Rashida “Impeach The Motherf**ker” Tlaib Defeats Centrist Primary Challenger

Rashida “Impeach The Motherf**ker” Tlaib Defeats Centrist Primary Challenger

Tyler Durden

Wed, 08/05/2020 – 11:05

The biggest political news of the day is undoubtedly the victory by a formerly homeless BLM activist who triumphed over a longtime Democratic incumbent. But it’s also worth noting that “Squad” member Rashida “Impeach the Motherf**ker” Tlaib managed to fend off a primary challenger running from the center.

The AP called the race Wednesday morning, with Tlaib winning 66% of the votes cast, with 87% of precincts reporting. She triumphed over Brenda Jones, a former Congresswoman and Detroit City Council president.

Tlaib was unquestionably the frontrunner going into the vote given her lead in fundraising and a steady lead in the polls. A Target-Insight survey released last month showed the lawmaker with 52% support, while Jones trailed with just 24%.

Interestingly, this isn’t the first time Tlaib and Jones have tangled over the seat. Jones defeated Tlaib in a race to fill the seat vacated by John Conyers in 2018. But Jones only served in Congress for a month (finishing out Conyer’s term) before Tlaib defeated Jones in a six-way primary, then went on to replace both Conyers and Jones in the seat for the new Congress, which started in 2019.

During those cycles, Tlaib managed to outraise Jones as well.

Before the vote, Tlaib received endorsements from both Bernie Sanders, and from establishment Dems like Nancy Pelosi, who are clearly too fearful of their growing power to repudiate “the Squad” publicly by, say, backing a primary opponent.

Tlaib, whose district, MIchigan’s 13th, includes the western half of Detroit, said her victory was evidence that the people support transformative change in Washington.

“Voters sent a clear message that they’re done waiting for transformative change, that they want an unapologetic fighter who will take on the status quo and win,” Tlaib said in a statement on Wednesday.

“We have a resounding mandate to put people before profits. Let it be known that in the 13th District, just like in communities across our country, we are done with establishment politics that put corporations first,” she continued. “If I was considered the most vulnerable member of the Squad, I think it’s safe to say the Squad is here to stay, and it’s only getting bigger.”

Though so far, Tlaib and the squad have accomplished little in the way of actual governance (lawmaker, policy implementation etc).

But at least they help the press generate clicks and sell papers.

Along with Ilhan Omar, Tlaib became one of the first two Muslim women to be elected to the US Congress.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3gvB0wx Tyler Durden

“They Just Got Zucked” – Instagram Releases TikTok “Ripoff” As Microsoft, ByteDance Talk Turkey

“They Just Got Zucked” – Instagram Releases TikTok “Ripoff” As Microsoft, ByteDance Talk Turkey

Tyler Durden

Wed, 08/05/2020 – 10:40

As financial journalists across the US bang their heads against the wall trying to parse what President Trump meant when he said TikTok and Microsoft – or whoever ends up buying TikTok – would need to pay “key money” to the US Treasury, CNBC is reporting that Microsoft and ByteDance are starting to talk valuation for the deal.

To be sure, President Trump hasn’t said anything more about his extemporaneous rant about TikTok paying the US Treasury for the privilege of continuing to operate in the US (a remarkably socialist-sounding suggestion from a Republican president). But Microsoft has implied that simply paying taxes on the deal could satisfy this requirement, and we suspect all the speculation on CNBC and elsewhere is merely kayfabe.

But in bigger news, Instagram on Wednesday launched its new “Reels” features, something that critics and observers like Kara Swisher claimed was essentially a rip-off of TikTok. 

Earlier this week, the People’s Daily accused the US government of trying to “steal” TikTok from ByteDance. Now, it looks like ByteDance is about to get “Zucked”.

Here’s more on Instagram’s new product from Buzzfeed.

On Wednesday, Instagram launched possibly its most anticipated US update since Stories or the dog filter: its TikTok competitor, Reels.

And, I gotta say, Reels sure looks a lot like TikTok.

Of course, this all couldn’t come at a better time for Instagram or its parent company, Facebook. President Donald Trump has begun waging an all-out war against TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company called ByteDance.

Last weekend, Trump threatened to ban the app from the US over what he called concerns with what the company is doing with American data.

In the middle of the drama, Instagram had the serendipitous luck (although, I put nothing past Mark Zuckerberg) of dropping what is essentially a TikTok clone. (Apropos of nothing, emails released cited in a Congressional hearing last week revealed that Facebook bought Instagram in the first place in order to “neutralize” a competitor.”)

It really is an uncannily similar product. I got access to Reels on Monday ahead of the US public launch, and immediately was kind of amazed at how TikTok-y Reels felt.

With the tap of a button, you can scroll through Reels almost exactly like you scroll through your ForYou page, falling into the same kind of mindless, addictive scroll-hole that has made TikTok a favorite pandemic time-waster of millions.

The early access was only open to select publishers, influencers, and journalists so there weren’t as many of the random teens, hilarious videos, and funny animals that you would see on TikTok, and the pool of videos was much smaller. However, a lot of the culture seems to have made the jump, with a lot of the same memes, songs, and sounds I normally see on my ForYou page popping up on Reels.

If nothing else, the launch will make it easier for TikTokers to simply upload all their “greatest hits” to Instagram.

Instagram’s cloning of TikTok via reels will undoubtedly remind many of how Instagram’s “stories” ripped off the most popular features from Snapchat, making Evan Spiegel regret his decision to turn down Zuck’s buyout offer all those years ago.

In other TikTok news, CNBC’s David Faber, who boasted about his thorough sourcing on air earlier, reported Wednesday that Microsoft and ByteDance have started talking TikTok valuation as deal negotiations advance. Apparently, both companies remain eager to strike a deal, despite allegations of “theft” levied by the People’s Daily, and lingering confusion (playing out on CNBC in real-time) about President Trump’s demands for “key money” that – according to Trump and nobody else – must be paid before CFIUS will approve the deal. Both companies are also working with CFIUS and each other to try and work out a plan for severing TikTok from ByteDance and transferring it to Microsoft in its entirety (in a way that ensures none of those pesky “backdoors” remain).

In keeping with the deal talks between Microsoft, TikTok and the US government, CNBC’s Faber said TikTok and Microsoft are hammering out a plan to separate some 15 million lines of code from ByteDance and transfer all of it to servers based in the US.

As TikTok tries to reassure CFIUS that it isn’t some kind of CCP trojan horse, the company announced three new measures on Wednesday that it says will help combat “misinformation” intended to tamper with the 2020 US election. Part of this will involve TikTok updating its policy on misleading content to clearly articulate “what is and isn’t allowed on TikTok”.

The TikTok teens, who are already bemoaning the loss of their favorite platform by moving en masse back to Instagram, might not like that.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Ppo1Ay Tyler Durden

US Navy Seizes Iran-Bound Ship Carrying Pharmaceutical Supplies Off China: Fars

US Navy Seizes Iran-Bound Ship Carrying Pharmaceutical Supplies Off China: Fars

Tyler Durden

Wed, 08/05/2020 – 10:38

Iranian state media has announced that a US Navy warship has seized a transport ship near the Chinese port of Qingdao on Wednesday morning.

The ship was reportedly en route to Iran loaded with medical manufacturing components, specifically zeolite, which Fars News Agency says is needed for manufacturing oxygen concentrators for coronavirus-infected patients.

“Only one imported part is used for production of oxygen concentrators, which is zeolite, and we are forced to purchase it from France and import it to the country through several intermediators,” Peyman Bakhshandeh-Nejad, an Iran-based pharmaceutical company CEO told state media.

Illustrative file image: Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ramage, via US Navy

Amid the raging coronavirus crisis in the Islamic Republic, which for over half a year has been among the hardest-hit countries in the world (and recall that last month President Rouhani shocked in a speech by saying the truer estimate of numbers of Iranian infected stands at some 25 million, not the official 300,000+), Tehran has been desperate to import vital hospital equipment and medicines.

However, US-led sanctions related to Iran’s alleged nuclear aspirations has made this extremely difficult. While Washington has denied it is targeting vital medicines and staples like food and hospital gear, Iran has said it’s precisely these things which are being blocked. 

Specifically in the case of the seized ship off China, zeolite is said to be crucial in oxygen concentrator systems for coronavirus patients who can rely on the vital devices at home without having to visit a hospital.

While the ship seizure allegedly by the US Navy is on Wednesday driving headlines inside Iran, there’s yet to be any early acknowledgement either from the US side or from Chinese port authorities.

But this does fit a pattern seen over the past two years of US intervention during alleged Chinese sanctions-busting related to Iranian oil transport.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3kgLHoX Tyler Durden

How the Government Created RCA

rcavictor

There is a precedent for the White House’s moves against TikTok, the Chinese-owned video app that President Donald Trump first threatened to ban and now wants to push into the arms of an American buyer. A century ago, worried about the power another foreign-owned company might wield over a different communications medium, the U.S. government found a way to shift that power into American businessmen’s hands.

The story wasn’t completely analogous to the current saga. Unlike the present occupant of the Oval Office, Woodrow Wilson didn’t declare that he had the unilateral presidential authority to prohibit a platform for people’s speech. Nor did he suggest that the U.S. Treasury should grab a “very substantial portion” of the sale price. And it remains to be seen whether Trump’s efforts will have as long-lasting an effect as the Wilson administration’s scheme, whose impact reverberated for decades.

But there certainly are some similarities between the situations.

The tale begins in the aftermath of World War I. During the fighting, the U.S. Navy had nationalized the American airwaves: It took control of 53 point-to-point wireless stations and shut down virtually all the others. After the armistice, Congress considered a proposal to make this system permanent. Both President Wilson and Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels backed the bill, but it soon became clear that the legislature wasn’t going to pass it.

Yet Washington still wanted to ensure that foreigners would not control America’s long-distance wireless stations or the technologies those stations used. In particular, they wanted to do something about the American branch of the U.K.-based Marconi Company, which was ready to retake its old stations from before the war. “Fears of Marconi monopoly and fears of British imperialism fed on each other,” Hugh Aitken recounts in The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900–1932. Both fears, he added, “were, if not baseless, at least exaggerated”: Britain’s economy was in bad shape, the Marconi network no longer held a formidable technological lead, and the British government’s relationship with Marconi was not “as harmonious as outsiders, particularly Americans, assumed.” Still, U.S. officials felt they’d be safer with the company in American hands—and those American hands were happy to receive the goods.

And so, as Susan Douglas put it in Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899–1922, Naval officers “began orchestrating the formation of an all-American company that would buy out American Marconi and remove, once and for all, foreign interests from America’s wireless communications networks.” Those efforts bore fruit in October 1919, when a new company owned by General Electric took over Marconi’s American stations and patents. The newborn operation was called the Radio Corporation of America—better known by its initials, RCA.

Meanwhile, an overlapping process was underway. During the Progressive Era, several American tech companies had developed a strategy of deliberately acquiring patents to block competition. Washington imposed a moratorium on radio patents after America entered the European conflict; in the wake of the war, the government encouraged the corporations that controlled key radio technologies to cross-license their patents. General Electric, Westinghouse, AT&T, and United Fruit ended up forming a patent pool, the members of which all held stock in RCA. This allowed innovation to proceed with less hindrance within those businesses, but with more hindrance outside them; the companies had basically used the government’s intellectual-property regulations to create a cartel.

With time, RCA would enjoy a privileged position not just in radio manufacturing but in radio broadcasting. The Radio Act of 1927 allowed regulators to impose much tighter restrictions on who could use the spectrum, and the ensuing years saw many small operations driven off the air. RCA was among the companies that came out ahead. Four radio networks dominated broadcasting in the 1930s: CBS, Mutual, the NBC Red Network, and the NBC Blue Network. The latter two were both owned by RCA.

The same government that issued those patents and broadcast licenses sometimes intervened to limit the power of the beast it had built. An antitrust suit in 1932 forced GE and Westinghouse to divest themselves of their RCA stock, breaking up what The New York Times called “the great radio patent combine.” (The divorce from GE was not permanent: In 1986, General Electric purchased RCA.) In the 1940s, following further antitrust activity, the NBC Blue Network was spun off as ABC—a new, non-RCA broadcaster.

But the feds didn’t stop doing favors for their war baby. The most infamous came in 1944, as FM radio was just starting to emerge: The Federal Communications Commission abruptly reassigned FM’s section of the spectrum to another fledgling technology, television—a move that instantly rendered every FM receiver obsolete. The chief force pushing for this change was RCA, which didn’t control the FM patent but had been investing heavily in TV.

It was an especially egregious gift to a giant corporation. But Washington’s biggest, most egregious gift to RCA will always be the time it created the company in the first place. Whatever winds up happening with TikTok, let’s hope that’s one chapter of history that doesn’t repeat itself.

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How the Government Created RCA

rcavictor

There is a precedent for the White House’s moves against TikTok, the Chinese-owned video app that President Donald Trump first threatened to ban and now wants to push into the arms of an American buyer. A century ago, worried about the power another foreign-owned company might wield over a different communications medium, the U.S. government found a way to shift that power into American businessmen’s hands.

The story wasn’t completely analogous to the current saga. Unlike the present occupant of the Oval Office, Woodrow Wilson didn’t declare that he had the unilateral presidential authority to prohibit a platform for people’s speech. Nor did he suggest that the U.S. Treasury should grab a “very substantial portion” of the sale price. And it remains to be seen whether Trump’s efforts will have as long-lasting an effect as the Wilson administration’s scheme, whose impact reverberated for decades.

But there certainly are some similarities between the situations.

The tale begins in the aftermath of World War I. During the fighting, the U.S. Navy had nationalized the American airwaves: It took control of 53 point-to-point wireless stations and shut down virtually all the others. After the armistice, Congress considered a proposal to make this system permanent. Both President Wilson and Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels backed the bill, but it soon became clear that the legislature wasn’t going to pass it.

Yet Washington still wanted to ensure that foreigners would not control America’s long-distance wireless stations or the technologies those stations used. In particular, they wanted to do something about the American branch of the U.K.-based Marconi Company, which was ready to retake its old stations from before the war. “Fears of Marconi monopoly and fears of British imperialism fed on each other,” Hugh Aitken recounts in The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900–1932. Both fears, he added, “were, if not baseless, at least exaggerated”: Britain’s economy was in bad shape, the Marconi network no longer held a formidable technological lead, and the British government’s relationship with Marconi was not “as harmonious as outsiders, particularly Americans, assumed.” Still, U.S. officials felt they’d be safer with the company in American hands—and those American hands were happy to receive the goods.

And so, as Susan Douglas put it in Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899–1922, Naval officers “began orchestrating the formation of an all-American company that would buy out American Marconi and remove, once and for all, foreign interests from America’s wireless communications networks.” Those efforts bore fruit in October 1919, when a new company owned by General Electric took over Marconi’s American stations and patents. The newborn operation was called the Radio Corporation of America—better known by its initials, RCA.

Meanwhile, an overlapping process was underway. During the Progressive Era, several American tech companies had developed a strategy of deliberately acquiring patents to block competition. Washington imposed a moratorium on radio patents after America entered the European conflict; in the wake of the war, the government encouraged the corporations that controlled key radio technologies to cross-license their patents. General Electric, Westinghouse, AT&T, and United Fruit ended up forming a patent pool, the members of which all held stock in RCA. This allowed innovation to proceed with less hindrance within those businesses, but with more hindrance outside them; the companies had basically used the government’s intellectual-property regulations to create a cartel.

With time, RCA would enjoy a privileged position not just in radio manufacturing but in radio broadcasting. The Radio Act of 1927 allowed regulators to impose much tighter restrictions on who could use the spectrum, and the ensuing years saw many small operations driven off the air. RCA was among the companies that came out ahead. Four radio networks dominated broadcasting in the 1930s: CBS, Mutual, the NBC Red Network, and the NBC Blue Network. The latter two were both owned by RCA.

The same government that issued those patents and broadcast licenses sometimes intervened to limit the power of the beast it had built. An antitrust suit in 1932 forced GE and Westinghouse to divest themselves of their RCA stock, breaking up what The New York Times called “the great radio patent combine.” (The divorce from GE was not permanent: In 1986, General Electric purchased RCA.) In the 1940s, following further antitrust activity, the NBC Blue Network was spun off as ABC—a new, non-RCA broadcaster.

But the feds didn’t stop doing favors for their war baby. The most infamous came in 1944, as FM radio was just starting to emerge: The Federal Communications Commission abruptly reassigned FM’s section of the spectrum to another fledgling technology, television—a move that instantly rendered every FM receiver obsolete. The chief force pushing for this change was RCA, which didn’t control the FM patent but had been investing heavily in TV.

It was an especially egregious gift to a giant corporation. But Washington’s biggest, most egregious gift to RCA will always be the time it created the company in the first place. Whatever winds up happening with TikTok, let’s hope that’s one chapter of history that doesn’t repeat itself.

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ISM Services Smashes Expectations On Record High New Orders, But Employment And Trade Collapse

ISM Services Smashes Expectations On Record High New Orders, But Employment And Trade Collapse

Tyler Durden

Wed, 08/05/2020 – 10:21

Unlike yesterday when there was a now traditional divergence between the ISM and Markit manufacturing PMIs (the first a big beat, the second a miss), moments ago the Institute of Supply Management and the PMI survey both agreed that in July the Service sector was stronger than expected to wit:

  • Markit Service PMI 50.0, exp. 49.6, last 49.6
  • ISM non-manufacturing 58.1, Exp. 55.0, last 57.1

Looking at the latter which has a far bigger impact on the market, it printed at the highest level since Feb 2019, despite analyst consensus of a modest slowdown in July:

As in recent months, the respondents were largely optimistic:

  • “Sales have remained strong in homebuilding. We are experiencing longer lead times for lumber, interior trim components, appliances and light fixtures. Lumber prices are near all-time highs as lumber mills have yet to increase capacity as demand has increased.” (Construction)
  • “We’re still not certain whether or not the students will be coming back in their full capacity due to COVID-19. This has caused an influx of ordering safety supplies to prepare for the possibility. We have certainly increased our purchasing in the past month or so by a large amount.” (Educational Services)
  • “COVID-19 posture continues, with some 95 percent of the company workforce working remotely.” (Finance & Insurance)
  • “Surgical services still only scheduling at 50 percent capacity. Raw material shortages worldwide affecting ability to get finished PPE (iso gowns, bouffant caps, shoe covers).” (Health Care & Social Assistance)
  • “Overall positive, but cautious outlook with oil prices stabilizing in the midst of the pandemic spiking again in our region. Our company has begun to put mitigation procedures in place to bring workers back to the office despite the lingering pandemic.” (Management of Companies & Support Services)
  • “Some business picking up, but mostly virtual meetings, training and consulting. Time will tell if its profitable. The economic situation is quite dire regionally, so there is no telling if this is a trend or just a short respite. Any business at this point is much appreciated.” (Professional, Scientific & Technical Services)
  • “Phased opening of businesses continues at a slow pace. Spending is down. Unemployment is up this year, though down compared to last month. Unemployment last year was 2.9 percent. Last month, it was 19.2 percent. This month, it is 16.2 percent.” (Public Administration)
  • “COVID-19 interruptions are changing the way business is done.” (Real Estate, Rental & Leasing)
  • “Retail sales have continued to increase month over month, likely due to the general reopening of the economy. Mask mandates have been put in place for almost every market we operate in, causing an increased need for supply of masks for employees and customers.” (Retail Trade)
  • “Orders and business activity are back to pre-pandemic levels. Previously stalled projects are starting back up.” (Utilities)

Just like in yesterday’s manufacturing ISM report, today’s beat in its non-mfg peer was driven almost entirely by a record surge in New Orders which have exploded from a record low 32.9 in April to a record high 67.7 in July…

… although just like yesterday, the offset to the surge in new orders was a continued weakness in Employment, which shrank from 43.1 to 42.1

And following on today’s disappointing ADP payrolls report, adding the signals from the two ISM surveys and it is very likely that Friday’s payrolls report will be a major disappointment.

Another adverse development was the sharp drop in new export orders and imports, which suggest that while businesses are optimistic on new orders, these are largely domestic as trade with major commercial partners is collapsing.

Finally, for those career economists at the Fed who see deflation everywhere, here is the ISM’s breakdown of commodities down in price: “No commodities were reported down in price.”

Because deflation.

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

New York Times Quietly Scrubs Paid Chinese Propaganda From Website

New York Times Quietly Scrubs Paid Chinese Propaganda From Website

Tyler Durden

Wed, 08/05/2020 – 10:00

The New York Times has terminated its relationship with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) mouthpiece China Daily – and has quietly deleted hundreds of CCP propaganda ‘advertorials’ from its website, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

The move comes as US institutions have fallen under the microscope for cozy relationships with the China over their oppression of Uighur Muslims among other human rights abuses.

The Times‘s decision to end its partnership with China Daily is part of a society-wide reckoning about the cozy relationships between the Chinese government and American institutions, from the NBA to Harvard University. While the paper is responsible for some of the most gut-wrenching stories about Chinese government oppression, it has also run more than 200 propaganda articles in the last decade, some of which sugar-coated China’s human rights abuses. One 2019 video ad, for example, promoted Xinjiang tourism by depicting the oppressed Uyghur people as content under Chinese rule. –Washington Free Beacon

China Daily has been purchasing ‘advertorials’ in mainstream US media outlets for over a decade – disseminating Chinese propaganda through misleading advertisements disguised as genuine articles. According to the report, the Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have taken in millions of dollars from the Chinese government for said ads. 

Giving the Times the benefit of the doubt for their copious reports exposing CCP abuses, Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) – a member of the China Task Force who has made strides in reducing Chinese propaganda – applauded the move by the Times, saying in a statement:

“The New York Times has done excellent, detailed reporting on the ongoing Communist Party atrocities in Xinjiang and around the world. That reporting has finally had an effect—at the New York Times—and it no longer supports covering up the CCP’s barbarity. I hope the other outlets follow suit and start putting American values over Communist bribes.”

After the Free Beacon found that China Daily failed to follow federal disclosure requirements about its relationship with U.S. media outlets, Banks and 34 other Congressional Republicans demanded a Justice Department probe into the outlet. Following the demand, China Daily submitted a revised disclosure of its U.S. activities since 2016, revealing previously undisclosed details about its ties with U.S. media organs.

The new disclosure revealed that the Post and the Journal each received more than $100,000 per month to run print versions of Chinese propaganda articles. The Times received $50,000 in 2018 to place the propaganda on its website, presumably a small fraction of the revenue it made selling print space to China Daily. The new disclosures also showed that China Daily paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Houston Chronicle, and other large regional newspapers to print copies of the China Daily for local distribution. –Washington Free Beacon

According to the Post, the paper hasn’t published anything this year from China Daily, though a spokesman did not confirm whether the paper had terminated the relationship.

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UConn Becomes First Major College In The US To Cancel 2020 Football Season

UConn Becomes First Major College In The US To Cancel 2020 Football Season

Tyler Durden

Wed, 08/05/2020 – 09:33

UConn’s 2020 football season will forever remain the year that could have been.

The Connecticut flagship state university set a nationwide precedent on Wednesday when its athletic department announced that it would cancel its upcoming football season over fears tied to the coronavirus pandemic.

According to media reports, requirements that visitors from other states quarantine for at least 2 weeks had already caused nearly half a dozen games to be cancelled for the regular season. With New York, CT and NJ adding Rhode Island to the growing list (which now includes 35 states and territories) earlier this week, UConn was struggling to book new opponents.

Here’s more from the Hartford Courant’s Mike Anthony:

With a schedule that was already eroded after several canceled games and the ongoing concerns related to coronavirus being transferred through close contact, UConn officially canceled its football season Wednesday sources close to the program told the Courant. It was set to be the first season for the Huskies as an independent program.

The football team members arrived on campus in early July, working out in small groups with plans to begin full practices Wednesday. While athletic director David Benedict was still discussing the possibility of scheduling games in recent days, it appeared to be an uphill battle. Games against Indiana, Illinois, Ole Miss and Maine were already canceled, while games against North Carolina and Virginia appeared unlikely.

UConn could have also faced travel restrictions for some of the remaining scheduled games, as there are currently 34 states in the U.S. on a travel advisory list, requiring travelers from those states to quarantine for 14 days following trips.

As the Courant explains, UConn’s cancellation could precipitate a slew of cancellations by schools in the college-rich northeast, who will likely struggle to play home games and away games due to quarantine requirements during the fall sports season.

Most of the “Power 5” football conferences intend to play full seasons for the 2020-2021 season, though the NCAA still hasn’t come to a formal decision on fall sports. 

While the Power 5 conferences remain committed to playing a season largely with conference-only games, plenty of uncertainty remains. Some college teams that have begun practicing have seen cases of coronavirus spike, including Rutgers which saw 28 players test positive. Six Big Ten teams – Ohio State, Maryland, Michigan State, Indiana, Rutgers, and Northwestern – have temporarily halted practices due to positive tests.

The NCAA Board of Governors met Wednesday about fall sports, but did not come to a conclusion. Numerous conference around the country have already canceled fall sports or postponed them until the spring, including the Ivy League.

UConn was yet to have a player test positive, but coach Randy Edsall told the Courant last week that any decision regarding the season would involve the players. Edsall also expressed some concern over how gamedays would be handled including whether a locker room would be used, how hotels and travel would be handled and whether social distancing could safely occur.

“Before any decisions are going to be made, at least in my mind, we’re going to make sure — I’m going to make sure — that our players have a say in this,” Edsall said. “They’re the ones going on the field and playing.”

After most of its programs moved back to the Big East conference, including UConn’s Men’s and Women’s basketball teams, the UConn football team was headed for a year of independent matchups, though after last year’s lackluster season, fans probably won’t be missing much.

The bigger question for Nutmeggers: Will these quarantine restrictions create the same problems for basketball?

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

Trump Urges Floridians To Vote By Mail While Suing Over Remote Voting in Nevada

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After months of casting suspicion on the whole concept of mail-in voting, the president is suddenly behind it… for states where he has a stronghold. “In Florida I encourage all to request a Ballot & Vote by Mail!” Donald Trump tweeted on Tuesday afternoon. “Whether you call it Vote by Mail or Absentee Voting, in Florida the election system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True,” the president opined on social media. 

Meanwhile, his campaign is suing to stop the state of Nevada from expanding its mail-in voting protocol.

The lawsuit was filed late yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada on behalf of Donald J. Trump for President Inc., the Republican Party of Nevada, and the Republican National Committee. It comes in response to Nevada’s AB4, which was signed into state law on Monday.

AB4 says registered voters will automatically be sent a mail-in ballot for the upcoming general election and any subsequent election that takes place during an official “state of emergency or declaration of disaster.” It also contains several minor, related provisions meant to makes this process easier.

Making it easier and safer for people to vote in November doesn’t seem like it should be a controversial proposition. But the bill split Nevada legislators along party lines and has now riled up Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign.

The campaign’s lawsuit alleges that “major or hasty changes confuse voters, undermine confidence in the electoral process, and create [an] incentive to remain away from the polls.” But the new law—which doesn’t cancel in-person voting but simply expands voters’ options—was passed with the exact opposite aim in mind, after June primaries in Nevada saw folks who wanted to vote being forced to wait in line for hours. Now, voters won’t be forced to choose between risking their health or wasting hours in line to cast a vote.

The lawsuit also objects to AB4’s stipulation that the number of in-person voting locations required in a given county is tied to the population of that county.

Trump told reporters on Monday that the U.S. Postal Service couldn’t handle mail-in voting.

On Wednesday morning, Trump once again urged Florida residents to vote by mail while saying Nevada shouldn’t do it. He has not specified what special postal tricks Florida mail carriers supposedly know that Nevada’s do not.

But Nevada went for Clinton in 2016, and Florida went for Trump, so that might be one clue. The president has also criticized the prospect of expanding mail-in ballot access in California, a reliably blue state.

FREE MINDS

“There is a widening gulf between American aspirations for and assessments of the news media,” reports the Knight Foundation in an introduction to its latest “Trust, Media and Democracy” report. Over the past several years, the foundation’s studies have seen Americans offer “increasingly polarized judgments about the news media and how well it is fulfilling its role in our democracy.”

While a lot of people say they see political bias in the media they consume, they’re confident in their own ability to see through it while worrying (but of course) that others don’t have the same powers of discernment:

Most Americans see bias in their go-to news source; 20% see “a great deal” and another 36% see “a fair amount” of bias in the news source they rely on most often.

Given the choice, however, more Americans say they are concerned about bias in the news other people are getting (69%) than say they worry about their own news being biased (29%).

Surveys for the report were conducted pre-pandemic (from last November through mid-February 2020) and involved more than 20,000 U.S. adults.

ELECTION 2020

August 4 primary highlights. Results are still coming in from primary elections held yesterday in Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington state. A few notable results so far:

• The fate of Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D–Mich.)—part of the far-left “squad” that has been making a big splash on Capitol Hill the past two years and one of two Muslim women in Congress—is still undetermined. “Tlaib, 44, was leading in early returns. But a large number of votes had still not been counted and the winner was not expected to be determined until later Wednesday,” reports the Associated Press this morning.

• The fate of Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio is (sigh, somehow) still up in the air, too. (Arpaio background here.)

• Cori Bush, a nurse and Black Lives Matter activist, looks to have defeated 10-term incumbent Rep. William Lacy Clay in Missouri’s Democratic primary, with 72,812 votes so far to Clay’s 68,201. Clay’s “family has represented the District 1 House seat since the late ’60s,” says The St. Louis American.  The paper points out that “the seat is overwhelmingly Democratic, and normally the Democratic nominee is advanced as the winner in November.” If so, that would make Bush Missouri’s first black female representative in Congress.

• Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach lost in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat he was vying for. “In the past several weeks, the race tightened between the two after a super PAC with links to Democrats spent $5 million boosting Kobach and slamming [his opponent, Rep. Roger] Marshall,” notes USA Today.

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ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok, says it may be moving its company headquarters to London, amid Trump’s attempt to either ban the short-video app or force ByteDance to sell TikTok to Microsoft. “ByteDance is committed to being a global company,” a spokesperson told Reuters. “In light of the current situation, ByteDance has been evaluating the possibility of establishing TikTok’s headquarters outside of the U.S., to better serve our global users.”

QUICK HITS

• At least 100 people are dead and thousands wounded after an explosion at the port in Beirut, say Lebanese authorities. “Lebanese President Michel Aoun said Tuesday’s explosion was caused by 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate—used as a fertilizer in agriculture and as an explosive—that had been stored unsafely in a warehouse,” reports CBS News.

• “India Johnson, 26, and Yasmeen Winston, 25, planned to take their infant sons to splash in the fountains at the World War II Memorial on Thursday afternoon. But before they could climb out of their car, which they’d parked on Constitution Avenue near the White House, a marked Secret Service cruiser drove into their left front bumper” and then agents swarmed and detained them, Winston told The Washington Post. “The women said they were told the vehicle had been reported stolen, but Johnson provided proof she was the owner and said she had never reported it stolen.”

• Masks were contentious a century ago, too.

• Data from Yelp shows more than 2,800 New York City businesses have permanently shut down since March 1 of this year.

• A new HBO documentary called The Swamp looks at Republican Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.), Matt Gaetz (Fla.), and Ken Buck (Colo.).

• “The husband of Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey has been charged with multiple counts of assault in connection with a March incident recorded on video in which he waved a gun at protesters outside the couple’s Granada Hills home,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

• Conor Friedersdorf explains the latest free speech controversy in academia.

• New York legalizes liquor-infused ice cream.

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Trump Urges Floridians To Vote By Mail While Suing Over Remote Voting in Nevada

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After months of casting suspicion on the whole concept of mail-in voting, the president is suddenly behind it… for states where he has a stronghold. “In Florida I encourage all to request a Ballot & Vote by Mail!” Donald Trump tweeted on Tuesday afternoon. “Whether you call it Vote by Mail or Absentee Voting, in Florida the election system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True,” the president opined on social media. 

Meanwhile, his campaign is suing to stop the state of Nevada from expanding its mail-in voting protocol.

The lawsuit was filed late yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada on behalf of Donald J. Trump for President Inc., the Republican Party of Nevada, and the Republican National Committee. It comes in response to Nevada’s AB4, which was signed into state law on Monday.

AB4 says registered voters will automatically be sent a mail-in ballot for the upcoming general election and any subsequent election that takes place during an official “state of emergency or declaration of disaster.” It also contains several minor, related provisions meant to makes this process easier.

Making it easier and safer for people to vote in November doesn’t seem like it should be a controversial proposition. But the bill split Nevada legislators along party lines and has now riled up Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign.

The campaign’s lawsuit alleges that “major or hasty changes confuse voters, undermine confidence in the electoral process, and create [an] incentive to remain away from the polls.” But the new law—which doesn’t cancel in-person voting but simply expands voters’ options—was passed with the exact opposite aim in mind, after June primaries in Nevada saw folks who wanted to vote being forced to wait in line for hours. Now, voters won’t be forced to choose between risking their health or wasting hours in line to cast a vote.

The lawsuit also objects to AB4’s stipulation that the number of in-person voting locations required in a given county is tied to the population of that county.

Trump told reporters on Monday that the U.S. Postal Service couldn’t handle mail-in voting.

On Wednesday morning, Trump once again urged Florida residents to vote by mail while saying Nevada shouldn’t do it. He has not specified what special postal tricks Florida mail carriers supposedly know that Nevada’s do not.

But Nevada went for Clinton in 2016, and Florida went for Trump, so that might be one clue. The president has also criticized the prospect of expanding mail-in ballot access in California, a reliably blue state.

FREE MINDS

“There is a widening gulf between American aspirations for and assessments of the news media,” reports the Knight Foundation in an introduction to its latest “Trust, Media and Democracy” report. Over the past several years, the foundation’s studies have seen Americans offer “increasingly polarized judgments about the news media and how well it is fulfilling its role in our democracy.”

While a lot of people say they see political bias in the media they consume, they’re confident in their own ability to see through it while worrying (but of course) that others don’t have the same powers of discernment:

Most Americans see bias in their go-to news source; 20% see “a great deal” and another 36% see “a fair amount” of bias in the news source they rely on most often.

Given the choice, however, more Americans say they are concerned about bias in the news other people are getting (69%) than say they worry about their own news being biased (29%).

Surveys for the report were conducted pre-pandemic (from last November through mid-February 2020) and involved more than 20,000 U.S. adults.

ELECTION 2020

August 4 primary highlights. Results are still coming in from primary elections held yesterday in Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington state. A few notable results so far:

• The fate of Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D–Mich.)—part of the far-left “squad” that has been making a big splash on Capitol Hill the past two years and one of two Muslim women in Congress—is still undetermined. “Tlaib, 44, was leading in early returns. But a large number of votes had still not been counted and the winner was not expected to be determined until later Wednesday,” reports the Associated Press this morning.

• The fate of Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio is (sigh, somehow) still up in the air, too. (Arpaio background here.)

• Cori Bush, a nurse and Black Lives Matter activist, looks to have defeated 10-term incumbent Rep. William Lacy Clay in Missouri’s Democratic primary, with 72,812 votes so far to Clay’s 68,201. Clay’s “family has represented the District 1 House seat since the late ’60s,” says The St. Louis American.  The paper points out that “the seat is overwhelmingly Democratic, and normally the Democratic nominee is advanced as the winner in November.” If so, that would make Bush Missouri’s first black female representative in Congress.

• Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach lost in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat he was vying for. “In the past several weeks, the race tightened between the two after a super PAC with links to Democrats spent $5 million boosting Kobach and slamming [his opponent, Rep. Roger] Marshall,” notes USA Today.

FREE MARKETS

ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok, says it may be moving its company headquarters to London, amid Trump’s attempt to either ban the short-video app or force ByteDance to sell TikTok to Microsoft. “ByteDance is committed to being a global company,” a spokesperson told Reuters. “In light of the current situation, ByteDance has been evaluating the possibility of establishing TikTok’s headquarters outside of the U.S., to better serve our global users.”

QUICK HITS

• At least 100 people are dead and thousands wounded after an explosion at the port in Beirut, say Lebanese authorities. “Lebanese President Michel Aoun said Tuesday’s explosion was caused by 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate—used as a fertilizer in agriculture and as an explosive—that had been stored unsafely in a warehouse,” reports CBS News.

• “India Johnson, 26, and Yasmeen Winston, 25, planned to take their infant sons to splash in the fountains at the World War II Memorial on Thursday afternoon. But before they could climb out of their car, which they’d parked on Constitution Avenue near the White House, a marked Secret Service cruiser drove into their left front bumper” and then agents swarmed and detained them, Winston told The Washington Post. “The women said they were told the vehicle had been reported stolen, but Johnson provided proof she was the owner and said she had never reported it stolen.”

• Masks were contentious a century ago, too.

• Data from Yelp shows more than 2,800 New York City businesses have permanently shut down since March 1 of this year.

• A new HBO documentary called The Swamp looks at Republican Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.), Matt Gaetz (Fla.), and Ken Buck (Colo.).

• “The husband of Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey has been charged with multiple counts of assault in connection with a March incident recorded on video in which he waved a gun at protesters outside the couple’s Granada Hills home,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

• Conor Friedersdorf explains the latest free speech controversy in academia.

• New York legalizes liquor-infused ice cream.

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via IFTTT