Hillary Tweets “No One Is Above the Law” Then Refuses To Accept Lawsuit Against Her

Hillary Tweets “No One Is Above the Law” Then Refuses To Accept Lawsuit Against Her

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

In an hilarious hypocritical display, Hillary Clinton tweeted out “In America, no one is above the law,” on the same day that she used her secret service detail to turn away legal documents attempting to be served to her as part of a lawsuit.

So no one is above the law, except if it’s Hillary Clinton, who has now TWICE refused to accept service from Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s lawyers, as part of a $50 million defamation suit relating to Clinton’s accusations that Gabbard is a “Russian asset”.

Gabbard’s attorney, Brian Dunne told The New York Post, “I find it rather unbelievable that Hillary Clinton is so intimidated by Tulsi Gabbard that she won’t accept service of process. But I guess here we are.”

The Post notes that “Dunne said their process server first attempted to effect service at Clinton’s house in Chappaqua on Tuesday afternoon — but was turned away by Secret Service agents.”

The report continues, “The agents directed the server to Clinton’s lawyer, David Kendall, who on Wednesday claimed at his Washington, DC, firm, Williams & Connolly, that he was unable to accept service on Clinton’s behalf, said Dunne.”

Of course, Hillary is no stranger to considering herself above the law:

“What difference does it make?”

“With a cloth, or something?”

Oh Hillary we miss you!


Tyler Durden

Fri, 01/31/2020 – 13:06

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Shots Fired At Mar-a-Lago, Suspects Arested

Shots Fired At Mar-a-Lago, Suspects Arested

Shots were fired at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort after a woman in a black SUV tried to drive through a security checkpoint north of the resort shortly after Noon on Friday, according to WSVN 7, citing law enforcement.

A heavy police presence was seen after Police and Secret Service opened fire at the gate crasher. Two people are in custody following a short chase involving a police helicopter.

President Trump and the First Lady were scheduled to travel to Mar a Lago on Friday for the weekend.

Developing…

 


Tyler Durden

Fri, 01/31/2020 – 12:52

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“They All Knew!” – Chinese Furious At Virus-Fighting Officials Who Lied About Human Transmission

“They All Knew!” – Chinese Furious At Virus-Fighting Officials Who Lied About Human Transmission

They lied, and 200+ died.

For reasons that haven’t been shared with the public, the WHO has chosen to lavish praise on Beijing, insisting that travel to China isn’t dangerous even as more governments impose restrictions, and claiming that Beijing has been completely transparent and a ‘model’ for how countries should handle outbreaks like this.

When pressed by a reporter, Dr. Tedros, the director general of the WHO, replied that local authorities in Wuhan had been “very transparent” with the Chinese people by publishing up-to-date notices about new cases and deaths. First of all, many suspect that Beijing hasn’t been entirely truthful as far as these tallies are concerned.

Second, it’s not so much about what Beijing told the Chinese people. Everybody knows the government censors anything that might reflect badly upon the Communist Party. So to claim that the government has been completely transparent with the people is almost disingenuous. Of course that’s not true. But the real issue is what they did and didn’t tell the international news media, and their international partners.

Now, a new study has exposed the Communist Party’s lies.

The research has once again moved back the timeline of when senior Chinese leaders knew about the outbreak in Wuhan, suggesting that they waited longer to act, and longer to inform the international community, than they had led the world to believe. The claim appeared in a top American medical journal.

From Nikkei Asian Review:

The deadly new coronavirus from Wuhan was spreading from person to person as early as mid-December, weeks before China officially confirmed such transmission, government-funded Chinese researchers report in a top American medical journal.

The paper in the New England Journal of Medicine analyzes data on the first 425 confirmed cases in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the outbreak originated.

“On the basis of this information, there is evidence that human-to-human transmission has occurred among close contacts since the middle of December 2019,” it reads. The paper notes that seven health care workers contracted the virus between Jan. 1 and Jan. 11 – significant evidence of human-to-human transmission.

The findings sharply contrast with the accounts of Wuhan health authorities who had maintained until mid-January that there was “no clear evidence” that the virus could be passed among humans. Officials also claimed Jan. 11 that no health care workers had been infected.

But…but…but…the local authorities in Wuhan said they didn’t have evidence of person to person transmission until mid-January! That’s increasingly difficult to believe, seeing as the signs were clearly there after the first wave of patients was diagnosed and examined and interrogated.

Research suggests fewer than 60% of the early virus-carriers had been directly linked to the seafood market. The rest were associates, friends and relatives of the people who had. That, right there, is evidence of human-to-human transmission – and this was known as early as mid-December.

Some frustrated Chinese have chosen to defy censors and lash out on Chinese social media networks like Weibo.

Many of the paper’s authors work for the Chinese Center for Disease Control and local counterparts. Many were among the first batch of medical experts to have entered Wuhan for on-the-ground inspections, developing “a tailored surveillance protocol to identify potential cases” on Jan. 3.

“They all knew,” a user on the Weibo microblogging platform said. “They just didn’t say, but lied to us.”

“If only they could have told people earlier, we could have taken better preventive measures, and the virus would not have spread this fast,” another wrote.

There have even been reports of the government cremating bodies before they can be brought to a morgue and officially included with the statistics, helping to maintain the illusion that the mortality rate for the novel coronavirus outbreak is far below the rate for SARS at just 2%-3%. In reality, some have suggested the true mortality rate is closer to 11%, as thousands in dire need of treatment are confronted by shortages of supplies and doctors, even as Beijing sends legions of medical “personnel” (many of whom are likely just PLA soldiers) to Hubei.

Instead of embracing transparency, Beijing back in December arrested several researchers for “spreading false rumors” about the severity of the outbreak. Of course, their warnings have since been realized.

Some Weibo users have demanded that the authors of the paper expose whoever is responsible for this.

“I’m demanding an explanation from the paper’s authors,” wrote one Weibo user. “You clearly knew about people-to-people transmission three weeks earlier than the public, but did you do what you were supposed to do?”

The Ministry of Science and Technology issued a statement on Thursday urging researchers in the country to “not devote their efforts to writing essays before completing the task of combating the novel coronavirus.”

Some social media users in China pointed to another possibility.

“Perhaps the researchers did not have a way to share their findings, and publishing it in a scientific journal was their last resort to warn the public,” one WeChat user wrote on a group discussion.

In December, eight people were detained for “spreading false rumors” as they discussed the spread of a then-unknown coronavirus on the internet. The eight people were later identified as doctors working in Wuhan, which sparked a public outcry over government censorship.

When this is all said and done, we doubt the Chinese people will forget how their government lied not only to them, but to the world.


Tyler Durden

Fri, 01/31/2020 – 12:40

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What the Porn Industry Thinks of the New War on Porn

Republicans in Congress recently demanded that the Justice Department step up enforcement against online pornography, and their counterparts at conservative magazines and think tanks have been proclaiming porn’s evils with renewed vigor, with right-wing intellectuals like Sohrab Ahmari and Terry Schilling writing anti-porn screeds.

But Republicans have often demonized porn during elections or scandals. (The 2016 election cycle saw Republicans declaring pornography a public health crisis.) So are the bad old days of obscenity prosecutions coming back? Or are the current calls for a crackdown just another tawdry political show?

Last week I attended the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegasan annual trade conference, fan meet-and-greet, and awards show in which much of the porn industry gathers to talk shop, show off their latest products, and assess the state of the business. The performers and producers I talked with told me they’re intimately acquainted with how hypocritical politicians tease their base by performing disgust at porn.

“Politicians have always used the porn industry as a topic to be raised during election years,” says Dee Siren, an adult performer and CEO of Siren XXX Studios, which brands itself as showcasing “only real women that love real sex!”

“In my experience, politicians enjoy porn in their personal lives as much as any other group of people—if not more,” says actress Maitland Ward, who collected three AVN Awards this year. “You should ask them why they feel the need to stigmatize sex workers during election years if it goes against what they privately enjoy.”

Amberly Rothfield, a clip creator, adult marketing consultant, and phone sex operator, suggests that progress on marijuana legalization “means that politicians need to show they are strong on other issues, leaving us.” Rothfield thinks the level of anti-porn sentiment in this country has stayed the same but the anti-porn crowd is “getting louder. Meaning, same amount of people but they are doubling down on those policies as other ground is being taken.”

While no one would say that renewed obscenity convictions are around the corner, prosecutions aren’t unimaginable.

“I think it’s unlikely that there would be a conviction for obscenity,” attorney D. Gill Sperlein said in an AVN session on the legal issues facing adult entertainment. But prosecutions are often “done for political gain,” he added, and in that case “they don’t care if they get a conviction or not.”

And political stigmas express themselves in many ways. Beyond the anti-porn culture war, adult entertainers and those advising them also have more immediate, practical concerns, like the effects of FOSTA, a 2018 law that’s had a chilling effect on online content related to sex, and new labor laws like California’s AB 5, which could upend porn economics.

Does Anyone Really Know What Obscenity Is?

The enduring legal problem for porn producers and performers comes down to a single word: obscenity. Obscenity is one of the few types of speech exempted from protection by the First Amendment. Yet it’s never been clear precisely what it means. Federal statutes contain no explicit definition of obscenity, and guidance from courts has been maddeningly subjective.

The current legal standard was set in 1973 by Miller v. California: Obscenity is anything “the average person” using modern “community standards” would think appeals to “prurient interests,” depict or describe sexual activity “offensively,” and be without “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” Some of the right-wing anti-porn jeremiads of the Trump era have called for ramping up the legal assault on porn, arguing that courts could take a much stronger line as to what constitutes obscenity.

“I don’t think the obscenity law works today because it’s based on ‘I know porn when I see it’ [and] that’s so meaningless, especially in today’s day and age,” says John Stagliano, who has the distinction of being the last person to face a federal obscenity prosecution for mainstream, professional porn productions. A judge dismissed the charges against Stagliano and his company, Evil Angel, in 2010. (Stagliano serves on the board of the Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this website.) Since then, federal obscenity units have kept to prosecuting sexual material featuring minors.

The two Bush presidencies were more aggressive about targeting porn that featured consenting adults. In 2005, the Department of Justice created an Obscenity Prosecution Task Force to go after “the distributors of hard-core pornographydefined as any visual depiction of uncovered genitals or of sexual activity. “The special challenges that obscenity cases pose in the computer age require an equally specialized response,” said Christopher Wray, then assistant attorney general, on May 5, 2005.

Wray is now director of the FBI. And Bill Barr, now attorney general, oversaw aggressive obscenity prosecutions during the first Bush administration. That may help explain why some conservatives think it’s time to have a go at it again.

“Change is constant, and the laws are going backwards and forwards,” says porn director and star Steve Holmes, who has worked on adult film sets (and sometimes public streets) around the world. “You have to adapt. You have to adjust.”

But adjusting can be hard with an administration as unpredictable as this one.

“Any time a conservative politician starts thinking they’re going to lose” or needs “to rile up the basethey start thinking, ‘Well, where can we go that isn’t going to hurt our interests? And pornography is usually pretty high on that list,” Sperlein saidduring the legal issues panel. But “there is a distinct difference this time: Our president owns a string of hotels, and those hotels offer pay-per-view porn. So it’s probably less likely that [obscenity prosecutions are] going to be be an issue.”

Co-panelist Allan Gelbard, a First Amendment, intellectual property, and entertainment attorney, disagreed. “I was on board with that whole analysis of Trump before he was elected,” said Gelbard. “Seeing how he’s governed, I don’t think that idea holds water anymore,” because Trump likes to rile up his base “and his base would love it” if Trump went after porn.

A film being shown in hotels owned by the president may be a pretty good sign it’s not a violation of “community standards.”

But “they’re not going to prosecute the relatively softcore porn that’s in his hotels,” suggested Gelbard. “They’re going to go after things that are believed to degrade women, or other things like that.”

When I talk to him later, Stagliano agrees, suggesting that who winds up prosecuted is “more related to the disgust emotion” than rational analysis or public safety priorities.

Stagliano mentions director Max Hardcore, who was indicted on obscenity charges in 2007 for five films that featured fisting, pee, and vomit. The films got him three years and 10 months in federal prison. “Max Hardcore got put in jail because what he was doing looked disgusting to a lot of people, because it’s not normal sex,” says Stagliano. “Not that many people are going to stand up and defend any sex that’s viewed as being abnormal or not part of the mainstream.”

How FOSTA Paved the Way For Online Censorship

“The biggest fight is against stigma, the idea in people’s heads that sexually empowered women who choose to do sex work and porn are somehow ‘tainted’ for other social roles,” says Ward, who has appeared in a mix of mainstream television and adult entertainment. It’s this stigma that fuels destructive laws and agendas.

That includes laws like FOSTA (short for the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act). This 2018 law gives the government a new way to go after online content related to sex, by making it a federal crime to host web content that promotes or facilitates prostitution.

“FOSTA most definitely is designed to target, among other things, adult entertainment,” Ward says. “It’s censorship legislation,” making digital platforms legally liable “for having content that is very vaguely defined and subject to the random whims and attitudes of officials.”

Vagueness is one of FOSTA’s big problems. It fails to differentiate between sex trafficking and prostitution. It fails to distinguish between conduct and speech. And it wraps the whole package in language so muddled and penalties so severe that web platforms have an incentive to crack down on all sorts of sexually-themed content.

“Even though I am not a full-service sex worker”that is, someone who engages in sexual activity directly with private clients“I have had to deal with the censorship that came along with FOSTA,” says Allie Even Knox, a fetish performer who also works as vice president of sales at the Ethereum-based payment processor SpankChain. It’s “limited me [in] services that I need to have for my business,” such as email list management and photo storage, because many popular sites won’t accept accounts related to sex.

Knox tells me her Instagram account has been shut down three times, even though she doesn’t post nudes, and so has “every single cash app that you could imagine, and even a crypto wallet.”

FOSTA sign at AVN

“Even though I was just accepting tips or tributes through the system, or selling panties or content, whatever, the platforms have taken a much tighter stance and will shut you down merrily for existing,” she adds. “This bill has made it much harder for me to accept payment for my legal work.”

On the night of the AVN Awards, as the guests of honor walked the red carpet, someone circled the periphery holding a sign that said “I want sex workers rights! Not awards” and, under that, “Fuck FOSTA. Fuck SESTA.” (SESTA is the acronym for a similar bill that started in the Senate, and the bill that passed is often called SESTA-FOSTA.)

Porn performers and workers in other legal sex industries sometimes strive to distance themselves from criminalized sex work such as prostitution. But Kaytlin Bailey of the group Decriminalize Sex Work, which is pushing to remove criminal penalties for prostitution in several states, says the group’s booth got a good reception at the AVN Expo.

“We are all stigmatized as sex workers,” says Bailey. “There are a lot of people here that told me that SESTA-FOSTA was the thing that got them to contact their senator or the first time, or got them to vote or pay attention to politics.”

On the legal issue panel, Sperlein said he hopes prostitution decriminalization will follow the path of cannabis in the U.S. “People really do believe that the government shouldn’t get involved in what people do in their personal lives,” he says. “It may not be that easy, but I’m hoping that it follows that trend.”

He’s been working with a group of advocates and a California lawmaker to get a decriminalization billand research to back it upready for 2021.

“Officials are often lobbied by religiously motivated groups that consider all sex work to be ‘human trafficking’ and all porn to be ‘exploitation,'” says Ward, commenting on FOSTA. “But I’m not worried too much because Americans love freedom and hopefully they can see censorship for what it is.”

Will California’s Gig Economy Law Be Porn’s ‘Armageddon’?

Porn faces another legal threat. A.B. 5—California’s new law regulating the gig economy—is “armageddon in some ways” for the state’s porn industry, said longtime AVN writer Mark Kernes on the legal issues panel.

Many adult entertainment companies rely on talent and crew employed as independent contractors, not full-fledged employees. And for porn performers these days, it’s the norm not just to contract with one or more studios but to make money via webcamming, video clip sales, and other online platforms. Having multiple income streams that don’t depend on a few big gatekeepers makes the work safer and puts performers in more control.

A.B. 5, and the copycat legislation it’s spawning in other states, threatens that.

These laws are presented as ways to protect workers from being taken advantage of by companies who get a significant number of hours out of them without classifying them as full employees. But in practice, they take options away from freelancers, consultants, gig workers, and independent contractors, who are now limited in their options, while giving companies no incentive to suddenly hire all their contractors and incur huge additional costs.

A.B. 5 “could reclassify any performer working for a studio as that studio’s employee, no matter how many different studios you shoot for,” warned the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee and the Free Speech Coalition in pamphlets handed out at the AVN Expo.

Because A.B. 5 contains exemptions for business-to-business relationships, the groups suggest performers form their own corporations in order to continue to be allowed to be paid as an independent contractors. “Your employer would now have a contract with your corporation instead of with you as an individual,” they explain.

Rothfield points out that “exceptions are being written in for cam performers and the like,” but A.B. 5 “has made many adult sites feel they have to hire cam girls as employees to be compliant,” which “leaves many part time cammers scared about their income.”

Bascially, laws like this make it harder for porn performers to work as independent contractors for multiple platforms, giving them less leverage and fewer options and creating greater risk for exploitation.

AVN Awards Show

The Right to Look at Stronger, Crazier Stuff

Despite the current climate of panic and fear surrounding “sex trafficking” and, by extension, all forms of sex work, we’ve come a long way on this front from just a few decades ago.

As an example: When Good Vibrations founder Joani Blank first tried to place ads for the company in the 1980s, she could “not buy ads in most places,” author and educator Carol Queen told a crowd at an AVN panel on sex tech. “She couldn’t even in PlayboyPlayboy rejected her ad. And then the same year, Ms. Magazine, the magazine of record for modern feminism, rejected it.” Just “getting the word out” about anything related to sex was difficult, Queen said.

Some people say we’ve come too far.

As a father, Stagliano says, “I understand why the public is concerned and wants the government to step in and make it somewhat harder” to access porn online. But he also believes “it’s my responsibility to control what my children look at.”

Adults should have “the right to choose to look at stronger, crazy stuff” if they wish, he adds.

Whether these rights persist depends on breaking down stigma, Rothfield argues. She hopes to see more people “come out of the ‘new closet’ and admit to being sex workers in the past and show politicians just how many of us are. Adding them to our numbers, I believe is the only way to ensure our rights do not get trampled on.”

The advent of accessible, low-budget ways to create adult content, combined with the proliferation of ways to distribute that content, has revolutionized the porn industry for performers in a way that’s only starting to be realized. And according to those in the industry, it stands to bring even more positive changes—if government can get out of the way.

“The far rightjust like in the ’80swants a war on everything, including a war on porn,” Siren says. “But we will not go away and will fight for our freedoms.”

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In This “Booming Economy”, 90% Of Americans Say Money Increases Stress Levels

In This “Booming Economy”, 90% Of Americans Say Money Increases Stress Levels

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

While we are being bombarded with news from the mainstream media that the current United States economy is “booming,” 90% of Americans say they are stressed out about money.

What could possibly be stressing us out if the employment rate is low, there’s no inflation, and everyone has disposable income?  Or are we being manipulated by the government’s lapdog media to keep us spending and consuming?

According to a study from Thriving Wallet, a new partnership between Thrive Global and Discover, the vast majority of Americans are stressed out about money.  The goal of Thriving Wallet is to: “Reframe our relationship with money so that we can reduce financial stress and achieve positive behavior changes,” Arianna Huffington, founder, and CEO of Thrive Global tells CNBC Select.

The key takeaways from the survey are:

  • 90% of individuals say that money has an impact on their stress level

  • About 65% report feeling that their financial difficulties are piling up so much they can’t overcome them

  • Roughly 40% report that they are currently taking no notable steps to secure their financial future

  • Over 40% wish that they could have a ‘fresh’ financial start

  • Less than 25% feel extremely optimistic about their financial future

  • Nearly 25% make purchases they later regret when experiencing significant stress

  • 40% say managing their money on a daily basis limits the extent to which they can enjoy their day-to-day life

The study found that financial stress is either very or extremely influential on many major life milestones and everyday activities, including:

  • Retiring: 51%

  • Buying a home: 51%

  • Purchasing/leasing a car: 44%

  • Daily leisure activities: 36%

  • Purchasing clothing/groceries: 34%

  • Making social plans: 32%

  • Getting married: 28%

  • Having/adopting children: 28%

  • Daily personal care routines: 26%

  • Engaging in exercise: 24%

  • Getting a pet: 23%

  • Choosing what to eat: 1%

If you are one of the Americans struggling with stress related to money, there are some ways to alleviate some of the burdens. First, pay down debts and decrease the amount of outflow each month. This may require cutting back on extras like cable and eating out, but once you’ve eliminated several monthly bills, you’ll have extra money each month.  Not living paycheck to paycheck can go miles in reducing financial stress.

Next, reduce stress in other areas of your life. This will help free your mind for things like remembering to pay bills on time to avoid late fees. Stay on top of what you spend and stick to a budget.  This isn’t fun the first time you do it, but it gets easier and you end up wondering where all your money had been going before you started tracking it.


Tyler Durden

Fri, 01/31/2020 – 12:19

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In Trump Subpoena Fight, the Supreme Court Weighs Executive vs. Congressional Power

A constitutional clash between the executive authority of the president and the subpoena powers of Congress is now unfolding before the U.S. Supreme Court. The outcome of the case may reverberate long after Donald Trump has vacated the White House.

At issue in Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP, is whether the Committee on Oversight and Reform of the U.S. House of Representatives overstepped its legal and constitutional authority in 2019 when it subpoenaed Mazars USA, Trump’s longtime accounting firm, demanding eight years of financial records pertaining to Trump and several of his business entities.

This is not the first time that the Supreme Court has been asked to review the scope of such congressional power. In Barenblatt v. United States (1959), the Court ruled that “Congress may only investigate into those areas in which it may potentially legislate or appropriate.” In Eastland v. U.S. Servicemen’s Fund (1975), the Court reaffirmed that basic principle, holding that the congressional subpoena power may only be used for a “legitimate legislative purpose.”

The central question in Trump v. Mazars USA is whether the House Oversight Committee has a “legitimate legislative purpose” in seeking Trump’s financial records.

The House Oversight Committee insists that it does. “The Committee’s interests in these matters,” wrote then-chairman Elijah Cummings (D–Md.) in an April 2019 memorandum, “informs its review of multiple laws and legislative proposals under [its] jurisdiction.” For example, if Trump’s financial records reveal that he is violating federal ethics laws while in office, then the committee may use that information to help fashion new laws that better target such presidential wrongdoing.

The committee spelled out this argument in greater detail in its brief urging the Supreme Court to deny Trump’s petition to grant review of the case. “The election of a President who has decided to maintain his ties to a broad array of business ventures raises questions about the adequacy of existing legislation concerning financial disclosures, government contracts with federal officeholders, and government ethics, more generally,” the committee’s brief states. “Whether new legislation on these subjects is needed is a natural subject of Congressional inquiry.”

Trump’s legal team counters by dismissing that argument as a mere pretext for an illegal fishing expedition by the president’s political foes. Under the committee’s theory, the Trump legal team told the Supreme Court in a brief filed this week, “a congressional committee merely needs to say that it is considering legislation requiring presidents to disclose information of this type. Given the temptation to investigate the personal lives of political rivals, legislative subpoenas targeting the private affairs of presidents will become routine in times of divided government.”

In other words, Trump’s argument goes, the House subpoena should be squashed in this case not to protect Trump personally but to protect the office of the presidency in general.

Oral arguments in Trump v. Mazars USA are scheduled for March 31.

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In Trump Subpoena Fight, the Supreme Court Weighs Executive vs. Congressional Power

A constitutional clash between the executive authority of the president and the subpoena powers of Congress is now unfolding before the U.S. Supreme Court. The outcome of the case may reverberate long after Donald Trump has vacated the White House.

At issue in Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP, is whether the Committee on Oversight and Reform of the U.S. House of Representatives overstepped its legal and constitutional authority in 2019 when it subpoenaed Mazars USA, Trump’s longtime accounting firm, demanding eight years of financial records pertaining to Trump and several of his business entities.

This is not the first time that the Supreme Court has been asked to review the scope of such congressional power. In Barenblatt v. United States (1959), the Court ruled that “Congress may only investigate into those areas in which it may potentially legislate or appropriate.” In Eastland v. U.S. Servicemen’s Fund (1975), the Court reaffirmed that basic principle, holding that the congressional subpoena power may only be used for a “legitimate legislative purpose.”

The central question in Trump v. Mazars USA is whether the House Oversight Committee has a “legitimate legislative purpose” in seeking Trump’s financial records.

The House Oversight Committee insists that it does. “The Committee’s interests in these matters,” wrote then-chairman Elijah Cummings (D–Md.) in an April 2019 memorandum, “informs its review of multiple laws and legislative proposals under [its] jurisdiction.” For example, if Trump’s financial records reveal that he is violating federal ethics laws while in office, then the committee may use that information to help fashion new laws that better target such presidential wrongdoing.

The committee spelled out this argument in greater detail in its brief urging the Supreme Court to deny Trump’s petition to grant review of the case. “The election of a President who has decided to maintain his ties to a broad array of business ventures raises questions about the adequacy of existing legislation concerning financial disclosures, government contracts with federal officeholders, and government ethics, more generally,” the committee’s brief states. “Whether new legislation on these subjects is needed is a natural subject of Congressional inquiry.”

Trump’s legal team counters by dismissing that argument as a mere pretext for an illegal fishing expedition by the president’s political foes. Under the committee’s theory, the Trump legal team told the Supreme Court in a brief filed this week, “a congressional committee merely needs to say that it is considering legislation requiring presidents to disclose information of this type. Given the temptation to investigate the personal lives of political rivals, legislative subpoenas targeting the private affairs of presidents will become routine in times of divided government.”

In other words, Trump’s argument goes, the House subpoena should be squashed in this case not to protect Trump personally but to protect the office of the presidency in general.

Oral arguments in Trump v. Mazars USA are scheduled for March 31.

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Real Selling Begins As CTAs Start Liquidating, Dealer Gamma Flips Negative

Real Selling Begins As CTAs Start Liquidating, Dealer Gamma Flips Negative

Whether it was today’s abysmal Chicago PMI print, or algos finally googling “pandemic” and realizing that what is going on in China could have catastrophic consequences for the global economy (as explained in “Coronavirus Has The Potential Coronavirus Has The Potential To Trigger A Global DepressionTo Trigger A Global Depression“), today’s sharp market drop, which pushed the Dow Jones back in the red for the year, is having adverse consequences for market positioning.

Starting with CTAs (which as we explained earlier this week, have emerged as the dominant price-setter in this momentum-driven market), Nomura’s Masanari Takada writes that they have finally emerged as sellers of equity futures as a result of the recent spike in VIX, to wit: “with market volatility on the rise, CTAs appear to be closing out the overlarge long positions they had accumulated in US equity futures. At current price levels, however, we think most of this is defensive unwinding, as we estimate that their recent long positions in S&P 500 futures (net buying since December 2019) break even around 3,270.” And with the S&P at 3245 currently, every CTA that bought in the past month is now underwater.

The good news is that CTA liquidation of long positions has been stop-and-go, as even below 3,270, bottom-up buying pressure from Long/Short funds and other bullish investors generally keeps the bottom from dropping out.

What is notable here is that as CTAs dump, Nomura sees traditional equity long/short funds rising to top the list of “stalwart bulls” who persist in their dip-buying:

L/S funds’ net exposure to US equity (estimated 30-day beta) continues to ramp up gradually, and we think they remain contrarian buyers even after the market shock caused by the novel coronavirus outbreak. But these L/S funds have been reshuffling their portfolios, replacing some cyclical stocks with defensive stocks, and they have increased their allocations toward low-vol and quality factors. As they also appear to be selectively buying up stocks reporting favorable earnings, we interpret their stance as the more conservative flavor of bullishness.

To be sure, it is rather perplexing that hedge funds which remained on the sidelines throughout most of the post-QE4 ramp, are now scrambling to buy stocks. One possible reason for this may be that dealer gamma was solidly in the green, providing a comfortable cushion for any new longs as stocks rallied. That “cushion” however is now gone, because as Nomura’s other quant, Charlie McElligott writes, not only is the prior gamma extreme greatly reduced now – at just 35th percentile since 2013 and nowhere close to as impactful as it was over the past week – and with the S&P now below as the strikes that matter, such as 3250 ($3.4B), 3300 ($4.9B) and 3350 ($3.7B)…

… but the S&P500 “Gamma Neutral/Flip” trigger point, which has rested on the 3250-3260 band, has now been taken out, as dealer gamma flips negative, and as dealers are now forced to sell into every selloff.

In short: with CTAs now liquidation and with gamma no longer a “natural” offset to any selloff, should the selloff accelerate here as L/S funds capitulate, the Fed may have no choice but to intervene to avoid a rout.


Tyler Durden

Fri, 01/31/2020 – 12:04

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With China Markets Set To Re-Open, US Traders Are Ignoring Two “Blatantly Obvious” Issues

With China Markets Set To Re-Open, US Traders Are Ignoring Two “Blatantly Obvious” Issues

Authored by Richard Breslow via Bloomberg,

It isn’t hard to find assets that have clearly shown distress by how they’ve reacted to the current news. But it’s also easily enough done if you are looking for evidence of remarkable sangfroid in the face of what can only be described as scary events.

All in all, taken collectively, from an asset price point of view, things have held up remarkably well. How traders approach the coming weekend and the prospect of China’s market reopening will be very telling. Friday is unlikely to be quiet and whatever happens, someone is going to insist it was obvious.

What has been striking is that, on the face of it, markets appear to be debunking two cliches that we accept as so blatantly obvious that they need no discussion.

  1. We take for granted that traders don’t like uncertainty,

  2. and place the much-lamented diminished market liquidity near the top of any list of systemic concerns.

Maybe, these are worth reconsidering, at least in part

Watching how and, how far, things have moved, made me wonder if these don’t hold as true as we think. Or, we have been conditioned to simply ignore our natural instincts certain in the belief that the famous “put” is as alive and kicking as ever. And maybe it always will be.

Many economists and analysts are trying to fine-tune their calculations about the economic effects from the virus. And suggesting trades based on them. They are attempting to put a number on something that, at this point, can’t be measured. And appending a caveat like, “if things work out just so, this is how things will play out” really isn’t all that helpful. But it doesn’t seem to be stopping anyone from taking that ball and running with it.

If you survey various asset classes, however, you might come to very different conclusions about how investors are reacting. Traders are likely to pick the biggest and deepest markets to stock their portfolios and be far more circumspect about others. One market looking good won’t necessarily translate to an all-clear signal for everything else. Simplicity and familiarity will continue to look comparatively attractive. Esoterica will have to wait for a renewed day in the sun.

Correlation matrices should be used more carefully as they will churn out some difficult to interpret signals while they learn. Investors will need to reconsider how quickly they let their time series data decay. There is going to be a lot of asset-class rotation. And then, at a time uncertain, it will, hopefully, all have to be unwound. We will need to be much more circumspect when claiming we are, in some generalized fashion, risk-on or off.

It’s not that traders don’t dislike uncertainty. They have just found ways of dealing with it. But this strategy ultimately relies on central banks continuing to play their parts. They undoubtedly don’t want a repeat of the late 2008 price action where, just like now, everyone was busy getting long — or longer.

Investors have been forced to ignore liquidity concerns in order to survive in this low interest-rate, volatility-suppressed world. They’re probably going to have to give this more consideration, even if it’s precipitated by an upset. They’ve often been accused of protesting too much about the lack of liquidity but refusing to pay for it. Electronic platforms make it look like it’s for free when times are good. I suspect most traders just hope this too shall pass. It will be interesting to see if, in the interim, less liquid assets will finally be charged a liquidity premium.

It’s probably true that most traders still stick to the notion that uncertainty and liquidity concerns have merit. But if they don’t guide behavior in the way they used to in the past, we might want to stop taking them for granted. Sometimes they simply work in very different ways.


Tyler Durden

Fri, 01/31/2020 – 11:40

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Dow Drops 400 Points, Turns Red For 2020, Tests Critical Technical Level

Dow Drops 400 Points, Turns Red For 2020, Tests Critical Technical Level

Well that escalated quickly…

Dow down over 400 points as reality bites on the the global pandemic

The Dow joins Trannies and Small Caps in the red for the year…

Testing its 50DMA for the first time since October…

And 30Y broke to a 1 handle…

It’s been quite a year already…

Somebody do something!


Tyler Durden

Fri, 01/31/2020 – 11:26

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/31e1o7B Tyler Durden