What happens when a formerly “growth company” transitions into a state of not so growth? Well, it will desperately do anything to restore its growth by attracting attention to itself in any way possible, or failing that, it will engage in some ideological virtue signaling, and while alienating one half of its possible clients, it will double down on the other half.
Netflix, whose US growth has now plateaued, has done something that falls in-between these two options, because as Bloomberg reports, the video streaming company – which is about to be existentially challenged by such bigger peers as Disney – plans to reconsider its “entire investment” in Georgia if a law restricting abortions takes effect in the state, where it films shows such as “Stranger Things” and “Ozark.”
In early May, Georgia became the fourth U.S. state this year to outlaw abortion after a doctor can detect a fetal heartbeat, although anti-abortion rights groups vowed to challenge the bill. The new law is set to be enacted in 2020 if it survives legal challenges; It has predictably triggered the liberal bastion of Hollywood, where several filmmakers have said they would refuse to work in the state, but so far large companies have remained silent.
This is where Netflix has taken virtue signaling to a whole new level.
But what does a money-losing video streaming service have to do with state abortion rights? Well, according to Reid Hastings, everything.
“We have many women working on productions in Georgia, whose rights, along with millions of others, will be severely restricted by this law,” Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said in a statement.
“It’s why we will work with the ACLU and others to fight it in court. Given the legislation has not yet been implemented, we’ll continue to film there, while also supporting partners and artists who choose not to. Should it ever come into effect, we’d rethink our entire investment in Georgia.”
But will Netflix, which is desperate for the cheapest possible content creation really pull out, pun probably not intended, of Georgia? Somehow we doubt it.
As Bloomberg notes, Georgia has some of the most generous film and TV subsidies in the country, and it’s become a popular hub for production. AMC Networks Inc.’s “The Walking Dead” is filmed there, along with several of Walt Disney Co.’s recent hits, including “Captain America: Civil War,” “Ant-Man” and “Black Panther.”
Others virtue signalling amateurs, such as J.J. Abrams Jordan Peele, the director of “Get Out,” said they will still be shooting their show “Lovecraft Country” in the state, although they’ll donate their fees for this season to the ACLU of Georgia and Fair Fight Georgia.
But if Netflix follows through with its threat to boycott Georgia, what will it do with all the other states that plan to follow in Georgia’s footsteps. In addition to Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio which have all enacted heartbeat laws since mid-March, and Iowa passed one last year, and Alabama which passed a bill that would ban all abortions unless the mother’s life is threatened, a total of 15 states have introduced measures to ban abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.
Will Netflix soon be stuck with only filming its money losing movies in only the most expensive of liberal states? Once again, we doubt it, but then again nothing is as money-losing as virtue signaling for the sake of, well, virtue.
Meanwhile, the Motion Picture Association of America has noted that similar legislation has been challenged in other states. “The outcome in Georgia will also be determined through the legal process,” the organization said. “We will continue to monitor developments.”
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2WtiT3I Tyler Durden
Julian Assange is a dick. It’s important you understand that.
Assange and WikiLeaks revealed the American military’s war crimes, the American government’s corruption and the American corporate media’s pathetic servile flattery to the power elite. So, if you’re a member of our ruling class, you would view those as textbook examples of dickery.
In a moment I’m going to list all the ways Julian Assange changed the world by being a dick.
In an evolved and fully realized society, the oligarchy would see Assange as a dangerous criminal (which they do), and the average working men and women would view him as justice personified (which they don’t). We would celebrate him even as the mass media told us to hope for his downfall—like a Batman or a Robin Hood or an Ozzy Osbourne (the early years, not the cleaning-dog-turds-off-his-carpet years).
But we are not evolved and this is not Gotham City and average Americans don’t root for the truth. Many Americans cheer for Assange’s imprisonment. They believe the corporate plutocratic talking points and yearn for the days when we no longer have to hear about our country’s crimes against humanity or our bankers’ crimes against the economy. Subconsciously they must believe that a life in which we’re tirelessly exploited by rich villains and know all about it thanks to the exhaustive efforts of an eccentric Australian is worse than one in which we’re tirelessly exploited by rich villains yet know nothing about it.
“Ignorance is bliss” is the meditative mantra of the United States of America.
Julian Assange has been arrested and is now locked away in British custody. The U.S. government wants to extradite him, regardless of the official version, for the crime of revealing our government’s crimes. Nearly every government on our third rock from the sun despises the man for bringing transparency to the process of ruling the unwashed masses. (The level of wash has, however, increased thanks to aggressive marketing campaigns from a variety of shampoo brands.)
It is politically inconvenient at this time for the screaming corporate news to remind our entire citizenry what exactly WikiLeaks has done for us. So you won’t see the following list of WikiLeaks’ accomplishments anywhere on your corporate airwaves—in the same way the mainstream media did not begin every report about Chelsea Manning’s trial with a rundown of the war crimes she helped reveal.
And Chelsea Manning’s most famous leak is arguably also WikiLeaks’ most famous leak, so it’ll top this list:
1) That would be the notorious Collateral Murder video, showing U.S. air crew gunning down unarmed Iraqi civilians with an enthusiasm that couldn’t be matched by an eight year-old winning a five-foot-tall stuffed animal at the county fair. They murdered between 12 and 18 innocent people, two of them Reuters journalists.
Zero people have been arrested for the collateral murders. Yet Julian Assange has been arrested for revealing them.
2) WikiLeaks brought us the Guantanamo Bay “Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures”—showing that many of the prisoners held on the U.S. military detention facility were completely innocent, and that some were hidden from Red Cross officials. (Because when you’re torturing innocent people, you kinda want to do that in peace and quiet, away from prying eyes. It’s very easy to get distracted, and then you lose your place and have to start all over again.)
None of the soldiers torturing innocent people at Gitmo have been arrested for it. Yet Julian Assange has been arrested for revealing it.
3) Not content with revealing only war crimes, WikiLeaks in 2008 came out with the secret bibles of Scientology, which showed that aliens, um, run the world or … aliens are inside all of us or … aliens give us indigestion. I can’t really remember.
But no one has ever been arrested for perpetrating that nutbag cult. Yet Julian Assange has for revealing it.
Many people believe WikiLeaks has unveiled only crimes of the American government, but that’s completely false. The U.S. corporate media doesn’t want average Americans to understand that WikiLeaks has upped the level of transparency around the world.
4–9) WikiLeaks posted videos of Tibetan dissidents in China fighting back, videos which were not allowed to be viewed in China. They revealed the Peru oil scandal, and that Russia was spying on its citizens’ cell phones, and the Minton Report on toxic dumping in Africa, and the Syria Files—showing the inner workings of the Syrian government. And WikiLeaks displayed to the global audience a secret Australian supreme court gag order that stopped the Australian press from reporting on a huge bribery scandal that involved the central bank and international leaders.
Assange is hated by governments around the world. As much as they may like transparency, when it comes to other countries (specifically the United States), they don’t want their own particular pile of shit on full display. It’s kinda like when most people laugh heartily after an up-skirt photo of a celebrity is published in the tabloids, but at the same time, none of us want up-skirt photos of us all over the web. (I know I don’t because I haven’t shaved up there since Carter was in office.)
As far as I know, none of the political figures involved in these scandals have gone to prison for participating in them. Yet Julian Assange has for revealing them.
10) Let’s not forget the Iraq War logs—hundreds of thousands of documents relating to America’s illegal invasion of Iraq, which we called a “war,” but I think a war needs to have two sides. Iraq’s elite Republican guard turned out to be three guys and a donkey … and the donkey didn’t even have good aim.
So far as I can tell, no one committing the war crimes evidenced in the Iraq War logs has been locked up for them. Yet Julian Assange has for revealing them.
11) WikiLeaks showed us the highly secretive Bilderberg Group meeting reports. The Bilderberg Group is made up of incredibly powerful men and women who get together and decide how to rule over all of us street people, all the while sitting on thrones made from the bones of the babies of nonbelievers. They’re often accused of being lizard people, but really they’re just regular ol’ sociopaths with lizard skin they purchased from a plastic surgeon in Malibu for half a million dollars.
I don’t think anyone from the Bilderberg Group is being tortured in solitary confinement right now. Yet Julian Assange is for revealing who they are.
While it was ordered to pay 500 million pounds in lost taxes, no one was arrested for that theft from citizens. Yet Julian Assange was for revealing it.
13) The Afghan War Diaries consisted of 92,000 documents related to our destruction of Afghanistan. They detailed friendly fire incidents and civilian casualties. According to WikiLeaks, the diaries showed that “When reporting their own activities U.S. Units are inclined to classify civilian kills as insurgent kills, downplay the number of people killed or otherwise make excuses for themselves.”
It’s tough to read this without being floored at the comedy routine that our military actions have become. I picture this scenario happening every day in Afghanistan:
U.S. Soldier #1: This guy we just killed was an insurgent. U.S. Soldier #2: How do you know? U.S. Soldier #1: Because we killed him. U.S. Soldier #2: Why’d we kill him? U.S. Soldier #1: Because he’s an insurgent. U.S. Soldier #2: How do you know? U.S. Soldier #1: Because we killed him.
(Repeat until lightheaded.)
I am unaware of anyone locked away for these war crimes. Yet Julian Assange is locked away—for revealing them.
14) WikiLeaks also unveiled hundreds of thousands of U.S. State Department cables that showed more clearly than ever how our secretive government rules its empire with little to no input from the American people. Among many other things, the cables revealed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered diplomats to spy on French, British, Russian and Chinese delegations at the U.N. Security Council. It also showed that Arab nations urged the U.S. to strike Iran, and much more.
Our ruling elite of course view this as a massive breach of national security. That’s understandable. But that world view comes into play only if you think the elites are the only ones who should know how our nation is run. To answer this question for yourself, do the following experiment. Pull up a photo of Donald Trump—a really close-up image of his blister-colored, bulbous face. Now, look at it intensely for five minutes. … After you’ve done that, tell me you want the ruling elite to be the only ones who know what the fuck is going on. Go ahead and try it—I’ll wait.
Ostensibly, the concept of our government was that the ruling class would be accountable to us, the average Americans. To you and me. To the workers and the number crunchers. To the single moms and the cashiers and the street sweepers and the fluffers on the porn sets. We’re supposed to vote based on our knowledge of how our government is functioning. But if the entirety of our representatives’ criminal behavior is labeled top secret for national security purposes, then we aren’t really an informed populace, are we?
So for all that was unveiled in the State Department cables, no one has been locked up. But Julian Assange has been for revealing them.
15) The Stratfor emails—this was millions of emails that showed how a private intelligence agency was used by its U.S. corporate and government clients to target activists and protesters.
No one at Stratfor is currently locked away. But Julian Assange is for revealing the truth.
16) Then there’s the trade deals. TPP, TISA and TTIP—all three amount to one of the largest attempts at corporate takeover ever conceived. All three were more secretive than Donald Trump’s taxes. Government officials and corporate lawyers and lobbyists wrote every word in private. Not even Congress saw the Trans-Pacific Partnership until very late in the process. The only organization to show the American citizens (and European citizens) some of those documents before they were made into law? WikiLeaks.
WikiLeaks made us aware of the corporate restraints that were about to be placed on us, and that’s what allowed activists to pressure Trump to pull out of the TPP.
None of those secretive corporate titans are imprisoned for their attempted power grab, but Julian Assange is for revealing it.
17) The DNC emails. I’ll explain for those of you who have been living in a cave that is itself inside a yellow-and-blue-makes-green sealed Tupperware container. The Democratic National Committee’s emails gave us proof concerning just how rigged the Democratic primaries really are. They proved the media was in bed with Hillary Clinton’s campaign. They even showed that Obama’s entire first-term cabinet was selected by Citibank. Yes, Citibank. (I would find it less offensive if his cabinet had been decided by a rabid raccoon, or the pus oozing out of Darth Vader’s face or Vince McMahon’s concussed frontal lobe.)
Whatever election integrity movement exists right now, it owes a lot to these revelations by WikiLeaks. After being sued over this matter, the DNC’s lawyers admitted in court that the DNC has no obligation to have a fair primary election. It’s their right to rig it.
But don’t try to get angry about this, because if you do, the CIA has a myriad ways to fuck up your life.
18) In 2017 WikiLeaks posted a trove of CIA documents called “Vault 7.” It detailed their capabilities, including remotely taking over cars, smart TVs, web browsers and smartphones.
After I found out about that, for a solid two weeks I thought, “Screw it. I’m going full Amish. One hundred percent. Let’s see the CIA hack my butter churn. Are they going to use backdoor software to get inside my rustic wooden bow-saw? Even if they could, what are they going to listen to—my conversation about how mee bobblin fraa redd up for rutschin’ ’round. Say no more! Schmunzla wunderbar!”
So is anybody at the CIA chained up for violating our privacy in every way possible? No, but Julian Assange is for revealing it.
By thrusting the truth upon the people of earth, WikiLeaks helped create movements worldwide like the Arab Spring and Occupy. And don’t forget, at first WikiLeaks and Assange were celebrated for their amazing work. In 2011 even Amnesty International hailed WikiLeaks as one of the Arab Spring catalysts. The Guardian said: “The year 2010 may well be remembered as a watershed year when activists and journalists used new technology to speak truth to power and, in so doing, pushed for greater respect for human rights. … It is also the year when repressive governments faced the real possibility that their days were numbered.”
So why have so many outlets and people turned against Assange and WikiLeaks? Because it turned out he wasn’t revealing only repressive Arab regimes. He also revealed U.S.-backed coups and war crimes around the world. He exposed the criminality and villainy of the American ruling elite.
Nothing published on WikiLeaks has ever been proven untrue. Compare that record to CNN, MSNBC, Fox News or any mainstream outlet. Assange has been nominated for multiple Nobel Peace Prizes, and nearly every respected media outlet has used source material from WikiLeaks in their reporting. Yet after all this and after seven years in captivity, the man who laid bare our criminal leaders and showed each one of us our chains is not receiving parades and accolades. He and those who helped him reveal the truth are the only ones endlessly punished.
We are all Julian Assange. As long as he’s imprisoned, we can never be free.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2VRaeUk Tyler Durden
In 1956, BMW released a brand new line of roadsters, the 507.
It was a slick convertible and became a hit with celebrities. In 1959, the very first Bond girl from Dr. No – Ursula Andress – took possession of this brand new BMW 507 roadster.
It was re-designed 40 years later into the BMW Z8, which is the car that Pierce Brosnan drove in James Bond, The World is Not Enough.
But the original 1956 model didn’t lose its appeal. Like many high-end cars from the 50s, it became a collector’s item.
Today, the car easily fetches more than $1 million at auction.
Between 2005 and 2019 alone, the car increased in value by over 800%.
That’s 600% more than the stock of BMW itself – which only rose 200% in the same time frame.
The reason behind this surge in value is simple: you can’t go back in time and make more of these cars. There will never be another 1956.
That means these cars will likely keep growing in value as they get more and more rare.
That’s one of the reasons I like collectibles so much. They derive intrinsic value from their scarcity.
And at a time when central banks are busy printing trillions of dollars at every turn to inflate mainstream assets into bubble territory, looking to assets that are inherently valuable makes a great deal of sense to me.
That trend isn’t limited to just cars by the way. There are many types of collectibles that derive immense value from the past.
A great example is fine art. In 2017, a recently discovered painting by Leonardo da Vinci sold for $450 million at auction.
That’s a track record of wealth preservation longer than most of recorded human civilization.
That should tell you something about the ability of these assets to preserve wealth in the future.
So as a means to preserve wealth in the long term, it makes sense to consider owning some collectibles instead of having 100% of your net worth in fundamentally flawed paper currencies.
I like collectibles so much that I recently invited our Total Access members – our highest-level of membership – to a full weekend in California dedicated to collectibles and learning about the opportunities available to everyday investors.
It was an impressively educational event. In fact, even I learned a lot– especially about art as an asset class.
And I encourage everyone to learn more about this time-tested wealth preservation strategy.
We also talked about vintage guns, stamps, and even historical documents and books.
And we covered the most straightforward way for beginners to get started with collectibles: numismatic gold coins.
These are gold coins that were minted when the US dollar was still backed by gold, and that carry historical significance.
For example, some were printed in very short supply during a critical time in American history, and are highly sought after by collectors.
Others are simply high-quality, timeless coins.
One such example is the $20 St Gauden, minted from 1907 to 1933. It’s one of the most sought after coins today, and widely considered one of the most beautiful coins ever minted.
A classic 1907 St Gauden in good condition will set you back roughly $1,480 today – the cheapest price it’s traded at in over a decade.
That’s because numismatic coins derive their value not only from the gold content inside but also from the “collector’s premium” they carry that can reach multiple times the value of the gold itself.
For example, in the late nineties, the $20 St Gauden traded at a 300% premium to its gold value. Today, it trades at just 19% above its value in gold.
That’s an incredible bargain. In fact, it’s an all-time low.
But I suspect it won’t stay that way for long. Premiums tend to soar during times of crises. Between May and October 2008 alone, the premium on the coin rose 50%.
Numismatic coins that are trading at historically low premiums are an incredible opportunity to not only pick up gold at a cheap price, but also to add enormous upside potential through the all-time low premiums. That builds in a solid margin of safety, and great upside.
This is the kind of low-risk, high-reward opportunities that I like. But I also know from experience that mispriced arbitrages like these don’t last forever.
I’m not saying you should go out and dump all your life savings on collectible gold coins. But if you have no exposure to collectibles, the $20 St Gauden might be a cheap and simple way to start building a position.
South Bend, Indiana, mayor and presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg calls himself a “democratic capitalist.” In a Democratic field where several popular candidates are either fully or partially embracing “democratic socialism,” it’s worth taking a closer look at a candidate who isn’t shying away from the capitalist label.
Indeed, Buttigieg is fond of his economic identity, evidenced by the repeated use of the term. He is currently enjoying media attention reserved for big-name candidates and has already raised $7 million within the first campaign fundraising quarter, suggesting there may be an appetite for a defender of capitalism in the mix.
Sitting at a CNN desk in April, Buttigieg was asked to address the vocal factions in the Democratic Party that vilify big business and capitalism.
“Well, I think the reason we’re having this argument over socialism and capitalism is that capitalism has let a lot of people down,” he said on CNN. “I guess what I’m out there to say is that it doesn’t have to be so.”
Buttigieg told CNN it’s generally assumed that those who support capitalism also support democracy. In his view, though, democracy and capitalism are “coming into contention” with one another.
“It was very alarming to hear recently one of the president’s economic advisers said that between capitalism and democracy, he would choose capitalism,” said the South Bend mayor. “I would say the reverse ought to be true, that at the end of the day we prioritize democracy. And, you know, having that framework of a rule of law, fairness, is actually what takes markets to work.”
Buttigieg acknowledges a line between good government intervention and too much government intervention. Tariffs, for example, cross Buttigieg’s line. Buttigieg decried President Trump’s tariffs on China at an eventas both a tax on Americans and a “counterproductive” tactic to try to force China to change its economic model.
Free college, a campaign promise that has been adopted by democratic socialists and mainstream candidates alike, also crosses his line. Buttigieg told a New Hampshire audience that as a progressive, he could not justify requiring the majority of taxpayers to subsidize a minority that will eventually outearn them because of a degree.
He’s bucked one-size-fits-all policies like zoning restrictions that do not take regional differences into account. He personally favors religion as an important source of community and morality.
While Buttigieg occasionally takes a stand against what he believes is too much government intervention, it’s more difficult to gauge just how much intervention he believes is acceptable.
Buttigieg has suggested using the government to enforce mandatory national service. A veteran himself, Buttigieg told Rachel Maddow that he believes that his own interactions with people of all socioeconomic backgrounds in the armed forces could be used as a model throughout the country. He added that national service would not necessarily mean military service; a variety of public-sector jobs could fit the bill as well.
Confusing matters more, Buttigieg proposed making service a social norm, “if not legally obligatory.” It remains unclear whether he’s legitimately interested in government mandating service, and for whom, and in which sectors, but the notion is troubling.
And he acknowledges the idea itself is a long shot: “It’s one of these ideas that everybody kind of likes, but it was always important and never urgent,” he muses. “How would that ever kind of hold on its own in a policy debate where we deal with kids in cages and we have to deal with climate change and there are all these pressing, burning issues?”
This is the heart of the Buttigieg campaign so far: Big ideas—good and bad—but very little clarity about what they would mean in practice.
“We give him points for even saying he’s a capitalist of any kind in a Democratic field,” says Cato Institute Senior Fellow Michael Tanner. “That’s hard to come by.”
Tanner observes “two branches” currently in the Democratic Party: one that accepts the existence of capitalism while pushing for a larger welfare state and one that rejects capitalism entirely. While he gives Buttigieg credit for calling himself a capitalist, he warns that libertarian and free market voters should be mindful of his understanding of the term.
“We should praise the concept while rejecting the specifics,” says Tanner.
Still, in a world where less than half of young Americans view capitalism more favorably than socialism, it is heartening to see a popular candidate calling himself a capitalist. Defenders of capitalism should take heart while remaining vigilant against the dangerous, vague ideas that Buttigieg is bringing along with his embrace of the term.
from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2I4MneX
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After his previous book elicited outrage from media figures on both the right and left, who questioned its veracity, author Michael Wolff’s long anticipated sequel to ‘Fire and Fury’, his landmark book about the opening months of the Trump Administration, will finally hit bookshelves later this week.
And according to a leaked excerpt of the book, entitled “Siege: Trump Under Fire”, published Tuesday by the Guardian, the work definitely won’t disappoint fans of the genre. And to help ensure the maximum amount of buzz, the paper has decided to publish Wolff’s most salacious claim first, which is: That Special Counsel Robert Mueller wrote up a three-count indictment of President Trump on obstruction-related charges, but ultimately decided not to pursue it.
The report is based on unspecified ‘underlying documents’ that purport to substantiate Wolff’s claims. These documents were shared with the Guardian. However, Mueller’s office has vociferously denied the report.
…Wolff reports that Mueller’s office drew up a three-count outline of the president’s alleged abuses, under the title “United States of America against Donald J Trump, Defendant.” The document sat on the special counsel’s desk, Wolff writes, for almost a year.
According to a document seen by the Guardian, the first count, under Title 18, United States code, Section 1505, charged the president with corruptly – or by threats of force or threatening communication – influencing, obstructing or impeding a pending proceeding before a department or agency of the United States.
The second count, under section 1512, charged the president with tampering with a witness, victim or informant.
The third count, under section 1513, charged the president with retaliating against a witness, victim or informant.
According to the purported ‘draft indictment’, Trump’s obstructions began one week after his inauguration.
Wolff writes that the draft indictment he examines says Trump’s attempts to obstruct justice “began on the seventh day of his administration, tracing the line of obstruction from National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s lies to the FBI about his contacts with Russian representative[s], to the president’s efforts to have [FBI director] James Comey protect Flynn, to Comey’s firing, to the president’s efforts to interfere with the special counsel’s investigation, to his attempt to cover up his son and son-in-law’s meeting with Russian governmental agents, to his moves to interfere with Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe’s testimony…”
After months of tortured deliberations, Mueller ultimately demurred on pursuing the indictment, and decided to focus instead on the other investigations that have led to charges against dozens of individuals.
Wolff’s book also included casual accusations of anti-semitism, including a quote attributed to Trump, where he bashed Cohen and Trump Org accountant Allen Weisselberg for cooperating with investigators.
According to Wolff, Mueller endured tortured deliberations over whether to charge the president, and even more tortured deliberations over the president’s power to dismiss him or his boss, the then deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein. Mueller ultimately demurred, Wolff writes, but his team’s work gave rise to as many as 13 other investigations that led to cooperating witness plea deals from Michael Cohen, David Pecker of American Media and Trump Organization accountant Allen Weisselberg
“The Jews always flip,” was Trump’s comment on those deals, according to Wolff.
In one of many echoes of Fire and Fury, such shocking remarks by Trump are salted throughout Siege.
Anticipating a challenge to the indictment because of the DoJ Office of Legal Counsel memorandum that a sitting president can’t be indicted, Mueller and his team also purportedly drew up a memorandum opposing a motion to dismiss. But ultimately, Mueller decided that the odds were stacked against him and his team, and that there would be nothing stopping the president from firing the entire team should they bring an indictment.
But due to the prosecutor’s waffling, Wolff disparaged Mueller as a “cautious and indecisive bureaucrat.”
XX
“Robert Mueller, the stoic marine, had revealed himself over the course of the nearly two-year investigation to his colleagues and staff to be quite a Hamlet figure. Or, less dramatically, a cautious and indecisive bureaucrat.”
Caught, Wolff says, between wanting to use his full authority and worrying that he had no authority, Mueller went against the will of many of his staff when he chose not to attempt to force Trump to be interviewed in person. Ultimately, he also concluded he could not move to prosecute a sitting president.
Ironically enough given Mueller’s hardcore following of impeachment-obsessed #resistance diehards, Wolff concluded that the special counsel was ultimately swayed by the administration’s argument that ‘Trump is Trump’ – and that’s what the people voted for. This practically guarantees that Mueller – once viewed as a savior by the left – and his reputation will undergo what we like to call ‘the reverse James Comey’ in the eyes of Democrats.
“In a way,” he writes, “Robert Mueller had come to accept the dialectical premise of Donald Trump – that Trump is Trump.”
“Bob Mueller threw up his hands. Surprisingly, he found himself in agreement with the greater White House: Donald Trump was the president, and, for better or for worse, what you saw was what you got – and what the country voted for.”
If the past is any guide, we imagine the Washington press will be dominated by a steady patter of leaks from Wolff’s new book over the coming week in anticipation of its publication next week. The revelations, we imagine, will feature no shortage of salacious comments purportedly made by top administration staff and officials, as well as the unhinged alleged rantings of the president himself.
After selling more than 5 million copies of his first book, expectations for the sequel are high – and given Wolff’s reputation for playing fast and loose with the facts, we very much doubt that he will disappoint.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2KaB7QW Tyler Durden
South Bend, Indiana, mayor and presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg calls himself a “democratic capitalist.” In a Democratic field where several popular candidates are either fully or partially embracing “democratic socialism,” it’s worth taking a closer look at a candidate who isn’t shying away from the capitalist label.
Indeed, Buttigieg is fond of his economic identity, evidenced by the repeated use of the term. He is currently enjoying media attention reserved for big-name candidates and has already raised $7 million within the first campaign fundraising quarter, suggesting there may be an appetite for a defender of capitalism in the mix.
Sitting at a CNN desk in April, Buttigieg was asked to address the vocal factions in the Democratic Party that vilify big business and capitalism.
“Well, I think the reason we’re having this argument over socialism and capitalism is that capitalism has let a lot of people down,” he said on CNN. “I guess what I’m out there to say is that it doesn’t have to be so.”
Buttigieg told CNN it’s generally assumed that those who support capitalism also support democracy. In his view, though, democracy and capitalism are “coming into contention” with one another.
“It was very alarming to hear recently one of the president’s economic advisers said that between capitalism and democracy, he would choose capitalism,” said the South Bend mayor. “I would say the reverse ought to be true, that at the end of the day we prioritize democracy. And, you know, having that framework of a rule of law, fairness, is actually what takes markets to work.”
Buttigieg acknowledges a line between good government intervention and too much government intervention. Tariffs, for example, cross Buttigieg’s line. Buttigieg decried President Trump’s tariffs on China at an eventas both a tax on Americans and a “counterproductive” tactic to try to force China to change its economic model.
Free college, a campaign promise that has been adopted by democratic socialists and mainstream candidates alike, also crosses his line. Buttigieg told a New Hampshire audience that as a progressive, he could not justify requiring the majority of taxpayers to subsidize a minority that will eventually outearn them because of a degree.
He’s bucked one-size-fits-all policies like zoning restrictions that do not take regional differences into account. He personally favors religion as an important source of community and morality.
While Buttigieg occasionally takes a stand against what he believes is too much government intervention, it’s more difficult to gauge just how much intervention he believes is acceptable.
Buttigieg has suggested using the government to enforce mandatory national service. A veteran himself, Buttigieg told Rachel Maddow that he believes that his own interactions with people of all socioeconomic backgrounds in the armed forces could be used as a model throughout the country. He added that national service would not necessarily mean military service; a variety of public-sector jobs could fit the bill as well.
Confusing matters more, Buttigieg proposed making service a social norm, “if not legally obligatory.” It remains unclear whether he’s legitimately interested in government mandating service, and for whom, and in which sectors, but the notion is troubling.
And he acknowledges the idea itself is a long shot: “It’s one of these ideas that everybody kind of likes, but it was always important and never urgent,” he muses. “How would that ever kind of hold on its own in a policy debate where we deal with kids in cages and we have to deal with climate change and there are all these pressing, burning issues?”
This is the heart of the Buttigieg campaign so far: Big ideas—good and bad—but very little clarity about what they would mean in practice.
“We give him points for even saying he’s a capitalist of any kind in a Democratic field,” says Cato Institute Senior Fellow Michael Tanner. “That’s hard to come by.”
Tanner observes “two branches” currently in the Democratic Party: one that accepts the existence of capitalism while pushing for a larger welfare state and one that rejects capitalism entirely. While he gives Buttigieg credit for calling himself a capitalist, he warns that libertarian and free market voters should be mindful of his understanding of the term.
“We should praise the concept while rejecting the specifics,” says Tanner.
Still, in a world where less than half of young Americans view capitalism more favorably than socialism, it is heartening to see a popular candidate calling himself a capitalist. Defenders of capitalism should take heart while remaining vigilant against the dangerous, vague ideas that Buttigieg is bringing along with his embrace of the term.
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Hernandez v. Mesa, the cross-border shooting / Bivens liability case in which the Court just granted review for a second time this morning (the first iteration was decided in 2017) appears to be the first Supreme Court case in which both lead parties were named Jesus.
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Late last week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed into law a bill outlawing child sex dolls in the state. SB 160, sponsored by Sen. Lauren Book (D–Plantation), makes it a crime to own, sell, or distribute a “child-like sex doll.”
Simple first-time possession would earn someone a second-degree misdemeanor charge, rising to a third-degree felony for repeat offenders. Possession with the intent to sell or distribute a child sex doll would be a third-degree felony for the first offense, rising to a second-degree felony for a subsequent offense.
Those convicted under the statute of selling or distributing a child sex doll could get anywhere from five to 15 years in prison, equivalent to the state’s penalties for child neglect that results in “great bodily harm, permanent disability, or permanent disfigurement.”
The harsh penalties are justified by the deterrent effect the ban will have on would-be offenders, Book said in a press release in early May, when her bill unanimously cleared the legislature.
“These are anatomically correct, lifelike silicone dolls that are eerily similar to real human children made for the sole purpose of sexual gratification,” said Book. “Just as viewing child pornography lowers the inhibitions of child predators, so do these childlike sex dolls that have no place in the state of Florida.”
This same argument has been deployed in favor of the federal Curbing Realistic Exploitative Electronic Pedophilic Robots (CREEPER) Act.
“These dolls create a real risk or reinforcing pedophilic behavior and they desensitize the user causing him to engage in sicker and sicker behavior,” said Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R–Va.) last year.
The CREEPER Act passed the House in June 2018 but was never brought up for a vote in the Senate.
The Kentucky Senate passed a bill banning child sex dolls back in March. The bill is currently awaiting a vote in the state’s House. The United Kingdom also prohibits them and has seized 230 dolls since 2016, according to The Sun, a British tabloid.
Manufacturers of child sex dolls argue that by allowing pedophiles to satiate their desires without viewing child pornography or engaging in actual physical abuse, these dolls will help to reduce child sexual abuse.
“I am helping people express their desires, legally and ethically. It’s not worth living if you have to live with repressed desire,” said Shin Takagi, a Japanese maker of child sex dolls, to The Atlantic in 2016.
Academic research has so far found no empirical evidence one way or another on the effect of child sex dolls.
“The available evidence in relation to sex dolls in general and child sex dolls in particular is very weak, with almost no studies empirically examining the implications of doll use,” reads an Australian government report on the issue from March 2019.
The desire to ban child sex dolls is understandable. It is nevertheless true that their use produces no victims. Given that there is also no direct evidence that their use leads to actual crimes, the case for imprisoning people over them is incredibly thin.
In addition, Florida’s child sex doll ban does not actually define what it means by “child-like sex doll.” This provides little guidance for either law enforcement officers or potential purchasers of sex dolls to know what is actually allowed.
Given that child sex doll bans take aim at a victimless activity, rely on an unsupported theory that they’ll deter actual episodes of abuse, and will almost certainly be enforced in an arbitrary manner, they should be abandoned.
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According to the report, the bitcoin price has soared to as high as 394,000 pesos ($8,762.95 at press time) per coin, exceeding prices versus the Argentine peso not seen since the bubble in late 2017.
Bitcoin price against Argentine peso since 2017. Source: BitcoinAverage
The new all-time high of bitcoin versus the peso takes place amid a crypto bull market this year, along with the ongoing depreciation of the Argentine peso against the U.S. dollar.
The U.S. dollar has seen a massive growth over the peso during the past year. The new lows in the value of Argentina’s currency are reportedly caused by uncertainties in the upcoming presidential election.
U.S. dollar price against Argentine peso.
Despite the recent attempt to support the Argentinian economy by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with the country’s central bank having allowed to use IMF funds to intervene in the peso, some analysts are reportedly concerned that the program could fail if the populist opposition wins the presidential election in October, as FT reported.
While investors support the current President Mauricio Macri, the opposition — in which former leftist president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is running as a deputy to presidential candidate Alberto Fernández — has reportedly introduced a “democracy discount” to the peso.
Major global asset manager Amundi reportedly said that asset prices have reacted “very negatively” over the past month to the growing chance of Kirchner returning to power.
As FT noted, the peso dropped to new lows against the dollar in April, following a loss of more than half of its value last year, when both the peso and Turkish lira dropped amid investor expectations of rising U.S. rates.
Earlier in March, venture capital billionaire Tim Draperadvised the president of Argentina to legalize bitcoin in order to improve the economic situation in the country.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2I6RyuQ Tyler Durden
While it may not be quite as strong as this morning’s spectacular 2Y auction, moments ago the US Treasury sold $41 billion in 5Y notes, with the yield stopping at 2.065%, once again stopping through the 2.068% When Issued, sharply down from April’s 2.315% and the lowest yield since October 2017.
The internals, while not nearly as impressive as today’s first auction, were also impressive, with the Bid to Cover sliding modestly from 2.44 to 2.38, just above the 6 auction average of 2.37. Indirects took down 57.5%, just below the 58.6% average, and while it was shy of the near record surge in 2 Year Direct takedown, the directs were allotted 18.4%, well above the 15.3% in April, leaving 24.1% to Dealers, which was also the highest since January.
In summary, it may not have been spectacular, but it certainly was solid, and with just the 7Y coupon auction left, any speculation that China may be selling, or boycotting US paper, has been pushed to the backburner for now.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/30OCYkl Tyler Durden
