Impeachment Hall of Shame (and Fame?)

Will the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump already be over by the time you listen to this week’s Reason Roundtable podcast? Not quite, though who the hell knows what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) and his caucus have up their sleeves? So, to mark the occasion 33 months after President Trump canned FBI Director James Comey, thus kicking off the first real talk of the I-word, Peter Suderman, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and I hand out our awards for Best and also Worst impeachment-related actor to date. Hint: Lotta libertarians among the former, not so many in the latter.

Because that’s not fraught enough, the gang also bandy about Hillary Clinton’s spectacular contribution to the Democratic gender wars over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), dissect Joe Biden (and conservative) anger-bearing over Big Tech and Section 230, and point out that Sanders is pretty freaking weird because HE’S A SOCIALIST.

Audio production by Ian Keyser and Regan Taylor.

Hidden Agenda by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1200102
Artist: http://incompetech.com/

Relevant links from the show:

Trump’s Impeachment Trial Will Only Make Us Hate Washington Even More,” by Nick Gillespie

The Case Against the Slippery Slope Case Against Impeachment for ‘Abuse of Power,'” by Ilya Somin

The Impeachment End Game, II,” by David Post

‘It Was Never About Corruption’: Giuliani Associate Says Trump Was Involved in Ukraine Scandal,” by Billy Binion

By Withholding Funds to Ukraine, Trump Broke the Law,” by Peter Suderman

Justin Amash on Impeachment: Republicans Are Betraying the ‘Principles and Values They Once Claimed To Cherish,’” by Billy Binion

Judge Napolitano: Enough Evidence ‘To Justify About Three or Four Articles of Impeachment,’” by Nick Gillespie

Trump Is Getting Impeached Today. Should His Complaints About the Process Be Taken Seriously?” By Jacob Sullum

‘Constitutional Conservatives’ Lose Interest in Holding Trump Accountable,” by Matt Welch

CNN Implicitly Took Elizabeth Warren’s Side in the Unproven Sexism Accusation Against Bernie Sanders,” by Robby Soave

Warren Accuses Sanders of Saying a Woman Couldn’t Win in 2020,” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Watch the Media Manufacture a Dumb Story About Bernie Sanders and Sexism,” by Robby Soave

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton Fight for Feminist Crown,” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Bill Clinton Accuses Bernie Bros of Sexism. Yes, That Bill Clinton.” By Robby Soave

Politicians Want to Destroy Section 230, the Internet’s First Amendment,” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown and Paul Detrick

No ‘Insurrection’ or Violence at Virginia Gun Rights Rally,” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2Gco0vy
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Impeachment Hall of Shame (and Fame?)

Will the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump already be over by the time you listen to this week’s Reason Roundtable podcast? Not quite, though who the hell knows what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) and his caucus have up their sleeves? So, to mark the occasion 33 months after President Trump canned FBI Director James Comey, thus kicking off the first real talk of the I-word, Peter Suderman, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and I hand out our awards for Best and also Worst impeachment-related actor to date. Hint: Lotta libertarians among the former, not so many in the latter.

Because that’s not fraught enough, the gang also bandy about Hillary Clinton’s spectacular contribution to the Democratic gender wars over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), dissect Joe Biden (and conservative) anger-bearing over Big Tech and Section 230, and point out that Sanders is pretty freaking weird because HE’S A SOCIALIST.

Audio production by Ian Keyser and Regan Taylor.

Hidden Agenda by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1200102
Artist: http://incompetech.com/

Relevant links from the show:

Trump’s Impeachment Trial Will Only Make Us Hate Washington Even More,” by Nick Gillespie

The Case Against the Slippery Slope Case Against Impeachment for ‘Abuse of Power,'” by Ilya Somin

The Impeachment End Game, II,” by David Post

‘It Was Never About Corruption’: Giuliani Associate Says Trump Was Involved in Ukraine Scandal,” by Billy Binion

By Withholding Funds to Ukraine, Trump Broke the Law,” by Peter Suderman

Justin Amash on Impeachment: Republicans Are Betraying the ‘Principles and Values They Once Claimed To Cherish,’” by Billy Binion

Judge Napolitano: Enough Evidence ‘To Justify About Three or Four Articles of Impeachment,’” by Nick Gillespie

Trump Is Getting Impeached Today. Should His Complaints About the Process Be Taken Seriously?” By Jacob Sullum

‘Constitutional Conservatives’ Lose Interest in Holding Trump Accountable,” by Matt Welch

CNN Implicitly Took Elizabeth Warren’s Side in the Unproven Sexism Accusation Against Bernie Sanders,” by Robby Soave

Warren Accuses Sanders of Saying a Woman Couldn’t Win in 2020,” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Watch the Media Manufacture a Dumb Story About Bernie Sanders and Sexism,” by Robby Soave

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton Fight for Feminist Crown,” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Bill Clinton Accuses Bernie Bros of Sexism. Yes, That Bill Clinton.” By Robby Soave

Politicians Want to Destroy Section 230, the Internet’s First Amendment,” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown and Paul Detrick

No ‘Insurrection’ or Violence at Virginia Gun Rights Rally,” by Elizabeth Nolan Brown

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2Gco0vy
via IFTTT

Tucker Carlson Warns ‘Mistake’ To Assume Trump Victory In November

Tucker Carlson Warns ‘Mistake’ To Assume Trump Victory In November

Fox News‘s Tucker Carlson on Monday warned Republicans not to get complacent, and that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) could wind up taking “many thousands” of votes from President Trump if he is able to secure the Democratic nomination, according to The Hill‘s Joe Concha.

“A year from today, we’ll be hosting this show from the National Mall as the next president of the United States takes the oath of office,” said Carlson, adding “Will that president be Donald Trump? As of tonight, Republicans in Washington feel confident it will be.”

“The official economic numbers are strong. The Democratic primaries are a freak show — elderly socialists accusing each other of thoughtcrimes. Republicans are starting to think victory is assured. That’s a mistake,” said Carlson. “America remains as divided as it was three years ago. No matter what happens, nobody’s going to win this election in a national landslide. Those don’t happen anymore. Trump could lose. Will he? That depends on what he runs on.

Carlson then showed numbers for Trump on the economy that show while the main indicators are strong, there are some other numbers that should concern the president. He pointed to a Pew Research study that shows just 31 percent of Americans say the economy is helping them and their families, and just 32 percent say they believe the current economy helps the middle class.

Carlson then pivoted to Sanders’s potential appeal to certain voter groups and said Republicans need a plan to battle that appeal.

Bernie Sanders may get the Democratic nomination,” Carlson said. “If he does, every Republican in Washington will spend the next 10 months reminding you that socialism doesn’t work, and never has. They’ll be right, obviously,” Carlson explained. –The Hill

So what’s Bernie’s appeal?

Recall that a not-insignificant Sanders supporters voted for Trump out of disgust following revelations that Hillary Clinton and the DNC conspirted to rig the 2016 primary against him.

According to Carlson, however, “if Sanders pledges to forgive student loans, he’ll still win many thousands of voters who went for Donald Trump last time. Debt is crushing an entire generation of Americans. Republicans need a plan to make it better, or they’ll be left behind.”

“They’re conservative in the most basic sense: They love their families above all,” the host concluded. “They distrust radical theories of anything because they know that when the world turns upside down, ordinary people get hurt. They don’t want to burn it down. They just want things to get better. The candidate who promises to make them better — incrementally, but tangibly — will be inaugurated president a year from today.”

According to a RealClearPolitics average of seven (oh so reliable) polls, Sanders would take Trump if he gets the nomination.


Tyler Durden

Tue, 01/21/2020 – 18:25

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Illinois Pensions 101: Paltry Contributions Yield Million-Dollar Payouts

Illinois Pensions 101: Paltry Contributions Yield Million-Dollar Payouts

Authored by Adam Schuster via IllinoisPolicy.org,

Across all five state retirement systems, typical career workers pay for about 5% of the cost of their pension benefits. They receive an average of $1.7 million to $3.6 million.

Illinois’ pension crisis is the worst in U.S. history – which raises the question, “Why?”

First, because public employees pay very little toward their own retirement and assume none of the economic risk for investments. Second, because workers retire relatively young so they are drawing from the systems longer. And third, because they receive pension benefits often in excess of $2 million during the course of their long, generous retirements.

Ultimately, this poorly designed system is bad for the retirees. They face a serious risk that the pension systems will go insolvent.

The state has five retirement systems it manages directly and is responsible for contributing to:

  • The Teachers’ Retirement System, or TRS, for pre-K through 12th-grade school employees outside of Chicago

  • The State Universities Retirement System, or SURS, for higher education employees

  • The State Employees’ Retirement System, or SERS, for employees of state agencies and boards

  • The Judges’ Retirement System, or JRS, for judges

  • And the General Assembly Retirement System, or GARS, which manages pensions for state lawmakers and statewide elected officials

Depending on the system, between 43% and 94% of retirees are set to receive benefits of at least $1 million during retirement. Between 18% and 83% will receive lifetime benefits in excess of $2 million. The largest lifetime pensions can be worth more than $10 million.

More than 50% of state workers and teachers will retire before age 60. Taking advantage of early retirement benefits, large portions of these employees will retire prior to age 55.

These returns on retirement investments combined with early retirement is unheard of in the private sector.

The average Social Security benefit for 2019 is $17,532 per year. The maximum Social Security benefit is $34,332 per year. The earliest anyone can qualify for Social Security is age 62 and the full retirement age for anyone born after 1960 is 67. According to CNBC, the average 401(k) balance for those close to retirement, people aged 60 to 69, is just $195,500. However, with prudent savings and an early start, personal retirement accounts can be a secure way to fund retirement. Fidelity Investments reported in 2018 that the number of 401(k) and IRA millionaires was at an all-time high – up 41% from just one year earlier.

No matter how you look at it, private sector taxpayers can rarely hope for the generous benefits they subsidize for public employees. The typical private sector worker would need to have saved $1.6 million in a personal retirement account by age 60 to receive the same $82,000  base pension as the average career teacher, or those with at least 30 years of experience. And 3% compounding post-retirement increases are not an option for private sector retirees.

Illinois law requires public employees to set aside very little on their own during a typical working career. This is especially true for “career employees” with at least 30 years of service credit but applies to shorter-term public workers as well.

While benefit payments are lower for employees in TRS, SURS, SERS and JRS who do not work at least 30 years, the benefits are still substantial. Illinois taxpayers subsidize the majority of the cost and assume all the risk without the ability to modify even future promises.

For career workers who serve 30 years or more, lifetime employee pension contributions account for between 4% and 6% of expected payouts, other than for members of the General Assembly Retirement System. These contributions legally guarantee employees a pension that is typically worth more than $2 million. State employees in SERS are the exception, but they are generally eligible for Social Security benefits and still average a generous $1.7 million. As of the most recent report from the state, 96.3% of state workers are also eligible for Social Security, which explains the somewhat lower benefit.

The state implemented a less generous benefit schedule for employees hired after Dec. 31, 2010, but the first so-called “Tier 2” employee will not be eligible for retirement until January 2021 because they must be at least 67 years old with 10 years of service to qualify for a pension.

Illinois pension debt exists almost entirely because of benefits for Tier 1 workers and retirees, those who began working for an eligible government employer prior to 2011. In fact, younger workers in Tier 2 may actually be subsidizing Tier 1 benefits by paying in more than they’ll receive, at least for teachers. As a result, teacher advocacy groups have predicted that if the state does not fix Tier 2 benefits, a lawsuit against the state is likely which could force higher benefits and increase the state’s pension debt even further.

Lawmakers did recently enhance benefits for Tier 2 downstate public safety workers. But they did so without knowing the cost or determining that it was actually necessary.

Still, the state’s $137 billion to $234 billion in public pension debt is really about Tier 1 benefits.

All Tier 1 retirees in the five state systems receive a 3% compounding annual increase regardless of actual inflation. While often mistakenly referred to as a “cost of living adjustment,” these are more accurately described as guaranteed post-retirement raises because they are not pegged to inflation.

It is important to note that Illinoisans should not blame retirees for the way politicians designed the state’s pension systems. In reality, their retirement security faces the same risk as the rest of the state: insolvency.

Weren’t Illinois pensions underfunded?

One common call among government worker unions and associated advocacy groups is that Illinois pensions were not overpromised, but underfunded.

While it’s true Illinois politicians played reckless funding games, this is a symptom of the fact that benefits were set at a level that was too expensive to be affordable or sustainable. Because actually making the full payments would have been budget-busting and caused unacceptably high tax levels, both Republicans and Democrats at the state and local levels have sought creative ways to avoid making the full actuarial pension payments over the years.

  • Republican former Gov. Jim Edgar negotiated a payment ramp with the General Assembly that violated actuarial best practices of funding. First, the payments were stretched out over 50 years while actuaries typically recommend 20-year payment schedules and no more than 30. In practice, this means payments were low during Edgar’s term and spiked dramatically for his successors. Second, the funding target was set at 90% rather than 100%, meaning the state’s current funding plan does not fully anticipate paying off the debt.

  • Democratic former Gov. Rod Blagojevich issued bonds to pay off part of the pension debt but then used those proceeds as an excuse to reduce the state’s regular pension contributions from the operating budget. At the time, this “pension holiday” was supported by several of the state’s politically active public sector unions, including the Service Employees International Union, the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Education Association.

  • Due to the lack of a funding requirement from the state, local mayors have regularly shorted their contributions to downstate police and fire pension funds in cities across Illinois. Pension benefits for local governments are established by state law. In other words, mayors were struggling to manage their own budgets and provide services without an unreasonable tax burden while being forced to pay for unsustainable pension benefits they played little to no role in creating. Now that the state is enforcing full required payments, local mayors in several towns have been forced to lay off police officers and firefighters or otherwise cut municipal services to pay for pensions.

But rather than being a core cause of the pension crisis, these funding games are a symptom of the fact that the full payments are unaffordable.

State and local governments in Illinois already spend the most in the nation on pensions as both a percentage of their total revenues – about double the national average – and compared to the size of the state’s economy. Illinois pension debt is equal to roughly one-third of everything the state’s businesses and residents produce in a year.

Illinois’ ever-growing pension spending is already crowding out core government services. The state spends about one-third less today, adjusted for inflation, than it did in the year 2000 on core services including child protection, state police and college money for poor students. During that time pension spending increased 501%.

Despite these facts, some opponents of pension reform have maintained that “underfunding” of the pension systems is a chief cause of the debt. In a very narrow financial sense, this might be true. The existence of any form of debt is proof that not enough money has been set aside.

But in terms of the conclusions drawn by pension reform opponents, nothing could be further from the truth than the idea Illinois has a pension crisis because taxpayers haven’t been paying enough. They already pay the most and would have to double the amount they’re paying to eliminate the debt.

To show just how absurd the “underfunding” argument really is, imagine you took out a $1 million mortgage on a $40,000 annual income.

Your monthly mortgage payment — not including property taxes — would total $3,800 using today’s standard interest rate. Problem is, your monthly take-home pay — after accounting for state and local taxes — is about $2,650.

As much as you wanted that house, you never would have been able to afford that monthly cost, given your ability to pay. Before long, the bank will come knocking to repossess the property.

You may have “underfunded” your mortgage, but only because you originally overpromised on what you would be able to pay. Similarly, Illinois politicians promised pension benefits that taxpayers never could and never would be able to afford. They designed a system with no flexibility or risk sharing, placing all the burden on taxpayers to make up for the shortfalls of their mismanagement.

Illinois pensions were underfunded because they were overpromised. Rather than dealing with the painful tax hikes necessary to fully fund exorbitant benefits, politicians racked up debt, placing the burden of pension funding on the state’s young and unborn.

Regardless, it’s clear that tax hikes are not a potential solution going forward.

Those who deny the extravagance of current Illinois pension benefits also elude a key question: What next? To catch up the states’ five pension systems, Illinois median income family would have to see a tax hike of about $1,800, per year.

Is there any way out of Illinois’ pension crisis?

Tax hikes are not a responsible or realistic solution to the worst pension crisis in the nation. Illinois’ tax burden is already one of the nation’s most painful and the top reason residents cite for wanting to leave the state.

Illinois could file for bankruptcy protection under hypothetical legislation similar to the “PROMESA” law Congress passed to deal with Puerto Rico’s financial distress, but that scenario is extreme and unlikely. The state’s only viable option is meaningful pension reform. That starts with a constitutional amendment to allow changes to unearned, future benefits.

Rather than deleting the pension protection clause entirely, Illinois should seek to modify it to match states such as Hawaii or Michigan which protect only “accrued benefits.” Subsequent pension reforms should include raising retirement ages for younger workers, capping maximum pensionable salaries, and doing away with guaranteed permanent benefit increases in favor of a true cost-of-living adjustment pegged to inflation.

An actuarial analysis, performed by a certified professional actuary and commissioned by the Illinois Policy Institute, shows that reform to unearned future benefits could save roughly $2 billion per year in pension contributions and fully eliminate the debt by 2045. From now until 2045, total savings would be $50.92 billion. That’s all possible without taking away a single dollar earned to date.

The concept of future benefit reforms has been successfully enacted in Colorado as well as in Arizona, which had support from union leaders who realized pensions were in peril.

Pension reform is a moral imperative. The alternative is a future in which core services are cut, taxes are raised on a dwindling number of taxpayers and pensioners risk losing what they’ve already been promised as the funds go insolvent.

If Illinoisans work together, common-sense pension reform can work for everyone.


Tyler Durden

Tue, 01/21/2020 – 18:05

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Jeff Bezos Phone ‘Hacked By Saudi Crown Prince’: Report

Jeff Bezos Phone ‘Hacked By Saudi Crown Prince’: Report

Jeff Bezos was allegedly hacked by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman or someone operating his WhatsApp account, according to The Guardian, so who knows.

Bezos was apparently hanging out in an encrypted WhatsApp chat room in 2018 when he opened an “infected video file” sent to him from the Saudi heir’s account, instantly installing malware on his phone. Within hours, large amounts of data had been exfiltrated – though exactly what was taken or how it may have been used is unknown.

The two men had been having a seemingly friendly WhatsApp exchange when, on 1 May of that year, the unsolicited file was sent, according to sources who spoke to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. –Guardian

Recall that after the National Enquirer published an exposé in early 2019 detailing Bezos’s extramarital affair, the billionaire revealed that the publication had threatened to publish explicit photos of him unless he publicly stated that there had been no political motivation for the tabloid’s original story. Bezos would make no such concession – instead, penning a Medium post exposing the attempt.

And while the Enquirer’s parent company AMI insists their source was Michael Sanchez, the brother of Mr. Bezos’ girlfriend – Bezos’s security consultant consultant, Gavin de Becker, alleged the Saudis were behind the leak – as they had “been intent on harming Jeff Bezos since . . . The Post began its relentless coverage” of the murder of Saudi dissident and Post journalist, Jamap Khashoggi.

De Becker writes:

Our investigators and several experts concluded with high confidence that the Saudis had access to Bezos’ phone, and gained private information. As of today, it is unclear to what degree, if any, AMI was aware of the details.

We did not reach our conclusions lightly. The inquiry included a broad array of resources: investigative interviews with current and former AMI executives and sources, extensive discussions with top Middle East experts in the intelligence community, leading cybersecurity experts who have tracked Saudi spyware, discussions with current and former advisers to President Trump, Saudi whistleblowers, people who personally know the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (also known as MBS), people who work with his close associate Saud al-Qahtani, Saudi dissidents, and other targets of Saudi action, including writer/activist Iyad el-Baghdadi.

Experts with whom we consulted confirmed New York Times reports on the Saudi capability to “collect vast amounts of previously inaccessible data from smartphones in the air without leaving a trace—including phone calls, texts, emails”—and confirmed that hacking was a key part of the Saudis’ “extensive surveillance efforts that ultimately led to the killing of [Washington Post] journalist Jamal Khashoggi.” –Gavin de Becker (via the Daily Beast)

As the Post noted in October, “After Khashoggi’s killing in Istanbul, the planet’s richest man, who also owns The Post, became the target of waves of criticism from Saudi-based online trolls.” (Also interesting, and perhaps related, is a $1 billion Saudi data center deal Amazon was vying for in March 2018, which began to fizzle out as early as February 2019 – as the dick-pic scandal unfolded.)

Sanchez, meanwhile, vehemently denied being AMI’s source, while de Becker said in The Beast that Sanchez was contacted by the Enquirer first, not the other way around.

AMI has repeatedly insisted they had only one source on their Bezos story, but the Journal reports that when the Enquirer began conversations with Michael Sanchez, they had “already been investigating whether Mr. Bezos and Ms. Sanchez were having an affair.” Michael Sanchez has since confirmed to Page Six that when the Enquirer contacted him back in July, they had already “seen text exchanges” between the couple. If accurate, the WSJ and Page Six stories would mean, clearly and obviously, that the initial information came from other channels—another source or method. -Gavin de Becker (via the Daily Beast)

AMI insists Sanchez was their source, however The Guardian now says it was the Saudis all along – at the highest level. Of course, given the publication, we should be wary that the Bezos-MbS ‘source’ is the same one who told them Manafort met with Julian Assange in the Ecuador’s London embassy.


Tyler Durden

Tue, 01/21/2020 – 17:45

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Supreme Court Leaves Obamacare Trapped in Legal Limbo

From practically the moment it was signed into law 10 years ago, Obamacare has been trapped in judicial limbo. The various lawsuits against it—challenging the legality of the individual mandate, the Medicaid expansion requirements, various insurance subsidies, the individual mandate (again), the insurance regulations, and even the entire construct of the law—have kept the law in legal and political purgatory, its fate never quite determined.

Thanks to the Supreme Court, it appears likely that it will stay that way through this year’s election and into next year. The Court today rejected a request by a group of Democratic state officials and members of the House of Representatives to fast-track a decision on the latest challenge to the law, meaning the law’s legal fate probably won’t be determined until sometime next year. 

At the beginning of this year, a coalition of blue states supporting the law had asked the High Court to speed up consideration of the case, the jointly named California v. Texas and House of Representatives v. Texas, which has been working its way through the lower courts for the better part of a year. In December, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that the law’s mandate, which was upheld as a tax in 2012 and then zeroed out by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, was unconstitutional since it no longer raised any revenue

The 5th Circuit punted, however, on the broader question of what its ruling meant for the rest of the law, sending it back to a lower court that had previously ruled that, absent the mandate, the entire statute must be struck down. 

In the short term, the 5th Circuit ruling had essentially no practical effect: The mandate had already been functionally eliminated by the 2017 tax law, which reduced its tax penalty to zero. Yet it returned questions about the law’s fate to a judge who had already said he believed the entire statute should go under any reading of the evidence. 

The Democrats behind the petition to fast-track the Supreme Court ruling on the case had clearly hoped to make the issue more salient in this year’s election; the Trump administration made the unusual decision not to defend the law in court, and health care is an issue that helped propel Democrats to victory in the 2018 election. The Trump administration, in turn, filed a brief saying that waiting to hear the case would be fine.

In the narrow sense, this is probably a victory for President Trump and Republican critics of the law. But by leaving the case’s final resolution up in the air, it nevertheless keeps it alive as a political issue, and gives Democrats who support the law an argument to make against Republicans, particularly Trump, who support the administration’s decision not to defend it in court. 

Unlike several of the previous legal challenges to the health law, I believe this particular case rests on a largely flimsy argument. Other staunch critics of Obamacare have also said it lacks legal merit

Yet the fact that the law is still in court, its entire fate hanging in the balance nearly a decade after passage, is a reminder of its fundamental political weakness. An unusually complex statute predicated on dubious constitutional notions and passed on a party line vote without majority support from the public was nearly certain to be under constant threat from legal attacks—some with merit, some perhaps without. The law’s supporters assumed that it would amass political support over time, insulating it from threats. It is true that Obamacare has become more popular under Trump (probably in part because of GOP attempts to weaken it). But thanks to both the lasting partisan backlash to the law and the convoluted legal rationales for upholding it, the legal challenges have continued, and its future remains in doubt. Obamacare was born into limbo, and there it is likely to stay. 

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Why A Flu Outbreak In China Can Spook Global Markets

Why A Flu Outbreak In China Can Spook Global Markets

Authored by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

When people talk about empires of the past, they generally mean Rome and Britain. But the biggest and in some ways most interesting empire was built and run by the Mongols in the 13th and 14th centuries. At it’s peak it stretched from China to Eastern Europe, which is more territory than Rome ever controlled.

Across that expanse there was free trade and unrestricted movement of people via the original “Silk Road” network. For a while there was a single currency which was accepted everywhere.

Genghis Khan – think of him as the Mongols’ (gleefully bloodthirsty) George Washington – organized his army along what we today would call colorblind lines. Instead of units based on clans and tribes, he mixed and matched soldiers of varied backgrounds and trained them to be loyal to one another regardless of origin. He also ordered his men to marry women from conquered cities, and to integrate into local cultures.

And he loved technology, collecting engineers and other people with useful skills from conquered lands and putting them to work developing new weapons and better agricultural practices.

“Pax Mongolica,” in short, had all the makings of a nascent modern system, hundreds of years before the Industrial Revolution.

Then came the Black Death.

Free movement of people allowed the disease to move quickly and uncontrollably. Local populations panicked and closed themselves off, frequently slaughtering their Mongol governors in the process. Trade collapsed, the Silk Road went dark and the Mongol empire expired.

Now fast forward to today’s world, where virtually anyone can fly or drive to virtually any other country — and millions each year do so. Trade is a huge part of most major national economies. A handful of currencies are accepted pretty much everywhere, while locals mix with visitors in melting pot mega-cities of 20 million-plus inhabitants, all breathing the same air.

Meanwhile, factory farms pump antibiotics into even healthy animals, turbocharging the natural tendency of microbes to evolve immunity to drugs. “Super-bugs” that can’t be killed with existing tech are now proliferating.

We’re primed, in other words, for a pandemic of some sort and everyone who’s paying attention knows it.

So the fact that a new virus has killed six people (fewer than the daily death toll from scooter accidents in most Asian cities) in China has a lot more impact than it otherwise might.

Financial markets understand that should a contagious, fatal virus start to spread not just within a given country but between countries, the immediate response will be to shut down air travel from stricken places and to limit other kinds of interaction, including trade.

The result: a global economy designed around multi-country supply chains and free movement of materials, parts, and finished products grinds to a halt. Add in the fact that the current system is leveraged to the hilt with no hope of redemption even in relatively stable times, and it’s easy see how six deaths on the other side of the world can be this ominous.


Tyler Durden

Tue, 01/21/2020 – 17:25

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/38sjAMX Tyler Durden

Supreme Court Leaves Obamacare Trapped in Legal Limbo

From practically the moment it was signed into law 10 years ago, Obamacare has been trapped in judicial limbo. The various lawsuits against it—challenging the legality of the individual mandate, the Medicaid expansion requirements, various insurance subsidies, the individual mandate (again), the insurance regulations, and even the entire construct of the law—have kept the law in legal and political purgatory, its fate never quite determined.

Thanks to the Supreme Court, it appears likely that it will stay that way through this year’s election and into next year. The Court today rejected a request by a group of Democratic state officials and members of the House of Representatives to fast-track a decision on the latest challenge to the law, meaning the law’s legal fate probably won’t be determined until sometime next year. 

At the beginning of this year, a coalition of blue states supporting the law had asked the High Court to speed up consideration of the case, the jointly named California v. Texas and House of Representatives v. Texas, which has been working its way through the lower courts for the better part of a year. In December, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that the law’s mandate, which was upheld as a tax in 2012 and then zeroed out by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, was unconstitutional since it no longer raised any revenue

The 5th Circuit punted, however, on the broader question of what its ruling meant for the rest of the law, sending it back to a lower court that had previously ruled that, absent the mandate, the entire statute must be struck down. 

In the short term, the 5th Circuit ruling had essentially no practical effect: The mandate had already been functionally eliminated by the 2017 tax law, which reduced its tax penalty to zero. Yet it returned questions about the law’s fate to a judge who had already said he believed the entire statute should go under any reading of the evidence. 

The Democrats behind the petition to fast-track the Supreme Court ruling on the case had clearly hoped to make the issue more salient in this year’s election; the Trump administration made the unusual decision not to defend the law in court, and health care is an issue that helped propel Democrats to victory in the 2018 election. The Trump administration, in turn, filed a brief saying that waiting to hear the case would be fine.

In the narrow sense, this is probably a victory for President Trump and Republican critics of the law. But by leaving the case’s final resolution up in the air, it nevertheless keeps it alive as a political issue, and gives Democrats who support the law an argument to make against Republicans, particularly Trump, who support the administration’s decision not to defend it in court. 

Unlike several of the previous legal challenges to the health law, I believe this particular case rests on a largely flimsy argument. Other staunch critics of Obamacare have also said it lacks legal merit

Yet the fact that the law is still in court, its entire fate hanging in the balance nearly a decade after passage, is a reminder of its fundamental political weakness. An unusually complex statute predicated on dubious constitutional notions and passed on a party line vote without majority support from the public was nearly certain to be under constant threat from legal attacks—some with merit, some perhaps without. The law’s supporters assumed that it would amass political support over time, insulating it from threats. It is true that Obamacare has become more popular under Trump (probably in part because of GOP attempts to weaken it). But thanks to both the lasting partisan backlash to the law and the convoluted legal rationales for upholding it, the legal challenges have continued, and its future remains in doubt. Obamacare was born into limbo, and there it is likely to stay. 

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Mitch McConnell Revises Impeachment Rules After Bipartisan Backlash

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) on Tuesday revised key parts of the roadmap for President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial after his initial proposal received a bipartisan backlash.

Both parties will now have 24 hours each over the course of three days to present evidence, as opposed to the two days that were originally allotted. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) called the first iteration a “national disgrace,” as the compressed schedule would have forced much of the trial to take place in the middle of the night. 

McConnell also altered a rule that would have blocked House evidence unless the Senate voted to admit it. Now all relevant documents will be automatically entered into the record and barred only if the Senate votes to exclude them.

The majority leader fielded bouts of criticism after straying from his promise to adhere to the Clinton impeachment model, where the Senate had 24 hours to present evidence but no constraints on the number of days it took to do so. Schumer led the Democratic charge, but several Republicans also voiced concerns, including Sen. Susan Collins (R–Maine) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.).

“I think that adhering to the Clinton model would have been my preference,” Hawley told NBC News. 

Collins’ spokesperson, Annie Clark, echoed those sentiments. “She and others raised concerns about the 24 hours of opening statements in 2 days and the admission of the House transcript [in] the record,” Clark said in a statement. “Her position has been that the trial should follow the Clinton model as much as possible. She thinks these changes are a significant improvement.”

In December, the House impeached Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress over his alleged role in attempting to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy into publicly announcing investigations into Trump’s political rivals. The changes to the trial blueprint notwithstanding, Democrats and Republicans continued to spar Tuesday over subpoenas for documents held by the White House and the need for additional witnesses. In any case, Trump’s trial is heading for almost certain acquittal as Democrats would need at least 20 Republicans to convict the president of an impeachable offense.

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Mitch McConnell Revises Impeachment Rules After Bipartisan Backlash

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) on Tuesday revised key parts of the roadmap for President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial after his initial proposal received a bipartisan backlash.

Both parties will now have 24 hours each over the course of three days to present evidence, as opposed to the two days that were originally allotted. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) called the first iteration a “national disgrace,” as the compressed schedule would have forced much of the trial to take place in the middle of the night. 

McConnell also altered a rule that would have blocked House evidence unless the Senate voted to admit it. Now all relevant documents will be automatically entered into the record and barred only if the Senate votes to exclude them.

The majority leader fielded bouts of criticism after straying from his promise to adhere to the Clinton impeachment model, where the Senate had 24 hours to present evidence but no constraints on the number of days it took to do so. Schumer led the Democratic charge, but several Republicans also voiced concerns, including Sen. Susan Collins (R–Maine) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.).

“I think that adhering to the Clinton model would have been my preference,” Hawley told NBC News. 

Collins’ spokesperson, Annie Clark, echoed those sentiments. “She and others raised concerns about the 24 hours of opening statements in 2 days and the admission of the House transcript [in] the record,” Clark said in a statement. “Her position has been that the trial should follow the Clinton model as much as possible. She thinks these changes are a significant improvement.”

In December, the House impeached Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress over his alleged role in attempting to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy into publicly announcing investigations into Trump’s political rivals. The changes to the trial blueprint notwithstanding, Democrats and Republicans continued to spar Tuesday over subpoenas for documents held by the White House and the need for additional witnesses. In any case, Trump’s trial is heading for almost certain acquittal as Democrats would need at least 20 Republicans to convict the president of an impeachable offense.

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