That piece of legislation helped to drive mass incarceration at the state level by expanding federal funding for prison construction.
He now wants to that as well, with a $20 billion grant program encouraging states to shift their crime focus from incarceration to prevention.
Biden has not been totally devoid of self-reflection on his criminal justice record. He has described some of the harsh penalties for crack-cocaine as “a big mistake.” Even as a senator, he criticized some mandatory minimums.
Still, it’s breathtaking just how much Biden’s criminal justice platform implicitly repudiates his own record. Voters will have to decide for themselves whether this represents a genuine change of heart or a more cynical attempt to stay in tune with a party base hungry for reform.
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Following an extensive three-year investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar by investigative journalist David Steinberg, a House ethics complaint has been filed by Judicial Watch calling for a probe into potential crimes committed by Omar and her brother.
According to the complaint, “Substantial, compelling and, to date, unrefuted evidence has been uncovered that Rep. Ilhan Omar may have committed the following crimes in violation of both federal law and Minnesota state law: perjury, immigration fraud, marriage fraud, state and federal tax fraud, and federal student loan fraud.”
The evidence is overwhelming Rep. Omar may have violated the law and House rules. The House of Representatives must urgently investigate and resolve the serious allegations of wrongdoing by Rep. Omar,” said Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton. “We encourage Americans to share their views on Rep. Omar’s apparent misconduct with their congressmen.”
Laid out in the complaint, as compiled in Steinberg’s research:
Rep. Ilhan Abdullahi Omar, a citizen of the United States, married her biological brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, a citizen of the United Kingdom, in 2009, presumably as part of an immigration fraud scheme. The couple legally divorced in 2017. In the course of that divorce, Ms. Omar submitted an “Application for an Order for Service by Alternate Means” to the State of Minnesota on August 2, 2017 and claimed, among other things, that she had had no contact with Ahmed Nur Said Elmi after June 2011. She also claimed that she did know where to find him. The evidence developed by Mr. Steinberg and his colleagues demonstrates with a high degree of certainty that Ms. Omar not only had contact with Mr. Elmi, but actually met up with him in London in 2015, which is supported by photographic evidence. Ms. Omar signed the “Application for an Order for Service by Alternate Means” under penalty of perjury. The very document that Ilham Omar signed on August 2, 2017 bears the following notation directly above her signature: “I declare under penalty of perjury that everything I have stated in this document is true and correct. Minn. Stat. § 358.116.”
Of particular importance are archived photographs taken during a widely reported trip by Ilhan Omar to London in 2015, posted to her own Instagram account under her nickname “hameey”, in which she poses with her husband/presumed brother, Ahmed Elmi. These photographs from 2015 are documentary evidence that in fact she met up with Mr. Elmi after June 2011 and before the date she signed the divorce document in August 2017, thereby calling into question the veracity of her claim that she had not seen Mr. Elmi since June 2011.
Rep. Omar’s potential crimes far exceed perjurious statements made in a Minnesota court filing.
Rep. Omar’s conduct may include immigration fraud. It appears that Rep. Omar married her brother in order to assist his emigration to the United Stated from the United Kingdom. The same immigration fraud scheme may have aided Mr. Elmi in obtaining federally-backed student loans for his attendance at North Dakota State University. Mr. Elmi and Rep. Omar simultaneously attended North Dakota State University and may have derived illicit benefits predicated on the immigration fraud scheme.
The State of Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board has already determined that Rep. Omar violated state campaign finance laws for improper use of campaign funds. She was forced to reimburse her campaign thousands of dollars. More significantly, the Board discovered that the federal tax returns submitted by Rep. Omar for 2014 and 2015 were filed as “joint” tax returns with a man who was not her husband, named Ahmed Hirsi, while she was actually married to Ahmed Elmi.
Under federal law, specifically, 26 U.S. Code & 7206.1, “Any person who willfully makes and subscribes any return, statement, or other document, which contains or is verified by a written declaration that it is made under the penalties of perjury, and which he does not believe to be true and correct as to every material matter … shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than $100,000 ($500,000 in the case of a corporation), or imprisoned not more than 3 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution.” –Judicial Watch
In case you need a flowchart (via PowerLineBlog)
Steinberg sums up the evidence (also via PowerLineBlog):
According to Steinberg, “I believe Scott Johnson, Preya Samsundar, and me, with our three years of articles, columns and posts, have provided more than enough evidence to give law enforcement authorities probable cause to open an investigation. Now would be the chance for law enforcement, and especially for Rep. Ilhan Omar’s House colleagues, to make a sincere stand against corruption and for the uniform application of the law.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2OfwY1L Tyler Durden
Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is sounding the alarm.
In an opinion piece that she put out on Monday, she boldly warned that an “economic crash” is coming. Actually, much of her article sounds like it could have come directly from the pages of the Economic Collapse Blog, and her analysis of the current state of the U.S. economy was right on the money. Of course her proposed “solutions” are completely and totally nuts, and we will discuss that later in the article. But it is quite remarkable that a woman that has a really, really good chance of becoming the next president of the United States is saying so many of the exact same things that I have been saying. For example, just consider this paragraph…
When I look at the economy today, I see a lot to worry about again. I see a manufacturing sector in recession. I see a precarious economy that is built on debt — both household debt and corporate debt — and that is vulnerable to shocks. And I see a number of serious shocks on the horizon that could cause our economy’s shaky foundation to crumble.
Everything that she said there is true. The manufacturing sector is definitely slowing down, and without a doubt U.S. households are drowning in debt.
In another paragraph, Warren elaborated on the unprecedented debt problems that U.S. families are currently facing…
A generation of stagnant wages and rising costs for basics like housing, child care, and education have forced American families to take on more debt than ever before. The student debt load has “more than doubled since the financial crisis.” American credit card debt matches its 2008 peak. Auto loan debt is the highest it has ever been since we started tracking it nearly 20 years ago, and a record 7 million Americans are behind on their auto loans — many of which have similar abusive characteristics as pre-crash subprime mortgages. 71 million American adults — more than 30% of the adults in the country — already have debts in collection. Families may be able to afford these debt payments now, but an increase in interest rates or a slowdown in income could plunge families over a cliff.
That is a fantastic paragraph, and once again everything that she said there is completely accurate.
Today, 59 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and even a mild recession would be absolutely disastrous for tens of millions of American families. During the coming recession we are likely to see debt defaults go through the roof, and Warren has correctly identified how vulnerable we are right now.
And she also accurately detailed the problems that the U.S. manufacturing sector is facing…
Despite Trump’s promises of a manufacturing “renaissance,” the country is now in a manufacturing recession. The Federal Reserve just reported that the manufacturing sector had a second straight quarter of decline, falling below Wall Street’s expectations. And for the first time ever, the average hourly wage for manufacturing workers has dropped below the national average.
Of course it isn’t just U.S. manufacturing that is struggling right now. We haven’t seen global manufacturing numbers this bad since the last financial crisis, and this is something that I detailed in a previous article.
In addition, it appears that we are about to get confirmation that we have now entered an “earnings recession”. The following comes from USA Today…
Yet with second-quarter earnings season underway, analysts are nervously waiting to see if the final results will deliver a second straight quarterly drop in corporate profits. Those surveyed by FactSet reckon the earnings of S&P 500 companies declined 1.9% in the April-June period from a year earlier. That’s based on a blend of their pre-earnings season estimate and actual results of the 16% of companies reporting so far.
Why the concern over back-to-back declines?
Two consecutive quarterly decreases would represent an earnings recession, which typically – but not always – foreshadows an economic recession within a year or two. Companies whose profits are squeezed tend to pull back hiring and investment.
Clearly we are facing some very serious economic challenges.
So what does Warren want to do to fix things?
Well, apparently she believes that everything will be just fine if we raise the minimum wage, spend a lot more money, and give away lots of free stuff…
We can raise incomes by increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour, strengthening unions, ensuring that women of color get the wages they deserve, and empowering workers to elect at least 40% of board members at big American corporations. We can reduce costs and slash household debt by cancelling up to $50,000 in student loan debt for 95% of people who have it, bringing downthe cost of rent, providing universal affordable child care and early education for all our kids ages 0–5, and making tuition free at every public technical school, two-year college, and four-year college.
Is she insane?
Seriously, where does she plan to get the money to fund her wacky proposals? At this point we are already 22 trillion dollars in debt, and a “compromise” deal was just reached in Washington that will greatly accelerate the pace at which our national debt is increasing.
The national debt is already an existential threat to the future of our nation, and Warren’s proposals would cost us trillions more.
So where does she plan to get that kind of cash? Is she going to tax all of us into oblivion?
Spending money that we do not have and the socialist economic policies of both major political parties are two of the biggest reasons why we are currently in such a horrible mess. Warren’s “solutions” would only greatly compound our problems.
Sadly, our leaders are a reflection of who we are as a nation, and at this moment a big chunk of the population wants Elizabeth Warren.
A CBS News poll that was just released found that Joe Biden is still leading the race for the Democratic nomination, but the race has greatly tightened. Biden was at 25 percent in the survey, but Warren was a close second at 20 percent. Biden’s campaign has been faltering in recent weeks, while Warren’s campaign has been really surging. In the end, it wouldn’t be a surprise at all if Elizabeth Warren wins the Democratic nomination.
And if she wins the nomination, there is a really good chance that she will be the next president of the United States.
By the time the 2020 election arrives, the “economic crash” that Elizabeth Warren is warning about is likely to be here. But no amount of “free stuff” is going to fix things, and the truth is that socialism never works on a long-term basis.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Z6OB4U Tyler Durden
