Seth Barrett Tillman and I published a new essay on Lawfare. We discuss a theory of “bribery” for the impeachment clause. Here is an excerpt:
Just as the executive branch should not investigate and prosecute horse-trading and log-rolling by members of Congress, Congress should not investigate and impeach horse-trading by the president. Where the president acts for mixed motives while engaging in log-rolling and horse-trading—entertaining related considerations of public policy, his party’s success and his chances of personal reelection—there is nothing to investigate.
Judge Frank Easterbrook stated this principle in even stronger terms regarding the conviction and sentencing of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who offered to appoint Valerie Jarrett, a close associate of President-elect Obama, to a vacant U.S. Senate seat, in exchange for Blagojevich’s receiving an appointment to the Obama cabinet. Blagojevich was convicted on multiple counts. On appeal, in U.S. v. Blagojevich (2015), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit found that particular counts of his conviction could not stand. Judge Easterbrook explained that “a proposal to trade one public act for another, a form of logrolling, is fundamentally unlike the swap of an official act for a private payment.” He added that “[g]overnance would hardly be possible without” political log-rolling, “which allow[s] each public official to achieve more of his principal objective while surrendering something about which he cares less, but the other politician cares more strongly.”
Thus, according to Easterbrook, in such circumstances, even mixed motives are irrelevant. Such acts are presumptively lawful, and should not be investigated, let alone be considered for indictment or impeachment. If there is any evidence that there was some sort of secret benefit (such as a suitcase full of cash), then the government can investigate and, if warranted, prosecute that additional act. The secretness of the benefit is evidence of corrupt intent. Where one public official act is traded for another public official act, there has not been any illegal conduct.
We can think of one high-profile and far more brazen effort by a president to improve his party’s prospects through the use of official communications. In 1864, during the height of the Civil War, President Lincoln encouraged Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman to allow soldiers in the field to return to Indiana to vote. What was his primary motivation? It was to make sure that the government of Indiana remained in the hands of Republican loyalists who wished to continue the war until victory. This action risked undercutting the military effort by depleting the ranks. Lincoln had dueling motives. Privately, he sought to secure a victory for his party. This personal interest should not impugn his public motive: win the war and secure the nation.
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Seth Barrett Tillman and I published a new essay on Lawfare. We discuss a theory of “bribery” for the impeachment clause. Here is an excerpt:
Just as the executive branch should not investigate and prosecute horse-trading and log-rolling by members of Congress, Congress should not investigate and impeach horse-trading by the president. Where the president acts for mixed motives while engaging in log-rolling and horse-trading—entertaining related considerations of public policy, his party’s success and his chances of personal reelection—there is nothing to investigate.
Judge Frank Easterbrook stated this principle in even stronger terms regarding the conviction and sentencing of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who offered to appoint Valerie Jarrett, a close associate of President-elect Obama, to a vacant U.S. Senate seat, in exchange for Blagojevich’s receiving an appointment to the Obama cabinet. Blagojevich was convicted on multiple counts. On appeal, in U.S. v. Blagojevich (2015), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit found that particular counts of his conviction could not stand. Judge Easterbrook explained that “a proposal to trade one public act for another, a form of logrolling, is fundamentally unlike the swap of an official act for a private payment.” He added that “[g]overnance would hardly be possible without” political log-rolling, “which allow[s] each public official to achieve more of his principal objective while surrendering something about which he cares less, but the other politician cares more strongly.”
Thus, according to Easterbrook, in such circumstances, even mixed motives are irrelevant. Such acts are presumptively lawful, and should not be investigated, let alone be considered for indictment or impeachment. If there is any evidence that there was some sort of secret benefit (such as a suitcase full of cash), then the government can investigate and, if warranted, prosecute that additional act. The secretness of the benefit is evidence of corrupt intent. Where one public official act is traded for another public official act, there has not been any illegal conduct.
We can think of one high-profile and far more brazen effort by a president to improve his party’s prospects through the use of official communications. In 1864, during the height of the Civil War, President Lincoln encouraged Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman to allow soldiers in the field to return to Indiana to vote. What was his primary motivation? It was to make sure that the government of Indiana remained in the hands of Republican loyalists who wished to continue the war until victory. This action risked undercutting the military effort by depleting the ranks. Lincoln had dueling motives. Privately, he sought to secure a victory for his party. This personal interest should not impugn his public motive: win the war and secure the nation.
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“Paper or plastic?” may soon be a superfluous question in New Jersey.
On Thursday, the state Senate’s Budget and Appropriations Committee advanced a bill that would ban grocery stores from giving customers either paper or plastic bags. Businesses would be required to give customers free reusable bags instead.
That last requirement will be in place for just the first two months after the ban takes effect. After that, customers will have to either bring their own bags or be prepared to carry loose groceries home in their arms.
A flat ban on single-use bags is radical, to say the least. New Jersey would be the first state to do it. New York and California have restricted themselves to banning only plastic bags.
The idea for New Jersey’s more far-reaching restrictions reportedly came to the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Bob Smith (D–Middlesex), during his vacation to Aruba. There, plastic bags are banned and paper bags are slapped with heavy fees.
“Nobody’s grumbling,” Smith told NJ.com back in May. “Everybody in the line, they all do it.”
Thursday’s vote brings this aspect of island living a little closer to reality in the Garden State.
The bill would also give food service businesses two years to stop using Styrofoam. Plastic straws, a frequent target of anti-plastic activists and lawmakers, got off relatively easy: They won’t be banned—but restaurants would be allowed to provide them only on request.
Backers claim the bill will protect New Jersey’s natural environment. “This legislation is us fighting back to ensure we have clean oceans, clean ecosystems and to evolve our habits to include safe alternatives for our environment,” Smith said in a press release issued after the committee vote.
If this version of the bill becomes law, violators will get a warning on their first offense. A second transgression will land a $1,000 fine, and scofflaws will pay up to $5,000 for their third violation.
The bill makes exceptions for bags used to carry uncooked meat, pharmaceuticals, newspapers, live animals (particularly fish and insects from pet stores), and laundry. It also exempts prepackaged foods from its bans.
Garden State lawmakers have been toying with the idea of restricting plastic bags for some time now. In 2018 the legislature passed a tax on plastic bags, but Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy vetoed it—for being too lenient.
Smith and state Sen. Linda Greenstein (D–Mercer) introduced their own bag ban in June 2018. One committee approved it in September, but it stalled in the Budget Committee until yesterday. It now goes to the Senate floor for a second reading.
Not everyone is happy about the proposal.
Paper bag manufacturers argued at yesterday’s hearing that their product was a solution to plastic pollution, and that it should therefore be spared.
Michael Deloreto, a spokesperson for the New Jersey Food Council, pointed out that the free reusable bags required by the bill—ones with stitched handles, made of much thicker plastic or cloth, and designed for multiple uses—would cost a grocery store chain with 30 locations more than $20 million for the two months they’re required to give them away. In comparison, giving away plastic bags costs about $128,000 a month.
Deloreto argued for letting stores give away slightly cheaper reusable bags. The Food Council says it supports a ban on paper and plastic bags.
Other single-use plastic bag bans have had the unintended side effect of prompting people simply to switch to reusable plastic bags that use much more plastic. Studies of bag bans in California and the U.K. have found that they dramatically increase the consumption of these reusable bags, with many customers treating them the same as single-use plastic bags.
Overall plastic consumption still fell in both cases. But in both California and the U.K., reusable bags were not distributed for free. New Jersey shoppers would face no such deterrent during the first two months of the bag ban, making it possible that in the short term the bill will increase overall plastic consumption.
At yesterday’s hearing, ban supporters spoke of the tens of thousands of plastic and Styrofoam items they’d collected off the state’s shoreline during an annual beach clean-up. But the bill would leave the biggest sources of litter untouched. According to a 2018 survey published by a state-funded nonprofit, the New Jersey Clean Communities Council (NJCCC), neither plastic bags nor paper bags were among the state’s top 10 most littered items (which account for 43 percent of all litter). Styrofoam food containers didn’t make the top 10 either. It instead featured things like tire scraps, business papers, plastic water bottles, and tobacco packaging and accessories.
Bags of all kinds made up 4.9 percent of litter. Unbranded retail bags made up 1.7 percent.
The results from the Ocean Conversancy’s 2019 coastal cleanup were similar. Volunteers collected 37,440 items of trash off New Jersey’s beaches, including 5,928 cigarette butts, 5,981 candy wrappers, and 1,047 plastic grocery bags—about 3 percent of all items collected.
The NJCCC survey includes a number of policy recommendations that don’t involve banning items, including forging anti-litter partnerships with stores and other businesses that are litter hotspots, promoting more adopt-a-highway and adopt-a-beach programs, and better placement of public trash receptacles.
Such measures are both more voluntary and more effective. At best, all a bag ban can do is eliminate a tiny percentage of trash while inconveniencing customers and heaping more costs on business.
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Recently, analysts have been discussing the pros and cons of using negative interest rates to keep the U.S. economy growing. Despite this, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has said that he does not anticipate the Federal Reserve will implement a policy of negative interest rates as it may be detrimental to the economy. One argument against negative interest rates is that they would squeeze bank margins and create more financial uncertainty. However, upon examining the actual rate of inflation we are likely already in a ‘de facto’ negative interest rate environment. Multiple inflation data sources show that actual inflation maybe 5%. With the ten year Treasury bond at 1.75%, there is an interest rate gap of – 3.25%. Let’s look at multiple inflation data points to understand why there is such a divergence between the Fed assumptions that inflation is under control versus the much higher rate of price hikes consumers experience.
In October, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that the core consumer price index (CPI) grew by 2.2% year over year. The core CPI rate is the change in the price of goods and services minus energy and food. Energy and food are not included because they are commodities and trade with a high level of volatility. However, the Median CPI shows a ten year high at 2.96% and upward trend as we would expect, though it starts at a lower level than other inflation indicators. The Median CPI excludes items with small and large price changes.
Source: Gavekal Data/Macrobond, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Shot – 11-29-19
Excluding key items that have small and large price changes is not what a consumer buying experience is like.Consumers buy based on immediate needs. When a consumer drives up to a gas pump, they buy at the price listed on the pump that day. Consumers buying groceries don’t wait for food commodity prices to go down; they have to pay the price when they need the food. Recent consumer purchase research shows that prices of many goods and services continue to increase at a rate much higher than 2.2%.
Gordon Haskett Research Advisors conducted a study by purchasing a basket of 76 typical items consumers buy at Walmart and Target. The study showed that from June 2018 to June 2019, prices increased about 5%.
Sources: Gordon Haskett Research Advisors, Bloomberg – 8/10/19
Walmart and Target are good proxies for consumer buying experiences. Walmart is the largest retailer in the U.S. with over 3,000 locations marketing to price-conscious consumers. Target has 1,800 locations in the U.S. and is focused on a similar consumer buyer profile, though a bit less price sensitive. Importantly, both Walmart and Target have discount food sections in their stories.
Housing has been rapidly increasing in cost as well. Rental costs have soared in 2019 as the following chart shows a month over month shift to .45%, which is an annualized rate of 5.4%.
Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nomura – 5/13/19
The costs of other services like health care and education have increased dramatically as well. Service sectors, which make up 70% of the U.S. economy, are where wages are generally higher than in manufacturing sectors. Techniques to increase service productivity have been slow to implement due to service complexity. Without productivity gains, prices have continued to rise in most services sectors.
Sources: Deutsche Bank – 11/14/19
Medical care costs have increased by 5.2% per year, and education costs have risen 6.8 % per year. Wages of non-supervisory and production workers have fallen behind at 3.15 % increase per year. Note that the overall CPI rate significantly underestimates the rate of costs in these basic consumer services, likely due to underweighting of services in the cost of living calculation.
For many consumers, housing, utilities, health care, debt payments, clothing, and transportation comprise their major expenses. Utility and clothing costs have generally declined. While transportation, housing, and health care costs have increased. The rate of new car annual inflation was as low as 1 percent in 2018. Yet, according to Kelly Blue Book, the market shift to SUVs, full-sized trucks, and increasing Tesla sales have caused average U.S. yearly vehicle prices to zoom 4.2% in 2019. The soaring price of vehicles has caused auto loans to be extended out to 7 or 8 years, in some cases beyond the useful life of the car.
Dealers are financing 25% of new car purchases with ‘negative equity deals’ where the debt from a previous vehicle purchase is rolled into the new loan. The October consumer spending report shows consumer spending up by .3% yet durable goods purchases falling by .7% primarily due to a decline in vehicle purchases. A 4.2% increase in vehicle prices year over year is unsustainable for most buyers and indicates likely buyer price resistance resulting in falling sales.The October durables sales decline could have been anticipated if inflation reporting was based on actual consumer purchasing experiences.
The trade wars with China, Europe, and other countries are contributing to significant price increases for consumer goods. Tariffs have driven consumer prices higher for a variety of product groups, including: appliances, furniture, bedding, floor coverings, auto parts, motorcycles, sports vehicles, housekeeping supplies, and sewing equipment.
Sources: Department of Commerce, Goldman Sachs, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Shot – 5/13/19
In the chart above, prices increased by about 3.5% over 16 months before mid-May 2019. As uncertainty in the trade wars grows and earlier cheaper supplies are sold, prices will likely continue to rise. The President has announced new tariffs of 15% on $160 billion of Chinese consumer goods for December 15th if a Phase One deal is not signed. On December 2nd, he announced resuming tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Argentina and Brazil and 100 % tariffs on $2.4 billion of French goods. The implementation of all these tariffs on top of existing tariffs will only make consumer inflation worse. Tariffs are driving an underlying inflationary trend that is being under-reported by government agencies.
Evidently, the prices for goods and services that consumers experience are vastly different from what the federal government reports and uses to establish cost of living increases for programs like Social Security. So, why is there a disconnect between the government CPI rate of 2.2% and consumer reality of inflation at approximately 5%? The raw data that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) uses to calculate the CPI rate is not available to the public. When a Forbes reporter asked the BLS why the data was not available to the public the BLS response was companies could ‘compare prices’. This assumption does not make sense as companies can compare prices on the Internet, in stores, or find out from suppliers. The ‘basket of consumer items’ approach was discontinued in the 1980s for a ‘cost of living’ index based on consumer buying behaviors. There was political pressure to keep the inflation rate low. If real inflation figures were reported the government would have to increase payments to Social Security beneficiaries, food stamp recipients, military and Federal Civil Service retirees and survivors, and children on school lunch programs. Over the past 30 years the BLS has changed the calculation at least 20 times, but due to data secrecy there is no way to audit the results. The BLS tracks prices on 80,000 goods and services based on consumer spending patterns, not price changes on goods and services per se. For example, if consumers substitute another item for a higher-priced one it is discontinued in the calculation.
Economist John Williams has calculated inflation rates based upon the pre-1980s basket approach versus the cost of living formula used by BLS today. His findings show a dramatically higher rate of inflation using the 1980s formula.
Source: Shadow Government – 10/2019
His calculation using the earlier basket formula sets the present inflation rate at nearly 10%. Based on our research on various price reporting services, we think the real consumer inflation rate is probably about 5 to 6%.
The implications of this gap between real inflation and reported inflation rates are profound and far-reaching. Federal Reserve complacency about a low inflation rate to justify a low Fed Funds rates is called into question. In fact the economic reality of today is we are living in a 3.25% ‘de facto’ negative interest rate environment where the ten year Treasury bond rate is 1.75%, and inflation is 5%. The liquidity pumping into the economy, based in part on low inflation, is overheating risk assets while providing support for corporate executives to take on debt at decade record levels.
Building the economic framework on erroneous inflation data versus the reality for consumers and businesses lead to massive financial dislocations. This economic bubble is unsustainable and will require a brutal recession to rebalance the economy. As part of a possible soft ‘landing’ policy, the BLS could make price data available to all economists. Full data access will provide an opportunity for objective comments and feedback based on other consumer price research.
The Fed actually focuses on the even lower Personal Consumption Expenditure rate of 1.6% reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis for October. The Fed prefers the PCE rate because a consumer survey technique is used, while economists prefer the CPI, which is more granular so it is easier to identify goods and services categories that are driving inflation. Using unrealistically low inflation assumptions leads to misguided policy decisions and perpetuation of the myth that inflation is under control. Yet, in fact inflation it is out of control due to extremely low Fed interest rates, liquidity injections, and trade war tariffs.
Is Pelosi Rushing Impeachment Because Dems Know They Have Failed?
The verdict is in: Opinion polls show that weeks of public hearings have done little to change the public’s attitude about whether President Trump deserves to be impeached. By now, the message is clear: The Dems took a gamble on impeachment, and lost. Now, Pelosi is apparently going about clearing the decks so she can get on with her next piece of business: Blaming ‘the squad’ and AOC for the impeachment fiascowhile hoping that throwing the progressives under the bus is enough to protect the dozens of moderate Dems in swing-district seats who delivered the Dems their majority in 2018.
Despite having their press credentials revoked by President Trump, Bloomberg’s Washington bureau still apparently has its finger on the pulse of what’s happening in the capital, and its reporters claim that the articles of impeachment could be finished by next Thursday, opening the door to a vote on impeachment the following week before Congress breaks for the holiday.
Though members of the Judiciary Committee are still debating what to include in the impeachment, BBG says they could begin voting on specific articles as soon as Thursday, citing officials familiar with the chairman’s thinking.
That would clear the way for the entire House to vote before Congress heads to recess for the holidays.
Though Pelosi insists she hasn’t set a deadline, it would appear that both she and President Trump support ‘doing it now’ with regard to impeachment, as President Trump put it in a tweet earlier this week.
The Do Nothing Democrats had a historically bad day yesterday in the House. They have no Impeachment case and are demeaning our Country. But nothing matters to them, they have gone crazy. Therefore I say, if you are going to impeach me, do it now, fast, so we can have a fair….
Both parties have their eyes on the electoral calendar, which “is what it is,” as one Democratic Rep told BBG. It’s also notable that many (including Republican witness Jonathan Turley) have accused the Dems of rushing impeachment.
“We are trying to be sensitive to the fact that it is going to spill over into an election year. And we’re trying to wrap it before that happens here in the House to give the Senate the opportunity to set its own timetable,” said Democratic Representative Gerry Connolly of Virginia, a member of the Oversight Committee. “The calendar is what it is.”
Meanwhile, pressure is growing on Pelosi to bring USMCA up for a vote by the end of the year, from both Republicans and Democrats. BAML global rates and currencies strategist David Woo told Bloomberg that the passage of USMCA by the end of the year is one of the three “make or break” scenarios girding his 2020 markets projections.
An official familiar with Pelosi’s thinking said that the most powerful Democrat on the Hill is acutely aware that the public’s patience with impeachment is limited, and, after weeks of hearings, Americans are still roughly split, with 47% to 48% percent supporting impeachment, and 44% to 45% opposing.
And the longer the process drags on, the worse the numbers will look. Meanwhile, the longer she delays a vote on USMCA, the greater the risk of being blamed for trying to sabotage President Trump’s economic agenda. After all, Trump’s highest approval numbers stem from his handling of the economy. The president’s paranoia about a recession arriving before election day inspired his attacks on the Fed and, arguably, the central bank’s entire ‘midcycle adjustment’, and it underscores how important the economy is to his re-election hopes.
Oil Jumps After OPEC Agrees To 500,000 bpd Production Cut
One day after the latest OPEC summit in Vienna ended in chaos and disarray, with the cartel unable to decide whether it will cut output further or instead punish violators of the current quote, leaving oil journalists asking questions and begging for pizza, on Friday Saudi Arabia and Russia surprised markets when they spearheaded a deal in which OPEC and non-OPEC nations committed to some of the deepest oil output cuts this decade aiming to avert oversupply and support prices amid declining global demand.
The group of more than 20 producers agreed to an extra 500,000 barrels per day in cuts for the first quarter of 2020, taking the total to 1.7 million bpd, or 1.7% of global demand, in hopes of boosting sagging oil prices in an environment where Saudi Arabia has been increasingly vocal in accusing cartel members and other producers of not sticking to pre-agreed quota levels.
Under the new deal, OPEC will agree to 372,000 bpd in fresh cuts and non-OPEC producers – mostly Russia – an extra 131,000 bpd.
Brent jumped more than 2%, rising above $64 a barrel after Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said effective cuts could be as much as 2.1 million bpd as Saudi would carry on cutting more than its quota.
The impetus behind the cut was all Saudi Arabia, which has been eager to provide a floor for oil in the aftermath of the Aramco IPO which priced yesterday at the top of its range, yet some $300BN below the $2 trillion target previously revealed by Crown Prince MbS.
“The Saudi goal was not necessarily to push oil prices significantly higher, but rather – fresh on the heels of the Aramco IPO – to put a firm floor under them during the first quarter to temper any seasonal weakness,” said Amrita Sen, co-founder of Energy Aspects, quoted by Reuters.
“Best outcome you could have expected. Puts floor under prices at $60 Brent but (we’re) still likely in $60-65 Brent market until the global economy improves and then we could see $65 to $70 Brent in Q2,” said Gary Ross, founder of Black Gold Investors
As Reuters notes, OPEC+ will deepen cuts for the first three months of 2020, shorter than the six- or 12-month scenarios some OPEC members wanted. That said, the net impact of today’s auction may be a wash as the new cuts merely offset expected increases from non-OPEC nations, including top producer the United States, where shale producers are pumping oil at a furious, record pace – yet unprofitably – in order to stave of defaults.
Eleven of OPEC’s 14 member states are participating while embargo-targets Iran, Libya and Venezuela are exempt. OPEC adds Russia and nine others – Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, South Sudan and Sudan.
Compliance has been a sticking point since the coordinated cuts began in 2017 with Saudi Arabia cutting more than required in order to offset overproduction from Iraq and Nigeria.
Saudi Prince Abdulaziz said he would continue cutting 400,000 bpd below target and its new ceiling would be 9.744 million bpd. It makes sense that Riyadh would should the bulk of the cuts: Saudi Arabia needs prices of at least $80 per barrel – some $15 higher – to balance its budget, much higher than most other producers, and also needs to support the share flotation of its national oil company Saudi Aramco, whose shares are expected to begin trading next Wednesday.
Prince Abdulaziz told reporters he expected the company to be worth more than $2 trillion in a few months, taking a page out of the Trump playbook in that all officials care about is the affirmation of the market.
Despite oil’s kneejerk jump, the question remains: with OPEC’s share of global oil supply now the lowest on record…
… thanks to US shale and Russian production, will today’s deal amount to much if global demands continues to shrink?
The retail price of one pound of bananas in the United States was 58 cents in 2018. Right now, you can order one banana on Walmart’s website for 18 cents. You can also order one roll of 3M Multi-Use Duct Tape for $4.99 on Amazon. Why the hell would you want a banana and duct tape?
Apparently, because duct-taping a banana to a wall is all the rage in the world of high-end art. This may sound like something out of The Onion, but this week at Art Basel Miami Beach, a banana duct-taped to a wall sold for $120,000. Even worse, a second banana duct-taped to a wall sold for $120,000. Yet even worse than that, a third banana duct-taped to a wall is expected to sell for $150,000 because…art.
Photo: Marketwatch
Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan is the artist behind the banana, which was “sourced from a local Miami supermarket,” that is aptly named “Comedian.” The first two “editions” of the banana duct-taped to a wall reportedly sold to two different French buyers. A third “edition” of the banana duct-taped to a wall already had two institutions express interest, according to the gallery handling the sale, Perrotin.
Art experts take pictures of Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian, for sale from Perrotin at Art Basel Miami Beach. Photo by Sarah Cascone
Despite Cattelan being known as an “art world prankster,” the gallery said the piece is not a joke. “Every aspect of the work was carefully considered, from the shape of the fruit, to the angle its been affixed with duct tape to the wall,” said Perrotin. In a sign of how those who are privy to the world of fine art will say anything to sound sophisticated, one attendee said “It’s best of show!”
Cattelan worked on the idea for “Comedian” for about a year, creating versions in both bronze and resin. “Wherever I was traveling I had this banana on the wall. I couldn’t figure out how to finish it,” Cattelan said. Finally, Cattelan had an epiphany, saying “In the end, one day I woke up and I said ‘the banana is supposed to be a banana.'”
The price was determined by coming up with an “insignificant number that would trivialize the work, and an outlandish one that would be completely ridiculous.” So what’s stopping everyone from selling a duct-taped banana to a wall for $120,000? Perrotin said “Without the artist’s certificate of authenticity, it reverts to being just a banana.”
So while this could be an actual sale, money laundering, a prank, PR move or anything else, it’s a reminder of how some people have more money than brains. Either way, it provided a good laugh for those who are not fortunate enough to drop $120,000 on a banana duct-taped to a wall.
Allstate Lawyers Fear For Safety After Opposing Counsel Threatens To Unleash “Long D*ck Of The Law”
A dispute between lawyers turned ugly when attorney Christopher Hook of Culver City, California sent a series of vulgar, threatening emails to attorneys for Allstate, after the insurance company rebuffed his attempt to collect over $300 million on a $200,000 water damage dispute.
Not only did Hook threaten to “let the long dick of the law fuck Allstate for all of us,” he threatened :shit for brains” Klee to “pay up fucktard or you will be lucky to work as a notary public in El Cajon.”
“Karma is a bitch mother fucker,” Hook continued, adding “You are going to learn that in spades.I know where you live pete.“
2/ “Well karma is a bitch mother fucker. You are going to learn that in spades. I know where you live pete” pic.twitter.com/ItI8jUBuvH
On November 26, Allstate asked the court to throw out the lawsuit, disqualify Hook as the plaintiffs’ attorney, slap Hook with a restraining order, and halt all depositions.
Hook responded to Klee’s filing by claiming he was using a “confidential negotiating tactic” and he admitted that his language may have “crossed the line” out of “frustration and anger.”
In response, Judge Otis D. Wright ordered both plaintiffs – an elderly California couple – and attorneys for both sides, to appear in court on December 16 and explain why “Mr. Hook should not be disqualified as Plaintiffs’ Counsel,” as well as “why this Court should not issue a restraining order” or sanction Hook.
“Paper or plastic?” may soon be a superfluous question in New Jersey.
On Thursday, the state Senate’s Budget and Appropriations Committee advanced a bill that would ban grocery stores from giving customers either paper or plastic bags. Businesses would be required to give customers free reusable bags instead.
That last requirement will be in place for just the first two months after the ban takes effect. After that, customers will have to either bring their own bags or be prepared to carry loose groceries home in their arms.
A flat ban on single-use bags is radical, to say the least. New Jersey would be the first state to do it. New York and California have restricted themselves to banning only plastic bags.
The idea for New Jersey’s more far-reaching restrictions reportedly came to the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Bob Smith (D–Middlesex), during his vacation to Aruba. There, plastic bags are banned and paper bags are slapped with heavy fees.
“Nobody’s grumbling,” Smith told NJ.com back in May. “Everybody in the line, they all do it.”
Thursday’s vote brings this aspect of island living a little closer to reality in the Garden State.
The bill would also give food service businesses two years to stop using Styrofoam. Plastic straws, a frequent target of anti-plastic activists and lawmakers, got off relatively easy: They won’t be banned—but restaurants would be allowed to provide them only on request.
Backers claim the bill will protect New Jersey’s natural environment. “This legislation is us fighting back to ensure we have clean oceans, clean ecosystems and to evolve our habits to include safe alternatives for our environment,” Smith said in a press release issued after the committee vote.
If this version of the bill becomes law, violators will get a warning on their first offense. A second transgression will land a $1,000 fine, and scofflaws will pay up to $5,000 for their third violation.
The bill makes exceptions for bags used to carry uncooked meat, pharmaceuticals, newspapers, live animals (particularly fish and insects from pet stores), and laundry. It also exempts prepackaged foods from its bans.
Garden State lawmakers have been toying with the idea of restricting plastic bags for some time now. In 2018 the legislature passed a tax on plastic bags, but Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy vetoed it—for being too lenient.
Smith and state Sen. Linda Greenstein (D–Mercer) introduced their own bag ban in June 2018. One committee approved it in September, but it stalled in the Budget Committee until yesterday. It now goes to the Senate floor for a second reading.
Not everyone is happy about the proposal.
Paper bag manufacturers argued at yesterday’s hearing that their product was a solution to plastic pollution, and that it should therefore be spared.
Michael Deloreto, a spokesperson for the New Jersey Food Council, pointed out that the free reusable bags required by the bill—ones with stitched handles, made of much thicker plastic or cloth, and designed for multiple uses—would cost a grocery store chain with 30 locations more than $20 million for the two months they’re required to give them away. In comparison, giving away plastic bags costs about $128,000 a month.
Deloreto argued for letting stores give away slightly cheaper reusable bags. The Food Council says it supports a ban on paper and plastic bags.
Other single-use plastic bag bans have had the unintended side effect of prompting people simply to switch to reusable plastic bags that use much more plastic. Studies of bag bans in California and the U.K. have found that they dramatically increase the consumption of these reusable bags, with many customers treating them the same as single-use plastic bags.
Overall plastic consumption still fell in both cases. But in both California and the U.K., reusable bags were not distributed for free. New Jersey shoppers would face no such deterrent during the first two months of the bag ban, making it possible that in the short term the bill will increase overall plastic consumption.
At yesterday’s hearing, ban supporters spoke of the tens of thousands of plastic and Styrofoam items they’d collected off the state’s shoreline during an annual beach clean-up. But the bill would leave the biggest sources of litter untouched. According to a 2018 survey published by a state-funded nonprofit, the New Jersey Clean Communities Council (NJCCC), neither plastic bags nor paper bags were among the state’s top 10 most littered items (which account for 43 percent of all litter). Styrofoam food containers didn’t make the top 10 either. It instead featured things like tire scraps, business papers, plastic water bottles, and tobacco packaging and accessories.
Bags of all kinds made up 4.9 percent of litter. Unbranded retail bags made up 1.7 percent.
The results from the Ocean Conversancy’s 2019 coastal cleanup were similar. Volunteers collected 37,440 items of trash off New Jersey’s beaches, including 5,928 cigarette butts, 5,981 candy wrappers, and 1,047 plastic grocery bags—about 3 percent of all items collected.
The NJCCC survey includes a number of policy recommendations that don’t involve banning items, including forging anti-litter partnerships with stores and other businesses that are litter hotspots, promoting more adopt-a-highway and adopt-a-beach programs, and better placement of public trash receptacles.
Such measures are both more voluntary and more effective. At best, all a bag ban can do is eliminate a tiny percentage of trash while inconveniencing customers and heaping more costs on business.
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An 8-year-old girl was subjected to a strip search when she visited her father in a Virginia prison over Thanksgiving weekend. Now the state is changing the policy that coerced her into the search.
The Virginia-Pilotreports that the young girl and her father’s girlfriend, Diamond Peerman, went to the Buckingham Correctional Center in Dillwyn on November 24. While waiting in the visiting line, a sniffing dog trained to find contraband singled out Peerman. As a result, Peerman had to comply with a strip search. The guards initially said the young girl would not need to be stripped as well, but after consulting with their captain they reversed themselves.
If a search is refused, according to the state Department of Corrections’ website, “visitation will not be authorized for that day and approval for future visits may be revoked.” The Pilot also identified a policy saying that a parent or guardian who will not consent to a search of a minor can be refused entry to the facility.
Believing this was their only chance at seeing the girl’s father, Peerman consented to the search. They reportedly cried. Both Peerman and the girl were then told to take their clothes off and cough in front of some female guards.
Peerman’s car was also searched. Though no contraband was found, the pair was not allowed a contact visit. Instead, they could only communicate with the girl’s father through glass.
The Department of Corrections’ director of communications, Lisa Kinney, told the Pilot that the incident violated policy in two major ways. First: Peerman should not have been asked to consent on the girl’s behalf, since she is not her legal guardian. Second: The staff member who approved the search lacked the authority to do so.
Gov. Ralph Northam today suspended all strip searches of minors visiting prisons and jails.
“I am deeply disturbed by these reports—not just as governor but as a pediatrician and a dad,” he told the Pilot. “I’ve directed the Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security to suspend this policy while the department conducts an immediate investigation and review of their procedures.”
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