Tag: news

Houston Narcotics Cop Who Instigated a Deadly Drug Raid Is Charged With Murder

Today Harris County, Texas, District Attorney Kim Ogg announced that Gerald Goines, the narcotics officer who instigated the disastrous January 28 drug raid that killed a middle-aged couple, has been charged with two counts of felony murder. The raid, which discovered no evidence of drug dealing, was based on an affidavit by Goines that cited a “controlled buy” of heroin that apparently never happened.

After defending the no-knock raid at 7815 Harding Street and describing Goines as a hero, Police Chief Art Acevedo revealed that investigators had been unable to identify the confidential informant who supposedly had bought heroin from Dennis Tuttle, a 59-year-old disabled Navy veteran who was killed by police along with his 58-year-old wife, Rhogena Nicholas. The investigators concluded that Goines, who retired in March after 34 years with the Houston Police Department (HPD), had lied in his search warrant affidavit.

Another narcotics officer involved in the raid, Steven Bryant, has been charged with evidence tampering for “knowingly providing false information” in a police report afterward. Goines claimed that Bryant, who retired three weeks before Goines, had verified that the “brown powder substance” supposedly purchased from Tuttle was black-tar heroin.

“These two charges of Felony Murder and Tampering with a Government Document against former Officers Goines and Bryant are the beginning of holding those responsible accountable,” Ogg said. “This is the start, the tip of the iceberg, in terms of how deep and wide we are investigating. We will find the truth about this entire matter.”

Ogg said “prosecutors are reviewing the events which preceded the deadly raid, including extraneous corruption allegations against Goines,” who had a history of questionable affidavits and testimony. The Houston Chronicle reports that Goines “is still under investigation over claims he stole guns, drugs and money.”

Ogg’s office also is reviewing “more than 14,000” previously filed criminal cases involving the HPD Narcotics Division, including some 2,200 cases that were handled by Goines and Bryant. Dozens of pending cases already have been dismissed.

The HPD delivered the findings of its internal investigation to Ogg in May. The FBI is conducting a separate civil rights investigation, and last month two officers who responded to a January 8 call that supposedly implicated Tuttle and Nicholas in drug dealing testified before a federal grand jury. Contradicting Acevedo’s claim that the Harding Street home was known as a “drug house” and “problem location,” neighbors told local news outlets they had never noticed any suspicious activity there.

Tuttle and Nicholas were killed during an exchange of gunfire that also injured four narcotics officers, including Goines. According to police, the gunfire began after the first officer through the door use a shotgun to kill the couple’s dog.

 

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Trump Hikes Tariffs On Chinese Goods In Retaliation To Trade War Escalation

As widely expected, and as he himself previewed earlier in the day, Trump was set to unveil a major development in the US-China trade war this afternoon. That happened moments ago, when the president, in a series of 4 tweets, confirmed that he indeed was hiking tariffs on both existing and future China tariffs.

Specifically, Trump announced that in response to the $75 billion in tariffs that China just imposed on the US this morning – which “should not have” been put on as they were “politically motivated” – starting October 1, the existing 25% tariffs on $250BN in Chinese goods would rise to 30%, and the 10% tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese goods set to begin on September 1 will be 15%.

Here is the Trump announcement:

For many years China (and many other countries) has been taking advantage of the United States on Trade, Intellectual Property Theft, and much more.

Our Country has been losing HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year to China, with no end in sight.

Sadly, past Administrations have allowed China to get so far ahead of Fair and Balanced Trade that it has become a great burden to the American Taxpayer.

As President, I can no longer allow this to happen! In the spirit of achieving Fair Trade, we must Balance this very unfair Trading Relationship.

China should not have put new Tariffs on 75 BILLION DOLLARS of United States product (politically motivated!).

Starting on October 1st, the 250 BILLION DOLLARS of goods and products from China, currently being taxed at 25%, will be taxed at 30%.

Additionally, the remaining 300 BILLION DOLLARS of goods and products from China, that was being taxed from September 1st at 10%, will now be taxed at 15%. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

And the tweets themselves:

And now we await China’s retaliation as Beijing has no choice but to retaliate again in tit-for-tat fashion, and is likely to hike the rate on its own tariffs targeting US goods, which will then prompt Trump to raise tariffs even more, at which point China will retaliate in kind, until eventually all trade between the US and China grinds to a halt, at which point the question is which country will succumb to recession and/or social unrest first.

Meanwhile, the real news this afternoon, is that there was still no announcement of currency intervention by Trump, or rather not yet. We expect that to come some time in the next 2-4 weeks.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2TW4vxg Tyler Durden

Steve Bannon Hopes To “Steel Trump’s Resolve” With New Film About Huawei

Like Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon has deep roots in Hollywood. And with the trade war with China now in full swing, Bannon has helped produce a dramatization of the conflict with Huawei that he hopes will help convince President Trump to stick to his guns, Bloomberg reports.

The film, entitled “Claws of the Red Dragon”, warily approaches the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested late last year by Canadian police after landing in Vancouver.

In particular, the film focuses on Beijing’s retaliation – that is, the arrest of a former Canadian diplomat, and a businessman who ran tours of North Korea for curious westerners, both of whom have been charged with espionage. Bannon told BBG that he hopes the film will convince Trump that Huawei must be shut down, and that it will help “steel Trump’s resolve”.

Bannon’s timing couldn’t be better, seeing as the administration granted Huawei another reprieve earlier this month as US markets logged some of their worst trperfo

“The central issue in the 2020 presidential campaign is going to be the economic war with China: manufacturing jobs, currency, capital markets and technology,” Bannon said in an interview. “Huawei is a key part of that, and this film will highlight why it must be shut down.”

Unlike most of Bannon’s earlier films, which were primarily documentaries about conservative icons like Ronald Reagan, as well as Bannon’s take on the factors that contributed to the financial crisis, “Claws of the Red Dragon” is a dark drama featuring professional actors.

“One of my objectives is to get a screening for President Trump at the White House,” Bannon said.

Watch the trailer for the film below:

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

Don’t Panic: Amazon Burning Is Mostly Farms, Not Forests

“A picture is worth a thousand words” is one of the dumbest aphorisms ever coined. Speaking as a former television producer, I’d say a picture takes a thousand words to explain. Take this much-circulated NASA satellite photo showing vast smoke plumes over the Amazon region:

Combined with a report from the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research that says the agency had detected 39,194 fires in the region, a 77 percent jump up from the same period in 2018, that picture has launched alarmed headlines around the world.

“Amazon rainforest is burning at an unprecedented rate,” declares CNN. The Daily Beast gives us “Record Number of Wildfires Burning in Amazon Rainforest.” Here’s NBC News: “Amazon wildfires could be ‘game over’ for climate change fight.”

Interestingly, when NASA released the satellite image on August 21, it noted that “it is not unusual to see fires in Brazil at this time of year due to high temperatures and low humidity. Time will tell if this year is a record breaking or just within normal limits.”

So why are there so many fires? “Natural fires in the Amazon are rare, and the majority of these fires were set by farmers preparing Amazon-adjacent farmland for next year’s crops and pasture,” soberly explains The New York Times. “Much of the land that is burning was not old-growth rain forest, but land that had already been cleared of trees and set for agricultural use.”

It is routine for farmers and ranchers in tropical areas burn their fields to control pests and weeds and to encourage new growth in pastures.

What about deforestation trends?  Since the right-wing nationalist

Various researchers have noted a U-shaped relation between environmental degradation and economic growth. As development takes off, levels of pollution and land degradation rise, but they begin to improve once certain thresholds of per capita incomes are attained. A 2012 study found, after parsing data from 52 developing countries between 1972 and 2003, that deforestation increases until average income levels reach about $3,100 per capita. As it happens, Brazilian per capita incomes reached $3,600 per capita in 2004,which is when deforestation rates began trending decisively downward.

While problematic deforestation is still taking place in the Amazon region, a 2018 study in Nature reported that the global tree canopy cover had increased by 865,000 square miles from 1982 to 2016. As Brazilians become wealthier, the deforestation trend in the Amazon will likely turn around toward afforestation, as it already has done many other countries.

  • As it happens, this post is only about 430 words.

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Don’t Panic: Amazon Burning Is Mostly Farms, Not Forests

“A picture is worth a thousand words” is one of the dumbest aphorisms ever coined. Speaking as a former television producer, I’d say a picture takes a thousand words to explain. Take this much-circulated NASA satellite photo showing vast smoke plumes over the Amazon region:

Combined with a report from the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research that says the agency had detected 39,194 fires in the region, a 77 percent jump up from the same period in 2018, that picture has launched alarmed headlines around the world.

“Amazon rainforest is burning at an unprecedented rate,” declares CNN. The Daily Beast gives us “Record Number of Wildfires Burning in Amazon Rainforest.” Here’s NBC News: “Amazon wildfires could be ‘game over’ for climate change fight.”

Interestingly, when NASA released the satellite image on August 21, it noted that “it is not unusual to see fires in Brazil at this time of year due to high temperatures and low humidity. Time will tell if this year is a record breaking or just within normal limits.”

So why are there so many fires? “Natural fires in the Amazon are rare, and the majority of these fires were set by farmers preparing Amazon-adjacent farmland for next year’s crops and pasture,” soberly explains The New York Times. “Much of the land that is burning was not old-growth rain forest, but land that had already been cleared of trees and set for agricultural use.”

It is routine for farmers and ranchers in tropical areas burn their fields to control pests and weeds and to encourage new growth in pastures.

What about deforestation trends?  Since the right-wing nationalist

Various researchers have noted a U-shaped relation between environmental degradation and economic growth. As development takes off, levels of pollution and land degradation rise, but they begin to improve once certain thresholds of per capita incomes are attained. A 2012 study found, after parsing data from 52 developing countries between 1972 and 2003, that deforestation increases until average income levels reach about $3,100 per capita. As it happens, Brazilian per capita incomes reached $3,600 per capita in 2004,which is when deforestation rates began trending decisively downward.

While problematic deforestation is still taking place in the Amazon region, a 2018 study in Nature reported that the global tree canopy cover had increased by 865,000 square miles from 1982 to 2016. As Brazilians become wealthier, the deforestation trend in the Amazon will likely turn around toward afforestation, as it already has done many other countries.

  • As it happens, this post is only about 430 words.

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Desperate DNC Chair Set to Hold Fundraisers … In Mexico

Authored by Rusty Weiss via The Mental Recession

With the Democratic National Committee (DNC) struggling to raise money, Chairman Tom Perez is planning to hold multiple fundraisers in Mexico City this September.

According to Bloomberg, the three fundraisers scheduled for the 28th will range from a student-centric event with a $25 minimum entry fee, to a dinner where tickets could go as high as $15,000.

Under Perez’ leadership, the DNC has consistently lagged far behind their Republican National Committee (RNC) counterparts in raising funds. In June, the DNC raised $8.5 million to the RNC’s $20.7.

Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel reports that the Republicans also broke a record in July.

“Our fundraising success is further evidence that the American people like the pro-growth agenda and economic record that the Trump Administration and Republicans continue to deliver,” McDaniel said.

Meanwhile, the Democrats have to travel to the heart of Mexico to try and raise funds.

There are currently 1.5 million American citizens residing in Mexico according to the State Department.

No Chance of Illegality

We know what you’re thinking: Is there any chance for illegal donations to filter through? It is, after all, illegal for foreigners to contribute to American political campaigns – but the DNC has it covered.

According to Bloomberg, “The registration form on the DNC website require that attendees be U.S. citizens or permanent residents and enter passport or green card numbers.”

In other words, they’re going to have to prove they’re American citizens. Hey, we’ve been told all along that asking for that kind of proof is super racist!

Hillary to the Rescue

The DNC, aside from fundraising in Mexico, is seeking other desperate alternatives to kickstart donations.

Politico notes that Hillary Clinton will be hosting an event in Washington, D.C. this October where participants can contribute at different levels ranging from $15,000 to $50,000.

Who exactly is paying that kind of money to have dinner and a conversation with Hillary?

Just this past year, a speaking tour with the Clintons saw ticket prices drop to single digits, while a Broadway play about Hillary’s election failure was canceled after seeing deplorable ticket sales.

Perez also sought support from Democrats in London in April of 2018. It’s surprising to see a party allegedly so consumed with foreign influence in American elections travel to Mexico in order to fund their campaigns.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/33QwzGZ Tyler Durden

As Trade War Escalates, Trump Has Impotently ‘Ordered’ American Businesses Out of China

President Donald Trump’s trade policies have always been, at their core, an exercise in centrally planned economics and petty authoritarianism.

Every time the president rage-tweets about “America First” economics or makes unverified promises about how his tariffs will bring jobs back to the United States, what he’s really saying is that the federal government knows how to construct international supply chains better than private businesses do. Each new round of tariffs is a way of punishing American companies for prioritizing the interests of their customers by sourcing goods in the most cost-effective way. When White House economic advisors like Peter Navarro question the patriotism of American CEOs who do businesses in China, the subtext is that private businesses should operate as the president sees fit, not as their shareholders, executives, and managers do.

If there was any doubt about those conclusions, Trump squashed it on Friday.

I mean…c’mon. “American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China.” Even coming from the most powerful elected official on the face of the Earth, that comes off as a tantrum of petty tyranny.

It’s also a sign that even the American presidency is largely impotent in the face of the market mechanisms Trump imagines he can alter with a tweet. Indeed, if the tariffs were working the way Trump claims, there would be no need for him to “hereby order” American businesses to do the very thing the tariffs are supposed to be compelling them to do.

The president can’t reorder global supply chains with the snap of a tweet, but his trade policies are continuing to damage global markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 500 points after Trump’s “hereby ordered” tweet—a signal, perhaps, that the stock market understands the effectiveness of central planning. Meanwhile, China has threatened to escalate the trade war on September 1 if Trump goes ahead with plans to impose a new round of 10 percent tariffs on about $300 billion of Chinese imports. On Friday, China’s government announced new tariffs on American cars, oil, and industrial goods—expanding its retaliatory efforts beyond farm goods for the first time.

“The fact of the matter is that nobody wins a trade war, and the continued tit-for-tat escalation between the U.S. and China is putting significant strain on the U.S. economy, raising costs, undermining investment, and roiling markets,” said Myron Brilliant, head of international affairs for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in a statement.

The president’s orders are unlikely to make it any easier for American companies to shift production out of China. In some cases, the tariffs have encouraged manufacturers to shift production to India, Vietnam, and even Mexico—but that’s merely an acceleration of shifts that were already ongoing before the trade war, according to A.T. Kearney, a manufacturing and trade consulting firm whose annual “Reshoring Index” measures domestic manufacturing of consumer goods against imports of the same products from 14 lower-cost countries in Asia. Vietnam’s exports to the United States have doubled since 2013, for example, but the rate of growth skyrocketed during the first quarter of 2019.

Those higher input costs have harmed American manufacturers who import component parts—companies like the Wisconsin-based Primex Family of Companies, which has been doing business in China for 30 years. The “indirect costs” of the trade war, such as the pressure to alter supply chains, have been “enormous,” CEO Paul Shekoski told Reason last week.

If Trump wanted to help American businesses, he would end his destructive and increasingly erratic trade war instead of rage-tweeting “orders” that would be easier to laugh at if they weren’t further a further demonstration of how little he knows about what he imagines he can design.

Even as the tariffs fail to achieve their goals—while imposing immense economic costs along the way—there can be no doubt about the fundamental authoritarianism at the center of the economic nationalism project. That mask started slipping long ago. Today, Trump yanked it off.

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As Trade War Escalates, Trump Has Impotently ‘Ordered’ American Businesses Out of China

President Donald Trump’s trade policies have always been, at their core, an exercise in centrally planned economics and petty authoritarianism.

Every time the president rage-tweets about “America First” economics or makes unverified promises about how his tariffs will bring jobs back to the United States, what he’s really saying is that the federal government knows how to construct international supply chains better than private businesses do. Each new round of tariffs is a way of punishing American companies for prioritizing the interests of their customers by sourcing goods in the most cost-effective way. When White House economic advisors like Peter Navarro question the patriotism of American CEOs who do businesses in China, the subtext is that private businesses should operate as the president sees fit, not as their shareholders, executives, and managers do.

If there was any doubt about those conclusions, Trump squashed it on Friday.

I mean…c’mon. “American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China.” Even coming from the most powerful elected official on the face of the Earth, that comes off as a tantrum of petty tyranny.

It’s also a sign that even the American presidency is largely impotent in the face of the market mechanisms Trump imagines he can alter with a tweet. Indeed, if the tariffs were working the way Trump claims, there would be no need for him to “hereby order” American businesses to do the very thing the tariffs are supposed to be compelling them to do.

The president can’t reorder global supply chains with the snap of a tweet, but his trade policies are continuing to damage global markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 500 points after Trump’s “hereby ordered” tweet—a signal, perhaps, that the stock market understands the effectiveness of central planning. Meanwhile, China has threatened to escalate the trade war on September 1 if Trump goes ahead with plans to impose a new round of 10 percent tariffs on about $300 billion of Chinese imports. On Friday, China’s government announced new tariffs on American cars, oil, and industrial goods—expanding its retaliatory efforts beyond farm goods for the first time.

“The fact of the matter is that nobody wins a trade war, and the continued tit-for-tat escalation between the U.S. and China is putting significant strain on the U.S. economy, raising costs, undermining investment, and roiling markets,” said Myron Brilliant, head of international affairs for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in a statement.

The president’s orders are unlikely to make it any easier for American companies to shift production out of China. In some cases, the tariffs have encouraged manufacturers to shift production to India, Vietnam, and even Mexico—but that’s merely an acceleration of shifts that were already ongoing before the trade war, according to A.T. Kearney, a manufacturing and trade consulting firm whose annual “Reshoring Index” measures domestic manufacturing of consumer goods against imports of the same products from 14 lower-cost countries in Asia. Vietnam’s exports to the United States have doubled since 2013, for example, but the rate of growth skyrocketed during the first quarter of 2019.

Those higher input costs have harmed American manufacturers who import component parts—companies like the Wisconsin-based Primex Family of Companies, which has been doing business in China for 30 years. The “indirect costs” of the trade war, such as the pressure to alter supply chains, have been “enormous,” CEO Paul Shekoski told Reason last week.

If Trump wanted to help American businesses, he would end his destructive and increasingly erratic trade war instead of rage-tweeting “orders” that would be easier to laugh at if they weren’t further a further demonstration of how little he knows about what he imagines he can design.

Even as the tariffs fail to achieve their goals—while imposing immense economic costs along the way—there can be no doubt about the fundamental authoritarianism at the center of the economic nationalism project. That mask started slipping long ago. Today, Trump yanked it off.

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Stocks, Dollar, Yields Crash; Gold Explodes As Stunned Traders React To Series Of Surreal Events

Jerome Powell’s Jackson Hole speech was supposed to be the most important even of an otherwise sleepy, August day day, after which traders could quietly exit for the rest of the day and commence drinking. It did not quite work out that way.

Not only did Powell’s speech barely make the top 3 most important events, but Friday ended up being an exercise in surreal market newsflow, and one of the biggest drops of 2019 to boot.

With a few hours left before Jackson Hole, as traders were getting ready to trade Powell’s Jackson Hole speech which was a big dud, and did not reveal anything new (as even Trump figured out when he blasted the Fed chief slamming “As usual, the Fed did NOTHING!” and asking “who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?”), China shocked the market by unveiling that it would retaliate by slapping 10% tariffs on another $75BN in US imports, which sent stocks sharply lower at first. Then, Powell’s remarks managed to somewhat stabilize sentiment, and the S&P almost regained all losses… before all hell broke loose and in a vicious tirade, Trump first slammed Powell, effectively calling him an enemy of the state”, and then warned he would retaliate to China soon, while ordering US companies (can a US president dictate to companies what they can and can not do?) to find an “alternative” to China.

The result was a violent slam lower in risk assets, with the S&P tumbling over 70 points, the Dow plunging over 500 point, its 3rd such drop in the month of August, which has emerged as the worst month for stocks since December 2018…

… and the VIX soaring, just as dealers had exited their “negative gamma” hedges, forcing them all to load up on VIX futures all over again.

Every sector was lower on massive volume and wide breadth.

Not surprisingly, as risk tumbled, safe havens, soared, and as the 10Y yield tumbled…

… so did 2Y, which meant that the 2s10s yield was once again dipping in and out of negative territory all day.

Amid this wholesale panic out of safe havens, there were two surprises. Not the surge in gold, which exploded higher hitting a six and a half year high of $1,530…

… what was surprising was the plunge in the dollar – as traders feared that Trump would announce an outright currency market intervention to devalue the greenback – however as the yuan plunged even more…

… and even without an official statement from Trump – we are still waiting for the mystery afternoon announcement – the dollar index suffered its biggest one day drop in over a month.

There was not respite in commodities either, with oil tumbling after China announced it would apply tariffs on US oil imports, prompting traders to fear a drop in imminent collapse in global oil demand by the world’s largest oil importer.

What is most scary is that the day is not yet over, and we are now waiting with bated breath for the president to deliver on his promise of unveiling some other mystery response to China which he had not shared even with the Fed. As such, we expect that the reason for the violent flush in the last 30 minutes of trading had to do with traders wishing to be flat over a weekend, where any surreal development is now clearly possible.

Stay tuned.

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

The Libertarian Life and Legacy of David Koch

David Koch, the billionaire free market philanthropist, has died at the age of 79.

Born in Wichita, Kansas, in 1940, Koch was a longtime member of the board of trustees of Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this podcast, and a major force in the modern libertarian movement. He was also, along with his older brother Charles, one of the “Koch brothers,” who are regularly invoked on the left as a primary cause of all that is bad in American politics.

Such lazy demonization belies a life and fortune spent trying to build a better world through business, politics, and culture, one in which people are not only more prosperous and tolerant but free to run their own experiments in living.

In 1980, Koch was the vice presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party, whose platform that year endorsed the then-radical notions of legalizing drugs, ending penalties for victimless crimes, and full acceptance of gays and lesbians. The platform also called for the abolition of the CIA and FBI in the wake of the Church Commission findings of widespread abuse. In 1987, he told Reason, “Pursuing a very aggressive foreign policy…is an extremely expensive endeavor for the U.S. government. The cost of maintaining a huge military force abroad is gigantic. It’s so big it puts a severe strain on the U.S. economy, creating economic hardships here at home.” Not surprisingly, he was a critic of the Iraq War and other 21st-century interventions.

He gave widely to libertarian organizations such as Americans for Prosperity and also to cancer research and the arts. In today’s podcast, Nick Gillespie speaks with Reason Senior Editor Brian Doherty, the author of Radicals For Capitalism, a history of the libertarian movement, about the life and legacy of David Koch.

Audio production by Ian Keyser.

 

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