Expanding on his recent threads discussing the somewhat ominous endgame of the US-China tensions, Bridgewater CEO Ray Dalio explains in his latest note that this conflict is much more extensive than a “trade war.”
It is an ideological conflict of comparable powers in a small world.
It’s about:
1) China emerging to challenge the power of the U.S. in many areas and
2) these two countries having two different approaches to life—one that’s top down and one that’s bottom up.
These conflicts extend to American and Chinese businesses, technologies, capital markets, influences over other countries, militaries, ideologies, and most everything else. They are made especially difficult because the Chinese, the Americans, and those who deal with them both are now so interdependent, with the interdependencies being both vulnerabilities of each and weapons that each can use to hurt the other.
As someone in these negotiations wisely said, history shows that countries in conflict have seen that such conflicts can easily slip beyond their control and become terrible wars that all parties, including the leaders who got their countries into them, deeply regretted, so the parties in the negotiations should be careful that that doesn’t happen. Right now we are seeing brinksmanship negotiations, so it is a risky time.
It is widely believed that time is on China’s side so that it is in the U.S. interest to have any fight that’s going to occur happen earlier and in China’s interest to have it later. This is leading to the Trump administration’s pushing the limits. Worth keeping in mind is how Chinese and Americans fight wars differently (the Chinese more strategically by gaining relative strength and the Americans more by exchanging blows until one side gives up). While all of this enters into my thinking, what is now most important at this time of brinksmanship is seeing what actually happens next – i.e. whether we see the “tariff war” slip into an “export embargo war” intended to shut parts of the other country down.
As explained last week in the “Beyond the Trade War: The Huawei Step,” the U.S. shutting off supplies to Huawei appears to be a step forward by the United States in weaponizing export controls.
Notably, soon after that announcement, President Xi visited the largest rare metals mine in China and a top planning organization suggested that China might reciprocate such moves by the U.S. by not selling rare metals to the U.S. Refined rare metals are a critical import that American companies don’t produce and need to get from China to produce many needed products in the U.S. such as mobile phones, magnets, night vision glasses, gyroscopes in jets, LED lights, glass, and ceramics.
I would view an increasing of export controls that are intended to shut down key areas as a major escalation of the “war.”
Building independence will happen regardless of what is negotiated because both sides have learned that they need to be protected against being squeezed in the years of increasing tensions ahead. That is a big deal because it is a major, multi-year undertaking that will take resources away from other development. Uncertainties over tariffs and future developments are causing many businesses who produce in China to export to the U.S. (or who might be affected by the fight between the U.S. and China) to rethink whether they would be better off producing in another country. These forces will be major disruptors to the specific people, companies, and governments affected by them.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2KivRuq Tyler Durden
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) claimed on Wednesday that Facebook’s refusal to remove an altered video of her proves that company was actively contributing to Kremlin interference in the 2016 US election.
Facebook announced this week its refusal to remove a video of Pelosi which was intentionally slowed down to make her sound drunk.
Facebook told CNN that they wouldn’t remove the manipulated video because they don’t have a policy that content must be accurate. Facebook did, however, downgrade the video’s status – slowing it’s spread after fact-check partner LeadStories published an opinion.
Of note, this is a completelydifferent video than the edited montage of Pelosi stammering her way through a news conference which President Trump tweeted last Friday.
In comments to KQED News, Pelosi slammed Facebook for refusing to remove the ‘drunk’ video of her.
“We have said all along, poor Facebook, they were unwittingly exploited by the Russians. I think wittingly, because right now they are putting up something that they know is false. I think it’s wrong,” she said. “I can take it … But [Facebook is] lying to the public,” said Pelosi, adding “I think they have proven — by not taking down something they know is false — that they were willing enablers of the Russian interference in our election.“
Who knew President Trump and Mark Zuckerberg were Kremlin agents!
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2JL5bDq Tyler Durden
Though stocks finished off their lows on Wednesday, it’s obvious that investors weren’t happy with Robert Mueller’s remarks. The main benchmarks sunk after Mueller’s statement, as investors perceptively assessed that the special counsel was effectively exhorting Congress to screw its courage to the sticking post and move ahead with impeachment.
With the prospects for impeachment looking greater than ever (even as Pelosi and Schumer continue to resist), it’s easy to see how this could further destabilize markets.
But offering a novel connection between two of the most dominant political narratives of the year, one analyst argued that Mueller’s statement might make it more difficult for the White House to negotiate an amicable resolution to the trade fight while also convincing China to harden its stance.
In comments emailed to Bloomberg News on Wednesday, Veda Partners’ Director of Economic Policy Henrietta Treyz claimed that Mueller’s remarks may have hardened China’s stance in the trade negotiations by providing “at least a scant amount of optimism that Trump could be out of office soon”…making Beijing “less likely to capitulate, if they were planning to.”
“The positions of both sides just got a little bit more entrenched,” said Treyz, who believes the market’s midday dip was inspired by Mueller’s comments.
Mueller’s comments likely made it harder for Trump to back down by giving him “an extra story line” beyond the investigations. Trump’s voters would “likely see him as weak if he backed down now.”
Treyz added that the trade war is the “most pressing thing” for markets right now, adding that she expects more selling pressure ahead because investors haven’t fully priced in the third and fourth tranche escalations that could follow over the summer.
While Treyz makes a compelling argument for why the impeachment scrutiny might force Trump to stay the course on trade, if stocks continue to erase more of their Q1 gains and move closer to the 2,300-2,400 level, the pressure on the White House to capitulate might soon become unbearable.
War is not a foregone conclusion or a national necessity. Each successive occupant of the White House only needs you to believe that in order to centralize the power of an increasingly imperial presidency, stifle dissent, and chip away at what remains of civil liberties.
Whenever I mention direct democracy, a certain segment of the population always comes back with a very negative knee-jerk reaction. Since this response tends to center around several concerns, today’s post will dig into them and explain how such pitfalls can be structurally addressed.
Minority Protection
The first thing that worries people is a fear there will be no protections for minority populations within such a system. Take the U.S. for example, where approximately 80% of the population lives in urban areas and only 20% in rural. If we moved to a system where direct popular vote played a meaningful role in deciding the majority of issues, rural populations would lose out every single time. It would end up being an oppressive system for people who live in less populated areas and would tear up the U.S. even faster than is happening now.
If you only tuned into US politics within the last couple of years this will come as a major surprise, but believe it or not there was once a time when both major parties weren’t constantly claiming that imminent revelations are about to completely destroy the other party any minute now. Used to be they’d just focus on beating each other in elections and making each other look bad with smears and sex scandals; now in the age of Trump they’re both always insisting that some huge, earth-shattering revelation is right around the corner that will see the leaders of the other party dragged off in chains forever.
Enthusiastic Trump supporters have been talking a lot lately about the president’s decision to give Attorney General Bill Barr the authority to declassify information regarding the shady origins of the discredited Russiagate hoax, including potentially illicit means used to secure a surveillance warrant on Trump campaign staff. For days online chatter from Trump’s base has been amping up for a huge, cataclysmic bombshell in the same language Russiagaters used to use back before Robert Mueller pissed in their Wheaties.
“There is information coming that will curl your hair,” Congressman Mark Meadows told Sean Hannity on Fox News. “I can tell you that the reason why it is so visceral — the response from the Democrats is so visceral right now — is because they know, they’ve seen documents. Adam Schiff has seen documents that he knows will actually put the finger pointing back at him and his Democrat colleagues, not the president of the United States.”
“There is some information in these transcripts that I think has the potential to be a game changer, if it’s ever made public,” former Republican congressman Trey Gowdy told Fox News, referring to FBI transcripts of recorded interactions with surveilled individuals.
“Sources tell me there will be bombshells [of] information,”tweeted Fox News contributor Sara A Carter of the coming decassifications.
.@RepMarkMeadows Says ‘Declassification is right around the corner’ I certainly hope so because the American people deserve the truth – all of it. Sources tell me there will be bombshells if information. | https://t.co/0EpNJ2GZfG
Democrats and Democrat-aligned media are responding with similarly apocalyptic language, playing right along with the same WWE script.
“While Trump stonewalls the public from learning the truth about his obstruction of justice, Trump and Barr conspire to weaponize law enforcement and classified information against their political enemies,” griped congressman, Russiagater and flamboyant drama queen Adam Schiff, adding, “The coverup has entered a new and dangerous phase. This is un-American.”
“President Trump’s order allowing Attorney General William P. Barr to declassify any intelligence that led to the Russia investigation sets up a potential confrontation with the C.I.A.,” the New York Timeswarns.
“National security veterans fear a declassification order could trigger resignations and threaten the CIA’s ability to conduct its core business — managing secret intelligence and sources,” frets Politico.
“William Barr’s New Authority to Declassify Anything He Wants Is a Threat to National Security,” blares a headline from Slate.
New from me: Trump’s declassification order has set up a showdown between DOJ and the intelligence community that could trigger resignations and threaten the CIA’s ability to conduct its core business — managing secret intelligence and sources. https://t.co/iUFVCeWRe0
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) May 25, 2019
Both sides are wrong and ridiculous. Democrats are wrong and ridiculous for claiming a tiny bit of government transparency is dangerous, and Republicans are wrong and ridiculous to claim that game-changing bombshell revelations are going to be brought to the light by these declassifications. Just like with the Mueller report and the “bigger than Watergate” Nunes memo before it, there may be some interesting revelations, but the swamp of DC corruption will march on completely uninterrupted.
Readers keep asking me to weigh in on this whole declassification controversy, but really I have no response to the whole thing apart from boredom and a slight flinch whenever I think about Adam Schiff’s bug-eyed stare. There’s just not much going to come of it.
This is not to suggest that the intelligence communities of the US and its allies weren’t up to some extremely sleazy shenanigans in planting the seeds of the Russiagate insanity which monopolized US political attention for over two years, and it’s not to suggest that those shenanigans couldn’t be interpreted as crimes. Abuse of government surveillance and inflicting a malignant psyop on public consciousness are extremely egregious offenses and should indeed be punished. And, in a sane world, they would be.
But we do not live in such a world. We live in a world where partisan divides are for show only and the powerful protect each other from ever being held to account. Having the swamp of Trump’s Justice Department investigate the swamp of Obama’s intelligence community isn’t going to lead anywhere. Swamp creature Bill “Iran-Contra coverup” Barr isn’t going to be draining the swamp any more than swamp creature Robert “Saddam has WMDs” Mueller. The swamp cannot be used to drain itself.
Dems and allied pundits have been screaming for years that we must know every last detail about “Russian interference” in 2016, and have launched multiple exhaustive investigations pursuant to this. But now they scream that we MUST NOT know about CIA/FBI conduct in 2016. Very odd
It is possible that some important information will make its way to public view, like Russiagate’s roots in UK intelligence, for example. But no powerful people in the US or its allied governments will suffer any meaningful consequences for any offenses exposed, and no significant changes in government policy or behavior will take place. I fully support declassifying everything Trump wants declassified (as well as the rest of the 99 percent of classified government information which is only hidden from public view out of convenience for the powerful), but the most significant thing that can possibly come of it is a slightly better-informed populace and some political damage to the Democrats in 2020.
The only people who believe these inquiries will help fix America’s problems are those who believe there are aspects of the DC power structure which are not immersed in swamp. Trump supporters believe the Trump administration is virtuous, so they believe the Justice Department is preparing to hold powerful manipulators to legal accountability rather than cover for them and treat them with kid gloves. Democrats believed that a former FBI Director and George W Bush crony was going to bring the Executive Branch of the US government to its knees, because they thought that swamp monster was in some way separable from the swamp. It doesn’t work that way, cupcake.
If people want to rid their government of the swamp of corruption, they’re going to have to do it themselves. No political insider is going to rise to the occasion and do it for you. They can’t. You can’t drain the swamp when you’re made of swamp, any more than you can wash yourself clean with a turd-soaked loofah.
The only upheaval that is worth buying stock in is the kind which moves from the bottom up. If you really want change, it’s not going to come from the US president or any longtime government insider. It’s going to come from real people looking to each other and agreeing to say that enough is enough, and use the power of their numbers to flush the corrupt power structure down the toilet where it belongs. It will mean ceasing to imbue the fake partisan divide with the power of belief, and it will mean unplugging from official authorized narratives about what’s going on in the world and circulating our own narratives instead.
All political analysis which favors either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party is inherently worthless, because both parties are made of swamp and exist in service of the swamp. If you can’t see that the entire system is one unified block of corruption and that ordinary people need to come together and unite against it, then you really don’t understand what you’re looking at.
* * *
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Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Wednesday remarks have put new pressure on House Democrats to launch impeachment proceedings against President Trump – an option that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly warned would be a trap going into the 2020 election due to the fact that the GOP-held Senate would “vindicate” Trump even if the House impeached.
Mueller, who officially resigned from the DOJ to return to private life – said that he wouldn’t appear before Congress to discuss the findings from the Justice Department’s multi-year, $25 million investigations into the 2016 election.
“I hope and expect that this will be the only time I will speak to you about this matter,” Mueller told reporters in Washington, adding “the report is my testimony” and “I would not provide information beyond that which is already public.”
Of note, Mueller said that he didn’t question Attorney General William Barr’s handling and release of the Special Counsel’s report, contradicting statements by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and turncoat Republican Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) – the latter of whom said Barr “deliberately misrepresented key aspects.”
Robert Mueller specifically stated he had no questions about AG Barr’s handling of releasing the OSC Report – this proves Pelosi and Amash lied about Barr
By specifically pointing out that the special counsel didn’t levy charges at Trump due to longstanding DOJ policy not to prosecute a sitting president, Mueller effectively laid out a path to impeachment for Democrats to follow.
“It wasn’t lack of evidence. It was DOJ policy” tweeted Rep. Val Demings (R-FL).
Special Counsel Robert Mueller just said that “charging the president with a crime was not an option we could consider” under DOJ policy.
It wasn’t lack of evidence. It was DOJ policy.
He said that this “deserves the attention of every American.” He’s right. Congress must act.
Mueller’s refusal to testify also puts House Democrats in a tough spot. With a growing number of Democratic lawmakers pushing for leadership to launch impeachment proceedings, Pelosi and House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York are now left to decide whether Mueller gave them enough ammunition to move forward without his testimony, which Pelosi said would have been useful.
Pelosi on Mueller testimony: “Yes, I think it would be useful for him to testify before Congress,”
Rep. Eric Swalwell told CNN that “Seeing is believing…hearing Bob Mueller raise his right hand, testify to Congress, seeing the news capture that, that would be quite illuminating for most Americans.” In other words, Mueller’s refusal to testify will now be blamed for robbing Democrats of their opportunity to impeach, if they choose not to move forward with that option.
House Judiciary Committee member Rep. Eric Swalwell on hearing Mueller’s testimony: “Seeing is believing…hearing Bob Mueller raise his right hand, testify to Congress, seeing the news capture that, that would be quite illuminating for most Americans” https://t.co/LGa45W2pePpic.twitter.com/Yac6o7Tmqt
In Wednesday comments, Nadler was far more confrontational than Pelosi – saying that “All options are on the table and nothing should be ruled out” in terms of impeachment, adding “not event the president of the United States is above the law.”
Staging a press conference Wednesday afternoon in New York, Nadler was similarly vague, sidestepping questions about whether he will compel Mueller’s testimony with a congressional subpoena.
“Mr. Mueller told us a lot of what we need to hear today,” Nadler said.
Before Mueller’s remarks, at least 37 House Democrats were on record backing the launch of an impeachment inquiry into Trump. Afterward, Reps. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) and Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) added their names to the list, though most Democratic lawmakers responded by holding firm to Pelosi’s favored approach of continuing with investigations without making the leap to impeachment. –The Hill
“We must remain committed to aggressively investigating the president’s wrongdoing and we will not rest until the American people have answers,” insisted Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA), vice chairwoman of the Democratic Caucus – who apparently presumes guilt until proven innocent.
So Democrats are left with a special counsel who won’t testify, and who just gave the left plenty of ammunition to impeach since Mueller implied that Trump may have committed crimes. And if they do launch impeachment proceedings, they might reach the Senate just in time for Trump to be vindicated in the court of public opinion.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2HK52xK Tyler Durden
The mainstream media has been using the term “uncharted territory” to describe the unusual tornado outbreaks that have been happening in the middle of the country, but I don’t think that truly captures the historic nature of what we are witnessing. Over the last 30 days, there have been more than 500 tornadoes in the United States. That is not normal. In fact, Tuesday was the 12th day in a row when at least eight tornadoes were spawned, and that is a new all-time record. Community after community in the Midwest now looks like a “war zone”, and billions upon billions of dollars of damage has already been done. But this crisis is far from over, because forecasters are telling us that more powerful storms will roar through the middle of the country on Wednesday.
Since 1998, there has been an average of 279 tornadoes during the month of May. So the fact that we have had more than 500 over the last 30 days means that we are running way, way above normal…
In the last week alone, the authorities have linked tornadoes to at least seven deaths and scores of injuries. Federal government weather forecasters logged preliminary reports of more than 500 tornadoes in a 30-day period — a rare figure, if the reports are ultimately verified — after the start of the year proved mercifully quiet.
The barrage continued Tuesday night, as towns and cities across the Midwest took shelter from powerful storms. Tornadoes carved a line of devastation from eastern Kansas through Missouri, ripping trees and power lines in Lawrence, Kan., southwest of Kansas City, and pulverizing houses in nearby Linwood.
According to the National Weather Service, there were more than 50 tornadoesover Memorial Day weekend alone, and at this point there have been at least 8 tornadoes in the U.S. for 12 consecutive days…
Tuesday was the 12th consecutive day with at least eight tornado reports, breaking the record, according to Dr. Marsh. The storms have drawn their fuel from two sources: a high-pressure area that pulled the Gulf of Mexico’s warm, moist air into the central United States, where it combined with the effects of a trough trapped over the Rockies, which included strong winds.
The devastation that has been left behind by these storms has been immense. When Dayton assistant fire chief Nicholas Hosford appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America”, he told viewers that in his city there are “homes flattened, entire apartment complexes destroyed, businesses throughout our community where walls have collapsed”.
Countless numbers of Americans have had their lives completely turned upside down, and of course the Midwest has already been reeling from unprecedented flooding in recent months.
So far this year, much of the focus has been on the historic flooding along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, but now severe flooding along the Arkansas River is threatening to break all-time records…
Heavy rainfall over the past few weeks is threatening all-time May records and swelling rivers to record levels in parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma.
The National Weather Service in Little Rock, Arkansas, didn’t mince words Sunday, expecting historic, record flooding along the Arkansas River from Toad Suck Reservoir northwest of Little Rock to the Oklahoma border that could have impacts lasting well into the summer.
In fact, USA Today is plainly stating that both states are “bracing for their worst-ever flooding”…
Oklahoma and Arkansas were bracing for their worst-ever flooding as a new wave of storms forecast to roll through the region threatened to further bloat the Arkansas River that already has reached record crests in some areas.
Forecasters reportedtornadoes, high winds, hail and heavy rain across the region on Monday, triggering evacuations and high-water rescues. The storms are the latest to rip through the Midwest over the past two weeks, leaving at least nine dead and a trail of damage from high winds and flooding.
Of course let us not forget what is happening along the Mississippi River either. The flooding has been called “the worst in over 90 years”, and in some parts of the river new records are already being set…
For example, In Vicksburg, Mississippi, the river went above flood stage on Feb. 17, and has remained in flood ever since. The weather service said this is the longest continuous stretch above flood stage since 1927.
In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the Mississippi first rose above flood stage in early January, and has been above that level ever since, the National Weather Service said. If this record-long stretch extends well into June, it would break the record from 1927, according to the Weather Channel.
And farther north, the Mississippi River at the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois saw its longest stretch above major flood stage ever recorded, even surpassing that of 1927.
None of this is “normal”, and prior to the month of May we had already witnessed the wettest 12 months in all of U.S. history.
Unfortunately, more wet weather is on the way. According to the Weather Channel, another series of very powerful storms will rip through the middle of the country on Wednesday…
Strong to severe thunderstorms are expected through Tuesday night from Iowa to Oklahoma, which may produce areas of locally heavy rain and flash flooding. Some clusters of storms may persist into Wednesday morning in the Ozarks.
Then, another rash of thunderstorms with heavy rain is expected Wednesday and Wednesday night from North Texas into Oklahoma, Arkansas and southern Missouri that could only trigger more flash flooding and aggravate ongoing river flooding.
Weather patterns are going absolutely crazy, and we have never seen a year quite like this in modern American history.
So what is going to happen if weather patterns get even crazier and natural disasters just continue to become even more frequent and even more powerful?
You may want to start thinking about that, because that is exactly what many people believe is going to happen.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2XdusZT Tyler Durden
Maryland’s highest court will soon decide whether a 16-year-old girl, “S.K.,” can face child pornography charges for taking a video of herself performing a sex act and sending it to a few of her close friends.
S.K. shared the video, in which she performs consensual oral sex on an unidentified male, with two close friends and fellow students, who later reported her to the school resource officer. S.K. was the only person charged in connection with the alleged crime.
The Special Court of Appeals upheld S.K.’s conviction, ruling that the consensual nature of the sex act in question was irrelevant, as was the fact that it was not illegal for S.K. to perform the act. Taking a video of the act and sending it to other people constituted distribution of child pornography, according to the court’s decision.
“The First Amendment to the United States Constitution did not protect conduct of a minor who distributed a digital video file of herself engaged as a subject in consensual sexual conduct,” wrote the court.
The Maryland Court of Appeals’ ruling is expected later this year. The court, which is Maryland’s equivalent of a state supreme court, heard oral arguments in February. The proceedings are recorded here. S.K.’s attorney, Public Defender Claudia Cortese, argued that the statute in question was not intended to punish minors for being featured in pornographic materials, but rather, to protect them. Punishing S.K., as the state has attempted to do, is cruel and authoritarian.
The state, on the other hand, has asserted that S.K. needs guidance, and that probation and a mandatory mental health evaluation were reasonable outcomes, The Washington Postreports:
At her initial hearing, the prosecutor said the state was not “trying to prove a point in going forward with this case,” but that “the state believes that the respondent is in need of some guidance, rehabilitation for something deeper” and “is just trying to help her.”
Because her case on the distribution of child pornography was in juvenile court, the teen never faced a mandatory sentence orthe possibility of having to register as a sex offender. She was put on probation and referred for a mental health evaluation.
That teens shouldn’t send sexy videos to each other—because they are bound to get out, cause embarrassment, and raise legal issues—is something S.K.’s parents, teachers, and school administrators could have impressed upon her without the heavy-handed involvement of the police and courts. It is draconian to charge a 16-year-old girl with trafficking in child pornography because she willingly filmed herself performing oral sex. Upholding S.K.’s conviction would set a disturbing precedent.
from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2JKmVyD
via IFTTT
Maryland’s highest court will soon decide whether a 16-year-old girl, “S.K.,” can face child pornography charges for taking a video of herself performing a sex act and sending it to a few of her close friends.
S.K. shared the video, in which she performs consensual oral sex on an unidentified male, with two close friends and fellow students, who later reported her to the school resource officer. S.K. was the only person charged in connection with the alleged crime.
The Special Court of Appeals upheld S.K.’s conviction, ruling that the consensual nature of the sex act in question was irrelevant, as was the fact that it was not illegal for S.K. to perform the act. Taking a video of the act and sending it to other people constituted distribution of child pornography, according to the court’s decision.
“The First Amendment to the United States Constitution did not protect conduct of a minor who distributed a digital video file of herself engaged as a subject in consensual sexual conduct,” wrote the court.
The Maryland Court of Appeals’ ruling is expected later this year. The court, which is Maryland’s equivalent of a state supreme court, heard oral arguments in February. The proceedings are recorded here. S.K.’s attorney, Public Defender Claudia Cortese, argued that the statute in question was not intended to punish minors for being featured in pornographic materials, but rather, to protect them. Punishing S.K., as the state has attempted to do, is cruel and authoritarian.
The state, on the other hand, has asserted that S.K. needs guidance, and that probation and a mandatory mental health evaluation were reasonable outcomes, The Washington Postreports:
At her initial hearing, the prosecutor said the state was not “trying to prove a point in going forward with this case,” but that “the state believes that the respondent is in need of some guidance, rehabilitation for something deeper” and “is just trying to help her.”
Because her case on the distribution of child pornography was in juvenile court, the teen never faced a mandatory sentence orthe possibility of having to register as a sex offender. She was put on probation and referred for a mental health evaluation.
That teens shouldn’t send sexy videos to each other—because they are bound to get out, cause embarrassment, and raise legal issues—is something S.K.’s parents, teachers, and school administrators could have impressed upon her without the heavy-handed involvement of the police and courts. It is draconian to charge a 16-year-old girl with trafficking in child pornography because she willingly filmed herself performing oral sex. Upholding S.K.’s conviction would set a disturbing precedent.
from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2JKmVyD
via IFTTT
WTI bounced hard after testing $57 today as a pipeline that drains crude from the key Cushing, Oklahoma, supply hub was said to be ready to restart Thursday.
OPEC’s “wishy-washy” stance on simply setting a new date is adding to uncertainty, said Michael Loewen, a commodities strategist at Scotiabank in Toronto.
“The macroeconomic overlay is affecting everything,” he said.
“If China starts restricting that flow of rare earths, that will materially restrict economic growth.”
But inventory concerns remain high on the agenda…
API
Crude -5.265mm (-500k exp)
Cushing -176k
Gasoline +2.711mm
Distillates -2.144mm
Crude inventories were expected to draw modestly in the last week after 4 builds in the last 5 weeks but surprised with a big draw, just as gasoline surprised with a big build…
WTI hovered just shy of $59 ahead of the API print, after ramping off the lows (below $57) intraday on MPLX reopening rumors, but the machines could not make up their minds after the data showed a bigger than expected crude draw which limped WTI back to $59…
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2YVkRY4 Tyler Durden
