This is the last in a series of five guest posts we are publishing this week as the co-authors of a new book published by Oxford University Press titled “Unassailable Ideas: How Unwritten Rules and Social Media Shape Discourse in American Higher Education.” The previous guest posts from this series can be found here, here, here, and here.
Anyone familiar with academic book publishing knows that it’s not the most rapid of industries. We completed writing this book in late 2019, with only small changes made during the subsequent editing and production in 2020.
A lot has changed since 2019. But one thing that hasn’t changed is the need for and value of examining the culture on campuses and considering ways in which it might be made more open to a culture of respectful discourse.
It would be naive not to also ask the question of what impact a book like this can have. It’s landing at a time when Covid-19 has forced most college students out of the classroom and onto Zoom, and when American society more broadly is facing not only a pandemic, but also an economic crisis and a high level of political polarization and uncertainty.
That said, campuses—or more precisely and importantly, the communities of people who collectively give life, energy, and meaning to colleges and universities, however scattered they might now be due to Covid-19—remain as vital a part of society as ever. And, as we wrote in the preface to the book, “we are confident that our call for a culture of more open discourse in higher education will remain relevant both during the pandemic and after it has passed.”
Here are the recommendations we provide in the book:
[1.] We believe that for courses on topics in which the content is related to and potentially shaped by sociopolitical considerations, faculty should be explicitly encouraged to keep in mind the value of providing their students the opportunity to engage with a wider range of political views than typically occurs today.
[2.] We urge all people with positions of authority in universities—a group that includes faculty, department chairs, deans, and university executives—to give greater thought to how their own public and private communications might inadvertently narrow the range of dialog deemed permissible. A dean who, in an official communication to faculty, expresses support for one particular side of a contentious current social or political issue that admits multiple reasonable perspectives in effect creates a social penalty for those who might want to voice support for a different view. At the very least, such expressions should be accompanied by a statement recognizing that others might reasonably hold a different view.
[3.] We explicitly oppose mandating any form of viewpoint diversity. We support an approach that encourages, but does not require, members of a campus community to engage with a broader set of views.
[4.] We encourage fostering an increased recognition of intellectual humility as integral to the promotion of viewpoint diversity, and more generally, to productive dialog. Without humility, the incentive to value other viewpoints vanishes.
[5.] We believe that university administrators and others in positions of power on campus should not let their decisions be driven by fear of social media mobs.
[6.] Students, faculty, and administrators alike should make it regular practice to personalize connections with people with whom they disagree.
[7.] We believe that members of campus communities should be encouraged to be more willing to accept a greater degree of discomfort in dialog than is currently the norm, opening the door to conversations that may at times be difficult, but that would in the long run enhance mutual understanding.
[8.] We recommend that universities revise their formal definitions of “diversity” to include viewpoint diversity—a step that would complement as opposed to compete with efforts to increase other types of diversity.
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It’s hard to say who is loonier – the guy in the White House East Wing hopped up on steroids or the Wall Street robo-machines and Robin Hooders who slobber incontinently upon the slightest hint of another “stimulus” injection.
Either way, exactly seven hours after he implanted a tiny quotient of sanity into Washington’s fiscal madhouse yesterday afternoon by terminating talks on Everything Bailout 5.0, the Donald proved once again that he is a clear and present danger to the nation’s solvency and that Wall Street is flat-out disease-ridden with addictus stimulitis.
The fact is, the airlines don’t deserve nor need a bailout, while the idea of handing out another $135 billion of walking around money to small businesses who might otherwise lay-off redundant employees is just plain ludicrous.
Of course, the Donald doesn’t have a clue about the fact that the future taxpayers, who would bear the burden of servicing another $160 billion of public debt incurred for these two illicit purposes, are not mules to be drafted in behalf of his re-election campaign. That’s perhaps why 30 minutes latter he upped the ante by another $300 billion, promising to instantly mail a check for $1,200 (adorned by his signature) from Uncle Sam’s depleted treasury to 160 million Americans (plus a $500 tip for their kids), the overwhelming share of whom didn’t lose their jobs and don’t need the money.
Alas, this is the fiscal madness which today passes for conservative Republican government. So it literally scrambles one’s brain to contemplate what depredations the Kamala Harris/Left Progressive Regency might unleash if, as and when it landslides into office.
The House & Senate should IMMEDIATELY Approve 25 Billion Dollars for Airline Payroll Support, & 135 Billion Dollars for Paycheck Protection Program for Small Business. Both of these will be fully paid for with unused funds from the Cares Act. Have this money. I will sign now!
9:54 PM · Oct 6, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
If I am sent a Stand Alone Bill for Stimulus Checks ($1,200), they will go out to our great people IMMEDIATELY. I am ready to sign right now. Are you listening Nancy?
10:18 PM · Oct 6, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
Needless to say, the above nonsense from the Donald’s twitter feed is all it took. In a flash, the pajama traders’ brigade was sprinting toward recovery of all the ground lost in the last hour of cash trading on Tuesday.
So doing, they reminded one and all that we truly are enmeshed in a doom loop in which the politicians spend and borrow at will; the Fed monetizes the resulting tsunami of debt paper with alacrity; and the swells on Wall Street reward both sets of economic fools with paroxysms of mindless dip buying.
At this point we would ordinarily mention this won’t end well. But by now that surely goes without saying.
Still, it is worth amplifying the nature of addictus stimulitis because it is so deeply and stubbornly embedded in the mind-set at both ends of the Acela Corridor that it is well nigh impossible to imagine a cure that leaves the patient in tact. For want of doubt, just consider the recent proclamation of one Andrew Sheets, Morgan Stanley’s chief of cross-asset gambling strategy:
“The glass half-full view of stimulus talks is if you don’t get it today you’ll get it tomorrow from whomever wins the election,” Sheets said in an interview.
“This V-shaped recovery is still intact.”
He got that right. There is now virtually no adverse economic condition, shock or even mild disturbance that does not generate a Wall Street/Washington consensus in favor or moaaar stimulus owing to five major presumptions:
It is assumed that unlimited monetization is sustainable and cost-free;
It is assumed that soaring public debt is no problem so long as interest rates are ultra-low;
It is assumed that Potential GDP is a real, measurable tangible thing and that any shortfall in actual GDP can and should be eliminated via aggressive monetary and fiscal stimulus;
It is assumed that “moral hazard” is old fashioned boogeyman of the fuddy-duddy set that should not interfere with purposeful pursuit of “no fault” macroeconomic stimulus;
It is assumed that economic stimulus and humanitarian social safety nets are part and parcel of the same thing and that bailing out reckless companies in order to help needy workers goes with the territory.
These baleful presumptions are now a bipartisan consensus, and it doesn’t take too much cogitation to see that taken together they form a self-fueling doom loop.
For instance, the more the Fed monetizes the public debt with fraudulent credits snatched from thin air, the greater the inflation of financial assets on Wall Street. In turn, that powerfully incentivizes stock-options obsessed corporate C-suites to forgo productive investment on main street in favor of financial engineering schemes like stock buybacks and over-priced M&A deals which pump corporate resources into Wall Street, thereby steadily dragging down the growth rate of GDP and laying the planking for still more “stimulus”.
Likewise, when politicians face no interest cost penalty on rising public debt, they are not loathe to mandate the transfer of societal credit resources to wasteful public expenditures and the subsidization of all manner of reckless and imprudent private financial behaviors. In turn, extensive mis-allocation of credit and private cash flows and widespread incidence of moral hazard undermines economic efficiency and growth rates, eliciting still more excuses for “stimulus”.
These kinds of perverse interactions are surely evident in the Donald’s Tuesday evening tweet in favor of $25 billion for another airline bailout.
Talk about moral hazard! The numbskulls who run the US Big Four airlines fairly reek of it as we showed recently: During the last six years they managed to spend $51 billion on stock buybacks and dividends when they only had $37 trillion of free cash flow to fund these Wall Street pleasing distributions.
But the fact that they piled up their debts from $22 billion to $66 billion during that same six year period to keep the ponzi going was really only the half of it. The US airline industry utilizes well more than $1.5 trillion of jet airliners and airport facilities, but the overwhelming share of that massive asset base is accessed via so-called “operating leases”, the funding for which does not show up as balance sheet debt.
That is to say, cheap debt has fueled the growth of a massive third-party aircraft leasing industry, thereby permitting the airlines to spend current cash flows and balance sheet capacity on financial engineering, rather than the accumulation of debt free assets that could be utilized for collateralized borrowings in exactly the kind of exigent circumstances currently extant.
So now that they have hocked nearly everything that moves or stands still in their far-flung operations, the airlines lamely claim to have no choice except to attempt to blackmail Washington by threatening to throw 50,000 employees under the Airbuses, so to speak.
But as morally repugnant as these maneuvers self-evidently are, the currently threatened massive lay-offs only expose still another layer of moral hazard extant in the industry. To wit, virtually every single airline pilot, flight attendant, mechanic, baggage handler etc is represented by a union. And despite the untoward purposes on which most of their dues are dissipated by union officialdom, one thing the latter have accomplished is to insure that every airline employee is eligible for the state UI programs.
Now that’s exceedingly relevant at this moment because the average annual earnings for the above four classes of airline employees puts them among the aristocracy of hourly wage earners:
Pilots: $150,000;
Mechanics: $75,000;
Flight attendants: $50,000;
Baggage handlers: $40,000
That puts virtually all of the ballyhooed airline employees at the top of the scale for UI benefits in most states, which benefits range between $400 and $700 per week for at least 26 weeks. What that means, of course, is that notwithstanding the braying of industry executives and Washington politician alike, these furloughed employees are not about to be thrown into the streets empty-handed; they are actually entitled to the ample job loss insurance benefits that are built into the long-standing social safety net.
Yes, $400 to $700 per week is no princely sum, but periodic job losses due to recession, employer bankruptcy, disruptive technology change, alternative product substitution etc. are an unavoidable and essential feature of prosperous free market capitalism. The state cannot and should not insure laid off-workers for 100% of their previous wage; and even more crucially, it should not dissuade them from building up cash reserves and rainy day funds to augment the state’s modest UI support payments.
Self-evidently, zero interest rates and no-fault bailouts do exactly that: They encourage hand-to-mouth financial life-styles, which leave workers high and dry in the event of unforeseen loss of paychecks and turn them into pawns to be exploited by unscrupulous C-suites and votes to be bid for by the likes of Nancy and the Donald.
Still, to hear the gnashing of teeth and wailing in Washington today you would think it is still 1890 and that 50,000 airline workers are about ready to become regulars at the Salvation Army soup kitchens. That is, in the name of economic stimulus, the pols and the corporate C-suites pretend the UI safety net doesn’t even exist, and that these aristocrats of the wage economy are not getting a level of humanitarian aid that is in the top tier of the labor market.
As for the airline companies, we’d say they know full well the route to the chapter 11 courthouses. Most have already visited such venues, sometimes more than once, and did so while keeping operations going and planes in the air under the supervision of the courts.
To be sure, the proper chapter 11 disposition of these four financial basket cases—Delta, American, United and Southwest—would result in stock prices of zero and the evaporation of billions of stock option values accumulated by the C-suites. And that would not merely amount to condign justice; it’s also exactly what the rules of productive capitalism actually require.
Needless to say, there is hardly a corporals’ guard left in the GOP which comprehends this and has a decent regard for the rules of free market prosperity, while the ranks of such economic enlightenment disappeared from the Government Party (Dems) decades ago. In that regard, Senator William Proxmire (D-Wisconsin) was surely the last of the anti-bailout Mohicans, save for Ralph Nader who quite the party in disgust, anyway.
Moreover, the current favorite “this time is different” excuse—that Dr. Fauci made us do it— doesn’t wash either. If the airlines are being harmed by Fauci and his malpracticing doctors owing to the lockdowns and Covid-Hysteria at loose in the land, they are welcome to lobby for re-opening the economy with all the might they can assemble on K-street, and to spend money assuring the public that the overwhelming share of Americans can travel safely without risk of being felled by the Covid.
In fact, there is a potential market of 210 million American’s under the age of 50 years, who have Covid survival rates ranging between 99.9997% and 99.98%, should they become infected with the virus. In so informing their potential customers, the airlines might even be so bold as to remind them that this infinitesimal Covid risk is only a teeny-tiny smidgen higher than the risk of dying in a plane crash in the first place!
Stated differently, the obligation of the airlines in the face of the Virus Patrol madness is to join the fight against the regulators, not demand indemnification from future taxpayers, born and unborn.
Indeed, that same principle is even more salient with respect to the so-called small business PPP (paycheck protection program). The latter has already indiscriminately and capriciously dispensed $525 billion to more than 5 million small businesses, and the Donald’s promise of a quick $135 billion booster shot is all the more wicked.
Again, it’s not about their workers. The overwhelming share were eligible for the state UI programs already; and, for perhaps $100 billion or less, the so-called contract, gig and part-time workers not typically covered by regular state UI programs could have been funded under the temporary Federal program.
But what has happened now is that the once and former shocks troops of political support for free markets, small government and fiscal rectitude have been turned into sniveling supplicants of the Bailout State.
Indeed, ordinarily the small business lobbies would be screaming to high heaven about their impending doom owning to the regulatory fiats and customer base impairments brought on by the Virus Patrol; they’d literally be demanding Dr. Fauci’s head, just as they did back in the day when the OSHA bureaucrats were riding roughshod across the land.
But politically, they have apparently been bought off by the aforementioned one-half trillion dollars of walking around money. After all, the nationwide high-frequency data provided by the Opportunity Insights Economic Tracker shows that nearly 25% of small businesses in operation last January have still not re-opened and there has been little improvement in the trend since July 4th.
Yet what can be heard in the corridors of Washington is little more than the silence of the lambs. The overwhelming share of small business America has been bought off by the PPP and has joined the ranks of coast-to-coast supplicants who are marching resolutely toward the nation’s fiscal demise.
Meanwhile, all these trillions of Everything Bailout monies have not repaired what actually ails the American economy: Namely, a government ordered supply-side contraction which caused total labor hours employed in September to remain 6.5% below year ago levels.
Needless to say, that is the handiwork of Dr. Fauci and the Virus Patrol, not a faltering of that invisible Keynesian ether called “aggregate demand”. Perhaps better than ever before Say’s Law is speaking loudly: Cause production to be reduced or shutdown, and, yes, incomes and spending will fall.
But the cure is also self-evident and would commence the very minute the Virus Patrol is put out of business and the CDC is returned to its proper function. That is, of educating the public on how they can strengthen their own immune systems and take precautionary steps to minimize the health risks posed by this super-flu—rather than officiously pretending to stop the spread of a contagious virus than cannot be contained owing to the intimately social nature of human society.
Beyond that, the loss of GDP which has already occurred and which will linger for months and years even if the economy is re-opened with alacrity cannot be recaptured by “stimulus” in this case or in any other spell of alleged shortfall from the purported Potential GDP.
The whole notion, in fact, is a dangerous chimera.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/33GVhLQ Tyler Durden
Watch Live: Nancy Pelosi Discusses 25th Amendment Plan Trump Denounced As A “Coup” Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/09/2020 – 10:10
As she promised last night, Nancy Pelosi, along with Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, are expected to hold a press briefing at 1015ET to discuss a new bill that would wrest power to invoke the 25th Amendment away from Trump and his cabinet, and place it in the hands of Congress and the speaker.
.@SpeakerPelosi: “Tomorrow, by the way, tomorrow, come here tomorrow. We’re going to be talking about the 25th Amendment.”
Pelosi first ominously suggested that more would be said about the 25th amendment “tomorrow” during her Thursday morning weekly press briefing with reporters on Capitol Hill. A few hours later, her office emailed reporters advising them about a 1015ET press briefing involving the Speaker and Raskin to unveil a new plan related to triggering the 25th amendment.
The House and Senate will hold “pro forma sessions” at 1000ET, which essentially means, since Congress is currently out of session whoever wants to can show up to hear Pelosi outline her “plan” to force President Trump to hand over power to Mike Pence, a move that would temporarily elevate her to Vice President. The briefing is supposed to start at 1015ET.
Rabobank pointed out in a note to clients published Friday morning that Pelosi’s 25th amendment push is doomed to fail. Even if it passes the House, it will die in the Senate. And even if, by some miracle, it managed to pass the Senate and be signed by the president, it would only succeed in placing Pence in the top job for a few days, before Trump could self-certify his own fitness to serve.
Exhibit B: Nancy Pelosi will today push a bill to give the House, not the Cabinet, power to remove a president from office for medical reasons under the 25th amendment. A few quick comments:
1) Is this needed by a party up 14-16 points in the polls and three weeks away from a sweep of the White House, House, and Senate?;
2) It will not remove Trump from office. Even if passed in the Democrat-majority House, the bill requires passage in the Republican-majority Senate and a presidential signature – which won’t happen;
3) If it did, it would just put Mike Pence into office for a few days, after which Trump could self-certify himself fit to take over again, and over-ruling that would require a two thirds majority in both the House and the Senate;
4) The move is likely to fire up the base – but possibly the Republicans more as Trump is selling it as an “attempted coup”
Earlier, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnanay, who is still likely suffering from COVID-19, called in to Fox News to blast Pelosi’s latest rerun of impeachment as “an absurd proposition”.
WH’s McEnany on Fox on 25th Amdt/Pelosi: It’s an absurd proposition from Pelosi. The only one who needs to look at 25th Amendment is Pelosi herself..there’s no reason to consider it for the President but maybe for Pelosi
McConnell Says “We Do Need” Another Covid Aid Package, But “Unlikely In Next Three Weeks” Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/09/2020 – 10:03
With headline-scanning algos focused only on soundbites related any new stimulus deal and changes in the probability of a fiscal stimulus getting done soon, moments ago stocks were whiplashed when moments ago Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said during an event in Kentucky that “we do need another Covid-19 aid package”, but then immediately poured cold water on “optimism” when he warned that a new stimulus deal is “unlikely in the next three weeks.”
New stimulus deal “unlikely in the next three weeks” McConnell saying in event in KY
McConnell also said that there’s “widespread agreement airlines need aid” and added that the economy is struggling to get back to normal.
The KY Senator then reiterated that he hasn’t seen Trump in person since August but they speak almost every day. “The telephone was invented in the late part of the 19th century and it works quite well.”
McConnell also refused to say when he was last tested for covid. “Have I ever been tested? Yeah. But am I going to make a daily report? No. It’s not necessary.”
Of all those, algos only cared about the first, and amid some initial confusion…
… sent the Russell 2000 – which had benefited in recent days amid surging “stimulus optimism” -lower…
… while the dollar posted a modest bounce.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/30NGSLX Tyler Durden
When my law school accepted a $30 million gift in spring 2016 conditioned on renaming the law school in honor of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, some predicted gloom and doom, that in today’s environment naming a law school after an unreconstructed conservative jurist would drive away potential students. I didn’t believe it, but the proof in the pudding is in the eating, as they say.
When my law school accepted a $30 million gift in spring 2016 conditioned on renaming the law school in honor of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, some predicted gloom and doom, that in today’s environment naming a law school after an unreconstructed conservative jurist would drive away potential students. I didn’t believe it, but the proof in the pudding is in the eating, as they say.
Durham Report Won’t Be Ready By Election: AG Barr Tyler Durden
Fri, 10/09/2020 – 09:50
Attorney General Bill Bar has begun telling Republican leaders that the DOJ’s sweeping review into the ‘Russiagate’ investigation won’t produce results before the election, according to Axios.
Recall last month that Democrats were frothing at the mouth over the investigation, conducted by US Attorney John Durham – with the Democratic chairs of four House committees demanding an “emergency investigation” into the probe out of fear of an “October surprise.”
US Attorney John Durham
Now, it looks like that was much ado about nothing – as Barr “has made clear that they should not expect any further indictments or a comprehensive report before Nov. 3,” according to the report.
“This is the nightmare scenario. Essentially, the year and a half of arguably the number one issue for the Republican base is virtually meaningless if this doesn’t happen before the election,” a GOP aide told Axios.
And as Politico notes, “Senate Republicans running similar investigations were told of the intention within the last week — and it’s why they’ve been stepping up their releases of declassified documents.”
“BUT TRUMP AND HIS ALLIES were pushing for much more than that; they wanted DOJ to indict their Obama-era foes as they seek to rewrite the Russia investigation and turn it against Democrats. The president channeled his grievances by retweeting supporters demanding that Barr immediately arrest and jail Trump’s political enemies like Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. Late Wednesday afternoon, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said his office ‘has now provided almost 1,000 pages of materials to the Department of Justice in response to Mr. Durham’s document requests.’” –Politico
In recent weeks, we’ve learned that US intelligence officials forwarded an investigative referral to former FBI officials James Comey and Peter Strzok concerning allegations that Hillary Clinton approved a plan to smear then-candidate Donald Trump by tying him to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian hackers, according to information given to Sen. Lindsey Graham by the Director of National Intelligence.
Notably, former CIA Director John Brennan briefed then-president Obama on Hillary’s alleged approval.
BREAKING: According to handwritten notes, Brennan briefed Obama on Hillary’s approval of a proposal to attack Trump in the 2016 election by tying him to Putin pic.twitter.com/lnwTFwjoAf
As part of his investigation, Durham has interviewed Brennan and others, allegedly regarding the CIA’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind interference in the 2016 US election in order to help President Trump.
In an August 13th interview, Barr said he expects “significant” developments to come out of the investigation before the election. Days later, former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith pleaded guilty to fabricating evidence used to obtain surveillance warrants on former Trump adviser Carter Page. Clinesmith -who worked on both the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the Russia probe, was part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team, and interviewed Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos.
We can’t help but wonder if Durham’s report will look the same if Biden wins in November.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2GM3cOS Tyler Durden
The U.S. Supreme Court won’t intervene to stop abortion drugs from being remotely prescribed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Typically, abortion-inducing medications must be prescribed and dispensed in person and by a physician, per the rules of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). But in July, a federal district court temporarily suspended that requirement.
The Trump administration then challenged the decision, which had been written by Judge Theodore Chuang of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Chuang argued that requiring the (medically unnecessary) in-person visit during a pandemic and lockdown was likely unconstitutional, as it would “place a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking a medication abortion.”
In an October 8 response, the Supreme Court said it would not give its “views on the merits of the District Court’s order or injunction,” but it asked the District Court “to promptly consider a motion by the Government to dissolve, modify, or stay the injunction, including on the ground that relevant circumstances have changed.” It gave the district court 40 days to do so.
Trump says he plans to hold rallies despite lack of a negative COVID-19 test. On Thursday, President Donald Trump told Fox’s Sean Hannity he had not been tested to see if he was negative for the coronavirus since his positive diagnosis, saying “probably the test will be tomorrow.” He also announced plans to hold an in-person rally Saturday night in Florida, and perhaps one in Pennsylvania on Sunday. For the sake of everyone’s health (including the president’s), let’s hope this is just the illness talking.
Trump went on to suggest to Hannity that Joe Biden wanted to demolish U.S. buildings and replace them with “new buildings with tiny windows,” said California is in the midst of a water shortage because they were trying to conserve a “certain little tiny fish,” and accused the governor of Virginia of saying “we will execute the baby after the baby is born.” At several points in the interview, his voice gave out.
Trump—who was supposed to debate Biden on Saturday night, but would not agree for the event to be virtual—also told White House reporters on Thursday that he was still on steroid medication, contradicting his doctor’s claim that he had completed his course of treatment.
Biden will now do a solo televised town hall on Saturday.
QUICK HITS
• Trump-branded Medicare drug cards might be coming soon.
But seriously, this is scandalous. Pure vote buying with taxpayers’ money. Just the sort of thing Republicans have been accusing Democrats of doing for decades, except more openly crass. https://t.co/xu9j07aIrs
This is remarkable — a federal judge has ordered DOJ to confer with the WH about its official position on declassification of Russia docs in response to Trump’s tweets.
BuzzFeed is seeking access to the *entire* Mueller report based on Trump’s declassification order via tweet. pic.twitter.com/1MoLMZucQ2
Now, when a business gains attention for reports of racist conduct, Yelp will place a new Business Accused of Racist Behavior Alert on their Yelp page to inform users, along with a link to a news article where they can learn more. https://t.co/1K2bJ46uM8
The U.S. Supreme Court won’t intervene to stop abortion drugs from being remotely prescribed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Typically, abortion-inducing medications must be prescribed and dispensed in person and by a physician, per the rules of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). But in July, a federal district court temporarily suspended that requirement.
The Trump administration then challenged the decision, which had been written by Judge Theodore Chuang of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Chuang argued that requiring the (medically unnecessary) in-person visit during a pandemic and lockdown was likely unconstitutional, as it would “place a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking a medication abortion.”
In an October 8 response, the Supreme Court said it would not give its “views on the merits of the District Court’s order or injunction,” but it asked the District Court “to promptly consider a motion by the Government to dissolve, modify, or stay the injunction, including on the ground that relevant circumstances have changed.” It gave the district court 40 days to do so.
Trump says he plans to hold rallies despite lack of a negative COVID-19 test. On Thursday, President Donald Trump told Fox’s Sean Hannity he had not been tested to see if he was negative for the coronavirus since his positive diagnosis, saying “probably the test will be tomorrow.” He also announced plans to hold an in-person rally Saturday night in Florida, and perhaps one in Pennsylvania on Sunday. For the sake of everyone’s health (including the president’s), let’s hope this is just the illness talking.
Trump went on to suggest to Hannity that Joe Biden wanted to demolish U.S. buildings and replace them with “new buildings with tiny windows,” said California is in the midst of a water shortage because they were trying to conserve a “certain little tiny fish,” and accused the governor of Virginia of saying “we will execute the baby after the baby is born.” At several points in the interview, his voice gave out.
Trump—who was supposed to debate Biden on Saturday night, but would not agree for the event to be virtual—also told White House reporters on Thursday that he was still on steroid medication, contradicting his doctor’s claim that he had completed his course of treatment.
Biden will now do a solo televised town hall on Saturday.
QUICK HITS
• Trump-branded Medicare drug cards might be coming soon.
But seriously, this is scandalous. Pure vote buying with taxpayers’ money. Just the sort of thing Republicans have been accusing Democrats of doing for decades, except more openly crass. https://t.co/xu9j07aIrs
This is remarkable — a federal judge has ordered DOJ to confer with the WH about its official position on declassification of Russia docs in response to Trump’s tweets.
BuzzFeed is seeking access to the *entire* Mueller report based on Trump’s declassification order via tweet. pic.twitter.com/1MoLMZucQ2
Now, when a business gains attention for reports of racist conduct, Yelp will place a new Business Accused of Racist Behavior Alert on their Yelp page to inform users, along with a link to a news article where they can learn more. https://t.co/1K2bJ46uM8
Earlier in the week I warned of a lot more US election wackiness to come.
Well, Exhibit A: The debate commission decided the upcoming presidential debate on 15 October will be virtual rather than in person, logical given President Trump has Covid-19; and Trump refused to attend a virtual debate….perhaps understandable given the experiences many of us have had recently: “I can’t use Teams, do you have Skype? No? Can I use Zoom? It’s banned? Oh.” And can you imagine a debate which was all “Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?“ Not that live debates are seeing any answers to the key questions though. Even the Vice Presidential debate was actually akin to the 1970’s Two Ronnies’ Mastermind sketch:
Q: Your chosen subject last time was answering questions before you are asked. This time, you`ve chosen to answer the question before last, each time, is that correct?
A: Charlie Smithers.
Q: And your time starts now. What is palaeontology?
A: Yes, absolutely correct.
Q: What is the name of the directory that lists members of the British peerage?
A: A study of old fossils.
Q: Correct. Who are Len Murray and Sir Geoffrey Howe?
A: Burkes.
Q: Correct. What is the difference between a donkey and an ass?
A: One is a Trade Union leader, the other one is a member of the cabinet.
Q: Correct. Complete the quotation “To be or not to be…”
A: They are both the same.
Q: Correct. What is Bernard Manning famous for?
A: That is the question.
Q: Correct. Who is the current Archbishop of Canterbury?
A: He is a fat man who tells blue jokes.
Trump has now been given a clean medical bill of health to start public events again from Saturday, and is holding a rally…so is the rescheduled debate date of 22 October still virtual? Joe Biden is doing an ABC Town Hall on 15 October now; will Trump do one too? Might it be with Joe Rogan, as Twitter is urging? Confusion reigns. Clear and substantive debate does not.
Exhibit B: Nancy Pelosi will today push a bill to give the House, not the Cabinet, power to remove a president from office for medical reasons under the 25th amendment. A few quick comments:
1) Is this needed by a party up 14-16 points in the polls and three weeks away from a sweep of the White House, House, and Senate?;
2) It will not remove Trump from office. Even if passed in the Democrat-majority House, the bill requires passage in the Republican-majority Senate and a presidential signature – which won’t happen;
3) If it did, it would just put Mike Pence into office for a few days, after which Trump could self-certify himself fit to take over again, and over-ruling that would require a two thirds majority in both the House and the Senate;
4) The move is likely to fire up the base – but possibly the Republicans more as Trump is selling it as an “attempted coup”; and
5) That should be relative risk off for markets, if they can read the political tea leaves – but I am not sure they cocoa, as said in the UK in the era of the Two Ronnies.
Exhibit C: The shocking news of the arrest of anarchist/”extremist libertarians” who had planned to kidnap Michigan governor Whitmer and hold a “treason trial” over her virus-related restrictions. This should underline just how worrying downside scenarios are in this present crisis.
Exhibit D: We are apparently closer to a comprehensive fiscal stimulus after all(?), after the Democrats had rejected offers for a series of clean bills for airlines and households. Perhaps Mnuchin and Pelosi can find a window today to continue their push-me-pull-you as the Fed sits in the background with its head in its hands. Rosengren yesterday called this all “tragic”, and for once it’s hard to disagree with the Fed. “The Fed can ease financial conditions. We can’t replace lose income, though. That’s uniquely suited to fiscal policy.”
On which (lost income), more pubs are closing in the UK, as people old enough to remember the Two Ronnies sadly start to fill the hospitals again. The UK looks set to go back to shielding the vulnerable indoors again for months. Spain is also following suite with a 15-day emergency lockdown in Madrid, while a Spanish virologist warns of up to two years of mask-wearing ahead.
Meanwhile, also very important at the margin is that last night the US imposed sweeping sanctions on another 18 Iranian banks, which now effectively cuts Iran off from the global financial system completely. The US may be a house divided at home, but abroad it is still capable of major action: critics say this US masterplan will backfire, but the campaign of maximum pressure continues. Markets must not forget that there are other countries potentially heading for similar treatment for a variety of different reasons – some of their currencies are recognising it, while one is merrily going on its way as if that kind of thing can’t happen to it. Quite the Masterminds at work there answering the previous question of financial inflows rather than the current one of (more) potential sanctions.
Of course, whether you are long or short MXN or RUB, as just two examples, is now very dependent on what you think is going to happen on 3 November; which is why you have to keep looking at the election campaign in all its shambolic glory.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/34EJqgD Tyler Durden
