Epic Media Failure, but they blame Trump for calling them out

Via The Daily Bell

Even if the news is dripping with errors, boiling with bias, and presenting a false narrative, it is important to trust them.

That’s what media outlets are saying in response to multiple melt-downs this week. They just can’t seem to get the facts straight… or stop themselves from lying.

Obviously, Trump is going to call them out on this. Is anyone surprised?

But some people think this is a threat to free speech.

  • Adam Serwer of The Atlantic was among those who pointed out that a head of state “publicly calling for a journalist to be fired is a textbook threat to freedom of speech.”

Incorrect. If Trump called for government regulations allowing them to fire journalists for “fake news” THAT would be a textbook example of a threat to free speech.

But Trump didn’t say that. Trump’s issue was with a Washington Post journalist who tweeted a photo of a half-empty stadium before a Trump rally in Pensacola on Friday. The only problem… the photo was taken hours before the rally, and by the time the rally started, the stadium was packed.

This “journalist” was caught red-handed spinning a false narrative about how popular Trump is. That isn’t someone that should be trusted to deliver ubiased real informative news. Yet if Trump didn’t call him out, he likely would have kept the photo up. That is literally reporting fake news. The journalist says Trump is so unpopular that his speeches are empty. The truth is that his speeches are full.

The Axios article admits that many media outlets have made extreme blunders, yet seems to brush these aside because journalism is so important. But if it is so important, then brushing these things aside is the LAST thing we should do.

Three media screw-ups in eight days on one investigation. The bad week for big news has President Trump feeling that he has moved the “fake news” argument from the fringe to the conservative mainstream, according to close Trump associates.

Why it matters: The mistakes — ABC’s Brian Ross on Michael Flynn’s plea, financial outlets on a Mueller subpoena of bank records, and CNN on an email about WikiLeaks — give Trump fodder for one of his favorite, and most damaging, tropes.

Why shouldn’t this be damaging? Media screwing up or deliberately misleading viewers is cause for alarm. It is high time people realize that news agencies have an agenda.

We have a president waging a relentless war against all media, minus Fox News and pro-Trump organs…

  • Only strong, responsible, accurate, non-hyperbolic journalism can withstand the assault. Make no mistake: This was a terrible week for the cause.

Axios seems to end the article by calling on media outlets to maintain a high standard. But then they say this was a terrible week for the cause. Why? Because the media was caught in lies and blunders, touting hyperboles and inaccuracies? So then why does their article demonize Trump’s response instead of the media outlets which gave Trump the fodder?

The journalist that tweeted the misleading photo of a Trump event apologized, but Trump still called on him to be fired. Axios and other media outlets have a problem with this response.

Again, why? They just called for responsible journalism, and this was an irresponsible move. Perhaps if he is fired, others will think twice before spinning a false narrative.

They characterize the photo as a simple mistake. That is silly. He lied. He was called out. He backed down. Does Trump need to call out every reporter spinning their false narratives in order to hold them accountable?

Of course, Trump has an agenda too. That is also important to keep in mind. It’s not like everything he says is accurate. The difference is that Trump is a politician. The word politician has been synonymous with liar since the invention of the word.

That doesn’t make it okay to lie. But clearly, people’s expectations for the quality of information they get from a politician versus a media outlet should vastly differ.

Trump is going to support his agenda. He is going to give the best possible spin on everything he does. He is going to take credit for anything good, whether he made it happen or not. He is going to deflect anything bad as someone else’s fault.

We can’t help how people interpret things. There is nothing we can do if people are silly enough to take what politicians say at face value.

But for too long the myth has existed hat the media is trustworthy. Even if they spin things, the basic facts are true, people think. But that is not so.

There is nothing wrong with Trump calling out a reporter who tried to further the false “unpopular Trump” meme.

There is plenty to criticize Trump about. Yet the media focuses on superficial crap.

If anything good comes from Trump’s Presidency, it will be widespread distrust of media and government.

Those with agendas in the media and government will clearly see this distrust as a bad thing. They have worked together for a long time to make sure people hold unrealistic expectations from the government and the media.

The more people that disengage from this fantasy the better.

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Chicago Woman Who Filmed Brutal Kidnapping And Torture Of Disabled Teen Sentenced To Community Service

A 19 year old Chicago woman who live-streamed the racially charged kidnapping, torture and mutilation of a mentaly disabled teen was given 200 hours of community service and four years of probation on Friday.

Brittany Herring Covington – who went by "Herring" on Social Media before her arreest, and "Covington" in recent reports, avoided a possible 33 years in prison on multiple counts, including a hate crime, aggravated battery and aggravated kidnapping – a charge which was dropped along with several others as part of a plea agreement. 

Brittany Herring (Covington) mugshot

Cook County Circuit Judge William Hooks handed down the slap on the wrist to Covington, who pleaded guilty to a hate crime, aggravated battery and intimidation charges – telling the teen that he could have sent her to prison, but told her "I'm not sure if I did that you'd be coming out any better."

Hooks warned Covington that should she violate the terms of her probation – which includes a ban from social media for four years, she would face prison time. As part of the plea deal, prosecutors agreed to drop additional charges including kidnapping

Judge William Hooks, Cook County IL

"Do not mess this up," Judge Hooks said to Covington, who stood in front of him in a blue jumpsuit. Hooks is notably the first African-American president of Chicago's Federal Bar Association, a past president of the Cook County Bar Association, and a member of the Muslim Bar Association of Chicago

Tanisha Covington, Tesfaye Cooper, Brittany Herring Covington, Jordan Hill and victim

The brutal attack took place in early January, after four black Chicago teens kidnapped the mentally disabled white teen and held him captive for nearly two days – binding his hands and feet with duct tape and gagging him with a sock, before using a knife to cut and stab the victim while laughing, shouting racial slurs and issuing death threats. In one segment of the livestreamed attack, one of the females can be seen laughing as she punches the victim. At another point, one of the male attackers wraps a cord around the victim's neck while he groaned in pain, and in another a male approaches the victim with a knife and asks the others "Should I shank his ass?" Other notable quotes include: 

Fuck Donald Trump, Fuck white people

 

There’s gonna be a murder. Pop pop pop

 

We gonna put this bitch in the trunk, put a brick on the gas, like aaaaaaaaah”

 

“Pistol whip his ass, fool“

After nearly 48 hours, the kidnapped teen escaped after the kidnappers left the apartment to confront a neighbor who had called 911 to complain about the noise coming out of their apartment where the torture was taking place. 

The video, which can be seen here, or here immediately went viral. After the teens were arrested, Chicago PD initially said it was not racially motivated, despite it clearly being a hate crime. Jordan Hill, 18, of Carpentersville; Tesfaye Cooper, 18, of Chicago; and Brittany Herring's sister Tanishia, 24, were each charged with aggravated kidnapping, hate crimes, aggravated unlawful restraint and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. 

After her arrest, Brittany Herring Covington bragged on Facebook from a smart phone she was able to sneak into jail, posting "yall mad?" and "Sittin in dis cell on my celly talking to yall trippin. Erbody got phones in her these day," and typing "Tfse" which stands for "The Funniest Shit Ever.

And for her participation in the brutal crime, Herring-Covington only received 200 hours of community service and four years of probation. Meanwhile, a Broward County, Florida man who vandalized a Mosque and left bacon inside was sentenced to 15 years in prison last week

The three other kidnappers charged along with Herring-Covington are still awaiting trial. Perhaps Judge Hooks will give them the key to the city. 

 

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What You’re Not Being Told About The Real Economy

Authored by Jeffrey Snider via Alhambra Investment Partners,

The year 2000 was a transition year in a lot of ways. Though Y2K amounted to mild mass hysteria, people did have to get used to writing the date with 20 in front of the year rather than 19. It was a new millennium (depending on your view of Year 0) that seemed to have started off under the best possible terms.

Not only were stocks on fire at the outset, the economy was, too. The idea of this “new economy” leading toward a permanent new plateau of low inflation growth, driven by the breathtaking productivity gains in telecommunications and computing, seemed quite real on the surface. US GDP advanced by more than 3% in 15 straight quarters from Q2 1996 through Q4 1999, averaging a sizzling 4.7% in those nearly four years of dot-com supremacy.

The labor market was clearly robust, too. In March 2000, the BLS estimates (current benchmarks) that total payrolls (Establishment Survey) rose by 468k from that February. That brought the 6-month average up to +303k, a record of expansion that also mystified economists for its lack of inflationary wage pressures. In any case, the late nineties had roared up to the doorstep of the 21st century.

We all know what happened in April 2000, as investors suddenly got cold feet about first the high flying NASDAQ. It wasn’t just stock prices and IPOs, of course, as it really meant one of the major economic themes of that age was in danger being undermined, if not thoroughly debunked. The new economy of the 21st century might not have been grounded so solidly in true economics (small “e”) as everyone thought (especially those running the Fed).

The labor market of 2000 was a study in contrasts, starting out as good as it did, but by that June, there was a shocking minus for the monthly headline payroll number. It wasn’t just a one-time problem, either, as despite all assurances in all the usual places payrolls would contract again in August and also in October. To end the year 2000, the 6-month average for the Establishment Survey had fallen to just +109k.

It was, again, a year of transition, beginning as the “sky is the limit” dot-com era and ending in almost a tailspin just two months shy of official recession. In many ways, the economy has never recovered from it, the labor market (the eurodollar’s giant sucking sound) most prominently.

Because of this and really the length of time involved between then and now, we have forgotten what a good economy actually looks like. There have been, of course, brief moments when we get the sense that something just isn’t right, such as the “jobless recovery” of 2002 and 2003, as well as the whole aftermath of the Great “Recession” up until 2014. By and large, however, the economy and the labor market are described in terms that just don’t apply if almost by default (it’s less bad today, so mustn’t it be good?).

The current payroll report for November 2017 suggests a gain of 228k. It is characterized as everything from “solid” to “robust.” Is it? How would we really know?

The best way to confirm that suspicion is to compare the current labor statistics to those in the past, calibrating the most recent numbers by those before that were recorded during what were inarguably the best of times; such as the late nineties.

Using monthly payroll gains, though, can be misleading simply because of geometric progression. A gain of 228k in November is not equivalent to the 228k gain in November 2000. The latter is actually a better single month result starting as it did from a smaller base.

From 1993 through 1999, the labor market gained, on average, 2.6% per year according to the Establishment Survey. Since that time period is universally accepted as one featuring a strong economy, that is our standard for measurement. We can also go back to the eighties for what might amount to as an upper limit of sorts, the economy and labor market at that time being whatever is better than strong and robust – truly awesome.

Translating those average gains into the 2016 base equals an expectation of 3.7mm payrolls gained for 2017 to be as good as the nineties, and 4.6mm, which would signal a splendid economic year consistent with the eighties. Through 11 months so far up to November, the Establishment Survey gives us just 1.9mm for 2017. Assuming December turns out equal or better than November’s “good” number, the year should end with a total payroll expansion around 2.1mm, maybe 2.2mm.

That’s less than two-thirds of the way to the nineties, and significantly less than half of the eighties. This year, no matter how many months at 200k plus, has not been a good one. In fact, payroll gains in the eleven months so far tallied by the BLS’s Establishment Survey are less than those presented in that transitional year of 2000.

This is how you get the newest generation of American adults yearning in greater numbers for something vastly different, a radical political change if for no other reason than the establishment here continuing to say that everything is good when by every reasonable standard it isn’t even close! The “robust” labor market even of the past few years isn’t nearly enough to draw in those still sitting on the sidelines struggling, however, they do (parents’ basements) to just get along, leaving the economy instead it’s “missing” 16.3 million; a number that in a truly robust economy would be falling not rising.

The issue clearly cannot be labor supply (Baby Boomer retirements, heroin, and fentanyl abuse in the Rust Belt) but shrunken labor demand; permanently shrunken economic demand. Therefore, there really should be no expectation for accuracy in the unemployment rate and what that means all around (inflation, baseline growth, monetary policy).

Once again in yet another month where the unemployment rate registers a ridiculous low, wages, and payroll earnings remain stuck at visibly low levels. The average weekly earnings of production and non-supervisory employees rose by just 2.6% year over year in November, after gaining 2.2% in October, 2.6% in September, and 2.7% in August. That’s nothing like in the past when the unemployment rate was where it is now. There is nothing like acceleration in earnings, not even solid growth.

I don’t mean to make all this about the bond market every time (actually it’s appropriate), but the idea that treasuries at the long end have to be wrong has no basis other than misconception or intentional misdirection.

The data, including the BLS data, remains firmly on the side of flattening, and like the Establishment Survey’s paltry 1.9mm in 2017, it’s not even close.

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National Health Crisis: US Inner-City Kids Suffer ‘War-Zone’-Like PTSD

BBC’s ‘America First?’ series sent Aleem Maqbool, a North America correspondent, to the inner city of Atlanta, Georgia, where he uncovered a rather shocking statistic in which 46% of the inner city residents suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a rate that is much higher than U.S. soldiers (10-20%).

Maqbool describes Atlanta’s inner city environment as a “war zone”, where death and destruction are contributing to high levels of PTSD in adults and children. He further quoted researchers and said levels of PTSD in America’s inner cities are comparable to refugee populations around the world.

To make matters worse, the video makes the claim: gun murder rates (per 100,000) in the US are at astronomical levels when compared to other countries. A startling find, when considering the US, the richest country in the world, does not perform well in the international rankings.

As the crisis spreads, PTSD in children and young adults are sparking a public health crisis, where traumatic events are negatively influencing brain development.

This is already having a significant effect on inner-city youth, who already suffer from broken families, drug abuse, education inequality, and wealth inequality.

Back in 2016, President Trump told the American people the true state of the inner cities. He correctly labeled the areas across the country, a “war zone” (see below).

"The Democrats have failed completely in the inner cities,” Trump said. “For those hurting the most, who have been failed and failed by their politicians, year after year, failure after failure, worse numbers after worse numbers, poverty, rejection, horrible education, no houses, no homes, no ownership, crime at levels that nobody has seen. You could go to war zones in countries that we’re fighting and it’s safer than living in some of our inner cities that are run by the Democrats.”

 

“It is a disaster the way African-Americans are living in many cases and in many cases the way Hispanics are living,” Trump continued. “And I say it with such a deep felt feeling, what do you have to lose? I’ll straighten it out. I’ll bring jobs back, We’ll bring spirit back. I’ll get rid of the crime, so you’ll be able to walk down the street without getting shot. Right now, you walk down the street, you get shot.”

America’s once hustling and bustling inner cities are contracting in terms of economic productivity and in some cases population. Atlanta’s inner city war zone is not the only city dealing with death and destruction, which raises our eyebrow because children who are suffering from war zone PTSD is much more widespread than thought, making it an unrecognized national public health crisis. As per MSN, America’s most dangerous inner cities:

  • DETROIT, MICHIGAN: Violent crime rate: 2,047 per 100,000
  • ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI: Violent crime rate: 1,913 per 100,000
  • MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE: Violent crime rate: 1,820 per 100,000
  • BALTIMORE, MARYLAND: Violent crime rate: 1,780 per 100,000
  • ROCKFORD, ILLINOIS: Violent crime rate: 1,659 per 100,000
  • KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI: Violent crime rate: 1,655 per 100,000
  • CLEVELAND, OHIO: Violent crime rate: 1,631 per 100,000

Like Alcoholics Anonymous, President Trump submitted the inner cities into America Anonymous, a 12 step program to get the country back on the right path. The first step is admitting there is a problem, which was completed in 2016, with eleven more steps to go, who said this was going to be an easy rebuild?

It’s time the American people awaken from their decades’ long sleep and learn the truth about the disastrous mistakes government has made in governing this country.

In the medium range, Americans will have to start stomaching the consequences of bad policies in the form of an entire generation of children who are suffering from PTSD and the ramifications surrounding brain development.

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Six Ways US Stocks Are The Most Overvalued In History

Submitted by Mish Shedlock

US large cap stocks are the most overvalued in history. Let's investigate six ways.

Crescat Capital claims US large cap stocks are the most overvalued in history, higher than prior speculative mania market peaks in 1929 and 2000.

Their 25-page presentation makes a compelling case, with numerous charts. It's worth your time to download and investigate the report.

Six Ways Socks Most Overvalued in History

  1. Price to Sales
  2. Price to Book
  3. Enterprise Value to Sales
  4. Enterprise Value to EBITDA
  5. Price to Earnings
  6. Enterprise Value to Free Cash Flow

Here are a few snips from the report.

Bear Market Catalysts

There are many catalysts that are likely to send stocks into bear market in the near term. A likely bursting of the China credit bubble is first and foremost among them. Our data and analysis show that China today is the biggest credit bubble of any country in history. We believe its bursting will be globally contagious for equities, real estate, and credit markets. The US and China bubbles are part of a larger, global debt-to-GDP bubble, which is also historic in scale, and the product of excessive, lingering central bank easy monetary policies in the wake of the now long-passed 2008 Global Financial Crisis. 

 

These policies failed to resolve the debt-to-GDP imbalances that preceded the last crisis. Now, easy money policies have created even bigger debt-to-GDP imbalances and asset bubbles that will precipitate the next one.We are in the very late stages of a global economic and business expansion cycle with investor sentiment reflecting record optimism typical at market peaks, a sign of capitulation at the end of a bull market. Crescat is positioned to profit from the coming broad, global cyclical market and economic downturn that we foresee. We strongly believe that our global equity net short positioning in our hedge funds will be validated soon.

Cyclical PE Smoothing

It is critical to use cyclical smoothing to accurately gauge market valuations in their current and historical context when using P/E.Yale economics professor, Robert Shiller, received a Nobel Prize in 2013 for proving this fact so we hope you will believe it. 

 

The problem with just looking at trailing 12-month P/E ratios to determine valuation is that it produces sometimes-false readings due to large cyclical swings in earnings at peaks and valleys of the business cycle. For example, in the middle of the recession in 2001, P/Es looked artificially high due to a broad earnings plunge. P/Es can also look artificially low at the peak of a short-term business cycle, which can produce what is known as a “value trap”, such as in 2007 during the US housing bubble and such as we believe is the case today in China, Australia, and Canada.

 

Shiller showed a method for cyclically-adjusting P/Es using a 10-year moving average of real earnings in the denominator of the P/E. Shiller’s Cyclically-Adjusted P/E, called CAPE multiples have been better predictors of future full-business-cycle stock market returns than raw 12-month trailing P/Es. Shiller showed that markets with historically high CAPEs lead to low long-term returns for long-only index investors. Shiller CAPEs are fantastic, but they can be improved by including an adjustment for corporate profit margins which makes them even better predictors of future stock price performance and therefore even better measures of cyclically-adjusted P/E for valuation purposes. 

 

.Shiller’s CAPEs simply need an adjustment for profit margins because margins are a key element of earnings cyclicality. We can understand this by looking at median S&P 500 profit margins in the chart below. For example, even though profit margins were cyclically and historically high during the tech bubble, they are even higher today. In the same spirit of Shiller’s attempt to cyclically adjust earnings to determine a useful P/E, CAPEs need to be adjusted for cyclical swings in profit margins.

When we multiply Shiller CAPEs by a cyclical adjustment factor for profit margins (10-year trailing profit margins divided by long term profit margin), we get a margin-adjusted CAPE that is not only theoretically valid but empirically valid as it proves to be an even better predictor of future returns than Shiller’s CAPE!

 

Credit goes to John P. Hussman, Ph.D. for the idea and method to adjust Shiller CAPEs for swings in profit margins.As we can see in the Hussman chart below, margin-adjusted CAPE, shows that today’s P/E ratio for comparative historical purposes is 43, the highest ever! The 1999 peak P/E was 41 and the 1929 P/E was 40. Once again, we can see that today we have the highest valuation multiples ever for US stocks, higher than 1929 and higher than 1999 and 2000!

Margin-Adjusted CAPE

It's easy to discard such talk, just as it was in 2000 and 2006. People readily dispute CAPE, concocting all sorts or reasons why it's different this time. The most common reason is interest rates are low. We also hear "stocks are cheap to bonds" which is like saying moon rocks are cheap compared to oranges. I do not know when this all matters. And no one else knows either. What I am sure if is that it will matter.

How?

I don't know when, nor am I sure "how" it happens. It could play out as a crash or stocks can decline over a period of 6-10 years with nothing worse than a 15% decline in any given year, accompanied with several sucker rallies leading people to believe the bottom is in.

History Lesson

Some might ask: If you don't know when or how, of what use is such analysis.The answer is that history shows this is a very poor time to invest in stocks. That does not mean, they cannot go higher(and they have).

History also suggests that people who invest in bubbles, start believing in them. People believe in bubbles because they have to, in order to rationalize their investments. Others know full well it's a bubble but they think they can get out in time. Historically, few do because they are conditioned to "buy-the-dip" philosophy, and keep doing so even after it no longer works.

Yesterday, I noted Oppenheimer Predicts PE Expansion, Most Bullish S&P Forecast Yet.So if you are looking for a reason to stay heavily invested in this market, you have one. But don't fool yourself, this is the most expensive market in history.

 

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Pentagon To Undergo First Ever Audit After Decades Of Sloppy Accounting And Missing Trillions

After decades of waste, overpayments, trillions of missing or improperly accounted for dollars, and most recently losing track of 44,000 US soldiers, the Pentagon is about to undergo its first audit in history conducted by 2,400 auditors from independent public accounting firms to conduct reviews across the Army, Navy, Air Force and more – followed by annual audits going forward. 

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis speaks with DoD Comptroller David L. Norquist, June 15, 2017

The announcement follows a May commitment by Pentagon comptroller David Norquist, who previously served as the CFO at the Department of Homeland Security when the agency performed its audit. “Starting an audit is a matter of driving change inside a bureaucracy that may resist it,” Norquist told members of the Armed Services Committee at the time when pressed over whether or not he could get the job done at the DHS. 

According to the DoD release

The audit is massive. It will examine every aspect of the department from personnel to real property to weapons to supplies to bases. Some 2,400 auditors will fan out across the department to conduct it, Pentagon officials said.

 

It is important that the Congress and the American people have confidence in DoD’s management of every taxpayer dollar,” Norquist said. -defense.gov

The Pentagon is no stranger to criticism over serious waste and purposefully sloppy accounting.  A DoD Inspector General’s report from 2016 – which appears to be unavailable on the DoD website (but fortunately WAS archived)- found that in 2015 alone a staggering $6.5 trillion in funds was unaccounted for out of the Army’s budget, with $2.8 trillion in “wrongful adjustments” occurring in just one quarter.

In 2015, the Pentagon denied trying to shelve a study detailing $125 billion in waste created by a bloated employee counts for noncombat related work such as human resources, finance, health care management and property management. The report concluded that $125 billion could be saved by making those operations more efficient. 

On September 10th, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced that “According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions,” after a Pentagon whistleblower set off a probe. A day later, the September 11th attacks happened and the accounting scandal was quickly forgotten.

And twenty years before that, DoD analyst Franklin C. Spinney exposed what he called “accounting games,” saying “Those numbers are pie in the sky. The books are cooked routinely year after year.” In a 2002 testimony before the House Committee on Government Reform, Spinney laid out the DoD’s accounting quagmire of un-auditable books and budget projections which don’t match reality. 


Franklin Spinney, 2002

Finally, those of us old enough to remember the 80’s, let’s not forget the bombshell report on overpayments the Pentagon made for simple items, such as $37 screws, $7,622 coffee makers, and $640 toilet seats which Sen. William Roth Jr (R-DE) was able to whittle down to $200

The announcement of the audit comes amid a looming government shutdown battle which was given a two-week extension last week until December 22. If this occurs, military personnel would report to work as usual, but the DoD would not pay them until the shutdown ends. 

 “I cannot emphasize too much how destructive a shutdown is,” Norquist said. “We’ve talked before about the importance of maintenance on weapons systems and others, but if it’s not an excepted activity, there’ll be work stoppage on many of those maintenance functions.”

With both parties standing to lose more than gain from a shutdown, that is unlikely to happen. Meanwhile, with decades of lost confidence in the Pentagon’s accounting practices, we eagerly await the results of this “massive” audit to see exactly how much dirt – and where – previous administrations have swept under the rug.

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The Annual Federal Spending Frenzy Is a Terrible Year-End Tradition: New at Reason

What do you do if you wind up with a little extra money in your household budget at the end of the year?

Perhaps you pay down your credit card debt or save it for an earlier retirement. Maybe you replace old appliances or go on a much-needed but unplanned vacation. One thing is clear: Because you’re spending your own cash, you make sure to get as much out of it as possible.

You might expect our tax dollars to be treated the same way. You would be mistaken. The end of the fiscal yearSeptember 30triggers a spending frenzy in Washington, where the driving order isn’t “do something worthwhile” but rather “make sure nothing is left.” Because agencies can’t carry over any part of their operating budgets into the next fiscal year, politicians and bureaucrats spend to the last dime, knowing that leftover resources will be returned to the Department of the Treasury. They also worry Congress will reward frugal agencies with cuts to their future allotments.

As a result, every October, newspapers brim with shocking stories about wasteful and possibly corrupt spending behaviors. Think military vehicles driving in circles to drain the last pennies of their gas allowances, or hundreds of thousands of dollars for booze and party favors, writes Veronique de Rugy for Reason.

View this article.

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Want More Jobs? Fight Occupational Licensing!: New at Reason

Getting a cosmetology license in Oregon requires 2,300 hours of classroom instruction, but getting a similar permit in New York requires a mere 1,000 hours of training. Are makeup artists in the Empire State putting the safety and welfare of their customers at risk, or would hairstylists in Portland probably be just fine if they could get certified without spending so much time and money on schooling, writes Reason‘s Eric Boehm.

View this article.

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FBI Handling of Michael Flynn Case Is Disturbing: New at Reason

One of the unfortunate ironies of the manufactured “Russiagate” controversy is the perception of the FBI as a friend of liberty and justice. But the FBI has never been a friend of liberty and justice, writes Sheldon Richman. And the Michael Flynn case doesn’t seem to be an exception.

Flynn, the retired lieutenant general who spent less than a month as Donald Trump’s national-security adviser, has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in connection with conversations he had with Russia’s then-ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, between Trump’s election and inauguration. But one need not be an admirer of Flynn—and Richman is not—to be disturbed by how the FBI has handled this case.

Government law-enforcement agencies should not be allowed to administer credibility tests to Americans or others, argues Richman. If they have evidence of real offenses against persons and property, bring charges. Otherwise, leave us all alone.

View this article.

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Comey Outs Himself As Pseudo-Intellectual Trying To Troll Trump, Attributes Snooty Quote To Wrong Author

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

As we previously reported, James Comey has been quite the chatterbox on Twitter since revealing his new @Comey handle – firing off tweets about nature scenes, bible quotes, social gatherings, and recently quoting himself – proclaiming how ‘honest’ and ‘strong’ the FBI is despite what seem to be daily revelations of the agency’s political bias. He’s quite the intellectual!

Here’s Comey, deep in intellectual thought…

And here’s a picture of a river which Comey tweets along with a quote about – get this – lying:

And last week, Comey threw around bible verse Amos 5:24, “But justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Kind of ironic for a guy who couldn’t wait for “justice” to roll down before drafting Hillary Clinton’s exoneration letter.

Which brings us to Comey’s latest attempt at depth after President Trump tweeted a video of himself outside of Air Force One with the caption “On my way to Pensacola, Florida. See everyone Soon! #MAGA”

Less than an hour later, Comey tried to roast Trump with a pithy quote about grandstanding for attention – which, ironically, Comey tweeted for attention while promoting his book tour.

Cute, except Comey attributed the quote to the wrong author! 

The reactions have been priceless:

Sad!

h/t Twitchy

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