Author: admin

A new economic analysis by Glassdoor’s Local Pay Reports says Philadelphia leads the nation in wage growth over the last year, printing around 2.8 percent growth since July 2017, bringing the median base salary to $55,723 per year.

Glassdoor’s report is designed to provide a real-time overview of trends in median base salary for full-time U.S. workers in ten cities through an analysis of anonymous salary data from millions of employees.

As noted by Bloomberg, San Francisco experienced 2.7 percent growth, New York City saw 2.6 percent growth and Los Angeles saw 2.6 percent growth, ranking as the cities with the next fastest pay increase. San Francisco had the highest median base pay at $69,404 per year, which printed at a $17,000 premium versus the national average.

“Cost of living is certainly one factor that’s driving up wages for workers in these cities,” wrote Alison Sullivan, career trends analyst at Glassdoor, in an email to Bloomberg.

The report, which examined wage growth among 84 jobs across 15 industries, discovered that certain professions were doing much better than others. Jobs in the financial sector experienced some of the fastest pay increases, according to the report, noting that bank tellers saw 8.2 percent growth in wages, while financial advisers and financial managers saw 4.9 percent and 4.7 percent growth, respectively.

“Many of these bigger cities are also home to industries like tech, finance, and healthcare,” Sullivan said.

“These industries have several high-demand roles they’re hiring for and employers are using higher pay as one mechanism to attract talent.”

In Philadelphia, most of the wage growth is driven by health-care and pharmaceutical companies that demand strong millennial talent from higher education institutions around the region.

Bloomberg also noted that Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Boston observed the lowest annual pay increases in July, expanding by 1.7 percent, 1.9 percent, and 2 percent, respectively.

The report can be misleading when placed in a broader context than the professions generally covered by Glassdoor, said PhillyVoice.

The most recent data from the Federal Reserve revealed that Philadelphia’s median household income level was $41,449, which includes residences with more than one job — not just a single wage.

Another shocking reality is that Philadelphia has the highest rate of deep poverty (an income of less than $10,000, or 50 percent of the federal poverty threshold) of any large city.

“The comparatively favorable cost of living in Philadelphia is in fact primarily offset for renters, who generally receive lower wages than those in other large U.S. cities. That challenge was highlighted in a recent collaboration between PropertyShark and RENTCafé, which found deficits in discretionary income for both homeowners and renters,” said PhillyVoice.

Regardless of the different figures, “the steady uptick in Glassdoor’s data is generally a good sign for workers and evidence that today’s tight labor market may finally be translating into further base pay gains for U.S. workers into the remainder of 2018,” Sullivan concluded.

While Glassdoor’s report seems overly optimistic about overall wage growth, here is a sobering reminder that real wages have barely budged – despite President Trump’s claims of the “greatest economy ever.”

via RSS https://ift.tt/2noW2TB Tyler Durden

Authored by George Magnus via Nikkei Asian Review,

Sino-American trade war could trigger a currency shock in Asian markets…”

When the Asian financial crisis occurred 20 years ago, many nations in East and Southeast Asia succumbed because they were following inconsistent domestic and international economic and financial policies. But one trigger was the 50% fall in the Japanese yen against the dollar between the end of 1995 and the summer of 1998 amid the American stock market’s bull run that lasted until 2002.

Fast forward to today, and the dollar is on a roll again, thanks to a strong economy and tensions between its fiscal and monetary policies. Higher U.S. interest rates and a stronger dollar are already raising debt interest costs for Asian borrowers, but this time the falling Chinese yuan looms as a proximate cause of trouble.

Asia’s vulnerability to developments in U.S. financial markets has been widely noted. It is true that unlike the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998, most countries in the region have stronger foreign exchange reserves. They are better positioned when measured against important indicators such as months of import cover, short-term debt and foreign debt ratios.

Most Asian countries have current account surpluses, and even those with deficits, such as India, Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines do not look overly challenged. But while the sensitivity to shocks is lower than it was 20 years ago, there is no cause for complacency. And there is still a potential spoiler, the yuan, which is now under downward pressure, but which was an agent of calm in the last Asian crisis.

The yuan has weakened by more than 8% against the dollar to 6.83 yuan from a high of 6.28 yuan in March. This is far off the low of 6.96 yuan at the end of 2016 before China tightened capital controls significantly. To some extent, this reflects the markets’ reaction to the evolving U.S.-China trade war, as well as some guidance by the People’s Bank of China.

But it also has to be seen in the context of the cumulative consequences of tighter Chinese financial policies over the last 18 months, which has resulted in the loss of economic momentum. In response, there has been a recent loosening of monetary and financial policies, in which bank reserve requirements have been trimmed three times this year, short-term interest rates have eased, and longer-term rates have dropped more markedly.

In this context, a Sino-American trade war is not only most unwelcome but also untimely. In July, the U.S. implemented a new 25% tariff on $50 billion of imports from China. U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to increase the tariff rate from 10% to 25% on a further $200 billion of imports from China if the latter retaliated (which it did), and even subject all $500 billion or so of annual imports to tariffs. Beijing’s riposte was to threaten variable tariffs on an additional $60 billion of imports from the U.S.

Since China only imports about $150 billion of goods from the U.S., the scope for its own tit-for-tat tariffs is almost exhausted. If it wants to continue hitting back at the U.S., it will have to resort to some combination of currency depreciation and the use of its extensive system of regulations to target U.S. products and companies doing business in China. As far as depreciating the yuan is concerned, the Chinese authorities are moving into dangerous territory.

So far, the 8% weakening in the currency against the US dollar has more or less compensated for the U.S. tariffs imposed. But because China’s tit-for-tat tariff capacity is limited, any further broadening of U.S. tariffs, as Trump has proposed, would require the currency to decline further in value to around 7.25-7.30 yuan against the dollar or even more.

This would take the currency back to levels not seen since the major currency reform and alignment of multiple exchange rates in 2008.

From a technical perspective, chart investors worry that the fall of the yuan to below 7 to the dollar could open the way for a marked depreciation. This might happen in any case in due course, because of a weaker domestic economy and associated policy easing. But now would not be good time.

Washington would see any further significant fall in the yuan as a serious escalation of the trade war, and the chances of halting or lessening it would be gone. It would probably unhinge other Asian currencies as well as global markets.

Since the Asian financial crisis, supply chains have grown bigger and more intricate and trade dependencies have become greater. This means that global sensitivity to significant change in the yuan — increasingly the anchor currency in Asia — is more significant. Whether they are dependent on transnational supply chains, exports to China or income from Chinese tourists, Asian nations in both Southeast and Northeast Asia are likely to be concerned about a major fall in the yuan.

For China to sanction a sharp depreciation might be “a bridge too far” for all these reasons. It would certainly represent a major risk to domestic financial stability in China when there are reports emanating from Beijing that not everyone is happy with President Xi Jinping’s handling of the trade dispute with the U.S. or, more generally, with his authoritarian leadership and its consequences for the country.

A yuan depreciation could also trigger a resumption of capital flight, even though the post-2016 system of controls has proved to be much less porous than the previous regime. The People’s Bank of China is now acting to penalize traders who are looking to go short on the yuan. It has the tools, including the use of currency reserves to intervene, to stand its ground if the politics so dictate.

Asia should play close attention to China’s central bank in coming weeks, and equally, to the bigger picture in which further yuan depreciation may happen, regardless of how China chooses to manage it. All of this means that policymakers — regional and otherwise — should be prepared to allow a mixture of responses, from local currency depreciation to monetary and fiscal measures, to address the consequences.

*  *  *

George Magnus is an associate at Oxford University’s China Centre and former chief economist at UBS. His latest book is “Red Flags — Why Xi’s China is in Jeopardy,” to be published in September by Yale University Press.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2vxbWQg Tyler Durden

To improve border security along the Durand Line with Afghanistan, Pakistan will add 60,000 troops to expand patrols on the heavily disputed border region to curb the flow of terrorists operating between both nations, as per Bloomberg citing military officials.

The military officials requested for anonymity informed Bloomberg that about forty percent of the troops needed to secure the border have already been recruited, which the total process could take up to two years. About 13 percent of the security fence along the 1,456 mile-long border has been erected, officials said.

“The move will consolidate Pakistan’s border operations, which have been beefed-up in recent years after widespread insecurity wracked the country following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Domestic terror-related violence is now at its lowest in more than a decade. The army, which has 661,000 regular and paramilitary troops, have previously been more focused on the country’s eastern border with arch-rival neighbor India, with which it’s fought three wars against since British India’s partition in 1947. The two continue to contest the disputed region of Kashmir,” said Bloomberg.

Pakistan’s terrorist violence has dropped to lowest in more than a decade

In his very first tweet of 2018, President Trump threatened to cut off financial aid payments to Pakistan saying that its leaders have given the U.S. nothing but “lies & deceit” while providing “safe haven to terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan.”

“The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!” tweeted President Trump.

Since then, Pakistan has come under increasing pressure to take preventive measures to neutralize the Afghan Taliban and the affiliated Haqqani network that shift between both countries.

“I don’t think this will satisfy the U.S.,” Rashid Ahmed Khan, the head of international relations at the University of Central Punjab in Lahore, who spoke with Bloomberg. “It’s one of the most porous borders in the world — if one side continues to oppose it, then this can’t be that effective,” he said, referring to repeated Afghan objections.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have both accused the other of harboring and training terrorists. Relations between the two have been in a downward spiral in the last several years. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani warned Pakistan that it is pursuing an “undeclared war of aggression” and threatens military conflict over the security fence.

Pakistan officials told Bloomberg some fences in mountainous regions have made it more difficult for militants to cross between both countries.

Islamabad has often accused Afghan nationals and refugees of bombings and attacks in Pakistan. Officials said more than 2 million refugees live in Pakistan refugee camps, as these areas have become a significant breeding ground for terrorist.

According to the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) research group in October, the Durand Line has roughly 235 crossing points, some frequently used by militants and drug traffickers.

“It may not stop every terrorist, but it will deter them,” said Ikram Sehgal, a former military officer and chairman of Pathfinder Group, Pakistan’s largest private security company. “If you are serious about no encroachment, this is necessary.”

The AAN report also suggested that Taliban can operationally move with ease between the two countries in the often lawless border regions and are usually waved through by Pakistan forces.

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai had expressed concerns about the alleged U.S. financial assistance to Pakistan for fencing the Durand Line.

The Office of the Former President in a statement said Hamid Karzai is deeply concerned over the matter and calls it a “violation of our rights and sovereignty.”

He said: “The US funding to Pakistan for fencing the Durand line is helping Pakistan’s policy of separating Afghans on both sides of the Durand Line.”

Incoming Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan recently made statements about the need for peace with Afghanistan and told Ashraf Ghani, President of Afghanistan, that he would travel to Kabul at an unspecified time.

“If there is peace in Afghanistan, there will be peace in Pakistan,” said Khanin in a televised victory speech from Islamabad last month.

With the war in Afghanistan mostly finished — it seems as Pakistan and Afghanistan are making strides towards peace. In doing so, Pakistan is erecting a massive fence with 60,000 troops to ensure a new era of peace.

If so, the one question we ask: The U.S. has spent almost two decades bombing the Middle East, could peaceful times bring a wave of new investments into the region via China’s One Belt and Road Initiative?

via RSS https://ift.tt/2AVGekV Tyler Durden

Authored by Walter Williams via Townhall.com,

Many of the nation’s colleges have become a force for evil and a focal point for the destruction of traditional American values. The threat to our future lies in the fact that today’s college students are tomorrow’s teachers, professors, judges, attorneys, legislators and policymakers. A recent Brookings Institution poll suggests that nearly half of college students believe that hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment.

Of course, it is. Fifty-one percent of students think that it’s acceptable to shout down a speaker with whom they disagree. About 20 percent of students hold that it’s acceptable to use violence to prevent a speaker from speaking, over 50 percent say colleges should prohibit speech and viewpoints that might offend certain people.  Contempt for the First Amendment and other constitutional guarantees is probably shared by the students’ high school teachers, as well as many college professors.

Brainwashing and indoctrination of young people has produced some predictable results, as shown by a recent Gallup Poll. For the past 18 years, Gallup has asked adults how proud they are to be Americans. This year, only 47 percent say they are “extremely proud,” well below the peak of 70 percent in 2003. The least proud to be Americans are nonwhites, young adults and college graduates. The proudest Americans are those older than 50 and those who did not graduate from college. The latter might be explained by their limited exposure to America’s academic elite. 

Johnetta Benton, a teacher at Hampton Middle School near Atlanta, was recorded telling her sixth-grade students, “America has never been great for minorities.”

In a tirade, she told her class: “Because Europeans came from Europe … you are an immigrant. You are an illegal immigrant because you came and just took it. … You are an immigrant. This is not your country.”

To exploit young, immature young people this way represents an act of supreme cowardice. The teacher should be fired, but I’m guessing that her colleagues share her sympathies. At the same school, students were given a homework assignment that required them to write a letter asking lawmakers for stricter gun control laws.

One might be tempted to argue that the growing contempt for liberty and the lack of civility stem from the election of Donald Trump. That’s entirely wrong. The lack of civility and indoctrination of our young people have been going on for decades.

UCLA history professor Mary Corey told her class: “Capitalism isn’t a lie on purpose. It’s just a lie.”

She added that capitalists “are swine. … They’re bastard people.”

An English professor at Montclair State University, in New Jersey, told his students, “Conservatism champions racism, exploitation and imperialist war.”

An ethnic studies professor at California State University, Northridge and Pasadena City College teaches that “the role of students and teachers in ethnic studies is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”

The University of California, Santa Barbara’s school of education emailed its faculty members to ask them to consider classroom options concerning the Iraq War, suggesting they excuse students from class to attend anti-war events and give them extra credit for writing about it.

Rodney Swanson, a UCLA economics professor, told his class, “The United States of America, backed by facts, is the greediest and most selfish country in the world.”

There is little question that colleges stand at the forefront of an attack on America and Western values. Leftists often say that the U.S. is the world’s worst country. But here are some empirical facts they might explain. According to a recent Gallup Poll, about 13 percent of the world’s adults — 630 million people — would like to move to another country. Roughly 138 million would like to live in the U.S. — making us the No. 1 destination, followed by the U.K., Canada and France . There’s something exceptionally appealing about America and the Western world that leftists choose to ignore or lie about.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2M6mMHf Tyler Durden

Just hours after Washington called on Julian Assange to testify before the US Senate Intelligence Committee as part of their Russia investigation, Ecuador’s foreign minister has come under fire after claiming that refugees were prohibited under international law from making political comments, effectively gagging the WikiLeaks founder.

Ecuador’s foreign minister: Intenational law forbids refugees from speaking about politics, including @JulianAssange https://t.co/ADommy05bV

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 9, 2018

As RT reports, Jose Valencia made the statement in an interview with El Universo when asked about Assange’s ongoing asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Speculation has mounted in recent weeks that Ecuador is preparing to hand over the WikiLeaks founder to British authorities.

The new chancellor of Ecuador said that “according to international law and the conventions that regulate asylum, a person who is isolated cannot make pronouncements that affect the relationship of Ecuador with other countries.”

This also means that a refugee cannot interfere in the internal political situations of other countries, according to Valencia

The statement comes just days after Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno said that Assange had been told to refrain from intervening in the “politics and self-determination” of the country or face consequences.

This prompted rightly furious reactions from WikiLeaks supporters, including Kim Dotcom and journalist Glenn Greenwald.

Intercept co-editor Greenwald took the comments to task, questioning when this rule was created and if it was a generally accepted clause, tweeting that it seemed “bizarre” and “contradictory” that a government would grant someone asylum on the grounds that their fundamental rights were being abridged through persecution, only to tell them they’re forbidden from engaging in global political debates.

Is this a generally accepted rule now in international asylum law: that once a government grants someone asylum (along with citizenship) to protect them from political persecution, the asylee is barred from speaking out on international politics? When did this rule get created? https://t.co/UfM7GbSWNc

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) August 8, 2018

He continued the thread, lashing out by questioning if this was applicable to Western governments, “or does it only apply to small, subservient governments like Lenin’s?”

However, response of the day went to Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, who pulled no punches in his response to Ecuador’s latest remarks on Assange’s asylum. “Ecuador is now run by intestinal worms living in the anus of US Empire,” the internet entrepreneur and privacy activist said.

Ecuador is now run by intestinal worms living in the anus of US Empire 🇺🇸💩🐛🇪🇨 @Lenin https://t.co/qRp49mp6bf

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) August 9, 2018

Seems pretty clear what his opinion is.

Conditions have continued to worsen for Assange as we note that Moreno declared in June that Assange’s right to asylum would only be honored if he “respects the conditions” of political silence… so solitary confinement, in a now hostile embassy disallowing any conversation about his freedom since that would necessarily be ‘political’ – and for what!!??

via RSS https://ift.tt/2OY1PfK Tyler Durden

Authored by William Nardi via The College Fix,

‘Contract grading’ billed as revolutionary education practice

A literature class at Davidson College this fall will use “contract grading,” allowing students to pick ahead of time their grade for the class and the workload they need to complete to earn it.

The offer is posed by Professor Melissa Gonzalez for her Introduction to Spanish Literatures and Cultures course, SPA 270, at the private liberal arts college in Davidson, North Carolina.

She is one of several professors across the nation who allow this pick-your-own grade method, billed as a way to eliminate the student-professor power differential and give students control of their education. But critics contend it is just another example of how colleges coddle students from the harsh realities of the real world, which includes competition and goal expectations.

As for Gonzalez, she argues there is “a strong pedagogical rationale for contract grading” in an Aug. 1 email to students obtained by The College Fix. “It can help students focus on learning more than on grades, and therefore make more progress in their learning, with less anxiety.”

Gonzalez did not respond to repeated email requests for comment from The College Fix.

“I aim to foster classroom environments that are radically democratic and empower intellectual risk-taking,” Gonzalez states in her profile on the school’s website.

In her email, Gonzalez urged her former students to sign up for SPA 270, indicating that only two students have enrolled thus far and the class is in danger of being canceled.

“I want to make sure you know about some important innovations I am introducing in the course [contract grading] so that you can decide today or as soon as possible whether you want to take SPA 270 in Fall 2018. If you do, please use ADD/DROP as soon as possible to add it, or the course will have to be cancelled,” she wrote.

Gonzalez is a Hispanic Studies professor who also teaches in the Gender and Sexuality Studies department. In her email, she told students they could “sign a contract indicating the work that they will do in order to earn that grade.”

“At the end of the semester, if the student completed the specific work they said they would, at the satisfactory level, they receive the grade they planned to receive,” her email states.

To support her claim that contract grading improves the academic experience for students, Gonzalez cites a 2009 research paper by scholars Peter Elbow and Jane Danielewicz.

“The contract helps strip away the mystification of institutional and cultural power in the everyday grades we give in our writing courses,” according to the research paper.

“Using the contract method over time has allowed us to see to the root of our discomfort: conventional grading rests on two principles that are patently false: that professionals in our field have common standards for grading, and that the ‘quality’ of a multidimensional product can be fairly or accurately represented with a conventional one-dimensional grade. In the absence of genuinely common standards or a valid way to represent quality, every grade masks the play of hidden biases inherent in readers and a host of other a priori power differentials,” it adds.

In their paper, Elbow and Danielewicz also contend that contract grading is “used frequently, but discussed rarely. A Google search reveals a surprisingly large number of teachers who use some form of learning contract in various disciplines for diverse goals.”

Along with her email, Gonzalez attached two contract grading templates designed by other professors who also use the method: Cathy Davidson of CUNY and fellow Davidson College Professor Mark Sample.

Davidson, in a blog post on the grading method, refers to it as “an act of community.”

Contract grading has also been referred to as “specs grading” in a 2016 op-ed in Inside Higher Ed by Linda Nilson, director of the office of teaching effectiveness and innovation at Clemson University. She explains that “course grades are based on the bundles of assignments and tests that students complete at a pass/satisfactory level.”

“Bundles that require more work, more challenging work or both earn students higher grades. No more points to painstakingly allocate and haggle over with students. By choosing the bundle they want to complete, students select the final grade they want to earn, taking into account their motivation, time available, grade point needs and commitment,” Nilson stated.

“If a student chooses a C because that’s all he or she needs in your course, you can respect that. Under such conditions, students are often more motivated to learn because they have a sense of choice, volition, self-determination and responsibility for their grade, as well as less grade anxiety.”

But not all students are convinced it’s a good idea, including Davidson College senior Kenny Xu, who is majoring in mathematics.

“It degrades trust in your achievement by outside authorities, including employers, grad schools, scholarships etc.,” he told The College Fix.

“Imagine if an employer saw that you got an A not because you were truly one of the best in the class but because you fulfilled some requirement YOU personally set. Would he really trust that A? I think not.”

“Colleges are increasingly viewing themselves as a support system rather than an institution of learning,” Xu added.

“Learning is not supposed to be easy, or comfortable. Excellence requires that you step out of your comfort zone and compete. Colleges are becoming shelters, which is not what this country nor what this generation needs.”

via RSS https://ift.tt/2OsCgSV Tyler Durden

Dianne Feinstein – vice chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a ranking member on the Senate Intel Committee, was an “easy mark” for the Chinese spy who operated within her inner-circle for two decades, reports journalist Paul Sperry in the New York Post.

A Chinese-American who doubled as both an office staffer and Feinstein’s personal driver, the agent reportedly was handled by officials based out of the People’s Republic of China’s consulate in San Francisco, which Feinstein helped set up when she was mayor of that city. He even attended consulate functions for the senator. –New York Post

According to Feinstein, the staffer was fired “immediately” after the FBI warned her five years ago that Chinese intelligence had infiltrated her office. Feinstein claims he had “no access to sensitive information” and that he was never charged with espionage. 

That said – FBI officials warned Feinstein in June of 1996, after the staffer began working for her, that the agency had detected efforts by the Chinese government to seek favor with the Senator – possibly in the form of illegal and laundered campaign contributions. Feinstein was on the East Asian and Pacific affairs subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee at the time. 

That warning was right on the money, notes Sperry: 

One Chinese bagman, Nanping-born John Huang, showed up at Feinstein’s San Francisco home for a fundraising dinner with a Beijing official tied to the People’s Bank of China and the Communist Party Committee. As a foreign national, the official wasn’t legally qualified to make the $50,000-a-plate donation to dine at the banquet.

After a Justice Department task force investigated widespread illegal fundraising during the 1996 Clinton re-election campaign, Feinstein returned more than $12,000 in contributions from donors associated with Huang, who was later convicted of campaign-finance fraud along with other Beijing bagmen. The DNC and the Clinton campaign had to return millions in ill-gotten cash. –New York Post

Despite the jig being up, Beijing still received an extension of its favored trade status, “thanks in part to Feinstein,” who in turn embarked on a campaign to minimize China’s human rights abuses – for example equating Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre to the 1970 Kent State shootings in terms of both nations “charting the evolution of human rights in both countries over the last 20 to 30 years,” that “would point out the successes and failures — both Tiananmen Square and Kent State — and make recommendations for goals for the future.”

Feinstein was also key in bringing China into the World Trade Organization in 1999 – giving Beijing a permanent normal trade relations status, as well as removing Congress’s mandate to review human rights abuses and weapons-proliferation records. 

According to Sperry, Feinstein still travels to China every year with her multi-milionaire husband, Richard C. Blum, who appears to have benefitted enormously from the relationship. 

Starting in 1996, as China was aggressively currying favor with his wife, Blum was able to take large stakes in Chinese state-run steel and food companies, and has brokered over $100 million in deals in China since then — with the help of partners who sit on the boards of Chinese military front companies like COSCO and CITIC. –New York Post

 No wonder she’s one of the richest members in Congress! 

via RSS https://ift.tt/2vT1iCP Tyler Durden

Black-clad activists stormed Portland City Hall on Wednesday to protest the city’s crowd control techniques used by police during last Saturday’s counter-protest of a conservative march. The group assaulted one security guard with a megaphone and scuffled with several others, reports Oregon Live. 

Some of those who say they were injured by officers dressed in military gear and wielding batons or non-lethal munitions were on scene Wednesday, trying to speak with city officials.

One demonstrator, who was masked and wearing a baseball helmet, smashed a security guard over the head repeatedly with a megaphone. The guard was seen afterward clutching a bag of ice, a bruise beginning to form on his cheek. –Oregon Live

City Hall chief of security, Dorothy Elmore, reports being struck in the arm by a protester, while an unidentified bandana-clad man who was found sprawled on the floor outside the mayor’s office was arrested and carried out by his arms and legs. Also arrested was 67-year-old Diane Keeauve, according to Portland police spokesman Sgt. Chris Burley. 

Diane Keeauve was arrested this morning at Portland City Hall for trespassing. A second person, who has yet to be identified by police was also arrested. This came after demonstrators disrupted the city council this morning and refused to leave when security told them too. pic.twitter.com/lZxFcb5Vxw

— Keaton Thomas (@keaton_thomas) August 8, 2018

Each of the protesters face second-degree trespassing charges, said Burley. 

The demonstration started on a less rowdy note. A few dozen protesters converged near City Hall’s east portico beginning around 9:30 a.m. to rail against police brutality after riot cops injured multiple people at Saturday’s downtown protests.

Among them were those who say they were physically harmed by officers as police attempted to clear the rally against the right-wing group Patriot Prayer. –Oregon Live

“I should be home recovering from the pain and trauma I’m suffering. But I’m also suffering from complete outrage and powerlessness,” said Michelle Fawcett, who lives in Portland.

The 52-year-old Fawcett sustained third-degree chemical burns after being struck by a flash-bang grenade fired by police. 

A civil disturbance was declared at Saturday’s march, after police say Antifa counter-protesters threw projectiles at them. 

Portland Police shoot riot control junk at antifa in downtown Portland. No sign of the Patriot Prayer group from here. Part 5#DefendPDX #AlloutPDX pic.twitter.com/QwsHRrYkpl

— PDX Mike Bivins (@itsmikebivins) August 4, 2018

The sound truck has announced: pic.twitter.com/qTiKhcs7pK

— Portland Police (@PortlandPolice) August 4, 2018

Portland police chief Danielle Outlaw said on Monday that the bureau had temporarily suspended the use of flash-bang grenades, which they refer to as “aerial distraction devices,” until they determine of they are working correctly after at least three people were hospitalized Saturday according to the activists. 

Leo Lacroix said he was injured when a non-lethal projectile fired by police grazed his head. He showed a reporter photos of his bloodied forehead and a scab from the small wound.

“I’d like to know why I was shot in the head by the cops,” said Lacroix, 28. –Oregon Live

The Portland city council meeting began on Wednesday with little disruption, however after a man was escorted out of the building for swearing at council members, people in the audience broke into chants of “end police brutality,” which mayor Ted Wheeler admonished them for. When they would not stop, he called a recess to the session and reconvened with city commissioners in a conference room outside of his office – where the meeting was conducted despite muffled chants of “shame on you” from protesters outside. 

Commissioner carried on through their agenda despite muffled chants of “shame on you” from protesters outside.

“What’s happening downstairs?” Commissioner Amanda Fritz asked during a break between hearings.

“Well, there’s actually a gentleman laying on the floor right outside,” replied Matt Grumm, chief of staff to Commissioner Dan Saltzman.

Grumm turned to Commissioner Nick Fish: “Jumped on an e-scooter yet?”

Fish replied that he had not, but that they “seem to be everywhere.”

Though the meeting went on in ho-hum fashion, with discussions of property liens, eminent domain and parks bonds, the atmosphere outside was anything but. –Oregon Live

At that point, the protesters broke in and began assaulting city employees, only to stop after they were threatened with arrest. 

via RSS https://ift.tt/2vWhvY9 Tyler Durden

Three days into the Tesla “going private” saga, everyone continues to scramble for more information on the biggest wildcard in the entire equation: the “committed funding” as represented by Elon Musk: shareholders are asking where it is; bankers – i.e., those who should have arranged it – are asking where it is; even the SEC is asking where it is (and probing if Musk was being “truthful” with the alternative being stock manipulation which opens up Tesla to fraud lawsuits), and now Reuters reports that even the Tesla Board of Directors wants to know where it is.

According to Reuters, Tesla’s board of directors is seeking more information from CEO Elon Musk about the finance for his plan to take the U.S. electric car maker private.

And here is the punchline: While Tesla’s board has held multiple discussions about the proposal – as it documented in its statement on Wednesday – it has “not yet received a detailed financing plan from Musk and specific information on who will provide the funding.”

As a reminder, in a statement on Wednesday, Tesla’s board said its discussion with Musk “addressed the funding” for the deal, without offering more details. And now we know why: because it had none, and one increasingly wonders if the Board simply made up the fact that it had multiple discussions just to cover Musk’s back.

But there is another big problem, if only from a timing/legal standpoint: if the board has no idea where the funding is coming from, there is no way it could have signed off on it, thereby “securing it”, which means that all else equal, Musk’s tweet that sent the stock price soaring was a fabrication.

As Reuters adds, the exact information that Musk communicated to the board about his plan could not be learned.

Meanwhile, as CNBC reported earlier and as Reuters confirms, the board expects to make a decision on whether to launch a formal review of Musk’s proposal in the coming days, and is speaking to investment bankers about hiring financial advisers to assist it in its review in such scenario.

And, as we noted earlier, if the board launches a formal review of Musk’s bid, he would have to recuse himself, or a special board committee would have to be formed.

Of course, that presumes that the SEC doesn’t determine first that Musk never had any “committed funding” in the first place and what ensued on Tuesday was one of the greatest acts of stock manipulation in recent history. In that case, his recusal from the board would be permanent.

 

via RSS https://ift.tt/2OmKXOE Tyler Durden

Authored by Toni Airkasinen via Campus Reform,

A women’s studies professor at the University of Albany recently published a lengthy essay warning that Trump voters will likely riot when he departs from the Oval Office. 

“How Do We Solve a Problem Like the Donald? The Democratic Challenge of Trump Voters and the Politics of Presidential Removal” was published in the recent issue of the journal New Political Scienceby Julie Novkov.

Novkov, who also teaches political science, highlights the potential for Trump to be removed by impeachment, resignation, or assassination—but what she is most concerned about is how Trump voters would react to such an outcome.

The Trump coalition is bound together by “white racial resentment, anxiety and anger about immigration, some rural consciousness, and commitment to conservative Christian values,” Novkov claims, asserting that Trump voters are also easily misled. 

“Distrustful and cynical, they are ready to embrace any simple system that makes sense of their world and validates their resentments,” she writes, adding that such people are “particularly inclined to embrace propaganda.” 

Because of this, Novkov anticipates that Trump voters will resist the prospect of his removal from office, perhaps even with violence.

“I believe that Trumpers—the core supporters Trump has bound to himself through his consistent and persistent messaging—will not accept as legitimate any means through which he departs from the presidency,” Novkov writes, clarifying that she believes this will be so even if Trump completes two full terms in office.

“Impeachment or Twenty-Fifth Amendment removal proceedings will be furiously denounced as illegitimate. If he resigns, they will spin narratives about the deep state’s conspiracy against him. If he makes it to 2020 and fails to win re-election, they will believe that the election was illegitimate, probably with some narrative about illegal voters,” she predicts.

“Even if he makes it through two terms, they will vociferously demand that he be permitted a third. If he dies, they will believe he has been assassinated.”

“The identity they have constructed, crystallized by Trump, is so emotionally powerful to them and so empowering that it is likely to be impervious to ordinary or even extraordinary forms of political argumentation,” she adds in the unabridged print version of the article.

“The real questions remaining are how they will respond to his departure, in whatever manner it comes, and whether their response will entail violence, and if so, how much state violence will be necessary in response to maintain order,” Novkov asserts.

The best-case scenario that could arise from “the continued political incorporation of Trumpers as a group,” she says, is that it “might shift some areas of the country back to the political configuration common in some areas of the American south in the 1920s, when gaudy populist racism vied with conservative, racist legitimation projects for hegemony entirely within the Democratic Party.”

“At worst, this group could provoke violence and place the nation in the position of having to engage in its violent suppression,” she adds.

“If the Trumpers cannot be disaggregated, reintegrated, or politically neutralized, the solutions available do not lie in the Constitution” because constitutional structures “cannot fix broken politics,” Novkov concludes. “Rather, we are left with hopefully a lesser form of the tragic choices posed by constitutional failure; facing the critical election of 1860, the nation ultimately chose to drown in blood over the uncertain path of constitutional union symbolized by John Bell.”

Novkov did not respond to requests for comment. She is scheduled to teach an undergraduate class on American Federalism and a graduate-level Field Seminar in Public Law during the upcoming Fall semester.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2vTcEa0 Tyler Durden