Several weeks after Former Puerto Rican Gov. Ricardo Rossello resigned following a mass protest movement dedicated to ousting him, the commonwealth’s Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that the oath of office given to his handpicked successor was unconstitutional, clearing the for Justice Secretary Wanda Vazquez Garced to become the island’s next governor.
The unanimous decision, according to CNN, found that last week’s swearing in of Pedro Pierluisi was unconstitutional because he hadn’t been confirmed as secretary of state (the island’s legislature was in recess and thus couldn’t vote to confirm him).
If Pierluisi had been confirmed, he would have been constitutionally next in line to become governor. But since he wasn’t, the line of succession goes next to Vazquez Garced.
Pedro Pierluisi
The ruling will take effect at 5 pm Wednesday to “ensure an orderly succession.”
The legal challenge was brought by Senate president Thomas Rivera Schatz, a rival of Rosselló’s who reportedly has his sights on winning the governorship one day.
The ruling is just one element of the infighting that has gripped Rosselló’s New Progressive Party. The ruling also raises the prospect of deepening political turmoil, since neither candidate is widely supported by Puerto Rico’s population.
Pierluisi, 60, is a corporate lawyer for O’Neill & Borges, a law firm in San Juan that represents the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico – the oversight body created by Congress in 2016 to help manage PR’s financial crisis. Pierluisi’s brother-in-law is the head of the board, known by the nickname la Junta on the island. He has also been targeted by the same protest movement that successfully ousted Rossello once a cache of lewd text messages sent between the island’s top officials surfaced earlier this year.
One of the more popular chants during the protest movement was “Ricky renuncia y llévate a la Junta” – that is, “Ricky resign and take the Junta with you.”
Pierluisi is a former resident commissioner for Puerto Rico – the island’s sole non-voting representative in Congress, serving from 2009-2017. He also previously served as secretary of justice under former Gov. Pedro Rosselló, Ricardo’s father.
In a statement released late last month, Vázquez Garced said she didn’t want to serve as governor.
Me reitero, no tengo interés en ocupar el puesto de Gobernadora. Es un dictamen Constitucional. Espero que el señor Gobernador identifique y someta un candidato para el puesto de Secretario/a de Estado antes del 2 de agosto y así se lo he manifestado.
— Lcda Wanda Vázquez Garced (@wandavazquezg) July 28, 2019
After the ruling, she released the following statement
Lyft reported better-than-expected revenues and losses for Q2, and boosted its forecast for the year, sending LYFT shares soaring, squeezing over 10% higher.
The ride-hailing company now projects at least $3.47 billion in sales for the year, compared with an average analyst estimate of $3.32 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“Lyft’s second quarter was marked by strong execution and important advances in our product and platform. This translated to record revenue driven by better than expected Active Rider growth and Revenue per Active Rider monetization,” said Logan Green, co-founder and chief executive officer of Lyft.
“We remain focused on reshaping transportation and we are pleased with the continued improvement in market conditions. This environment along with our execution is translating to strong revenue growth and sales and marketing efficiencies. As a result of this positive momentum, we anticipate 2019 losses to be better than previously expected and we are pleased to have updated our outlook.”
There was some silver-lining for the bears, as Bloomberg reports, when accounting for stock-based compensation, insurance costs and other expenses, Lyft’s net loss in the second quarter plummeted to $644.2 million, from $178.9 million a year earlier. Lyft reported a $1.14 billion net loss in the first quarter, which was largely due to costs associated with the initial public offering in March.
But then, the ride-hailing company dropped the bigger news that it would end its lock-up period early (to August 19th), allowing insiders to sell their shares earlier than expected.
Lyft’s lockup period was originally scheduled to end on September 24, the company said in a regulatory filing, but that date falls during the legally mandated quiet period ahead of its next earnings report.
“Therefore, in accordance with the lock-up agreements with the underwriters, the lock-up period will end at the open of trading on August 19, 2019, which is ten trading days prior to the commencement of the Company’s quarterly blackout period,” the filing says.
And the stock puked all its after-hours gains…
Beyond Lyft anyone?
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2MI10Zw Tyler Durden
This past week’s events have sent the economic world into a tailspin. Mainstream analysts were so sure of themselves heading into the July Federal Reserve meeting – The Fed was going to cut rates by a respectable margin, or they were going to cut incrementally and promise the markets through thinly veiled language that QE4 was well on the way. This was supposed to be a certainty.
They did not get what they were hoping for, but I don’t think many people understand why the Fed did what they did.
I have long held that the Fed has no intention of kicking the can on the economic crash that is currently underway, and that the Fed’s tightening cycle was a way to restrict liquidity into economic weakness in order to trigger the collapse of the “Everything Bubble”. I predicted over the past two years that the Fed would keep liquidity conditions tight until right before or right after an accelerated crash in fundamentals and markets. The crash in fundamentals has already begun in 2018 and 2019. A return to incremental crash conditions in stock markets has also now likely started.
While I believed the central bank would hold rates steady in July, Jerome Powell’s public statements after the Fed announcement of a minor .25 bps rate cut were even worse for market investors to hear and only support my original position. Powell’s assertion that the cut was merely a mid-year “adjustment” and not the beginning of an easing cycle horrified the investment world. Powell was telling markets quite bluntly that the punch bowl was not coming back anytime soon. On top of this, St. Louis Fed president James Bullard refused to commit to any further interest rate adjustments this year, citing a “wait and see” approach, which could take many months. Once again, Fed officials are making it clear that expectations for a stimulus bonanza are naive.
The consensus seems to be that the Fed has offered “too little too late”, and I would say that this is a completely deliberate action. Frankly, there was nothing holding the Fed back from a cut of .50 bps and lavishing the financial media with images of QE heaven. Trump says he wants it, the daytrading world is begging for it, and central bankers rarely shy away from more money printing. Unless, of course, the banking elites WANT a crash to happen in the near term, that is.
The Fed has basically admitted to America that yes, we are entering recession territory and that the recovery they have been promoting for the past several years is a fraud. At the same time, they told investors that they aren’t going to do jack about it.
The Fed followed its rate adjustment “disappointment” with a large dump of assets from its balance sheet – around $36 billion total in July. With no certainty of new stimulus in the near term, and no certainty of further rate cuts this year, stocks were pummeled, and this is a downtrend that is probably going to continue for the rest of the year (with pauses and dead cat bounces mixed in). Of course, the banking elites have a plan and they intend populists to help them, wittingly or unwittingly.
Cue Donald Trump: Like clockwork the Trump Administration jumped into the fray the VERY NEXT DAY to distract the media and everyone else from the Fed’s actions by initiating even more surprise tariffs on China. China has now responded with a complete freeze on imports of US agricultural products. In return the US Treasury labled China a currency manipulator. China is now threatening to devalue the Yuan, which will shake global equities and forex markets to the core. Keep in mind that all of this has happend in less than a week.
Suddenly, the blame for the latest stock plunge is being attributed to Trump rather than the Fed. How convenient for the central bankers…
Four thoughts on the latest developments:
1. Trump Bringing Down Stocks On Purpose To Beat The Fed Into Submission? This Is Crazytown Talk…
First, I have noticed a narrative going around that Trump has expanded the trade war in a game of chicken with the Fed. His intention? To drive stock markets down in order to force the Fed to cut rates and launch new QE measures. I’m sorry, but this theory makes little sense.
Everyone used to say that Trump was putting pressure on the Chinese in order to reduce the trade deficit and create more fair conditions for US goods overseas, as well as to stop technology theft. But since the trade deficit has only expanded since the trade war began, now they are saying that Trump is using the trade war as leverage against the Fed? Well, which one is it? If the Fed were to accommodate Trump with QE4, would he then end the trade war without accomplishing his stated goals? If the answer is “no”, then why would the Fed accommodate him at all?
Trump has fused the success of his administration to the success of the stock market. He has been so insistent on taking credit for every stock market rally that now there is no separating the two. I have been warning about this for well over a year; Trump has made himself the perfect scapegoat for a collapse of the Everything Bubble should the globalists and their international banking partners decide to start one.
If the battle between Trump and the Fed was actually legitimate rather than staged, then why would Trump want a crash in stock markets? Going into an election year, a crash in stocks would hurt him far more than it would hurt the central bank. The Fed would only need to wait a year for Trump to be buried in the 2020 election after the economic calamity is wrapped around his neck. The same goes for the Chinese. They would only have to wait a year as well for Trump to be unseated. The only incentive for Trump to cause a market panic is if he is intentionally creating a diversion for the central bankers. Trump’s cabinet, flush with banking elites and CFR members, is proof enough that this is a distinct possibility, except for the people who make the insane argument that Trump is “keeping his enemies close”.
Those that do not accept the reality the Trump is a pied piper are desperately trying to conjure some kind of logical rational for Trump’s actions as well as the Fed’s actions. They won’t find anything logical until they recognize that the Fed is deliberately triggering a crash and that Trump and conservatives (or populists) are meant to take the fall for it.
2. The Fed And The Elites Are Against The Trade War?
Second, Jerome Powell has insinuated in his recent statements that the ONLY reason the Fed was considering the bare bones rate cut in July was because of Trump’s trade war and the instability it might cause. Here we see the globalist narrative of the “evil populists” being built into the minds of the public. The assertion? That the crash in fundamentals is due to the trade war and the trade war alone. And, the trade war is a product of nationalism and populism, thus, all populists are culpable for the crash. The central banks that created the massive financial bubble? They get a pass.
Beyond this, there are also some rather ridiculous mainstream reports of members of Trump’s cabinet, including Mnuchin and Ross, advising him against the latest tariffs on China. Really? The same banking elites and CFR members that were all for the trade war six months ago are now against it? Again, this only makes sense if you look at it from the perspective that Trump and conservatives are supposed to take the blame for the crash while the bankers escape any scrutiny. They “tried to warn Trump” after all, but he wouldn’t listen. He “went rogue”. This is absurd theater designed for gullible people.
Trump doesn’t do anything without the approval of the elites in his cabinet. There is no internal battle. Everything Trump does is for the benefit of the role he is playing within the globalist script.
3. Trump Is Secretly Trying To Bring Down The US Economy To Defeat The Globalists In A Game Of 666D Chess?
This theory stems from a subset of people within the liberty movement that would give anything to believe that a hero on a white horse is coming to fight their battles against the globalists for them; but it’s simply not reality. Also, again, it makes no sense.
If Trump had detached his administration completely from the economic bubble from the very beginning and said “Hey, I don’t take credit for the stock market boom because it’s a fraud created by the Fed”, only then would the above theory have any potential. If Trump said to the Fed and to the American people, “I will try to MAGA whether the Fed raises rates or cuts rates, and when the economy inevitably crashes the American people should blame the central bank”, then perhaps we might consider him a heroic statesman. This is not the case.
Also, only people who do not understand how the globalist cabal functions believe that the Fed and other US based structures are at the top of the pyramid of control. The globalists are GLOBAL, the Fed is nothing more than a franchise and the dollar nothing more than a sacrificial mechanism that can be replaced. They have done it in the past and they can do it again. In fact, that is a plan they openly admit to.
As it stands, there will be unimaginable consequences for a crash within the US financial system, and many people will aim their hatred at Trump and conservatives for these developments. But by that time I expect that Trump will be long gone. Far from being a moment of triumph, it will be a moment that the global elites hope will bury sovereignty ideals for generations.
Bringing down the US economy will do nothing to stop the globalist plan for “new world order” centralization and a single cashless global currency system. The truth is, the collapse of the US economy is a necessary part of the economic reset that the globalists desire.
4. It’s Not Over Yet – The Next Stage Is A No Deal Brexit
As I predicted in March of this year, a No Deal Brexit event is the most likely outcome as it most serves the interests of globalists in pinning a crash in the US and parts of Europe on populists and sovereignty activists. With the exit of Theresa May and the rise of Boris Johnson, a ‘no deal’ panic is all but assured.
The EU banking system is on the verge of a Lehman moment. Deutsche Bank is in shambles. Italy’s banks are ticking time bombs. Many EU nations have national debts well above their annual GDP. It is only a matter of time before a crisis in the European Union occurs. Any person that is educated on the weaknesses of economic interdependency would tell you that this crash is the fault of no-borders globalists. But, with populists rising to a moderate extent in the UK, Germany, France, etc., the globalists don’t have to take the blame for the failure of their supranational experiment.
Actually, they can use the crash to their advantage by blaming nationalism, then using the ensuing public fear as a springboard to launch a GLOBAL supranational union, first economically, and then in the form of a single world government. Why else would the ECB be taking on Christine Lagarde, the most vocal proponent of the global economic reset, as chairman at this time? This is about engineered chaos. This is about a Hegelian problem-reaction-solution dynamic.
As already mentioned, the Fed has just admitted in an indirect way that there is no economic recovery, and that there will be no QE until it is too late to even stall a crisis for a short amount of time. Trump has just admitted that the trade war is not going to end in his first term as president and that it will only get much worse from here on. All that is left is for a No-Deal Brexit to send shockwaves throughout Europe, and maybe another shooting war (Venezuela or Iran?).
Understanding the deeper objectives of the globalists can help us to prevent them from succeeding. At the very least, it helps us to avoid being duped into helping them. At any rate, the rest of this year is surely going to lead to what they call “interesting times”.
* * *
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via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2YJbL4o Tyler Durden
It wasn’t all jazz hands and pronoun-policing: Last week’s Democratic Socialists of America convention also featured healthy and often heated debate over serious policy proposals—including a motion to convene an “anti-fascist working group,” which passed by a narrow margin of 521-493.
The proposal “institutionalizes the fight against fascism as an official DSA initiative” and would “help drive collaboration and resource sharing to support our antifascist organizing, because we must fight exploitation, white supremacy, and patriarchy,” according to its supporters.
Current Affairs‘ Nathan Robinson, a leftist writer who attended the convention, described the proposal as “deeply divisive.” He writes
proponents thought it was obvious that the DSA, as a group that was against fascism, should devote resources to figuring out how to stop fascism. Opponents believed it tied DSA too closely to the specific anti-fascist tendency known as Antifa, which could cause negative legal and safety consequences for DSA.
After it passed, Robinson spoke with one convention attendee who thought any association with antifa would make democratic-socialism a surefire loser in rural and conservative areas. Others thought supporting the work of anti-fascists was a no brainer.
As I explain in my new book, Panic Attack: Young Radicals in the Age of Trump, antifa is an illiberal organization that does not necessarily believe in extending rights to people whose goals run counter to theirs—the far-right, in particular. Antifa’s belief that violence can be justified if the target is an ideological opponent lends itself toward the kind of madness taking place in Portland, Oregon, where Quillette editor Andy Ngo was viciously assaulted for documenting antifa’s antics.
It’s understandable that democratic-socialists who believe in using the democratic process to achieve social change would not want to be tied to antifa. Too bad they lost this argument.
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It wasn’t all jazz hands and pronoun-policing: Last week’s Democratic Socialists of America convention also featured healthy and often heated debate over serious policy proposals—including a motion to convene an “anti-fascist working group,” which passed by a narrow margin of 521-493.
The proposal “institutionalizes the fight against fascism as an official DSA initiative” and would “help drive collaboration and resource sharing to support our antifascist organizing, because we must fight exploitation, white supremacy, and patriarchy,” according to its supporters.
Current Affairs‘ Nathan Robinson, a leftist writer who attended the convention, described the proposal as “deeply divisive.” He writes
proponents thought it was obvious that the DSA, as a group that was against fascism, should devote resources to figuring out how to stop fascism. Opponents believed it tied DSA too closely to the specific anti-fascist tendency known as Antifa, which could cause negative legal and safety consequences for DSA.
After it passed, Robinson spoke with one convention attendee who thought any association with antifa would make democratic-socialism a surefire loser in rural and conservative areas. Others thought supporting the work of anti-fascists was a no brainer.
As I explain in my new book, Panic Attack: Young Radicals in the Age of Trump, antifa is an illiberal organization that does not necessarily believe in extending rights to people whose goals run counter to theirs—the far-right, in particular. Antifa’s belief that violence can be justified if the target is an ideological opponent lends itself toward the kind of madness taking place in Portland, Oregon, where Quillette editor Andy Ngo was viciously assaulted for documenting antifa’s antics.
It’s understandable that democratic-socialists who believe in using the democratic process to achieve social change would not want to be tied to antifa. Too bad they lost this argument.
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A manic day in stocks and bonds today with an early collapse panic-bid back to unchanged as precious metals soar and commodities crash.
The extreme vol prompted a warning from Guy Haselmann, chief executive officer of FETI Group LLC and Scotiabank’s former head of capital market strategy, who said global markets are moving closer to a Minsky moment, or a sudden collapse of asset prices. FETI is a Summit, New Jersey-based company that works with portfolio managers.
“An extended period of low volatility like we have seen in recent years significantly increases leverage and risk-seeking behavior,” he said in an interview.
“When volatility turns like it has, people often need to sell assets to meet margin calls. That’s what makes this so combustible”
“Just one more waffer-thin quantitative easing…?” What could go wrong?
A weaker than expected (though fractionally stronger than 7) Fix by the PBOC unleashed hell globally once again overnight…
But, thanks to rate-cuts from New Zealand, Thailand, and India combined with Chicago Fed President Evans comments suggesting more easing and QE4EVA prompted some PPT-sponsored panic-bids in US equities.
“…you could take the view that the risks now have gone up, and as we think we’re going to get closer to the zero lower bound with higher probability, that would also call for more accommodation.”
Nevertheless, investor sentiment has collapsed from euphoric greed just a month ago to “extreme fear” …
In the US, markets were mixed with Nasdaq best as desperate panic bids appeared to lift stocks back to unch (and to top the farce off a super-spike at the close)…
Dow futures ramped 600 points off the overnight lows back into the green and tagged 26k before limping back lower…
VIX was smashed back to a 19 handle…
China stocks drifted lower overnight, closing at the lows…
European stocks (German IP collapse) ended higher as the US open sparked buying off the lows…
Stocks and bonds decoupled overnight, with stocks tumbling back to bonds reality, but then the US cash open sparked stock-buying, bond-selling all day…
Treasury yields tumbled again overnight but ramped back higher after Europe closed…ending the day practically unchanged
30Y Yield plunged to near record lows…
And before we leave bond-land – We bet you wish you bought more Austrian Century Bonds…
The Dollar roundtripped like everything else to end unch…
Cryptos were mixed to flat today…
As Bitcoin once again tested $12k and rejected it…
PMs dramatically outperformed every other asset class today..
Gold surged to new six-year highs…
Silver soared above $17…
Silver dramatically outperforming gold on the day…
Oil prices collapsed, as a double-whammy of global demand concerns and a surprise crude build sent WTI prices back to a $51 handle…BUT then late in the day, a Saudi headline promising to do whatever it takes to halt oil price drop sparked a surge back above $52…
Finally, with $15 trillion (and rising tonight) in negative-vielding debt, bullion and bitcoin appear the preferred safe haven against policy-maker panic…
Still, global bonds and stocks remain massively decoupled…
So can you guess who will be right in the end?
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2KCW6ua Tyler Durden
A Miami beach-based personal trainer has claimed in a lawsuit that he was falsely accused of kidnapping in order to cover up an affair he was having with Zhanna Zervos, the wife of Jefferies Financial Group’s chief market strategist, David Zervos. (Read the amended complaint below)
David and Zhanna Zervos during presumably better times
“This is an action for money damages to redress the deprivation by the defendant of rights secured to the plaintiff to be free from false arrest and unlawful detention, undue bodily restraint, and the denial of substantive due process rights afforded by the 4th and 14th amendment to the United States constitution,” states an affidavit filed Monday by the trainer, Darnell Davis.
The 43-year-old Davis was charged in December 2018 with strangulation, third-degree assault and unlawful restraint in Greenwich — all of which were later dismissed.
However, Davis’ lawyer, Robert Berke, said that his client in the meantime spent eight days in a North Carolina jail and 27 hours in prison here until he was released.
According to a press release at the time, Davis was accused of kidnapping and assaulting Zhanna Zervos in her home on Orchard Hill Lane in Greenwich on Aug. 15, 2018. But the lawsuit states that, in fact, on that day Davis was traveling around Europe with Zhanna Zervos and having a sexual affair with her. –CT Insider
Davis claims that last September, he and Zhanna flew to Greece, Barcelona and then Marrakech Morocco for his birthday (and that Zervos not only paid for everything, but assaulted him in Spain).
David Zervos discovered the affair discovering pictures on Instagram, according to the lawsuit, after which he threatened divorce.
Davis also alleges that Greenwich Police Department Officer Ryan Carino worked with the Zervos’s to fabricate the criminal allegations, stating that the policeman “drafted his arrest warrant affidavit with reckless disregard for the truth.” According to Greenwich Police, “Officer Carino has not been served.”
Davis alleges that she falsely claimed he physically forced her to spend his birthday with him, and that her claims were filed with Greenwich Police Department’s Ryan Carino days before they spent a weekend in Miami together. The suit accuses Carino of failing to properly investigate her claims. Davis was arrested in North Carolina in November, but charges against him were dropped, according to the complaint. -Bloomberg
“It’s absolutely bizarre that it’s public, and it’s not the truth,” Zhanna Zervos said in a statement to Bloomberg, adding “I love my husband.”
As Bloomberg also points out, this isn’t the first time a Jefferies executive’s marital issues have made headlines. “Five years ago, Sage Kelly was the firm’s head of health-care banking when his wife Christina accused him in court filings of bingeing on cocaine with clients and colleagues,” according to the report.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2KvMC3W Tyler Durden
A crystalline example of weird progressive ideology
The campus pronoun wars are by now a familiar meme, but it is still worth reflecting on them simply because of how weird they are. A full culture has sprung up around alternative (i.e. made-up) pronouns:
Individuals who have decided that, contra the facts of nature, they are something other than male or female and have also decided that they must be called something other than “he” or “she.”
The proliferation of pronouns is something to behold: In some circles the number of pronouns run as high as at least eight.
A school official at American University recently suggested that this bizarre sub-culture should in effect become mandatory on that campus, a proposal that would force people to adhere to the belief that men and women can effectively shed their genetically hardwired identities in favor of something else. This idea has been floated at otheruniversities.
A few years ago such a plan might have seemed like a funny joke, the sort of thing you could laugh about but that would never actually come to pass. Several years from now it will probably be commonplace.
Here are the facts: The pronouns “he” and “she” refer to certain inarguable, immutable categories–male and female–and, barring rare genetic abnormalities, every single human being on earth falls into one or the other. Gendered pronouns are simply the way we use language to reflect reality.
Terms like “zirself” and “eself” are not reflective of that reality–they are instead corruptions of it, made in service to an incoherent and ultimately destructive ideology. We should resist this trend; it does nobody any good, least of all the people who believe themselves to exist outside the actualities of human biology.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2yGzTGe Tyler Durden
Late Monday night, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D–Texas) tweeted out a graphic featuring the names of San Antonio residents in his district who had donated the legal maximum to the re-election campaign of President Donald Trump.
“Sad to see so many San Antonians as 2019 maximum donors to Donald Trump,” said Castro in a tweet that also called out specific businesses. “Their contributions are fueling a campaign of hate that labels Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders.'”
Sad to see so many San Antonians as 2019 maximum donors to Donald Trump — the owner of @BillMillerBarBQ, owner of the @HistoricPearl, realtor Phyllis Browning, etc.
Their contributions are fueling a campaign of hate that labels Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders.’ pic.twitter.com/YT85IBF19u
“Targeting and harassing Americans because of their political beliefs is shameful and dangerous,” said House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R–Calif.) in a Twitter response that also included a dig at the flagging presidential campaign of Castro’s twin brother Julian.
Targeting and harassing Americans because of their political beliefs is shameful and dangerous. What happened to “when they go low, we go high?” Or does that no longer matter when your brother is polling at 1%? Americans deserve better. https://t.co/PiFcifpxc1
Castro himself is not backing down, arguing that he did not create the graphic (it reportedly originated from an activist group) and that this is all public information anyway.
“No one was targeted or harassed in my post. You know that. All that info is routinely published,” he said in response to McCarthy.
No one was targeted or harassed in my post. You know that. All that info is routinely published.
You’re trying to distract from the racism that has overtaken the GOP and the fact that President Trump spends donor money on thousands of ads about Hispanics “invading” America. 1/2 https://t.co/TwUDC4m5tO
There is a difference, however, between campaign finance information being available and a member of Congress broadcasting that information on social media.
Castro also appears to be trying to draw a link between donors to Trump’s campaign and the recent El Paso shooting, the perpetrator of which wrote a manifesto denouncing immigrants as “invaders.” After the conservative backlash to his tweet, Castro retweeted a couple of supporters who made this link explicit.
FYI: The people upset with @Castro4Congress for posting public records about Trump supporters are REALLY trying their best to make people forget about the racist shooter in El Paso because they want people to forget that THEY support the targeting of minorities.
Transparency advocates argue that by allowing the public to see who donates how much to which campaign committees and ballot initiatives, voters can better understand the motivations and incentives of officeholders and the relationships between special interests and the government. The stated justification of campaign finance transparency, in other words, is not to publicly shame private individuals for their political preferences.
And yet this isn’t the first time that campaign contribution data has been used to punish private individuals for their political donations. Former Mozilla Firefox CEO Brendan Eich was forced to resign in 2014 after it was revealed that he gave $1,000 in support of a 2008 ballot initiative to ban gay marriage in California.
The ability to punish people for supporting or opposing particular political campaigns is one reason a lot of libertarians oppose making political donations public.
“Given all the death threats, risks to family members, calls for people to be fired, and personal relationships strained by politics, the value of political anonymity is higher today than at any time since the McCarthy era,” wrote Brad Smith of the Institute for Free Speech, a group that opposes many disclosure requirements, in an April National Review article. “Requiring people to choose between participation in the political process and a private personal life will lead to a situation where the only ideas in the public square will be those deemed acceptable by the prevailing political majority.”
I personally think making large-dollar donations public is a net benefit, but that’s an issue reasonable people can reasonably disagree on.
And while reasonable people may not be able to reasonably disagree on Trump, Castro’s tweet is just deepening the divide. He has given every person he singled out even more reason to support Castro’s opponents, particularly since the nature of social media virality almost guarantees each of those individuals has received or will receive unpleasant messages thanks to Castro’s spotlight. Whatever divisions he was hoping to fix, he has only deepened.
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Late Monday night, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D–Texas) tweeted out a graphic featuring the names of San Antonio residents in his district who had donated the legal maximum to the re-election campaign of President Donald Trump.
“Sad to see so many San Antonians as 2019 maximum donors to Donald Trump,” said Castro in a tweet that also called out specific businesses. “Their contributions are fueling a campaign of hate that labels Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders.'”
Sad to see so many San Antonians as 2019 maximum donors to Donald Trump — the owner of @BillMillerBarBQ, owner of the @HistoricPearl, realtor Phyllis Browning, etc.
Their contributions are fueling a campaign of hate that labels Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders.’ pic.twitter.com/YT85IBF19u
“Targeting and harassing Americans because of their political beliefs is shameful and dangerous,” said House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R–Calif.) in a Twitter response that also included a dig at the flagging presidential campaign of Castro’s twin brother Julian.
Targeting and harassing Americans because of their political beliefs is shameful and dangerous. What happened to “when they go low, we go high?” Or does that no longer matter when your brother is polling at 1%? Americans deserve better. https://t.co/PiFcifpxc1
Castro himself is not backing down, arguing that he did not create the graphic (it reportedly originated from an activist group) and that this is all public information anyway.
“No one was targeted or harassed in my post. You know that. All that info is routinely published,” he said in response to McCarthy.
No one was targeted or harassed in my post. You know that. All that info is routinely published.
You’re trying to distract from the racism that has overtaken the GOP and the fact that President Trump spends donor money on thousands of ads about Hispanics “invading” America. 1/2 https://t.co/TwUDC4m5tO
There is a difference, however, between campaign finance information being available and a member of Congress broadcasting that information on social media.
Castro also appears to be trying to draw a link between donors to Trump’s campaign and the recent El Paso shooting, the perpetrator of which wrote a manifesto denouncing immigrants as “invaders.” After the conservative backlash to his tweet, Castro retweeted a couple of supporters who made this link explicit.
FYI: The people upset with @Castro4Congress for posting public records about Trump supporters are REALLY trying their best to make people forget about the racist shooter in El Paso because they want people to forget that THEY support the targeting of minorities.
Transparency advocates argue that by allowing the public to see who donates how much to which campaign committees and ballot initiatives, voters can better understand the motivations and incentives of officeholders and the relationships between special interests and the government. The stated justification of campaign finance transparency, in other words, is not to publicly shame private individuals for their political preferences.
And yet this isn’t the first time that campaign contribution data has been used to punish private individuals for their political donations. Former Mozilla Firefox CEO Brendan Eich was forced to resign in 2014 after it was revealed that he gave $1,000 in support of a 2008 ballot initiative to ban gay marriage in California.
The ability to punish people for supporting or opposing particular political campaigns is one reason a lot of libertarians oppose making political donations public.
“Given all the death threats, risks to family members, calls for people to be fired, and personal relationships strained by politics, the value of political anonymity is higher today than at any time since the McCarthy era,” wrote Brad Smith of the Institute for Free Speech, a group that opposes many disclosure requirements, in an April National Review article. “Requiring people to choose between participation in the political process and a private personal life will lead to a situation where the only ideas in the public square will be those deemed acceptable by the prevailing political majority.”
I personally think making large-dollar donations public is a net benefit, but that’s an issue reasonable people can reasonably disagree on.
And while reasonable people may not be able to reasonably disagree on Trump, Castro’s tweet is just deepening the divide. He has given every person he singled out even more reason to support Castro’s opponents, particularly since the nature of social media virality almost guarantees each of those individuals has received or will receive unpleasant messages thanks to Castro’s spotlight. Whatever divisions he was hoping to fix, he has only deepened.
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