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The Sec. 230 Temperature is Rising

The Business Section of Tuesday’s NY Times print edition blared out, in gigantic type not a whole lot smaller than “MAN WALKS ON MOON,” this headline:

WHY HATE SPEECH ON THE INTERNET IS A NEVER-ENDING PROBLEM

Why? “BECAUSE THIS LAW SHIELDS IT” – referring to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which provides that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

That is some serious nonsense—somewhere between terribly misleading and completely wrong.  Section 230—which I’ve blogged about many times before [see e.g. here and here], and which has, without question, been an indispensable pillar of the Internet’s growth, the “twenty-six words that created the Internet,” as the title of Prof. Jeff Kossuf’s recent book has it—provides that website operators can’t be held civilly liable** for “speech” that originates from “another information content provider,” i.e.. for user-generated content. It is impossible to imagine what the Internet information ecosystem would look like without it—where Amazon, and Facebook, and Youtube, and Instagram, and Soundcloud, and Twitter, and Reddit, and Medium, and literally hundreds of millions of other sites where users can exchange information with one another, would face civil liability arising from the postings of their users.

** Section 230 expressly exempts federal criminal law from the scope of the immunity, meaning that websites obtain no special protection if their actions, in connection with the speech in question, constitute criminal activity.

There are legitimate concerns about Section 230’s scope and the way it has been interpreted by the courts (see below).  But the notion that it is somehow responsible for “hate speech” on the Net—and, by extension, for the rising tide of gun violence—is ridiculous.

It is ridiculous because, most fundamentally and depending of course on how it is defined, most of what we call “hate speech” is, however loathsome it may be, constitutionally protected. Section 230 doesn’t provide Facebook et al. with an immunity from liability for publishing its users’ “hate speech,” the Constitution does that, in the First Amendment.***

*** Interestingly, the Times itself rather quickly recognized its error.  A correction was appended to the online version of the article:

“An earlier version of this article incorrectly described the law that protects hate speech on the internet. The First Amendment, not Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, protects it.”  Oops.

And with respect to the small subset of “hate speech” that is not constitutionally protected—words that are an “incitement to violence” under the standard set forth in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969)—any criminal penalties which may be imposed for such speech are completely unaffected by Sec. 230.

So removing Section 230 tomorrow would do nothing to deal with the “hate speech” problem.

But pointing the finger in Section 230’s direction is part of an increasing trend, to put it mildly, to lay all of the Internet’s ills—all the hate speech, the revenge porn, the child porn, the terrorist information exchanges, the fake news, the general dumbing-down of the entire planet—at Section 230’s door, part of a more generalized attack, from the political left and right, on the giant Internet platforms.

Then, in an op-ed in Thursday’s NY Times, Jonathan Taplin adds his voice to the chorus of those seeking to “change safe harbor laws [i.e., Sec. 230] to hold social media platforms are held accountable.”

I believe we can all agree that mass murder, faked videos and pornography should not be broadcast — not by cable news providers, and certainly not by Facebook and YouTube…. Changing the safe harbor laws so that social media platforms are held accountable for the content their users post would incentivize Facebook and YouTube to take things like the deep-fake video of Nancy Pelosi and the Christchurch shooting videos more seriously. Congress must revisit the Safe Harbor statutes so that active intermediaries are held legally responsible for the content on their sites.

Superficially appealing, but a terrible idea.  To begin with, there’s that darn Constitution again—lots of material falling into the cateogries of “faked videos” and “pornography” are, again, constitutionally-protected, which severely limits law-makers abilities to get it off Internet websites.

Furthermore, I most emphatically do not agree that “mass murder, faked videos, and pornography should not be broadcast.” It’s not just that they’re overwhelmingly constitutionally-protected speech; it’s that they’re categories that contain immense amounts of valuable and/or harmless material. Would liability for hosting videos of “mass murder” include videos posted by one of the victims or potential victims, or an innocent bystander, or only those posted by the perpetrator? And what about videos of “mass murder” perpetrated by government troops (e.g., a video of the massacre in Tiananmen Square, or the murder of the Rohinga in Burma, or Serbian atrocities in Bosnia, or a police shooting in New York City)?  And if, as I suspect is the case, there are some videos documenting murder or other violent crimes that are “OK” and some that are “not OK,” how are we to distinguish between them? And more to the point, how are Youtube or Instagram, with over 100 million uploads a day, to distinguish between them?

And really—pushing “faked videos” off of the Net?! All those gifs of politicians or celebrities spouting idiotic slogans or assuming idiotic positions? All those cats playing the piano? All to be banned? Or, again, only the “bad” ones, and not the “good” ones? And which, exactly, are the bad ones? And gets to decide that?

Section 230 has proved to be an enormously valuable engine of free expression, enabling billions of people to communicate with one another every day. Some of those people say, and do, ghastly things, and there may be sensible, Constitution-respecting ways to tweak Section 230 to target them and reduce their incidence.

But repealing, or otherwise dismantling, the immunity scheme set up by Section 230 will do little if anything to curb any of the truly objectionable content, while doing considerable damage to the Internet’s ability to sustain civil discourse of all kinds. An Internet without Section 230 will, among other things, pose insurmountable obstacles to any new entrants seeking to gain a foothold in the social media universe; holding them “legally responsible for the content on their sites” will virtually guarantee that only the existing Internet giants will have pockets deep enough to withstand the impact of vast and probably incalculable potential liability.

Last month, as part of a group of several dozen scholars and Internet public policy advocates, I helped to draft a set of “Principles for Lawmakers” who might be thinking about tinkering with Section 230 (or eliminating it entirely).  Some change is almost certain to come, and a great deal depends on what it looks like.

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US Stocks Shrug Off China Tensions But Bonds & Gold Soar Most In Years

An ugly start to the week for stocks ended “meh” but bonds and bullion (and bitcoin) safe-havens were better bid…

Stocks message to the world “don’t panic!”, Bonds and Gold’s message “don’t panic, but protect!”

 

China stocks were considerably weaker on the week led by the tech-heavy Shenzhen index…

 

European stocks were also all lower on the day led by Italy (more political crises looming)…

European banks were battered to their lowest since June 2016’s Brexit vote…

 

Despite a lot of volatility, US equity markets scrambled back to small losses only on the week (S&P and Nasdaq best on the week, Trannies and Small Caps worst), but traders puked into the close on Friday…

 

Today was another ridiculous one, especially the panic bid in the last hour (absent headlines) to get The Dow into the green (Dow was the only index to make it green on the day), but an ugly close spoiled all the fun…

 

Dow futures have recovered Fib 61.8% of the post-Powell plunge…

 

Buybacks dominated the surge…

 

Defensives outperformed Cyclicals on the week…

 

FANG stocks ended the week lower – but the machines ran all the stops first…

 

VIX ended higher on the day, but unchanged on the week…

 

Bonds and stocks decoupled once again…

 

Treasury yields tumbled for the second week in a row…

 

This is the biggest 2-week drop in 10Y Yields since Aug 2011…

NOTE – the close to close vol was barely noticeable but intraday was huge (daily closes: 1.70, 1.70, 1.73, 1.72, 1.74)

 

Italian yields exploded higher on the week as political crises re-emerge…

 

The dollar ended the week lower, but traded in a narrow range…

 

Cable collapsed to a fresh cycle low (Surprise contraction in GDP)…

 

Offshore Yuan continued to plunge – its worst week since June 2018…

 

Cryptos were very mixed on the week with Bitcoin strong and altcoins weak…

 

Bitcoin just could not hold above $12,000…

 

Thanks to a decent bounce today, oil wasn’t as ugly as it could be on the week but PMs were best…

 

Gold soared over 4% on the week, above $1500 – its best week since April 2016…

 

Silver topped gold on the week, but was unable to hold $17…

 

WTI ramped back aboive $54 (after tagging a $50 handle mid-week…

 

Credit markets suggest this bounce in oil prices won’t last…

 

Global negative-yielding debt soared $700 billion this week (up over $3 trillion in the last month)

 

Finally, Rabobank’s recession indicator is at its highest in over 30 years…

Which explains why the market is demanding at least 4 rate-cuts by The Fed, to save the world…

Still, despite this week’s ‘resilience’ in stocks, they remain laggards since Powell started speaking and bonds and bullion the best…

And gold is now the leader year-to-date, marginally outpacing stocks…

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2KFGHJC Tyler Durden

Beyond Leather: Your Shoes, Your Wallet, & (Of Course) Your Tesla Are All Going Vegan

Nowadays, vegans aren’t just concerned with what they eat, but also with the consumer products that they use, according to a new report from Bloomberg. This means that vegans aren’t just snobs environmentally conscious about their food, but also about their clothing, accessories and consumer products now.

For instance, many are choosing to use vegan leather, which is a synthetic product generally made out of polyurethane chloride (PVC) and polyurethane. These blends are being used to avoid traditional leather, which is made from processed cowhides or sheepskin. There are also now synthetic leather products that are being made from corn, bark, pineapple leaves or apple peels. And while it may look the same, vegan leather doesn’t improve with age the way animal leather can.

Purchasing these types of alternatives, instead of products that involve suffering for animals, has become more appealing, especially for younger people in the United States and the United Kingdom. This has been no more evident than in the sales of meat alternatives, helped along by investors like Bill Gates who have put their money into developing these products.

And in the US, it seems as though vegan leather is actually starting to sell well. The online availability of it has more than doubled in the UK and is up 54% in the United States in the first half of 2018. Demand is the strongest in the footwear industry, where Americans have taken a new focus on covering their feet in animal-free sneakers.

The automobile industry has even caught on, after Tesla was urged to go vegan by its stakeholders. Global demand for synthetic leather is expected to grow 7% annually on the backs of both the footwear and auto industry. The market is predicted to reach $45 billion in 2025. In 2018, global traditional leather sales were estimated at $95.4 billion.

And there’s other appeals to vegan leather, too – it’s usually cheaper than traditional leather and it’s also easier to maintain, which is a selling point for car manufacturers. Vegan leather that’s made out of organic materials like pineapple leaves can sometimes cost more than the plastic variety, though it is still cheaper than traditional leather. Vegan leather’s makeup isn’t always as durable, however, because it’s much thinner than real leather, which can last for years.

But the kicker is whether or not vegan leather is actually better for the planet. Plastics used in making it, like PVC, are hardly environmentally friendly. Manufacturing of PVC releases dioxins, which could be dangerous in confined spaces and also if burnt. On the other hand, the organic vegan leathers that are made from pineapple leaves and apple peels can be converted into fertilizer or biogas.

The synthetic doesn’t look too bad, either. 

Genuine leather loses its environmental credentials when it is tanned using toxic chemicals. In addition, cows are massive emitters of greenhouse gases and require feed, land and water. Synthetic leather often uses petroleum at some point in its manufacturing, while traditional leather can be argued to be a byproduct of dairy and meat production that would otherwise go to waste.

And fake leather has been around for years, but the new natural versions have become especially appealing to a consumer that is trying to reduce their environmental footprint. Manufacturers are trying to increase the appeal of nature based substitutes by promoting them as being made from the waste of industries like the pineapple industry and the plastics industry. But the devil can still be in the details: even though pineapple fibers are extracted and processed without using chemicals, non-biodegradable petroleum is still used in the process.

And now the traditional leather industry has so much supply, as a result of record demand for US beef, that some of it is even heading to landfills – a situation that many in the industry once called “unimaginable”.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2YWoEE7 Tyler Durden

One Bank’s Recession Odds Just Hit An All Time HIgh; Expects Rates To 0% In Dec 2020

Earlier this week, with bond yields plunging and the yield curve inverting to a level last seen just days before the 2008 financial crisis, we brought out one take on the odds of the coming recession, that of JPMorgan, which was somewhat complacent because, as the bank said, “while the economic data highlight elevated recession risk, the likelihood of a downturn in the coming 12 months was still below 50%” And while JPM admitted that recognizing economic data can be too backward-looking during times of rapid change, the bank stuck with its macro indicators which see the odds of US (and global) recession in the coming 12 months closer to 40%.

In other words, while JPM’s recession indicator is the highest it has been in the past decade, it still has some room before investors should panic.

That’s not the case for Rabobank, however.

Commenting on the recent escalation of the US-China trade conflict, the Dutch bank now expects the Fed to make two additional insurance cuts of 25 bps each before the end of the year.

By taking a risk management approach to trade policy uncertainty, the Fed is amplifying the effect of trade policy on monetary policy. There is now a strong feedback loop between trade policy and monetary policy that will force the FOMC to make more insurance cuts in the coming months, probably as early as September and October.

There is just one problem: as Rabobank’s Philip Marey writes, “the insurance cuts won’t be enough to avert a recession in the second half of 2020.”

As Marey notes, while the Fed may think that a few insurance cuts should be enough to keep the US economy ‘in a good place’, the shape of the yield curve is telling us otherwise: “The inversion of the US treasury yield curve suggests that a recession lies ahead. Historically, inversions of the yield curve have preceded recessions by 12-18 months.”

In fact, according to Rabo’s recession probability model, the probability of a US recession by December 2020 is 81%. This is higher than the recession odds the model spit out in 2000, just before the dot com bubble burst, and also in 2007, ahead of the housing bubble. In fact if Rabo is correct, the US is facing a recession that is even worse than the Global Financial Crisis.

The warning given by the yield curve is supported by cracks in the real economy, according to Rabo: consider that the Fed’s hiking cycle – despite a recent insurance cut – has reduced home buyer affordability. Consequently, residential investment – the most interest-rate sensitive component of GDP – has been falling for six quarters in a row. The recent declines in mortgage rates have not been enough to turn residential investment growth positive again in Q2; one wonder if negative mortgages is what it will take to finally spark some residential investment.

More recently, the uncertainty caused by trade policy has led to a 0.6% decline in business investment in Q2 (quarter-on-quarter, at an annualized rate). This, as Rabo notes, was one of the reasons for the FOMC to make an insurance cut in July. However, as far as the decline in business investment is caused by trade uncertainty, the bank’s economist “fails to see how interest rate cuts are going to turn this around if the trade war persists.”

And the punchline: “in the end businesses may also decide to cut jobs, which in turn will undermine consumer spending. When this happens, a recession seems inevitable.”

So how will events play out over the next year?

After a pause in early 2020, Rabo expects the Fed to respond to the rapidly deteriorating economic outlook by a rate cut of 25 bps in April. “By the June meeting of the FOMC it should be clear that a recession is imminent. This should bring the FOMC out of its mid-cycle delusion and make another rate cut of 25 bps.” And as it is unlikely that the Fed will be able to avert a recession, Rabobank expects a 25 bps cut at each following meeting, until the zero bound is reached in December 2020.“

We have summarized our baseline scenario for the Fed in Table 1. In hindsight, a full-blown cutting cycle (6 consecutive cuts of 25 bps each) from April through December will bring the federal funds rate back to zero before the end of 2020. While this decline may seem steep, we should keep in mind that you cannot fight a recession with only one or two rate cuts. What’s more, since we assume only a shallow recession of two quarters of modestly negative GDP growth in the second half of 2020, we have not even put a 50 bps rate cut or emergency rate cuts (i.e. outside of regularly planned FOMC meetings) in Table 1. This would become appropriate however, Ze rise in business debt and its partial  securitization through CLOs could be a possible risk factor. However, for now Rabo  maintain “a run-of-the-mill recession in our baseline scenario.”

In light of all this, it is not difficult to see why Trump is doing everything in his power to delay the inevitable start of the next recession – which will be far worse than even the 2007-2009 recession. If he fails to delay the day of historic reckoning, president Biden is as good as inaugurated.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2YThosN Tyler Durden

Summer Television Serves Up Some Femmes Fatale

  • Manson: the Women. Oxygen. Saturday, August 10, 7 p.m.
  • Why Women Kill. Available August 15 on CBS All Access.

“Say what you will about Charles Manson,” observed Caitlin Flanagan in an Atlantic piece on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, “he really empowered women to pursue excellence in traditionally male-dominated fields.” No doubt Oberlin and Antioch, this time next year, will be offering such courses as Transgressive Feminist Theory 101: Homicide as Resistance to Intersectionality. In the meantime, television is doing its best this week to fill the gaps with a couple of shows about female bloodlust.

Why Women Kill, airing on the streaming service CBS All Access, is mostly for grins. Creator Marc Cherry is the past master of wickedly sly, campy comedies of female duplicity like Desperate Housewives and Devious Maids.

And from literally the first frame, with gaudy pop-art posters of women sighting hunting rifles, throwing electric fans in bathtubs and committing various other uncongenial acts, it’s apparent that Why Women Kill is treading the same goofy path.

The series is built around three different women, archetypes all, in three different epochs, who share nothing but occupancy of a Pasadena mansion and a growing irascibility toward their unfaithful mates.

Ginnifer Goodwin (Big Love) plays Beth Ann, a fluffy June Cleaver-type housewife of 1963 whose main concern, initially, is her husband’s potty mouth. (Though her apology to the neighbors is brushed off: “We’re from Brooklyn, we don’t give a fuck.”)

But she also has a nagging, Feminine Mystique-ish sense that her only identity is that of a wife. “If you’re not here anymore, who will I be?” she asks her husband, and the reply is not reassuring: “My widow.” The possibility of his disappearance grows more than theoretical with the disclosure that he’s got a blonde trophy waitress on the side.

Lucy Liu, whose seven seasons as Sherlock Holmes’ sidekick Watson on Elementary are drawing to an end later this month, plays Simone, a 1984 diva whose diamond jewelry, floppy hats and shoulder pads look like they came in a CARE package from Joan Collins.

Her marriage to some oh-so-glam Brit aristocrat seems like a Eurotrash dream. (Her: “You’re the best husband I ever had!” Him: “I was just hoping to be in the top three!”) Until she notices what’s glaringly obvious to all her friends, relatives and viewers: He’s gay, and not in a celibate way.

The final member of this triumvirate of grievance queens is Taylor, a current-day power lawyer, feminist activist, and bisexual anti-monogamist. (If that sounds like an awful lot of socio-political multitasking, consider the real life of the British actress who plays her, Kirby Howell-Baptist. She’s also a regular on NBC’s The Good Place, Hulu’s Veronica Mars, BBC’s Killing Eve, and HBO’s Barry. I’m sure she runs a lemonade stand during her spare time.)

Taylor’s marriage to a burned-out screenwriter named Eli (the only male in the series with any real definition, he’s played by Reid Scott of Veep) is supposedly open, though it’s not clear that the penniless and essentially washed-up Eli is actually getting any side action.

The gorgeous Taylor, on the other hand, has a full dance card of female hookups—and now she’s violated the rules of the relationship by bringing one home. Jade (Alexandra Daddario) is a lingerie saleswoman and fully looks the part, and when Eli sees her he immediately proposes a three-way.

It happens, but to his regret; as he watches the two women together, it’s obvious that Jade and Taylor are entangled in something much more than a hook-up. Who exactly is the wronged partner here is far from clear, and it may be worth remembering that the series is called Why Women Kill, not Why Wives Kill, and victim genders are not specified.

Cherry’s previous shows had serious themes beneath their carapace of wisecracks and japery—in Desperate Housewives, the strength of female companionship; in Devious Maids, the intimate class struggle between servers and served. If Why Women Kill is trying to discuss anything beyond the merits of poison versus knives or that, as one character notes, “death is cheaper than divorce,” it’s not apparent from the pilot. It may not matter; the dialogue is funny, the plots interesting. Sit back, enjoy, and remember never to turn your back to your wife.

More serious contemplation can be reserved for Oxygen’s documentary Manson: the Women, which is pretty much what it sounds like. Films and TV shows about the homicidal hippie and his harem number in the dozens, and you can hardly be blamed if you wonder if there’s any need for another, much less two.

But this one has something the others don’t: interviews with four female former members of Charles Manson‘s “Family.” None of them participated in the gruesome, heartless slaughter of actress Sharon Tate or the other seven people who died at the hands of the Manson family during a ghastly weekend almost 50 years ago to the day. But one—Squeaky Fromme, who functioned as something like Manson’s executive assistant—did later unsuccessfully try to take a shot at President Gerald Ford.

The other three are Dianne Lake (better known as Snake), who was just 13 when she joined the cult; Catherine Share (Gypsy), who once carved an X in her forehead in support of Manson; and Sandra Good (Blue), who spent 10 years in prison for sending death threats to nearly 200 corporate executives she accused of killing trees.

None of them reveal much that isn’t fairly well known to anybody who has followed the reams of literature on the case. Lake, who left the group right after the murders (“I want my mommy!” she sobbed to a cop), describes being won over at the tender way Manson made love to her the first time (he was 44, she 14) and feeling someone less smitten when he sodomized her. (“That’s the way we do it in prison,” he explained.) Fromme argues that the Family members who stabbed the pregnant Tate 16 times have been misunderstood. “They weren’t bloodthirsty,” she clarifies. “They were doing whatever they had to do.”

Much of the documentary is devoted to understanding how relatively normal young women (they ranged from 13 to 24 when they joined) could follow the obviously sociopathic Manson in trekking through deserts, eating dumpster food, and taking beatings when he was mad. The answers—they came from broken homes, somebody killed Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King—are neither novel nor sufficient. Though Lake perhaps gets close to the heart of the matter when she notes that “it’s how pimps control their women.”

The most riveting footage is when the women talk about their feelings about Family life five decades later. Share, who broke with Manson after serving five years for armed robbery in the same California prison where the female murderers were confined, says old news footage makes her shudder: “I just can’t even watch myself talking about it.”

Fromme, on the other hand, has no apologies. “I have never regretted any of those experiences,” she declares calmly. And Good seems positively regretful that she was in jail for possession of stolen credit cards and didn’t get to go along on the nights of the murder.

“You want to talk about immoral and evil, go to Hollywood,” she bellows. “We touched it. It needed to be touched … I’d say meeting Manson saved my life, my health, my brain. My emotional health. My mental health. My physical health. I’m thankful.” Of course, your mileage may vary. Ask Sharon Tate.

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Dad Sued For Slander Because He Criticized The Education System

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Welcome to our Friday roll up, where we highlight the most absurd and concerning stories we are following this week.

Dad sued for slander because he criticized the education system

Careful what you say about your kid’s public school curriculum.

The company behind a controversial common core math program in North Carolina is suing a dad for libel and slander.

The parent of a high school student has been on a “crusade,” the lawsuit claims, against the math program. Instead of teacher led instruction, students are taught through self-discovery.

He and many others see strong evidence that the old methods are better. That’s why he created a Facebook group and website where he lays out his criticism of the program.

We checked out the guy’s website, and it is full of well thought out rational criticism. Whether he is correct or not is irrelevant. He is just expressing an opinion on the type of education his child will receive in public school.

We’ve moved beyond gender neutral pronouns and triggering micro-aggressions. Now just expressing any old opinion offends people.

Apparently you can’t do that in the USA, anymore. If you offend someone with constructive criticism, they turn around and sue you.

Click here for the full story.

The government has a new way to spy on you

The Pentagon is currently testing high altitude surveillance balloons in several midwestern states.

Flying at about 65,000 feet, the balloons are able to track multiple vehicles at once, in any type of weather, using radar.

The Pentagon says the purpose of the solar powered unmanned balloons is to “provide a persistent surveillance system to locate and deter narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats.”

The data gathered over broad swaths of the country will be saved so it can be rewound and reviewed after the fact.

Big Brother is really watching.

Click here for the full story.

City evicts entire family after houseguest commits crime

In this week’s edition of no good deed goes unpunished…

An Illinois family let a 19 year old friend of their son stay with them when he became homeless. They kicked him out after he stole from them, and burglarized a nearby restaurant.

And then the family got an eviction notice.

But it didn’t come from the landlord, it came from the local cops. They were enforcing an ordinance which requires private landlords to evict all the occupants of a home when any inhabitant commits a crime.

Even though this young man was a house guest who victimized them as well, the family will be punished for his crimes.

The family’s landlord says they are model tenants, and he does not want to evict them. So he joined their lawsuit against the city.

With the help of the Institute for Justice, the family is suing to protect their due process rights, so that they won’t be punished for someone else’s crime.

Click here for the full story.

Bernie’s ingenious solution for student debt

Total outstanding student debt now stands at $1.65 trillion dollars.

But the solution is all too simple for Bernie Sanders. He tweeted in response, “We should cancel it.”

That’s the solution, just cancel $1.65 trillion dollars of debt. What could go wrong?

The idea that you can just solve this problem by canceling the debt shows how clueless these people really are.

Student debt is the number one financial asset of the federal government. There is no bigger money maker in the asset column or the government’s balance sheet.

And in case you missed it, the government isn’t in great financial shape. At $22 trillion dollars, the national debt is larger than the entire US economy.

Cancel the student debt, and you’re wiping away a trillion dollars that the taxpayers will have to pay for.

That’s bigger than the direct costs of the Iraq war. It’s bigger than the 2008 TARP bailout.

The whole thing is really a sad state of affairs. But countless people will buy into Bernie’s two-word solution… cancel it.

Click here for his cringy twitter feed.

City shuts down 11 year old girl’s lemonade stand

If she was just selling lemonade, city officials said, they probably would have let the lemonade stand slide.

But this young girl made the mistake of offering her customers fruit smoothies as well.

The city said the girl needs a permit for that, so the city can reduce the risk of foodborne illnesses.

That risk seems pretty small. How is it any different than going to a friend’s house for dinner?

The real tragedy is that this trend is robbing kids of entrepreneurial experience at a young age. She bought the supplies, made a sign, created a menu, set the prices, attracted the customers…

And instead of learning a lesson about business, she learned a lesson about how the government treats business owners.

Click here for the full story.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2HbCSv5 Tyler Durden

Summer Television Serves Up Some Femmes Fatale

  • Manson: the Women. Oxygen. Saturday, August 10, 7 p.m.
  • Why Women Kill. Available August 15 on CBS All Access.

“Say what you will about Charles Manson,” observed Caitlin Flanagan in an Atlantic piece on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, “he really empowered women to pursue excellence in traditionally male-dominated fields.” No doubt Oberlin and Antioch, this time next year, will be offering such courses as Transgressive Feminist Theory 101: Homicide as Resistance to Intersectionality. In the meantime, television is doing its best this week to fill the gaps with a couple of shows about female bloodlust.

Why Women Kill, airing on the streaming service CBS All Access, is mostly for grins. Creator Marc Cherry is the past master of wickedly sly, campy comedies of female duplicity like Desperate Housewives and Devious Maids.

And from literally the first frame, with gaudy pop-art posters of women sighting hunting rifles, throwing electric fans in bathtubs and committing various other uncongenial acts, it’s apparent that Why Women Kill is treading the same goofy path.

The series is built around three different women, archetypes all, in three different epochs, who share nothing but occupancy of a Pasadena mansion and a growing irascibility toward their unfaithful mates.

Ginnifer Goodwin (Big Love) plays Beth Ann, a fluffy June Cleaver-type housewife of 1963 whose main concern, initially, is her husband’s potty mouth. (Though her apology to the neighbors is brushed off: “We’re from Brooklyn, we don’t give a fuck.”)

But she also has a nagging, Feminine Mystique-ish sense that her only identity is that of a wife. “If you’re not here anymore, who will I be?” she asks her husband, and the reply is not reassuring: “My widow.” The possibility of his disappearance grows more than theoretical with the disclosure that he’s got a blonde trophy waitress on the side.

Lucy Liu, whose seven seasons as Sherlock Holmes’ sidekick Watson on Elementary are drawing to an end later this month, plays Simone, a 1984 diva whose diamond jewelry, floppy hats and shoulder pads look like they came in a CARE package from Joan Collins.

Her marriage to some oh-so-glam Brit aristocrat seems like a Eurotrash dream. (Her: “You’re the best husband I ever had!” Him: “I was just hoping to be in the top three!”) Until she notices what’s glaringly obvious to all her friends, relatives and viewers: He’s gay, and not in a celibate way.

The final member of this triumvirate of grievance queens is Taylor, a current-day power lawyer, feminist activist, and bisexual anti-monogamist. (If that sounds like an awful lot of socio-political multitasking, consider the real life of the British actress who plays her, Kirby Howell-Baptist. She’s also a regular on NBC’s The Good Place, Hulu’s Veronica Mars, BBC’s Killing Eve, and HBO’s Barry. I’m sure she runs a lemonade stand during her spare time.)

Taylor’s marriage to a burned-out screenwriter named Eli (the only male in the series with any real definition, he’s played by Reid Scott of Veep) is supposedly open, though it’s not clear that the penniless and essentially washed-up Eli is actually getting any side action.

The gorgeous Taylor, on the other hand, has a full dance card of female hookups—and now she’s violated the rules of the relationship by bringing one home. Jade (Alexandra Daddario) is a lingerie saleswoman and fully looks the part, and when Eli sees her he immediately proposes a three-way.

It happens, but to his regret; as he watches the two women together, it’s obvious that Jade and Taylor are entangled in something much more than a hook-up. Who exactly is the wronged partner here is far from clear, and it may be worth remembering that the series is called Why Women Kill, not Why Wives Kill, and victim genders are not specified.

Cherry’s previous shows had serious themes beneath their carapace of wisecracks and japery—in Desperate Housewives, the strength of female companionship; in Devious Maids, the intimate class struggle between servers and served. If Why Women Kill is trying to discuss anything beyond the merits of poison versus knives or that, as one character notes, “death is cheaper than divorce,” it’s not apparent from the pilot. It may not matter; the dialogue is funny, the plots interesting. Sit back, enjoy, and remember never to turn your back to your wife.

More serious contemplation can be reserved for Oxygen’s documentary Manson: the Women, which is pretty much what it sounds like. Films and TV shows about the homicidal hippie and his harem number in the dozens, and you can hardly be blamed if you wonder if there’s any need for another, much less two.

But this one has something the others don’t: interviews with four female former members of Charles Manson‘s “Family.” None of them participated in the gruesome, heartless slaughter of actress Sharon Tate or the other seven people who died at the hands of the Manson family during a ghastly weekend almost 50 years ago to the day. But one—Squeaky Fromme, who functioned as something like Manson’s executive assistant—did later unsuccessfully try to take a shot at President Gerald Ford.

The other three are Dianne Lake (better known as Snake), who was just 13 when she joined the cult; Catherine Share (Gypsy), who once carved an X in her forehead in support of Manson; and Sandra Good (Blue), who spent 10 years in prison for sending death threats to nearly 200 corporate executives she accused of killing trees.

None of them reveal much that isn’t fairly well known to anybody who has followed the reams of literature on the case. Lake, who left the group right after the murders (“I want my mommy!” she sobbed to a cop), describes being won over at the tender way Manson made love to her the first time (he was 44, she 14) and feeling someone less smitten when he sodomized her. (“That’s the way we do it in prison,” he explained.) Fromme argues that the Family members who stabbed the pregnant Tate 16 times have been misunderstood. “They weren’t bloodthirsty,” she clarifies. “They were doing whatever they had to do.”

Much of the documentary is devoted to understanding how relatively normal young women (they ranged from 13 to 24 when they joined) could follow the obviously sociopathic Manson in trekking through deserts, eating dumpster food, and taking beatings when he was mad. The answers—they came from broken homes, somebody killed Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King—are neither novel nor sufficient. Though Lake perhaps gets close to the heart of the matter when she notes that “it’s how pimps control their women.”

The most riveting footage is when the women talk about their feelings about Family life five decades later. Share, who broke with Manson after serving five years for armed robbery in the same California prison where the female murderers were confined, says old news footage makes her shudder: “I just can’t even watch myself talking about it.”

Fromme, on the other hand, has no apologies. “I have never regretted any of those experiences,” she declares calmly. And Good seems positively regretful that she was in jail for possession of stolen credit cards and didn’t get to go along on the nights of the murder.

“You want to talk about immoral and evil, go to Hollywood,” she bellows. “We touched it. It needed to be touched … I’d say meeting Manson saved my life, my health, my brain. My emotional health. My mental health. My physical health. I’m thankful.” Of course, your mileage may vary. Ask Sharon Tate.

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Chase Bank Forgives “All Outstanding Credit Card Debt” For Canadian Customers

In a shocking move, Chase Bank announced on Thursday that it was going to be forgiving all outstanding credit card debt from its Canadian customers, according to Yahoo Finance. The bank closed all of its credit card accounts in Canada back in March of 2018. 

When the accounts were initially closed, customers were told to continue paying down their debt. Now, they’re being told by the company that their debt is cancelled. CBC talked to some customers who got letters from the bank this week.

Douglas Turner of Coe Hill, Ontario, who still owed about $4,500, said: 

“I was sort of over the moon all last night, with a smile on my face. I couldn’t believe it. It’s crazy. This stuff doesn’t happen with credit cards. Credit cards are horror stories.”

Turner also said his last payment to the account was also going to be reimbursed. 

Paul Adamson of Dundalk, Ontario said he called his bank after seeing his account was closed because he was concerned about missing a payment. Adamson said:

 “I’m honestly still so … flabbergasted about it. It’s surprise fees, extra complications – things like that, definitely, but not loan forgiveness.”

The bank had previously offered rewards cards for both Amazon and Marriott in Canada. Maria Martinez, vice-president of communications for Chase Card Services, said that the bank could have sold the debt, but that forgiving it “was a better decision for all parties, including and most importantly our customers.”

It’ll be interesting to see if the news is as well received by diligent Chase customers in Canada who paid off their cards, as well as American customers who have undoubedtly racked up massive sums of debt with the bank. 

A 24 year old university student, Christine Langlois of Montreal, said she hadn’t paid the card in 5 years. 

“It’s kind of like I’m being rewarded for my irresponsibility,” she said. 

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2yPk3cm Tyler Durden

No Probable Cause Required for Cops To Access User Data From Popular Apps

The home security company Ring’s budding relationship with law enforcement has made people more aware of just how much privacy is sacrificed when they sign up for a lot of tech services.

Ring produces video doorbells that allow consumers to see who is at their front door from their smartphones. Amazon recently purchased Ring in 2018 for $1 billion.

But the customer isn’t the only one who can see who’s there. Government Technology reports that “under Ring partnerships, police are provided with a special portal that allows them to communicate with and request video from community residents.” Police have to ask the owners of the footage for it first. But if the owners refuse to turn it over, the cops can then go to Ring directly.

“The consumer knows what they’re getting into,” Tony Botti of the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office, insisted to Government Technology. “If you’re a good upstanding person who is doing things lawfully, nobody has concerns.”

Motherboard recently reported that Amazon is encouraging law enforcement to join as many community boards as possible, so that people in the community will be willing to provide the footage directly to the police.

“I think right now people assume they own all their data,” says Nila Bala, associate director of criminal justice and civil liberties at the R Street Institute. They “don’t realize the reach that private companies and law enforcement have on their information.”

The Salt Lake City Police Department recently used Lyft data to try to find missing University of Utah student Mackenzie Lueck. “Police also analyzed Lueck’s social media and dating app accounts,” The Deseret News reported.

In that case, police used warrants to obtain the information—as is required by Utah law. But Utah, Washington, and California are the only three states that currently require law enforcement to obtain warrants before companies can hand over private data.

At some companies, it is policy to require warrants before giving law enforcement extensive information. But these companies will still offer up users’ names, contact information, and IP addresses upon receiving a subpoena. And subpoenas, unlike warrants, don’t require that authorities demonstrate probable cause. 

Most of the biggest digital services simply require a subpoena for user data. This includes such popular companies as Lyft, Uber, Venmo, Netflix, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Uber has reported that it got 1,248 data requests from state governments and 156 from the feds in the first six months of 2017, leading the company to turn over data on more than 3,000 driver and rider accounts. Authorities had warrants for only 231 of these requests. In 839 requests, they relied on a subpoena. 

Snapchat is even more lenient about letting law enforcement snoop on user data. The company says it will give out any data it reasonably believes is needed to “comply with any valid legal process, governmental request, or applicable law, rule, or regulation.”

Bala says consumers should take steps to make sure that they are aware of what information they are sharing with the apps they sign up for—and that companies should be more transparent about what kinds of information people are giving them.

And the authorities need to be transparent about how they’re treating data they obtain from these companies. “We should demand that our government follow best practices for collecting, storing, and destroying data, during and after investigations,” Bala says.

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No Probable Cause Required for Cops To Access User Data From Popular Apps

The home security company Ring’s budding relationship with law enforcement has made people more aware of just how much privacy is sacrificed when they sign up for a lot of tech services.

Ring produces video doorbells that allow consumers to see who is at their front door from their smartphones. Amazon recently purchased Ring in 2018 for $1 billion.

But the customer isn’t the only one who can see who’s there. Government Technology reports that “under Ring partnerships, police are provided with a special portal that allows them to communicate with and request video from community residents.” Police have to ask the owners of the footage for it first. But if the owners refuse to turn it over, the cops can then go to Ring directly.

“The consumer knows what they’re getting into,” Tony Botti of the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office, insisted to Government Technology. “If you’re a good upstanding person who is doing things lawfully, nobody has concerns.”

Motherboard recently reported that Amazon is encouraging law enforcement to join as many community boards as possible, so that people in the community will be willing to provide the footage directly to the police.

“I think right now people assume they own all their data,” says Nila Bala, associate director of criminal justice and civil liberties at the R Street Institute. They “don’t realize the reach that private companies and law enforcement have on their information.”

The Salt Lake City Police Department recently used Lyft data to try to find missing University of Utah student Mackenzie Lueck. “Police also analyzed Lueck’s social media and dating app accounts,” The Deseret News reported.

In that case, police used warrants to obtain the information—as is required by Utah law. But Utah, Washington, and California are the only three states that currently require law enforcement to obtain warrants before companies can hand over private data.

At some companies, it is policy to require warrants before giving law enforcement extensive information. But these companies will still offer up users’ names, contact information, and IP addresses upon receiving a subpoena. And subpoenas, unlike warrants, don’t require that authorities demonstrate probable cause. 

Most of the biggest digital services simply require a subpoena for user data. This includes such popular companies as Lyft, Uber, Venmo, Netflix, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Uber has reported that it got 1,248 data requests from state governments and 156 from the feds in the first six months of 2017, leading the company to turn over data on more than 3,000 driver and rider accounts. Authorities had warrants for only 231 of these requests. In 839 requests, they relied on a subpoena. 

Snapchat is even more lenient about letting law enforcement snoop on user data. The company says it will give out any data it reasonably believes is needed to “comply with any valid legal process, governmental request, or applicable law, rule, or regulation.”

Bala says consumers should take steps to make sure that they are aware of what information they are sharing with the apps they sign up for—and that companies should be more transparent about what kinds of information people are giving them.

And the authorities need to be transparent about how they’re treating data they obtain from these companies. “We should demand that our government follow best practices for collecting, storing, and destroying data, during and after investigations,” Bala says.

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