Tag: news

A Multicultural Mugging Of Uncle Joe

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

In his opening statement at Wednesday’s Democratic debate in Detroit, Joe Biden addressed Donald Trump while pointing proudly to the racial and ethnic diversity of the nine Democrats standing beside him.

“Mr. President, this is America and we are strong and great because of this diversity, not in spite of it. … We love it. We are here to stay. And we certainly are not going to leave it to you.”

Whereupon the other nine — three women, two African Americans, one Asian American and one Hispanic — began a multicultural mugging of Biden that at times took on the aspect of a flash mob.

Said The Washington Post, Biden “faced relentless attacks on his decades-long Senate record on race and criminal justice, immigration and health care, and his commitment to women’s rights.”

The 1994 crime bill, of which Sen. Biden was once proud and which cut U.S. crime rates for decades, was trashed as a reactionary and racist measure that led to the imprisonment of countless thousands of black Americans who were guilty only of minor drug offenses.

Cory Booker called Joe the “architect of mass incarceration.”

Biden’s Senate friendships with segregationists and opposition to busing to integrate the public schools came in for yet another hiding by Sen. Kamala Harris.

His support of President Barack Obama’s border policies that led to the deportation of hundreds of thousands seeking asylum and entry into the country was denounced as heartless.

Did he never object in the Obama Cabinet meetings to what was happening to these unfortunates being turned back, Biden was asked?

For two hours, when the Democratic candidates were not attacking each other, they were piling on Joe.

Kirsten Gillibrand, a self-described “white woman of privilege,” attacked him for a long-ago op-ed that warned that women who enter the workforce imperil the family.

He was attacked anew by Harris for having supported the Hyde Amendment that denies federal funding for abortions.

On and on it went.

Biden’s support of NAFTA was attacked as was his vote for the war in Iraq. He was made to recant his support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal he helped to forge. The TPP was once seen by U.S. elites as uniting the democracies of Asia and the Americas to counter the Chinese drive for trade hegemony.

“Everybody’s talking about how terrible I am on these issues,” wailed Biden. He fought back gamely. But he also stammered, mumbled, misspoke and some of his answers seemed to be canned rebuttals.

Biden eased some fears that he has lost more than a step as a presidential candidate. Yet this is not the same Joe who bested Mitt Romney’s vice presidential nominee, Paul Ryan, in 2012.

In closing Biden misidentified his website, “If you agree with me, go to Joe 3 0 3 3 0 and help me in this fight.”

In a city that was stunned by the halting public testimony of Robert Mueller, Biden’s debate performances raise a valid question: Can the Joe Biden we saw in the two debates be an articulate and energetic leader and president until January 2025, five and a half years from now?

While every candidate scored points Wednesday night, much of the scoring was done at the expense of other Democrats on stage. The GOP has a new library of videos of Democratic fratricide, and sororicide.

Bottom line of the July Democratic debates: It seems astonishing how far the Democratic Party’s center of gravity has moved to the left.

Today, much of the career record of Joe Biden – his opposition to busing, his credentials as tough-on-crime, his support for NAFTA, his backing of the Iraq War, his career-long support of the Hyde Amendment – is seen not as a record to be proud of, but a record to be ashamed of, and a record to apologize for.

How do progressives, many of whom regard Biden’s career as an embarrassment, embrace him as their leader and agent of progressive change if he wins the nomination?

Biden today seems to be the kind of candidate, like Congressman Joe Crowley of Queens whom Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ousted in a primary in 2018, that progressives want desperately to be done with.

After the July debates, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren sit in the second and third positions, with one of the two the almost certain beneficiary of a Biden fade.

Yet, if the Democratic Party nominates either – both are committed to a sweeping restructure of society and the economy — are the American people ready to buy into a radical or outright socialist agenda?

Are Americans looking for an alternative to Trump who will abolish private health insurance, embrace open borders and reparations for slavery, extend the ballot to felons in prison, add half a dozen justices to the Supreme Court and vote for free college tuition and forgiveness of student loans?

Where is the evidence of that?

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

Judge Recommends Firing Cop Who Choked Eric Garner

A judge has recommended that New York Police Department (NYPD) officer Daniel Pantaleo be fired for his role in the death of Eric Garner in 2014, a killing that was captured on cellphone video and provoked nationwide outrage.

Pantaleo was recorded confronting Garner, apparently suspecting that he was selling loose, untaxed black market cigarettes. Garner resisted when Pantaleo attempted to arrest him. Pantaleo put the man in a chokehold, and Garner ultimately died; an autopsy blamed the chokehold for his death. Garner’s final words, a repetition of “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement.

A grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo for any crimes, and in July, five years later, the Justice Department announced it would not file civil rights charges against him. The city has been dragging its feet in determining what sort of discipline, if any, Pantaleo should face for his role in Garner’s death. Protesters showed up at the Democratic primary debates earlier this week to heckle Mayor Bill de Blasio for failing to force Pantaleo out of the NYPD. (Pantaleo, meanwhile, has been on desk duty.)

Today, following an administrative hearing, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonadoa—the judge presiding over Pantaleo’s disciplinary trial—recommended that the officer be terminated. But this does not actually end Pantaleo’s employment with the NYPD. The recommendation now goes to NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill, who will ultimately decide whether to fire Pantaleo.

While it’s not impossible, it seems unlikely that O’Neill would decide to buck the judge and keep Pantaleo on the force. CNN reports from inside sources that O’Neill is expected to follow the recommendation. But New York state has laws that mandate official secrecy about police discipline and shield misconduct records from the eyes of the press and the public. If Pantaleo is fired, he could quietly be hired by another police department in New York or another state.

After the the announcement, Pantaleo was suspended for 30 days without pay, which is standard procedure when firing is recommended.

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

Police Officer Shoots at Dog During Welfare Check, Kills Woman Instead

A police officer responding to a welfare checkin Arlington, Texas, attempted to shoot a dog on the property. He killed the 30-year-old woman he was dispatched to check on instead.

When police arrived at the scene, they were initially unable to find the woman in question, but they later located her lying in a grassy area next to an unrestrained dog. According to a statement from the Arlington Police Department, the animal allegedly “began to run towards the officer while barking,” prompting the man to fire multiple shots. He missed the dog and hit the woman. She was transported to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

A body camera captured the incident, and the video will be included in the investigation.

American police officers have an unfortunate track record when it comes to shooting nonthreatening dogs on the job. The Department of Justice calls puppycide an “epidemic,” estimating that 25 to 30 dogs are killed by cops every day. That’s almost 11,000 dog deaths per year.

In Detroit, Michigan, 54 dogs were killed in 2017 alone. “The rise occurred at the same time Detroit is trying to fend off lawsuits from residents who say police wantonly killed their dogs during drug raids,” wrote Reason‘s C.J. Ciaramella in September. In St. Louis County, a woman received a $750,000 settlement after a SWAT team killed her dog during a raid on her home over an unpaid gas bill.

And it isn’t unprecedented for a cop to inflict a human casualty while fending off a nonthreatening animal. In 2014, Deputy Sheriff Matthew Vickers of Coffee County, Georgia, shot and seriously wounded a 10-year-old child after opening fire on the family’s dog. The officer was in pursuit of a fugitive who had no connection to the family and had wandered onto their property. A court recently ruled that the officer is protected by qualified immunity, so the family will receive no compensation for medical bills.

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

Franklin Templeton Readies “King Of ETFs” Fund That Invests Across All Asset Classes

Seemingly not happy enough with the gargantuan inflows to exchange traded funds over the last decade, Franklin Templeton is now trying to create a hybrid “king of ETFs”, according to Bloomberg. The asset manager is trying to start an exchange traded fund that will not only invest in equities, but will also invest in debt, commodities and currencies.

This will set it apart from most exchange traded funds, which limit themselves to only one asset class.

The fund is going to be called the Franklin Liberty Systematic Style Premia ETF and it is going to actively evaluate an asset’s characteristics, including value or momentum, when considering what it should purchase.

Half of the fund’s capital is going to be used to seek out attractive opportunities regardless of asset class and the other half will be used for a traditional long/short equity strategy that looks at a stock’s quality, value and momentum. There are some ETFs that have a similar approach, but it’s a style mostly used by hedge funds.

According to a filing, “the fund will be seeking to profit by utilizing quantitative models to identify investment opportunities across different asset classes and markets. By employing these two approaches, the investment manager seeks to provide positive absolute return over time while maintaining a relatively low correlation with traditional markets.”

Total net assets of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) in the United States

from 2002 to 2018 (in billion U.S. dollars)

The fees for the fund were not disclosed and it will be run by Chandra Seethamraju, the head of smart beta and overlay strategies for the quantitative part of the money manager’s multi-asset solutions group.

We reported  back in May about how ETFs could “amplify systemic risk” during the next market downturn. In that article we noted that less liquid asset classes are at risk for bearing the most pain in a volatile environment and the “systemic risk” theory about ETFs could wind up being tested during the next recession.

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

Police Officer Shoots at Dog During Welfare Check, Kills Woman Instead

A police officer responding to a welfare check in Arlington, Texas, attempted to shoot a dog on the property. He killed the 30-year-old woman he was dispatched to check on instead.

When police arrived at the scene, they were initially unable to find the woman in question, but they later located her lying in a grassy area next to an unrestrained dog. According to a statement from the Arlington Police Department, the animal allegedly “began to run towards the officer while barking,” prompting the man to fire multiple shots. He missed the dog and hit the woman. She was transported to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

A body camera captured the incident, and the video will be included in the investigation.

American police officers have an unfortunate track record when it comes to shooting nonthreatening dogs on the job. The Department of Justice calls puppycide an “epidemic,” estimating that 25 to 30 dogs are killed by cops every day. That’s almost 11,000 dog deaths per year.

In Detroit, Michigan, 54 dogs were killed in 2017 alone. “The rise occurred at the same time Detroit is trying to fend off lawsuits from residents who say police wantonly killed their dogs during drug raids,” wrote Reason‘s C.J. Ciaramella in September. In St. Louis County, a woman received a $750,000 settlement after a SWAT team killed her dog during a raid on her home over an unpaid gas bill.

And it isn’t unprecedented for a cop to inflict a human casualty while fending off a nonthreatening animal. In 2014, Deputy Sheriff Matthew Vickers of Coffee County, Georgia, shot and seriously wounded a 10-year-old child after opening fire on the family’s dog. The officer was in pursuit of a fugitive who had no connection to the family and had wandered onto their property. A court recently ruled that the officer is protected by qualified immunity, so the family will receive no compensation for medical bills.

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

As US Officially Exits INF Treaty, Gorbachev Warns Of “Chaotic Developments”

The Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF) signed in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has now officially ended, six months after President Trump issued Moscow an ultimatum to cease its alleged violations. 

“Decades ago, the United States entered into a treaty with Russia in which we agreed to limit and reduce our missile capabilities,” the President said during his February State of the Union address.

“While we followed the agreement to the letter, Russia repeatedly violated its terms. That is why I announced that the United States is officially withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF Treaty.” 

The clock on that timetable has just run out, with the US announcing it has ripped up the landmark agreement. 

Moscow for its part has blamed the US for collapse of the treaty, with both sides over the past couple years frequently pointing the finger at the other for violating its terms, namely a ban on all land-based missiles with a range of between 310 and 3,400 miles.

Meanwhile, the AP reports on the day of the landmark deal’s final collapse:

The United States plans to test a new missile in coming weeks that would have been prohibited under a landmark, 32-year-old arms control treaty that the U.S. and Russia ripped up on Friday.

“Russia is solely responsible for the treaty’s demise,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement released on Friday.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also laid blame on Russia in remarks Friday, saying that NATO members “regret that Russia showed no willingness and took no steps to comply with its international obligations.”

He pledged that the alliance will avoid “a new arms race” with Russia and prevent powers from deploying new nuclear missiles on European soil, which has long been the chief danger that the INF for decades blocked. 

But could this be the start of a new unrestrained arms race which does see missiles creep onto European soil? 88-year old Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev thinks so.

“The termination of the treaty will hardly be beneficial for the international community, this move undermines security not only in Europe, but in the whole world,” Gorbachev told Interfax on Friday.

“This US move will cause uncertainty and chaotic development of international politics,” the original co-signer of the treaty with Reagan predicted. 

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

“Cue The Cry: ‘That’s Racist!'”

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

Race Hustle

When the shining city is at hand, a special slum will be built for me and my meanness. I will be the person, if that’s what I am, in the slum; there will be one of everything; one rat, one tin can. … I will behave poorly.

– Thomas McGuane, Ninety-two in the Shade

After two double rounds of Democratic Party debates, one thing is for sure: the characters onstage are followers, not leaders, and they’re following each other off a cliff like so many Wile E. Coyotes, while the Golden Golem of Greatness streaks, beeps, and tweets across the buzzard flats below like the fabled Roadrunner.

In an epic and bizarre case of mimesis, the Democratic Party is mau-mauing itself into America’s political slum, complete with a rank-and-file demographic dependent on government largesse and an infestation of bad ideas, like the scurrying rats and cockroaches of the ghettos they pander to so relentlessly. The candidates themselves are so terrified of being a few syllables away from getting branded with the scarlet “R” on their foreheads — according the to the rules of Wokesterism — that they blindly submit to any idiotic Simon Says command, such as raising their hands in support of free medical services for illegal immigrants, to signal their racial uprightness and sensitivity.

How are the actual city ghettos and their denizens doing after half a century of Democratic Party rescue operations? Not so well, the Golden Golem averred last week about Baltimore, igniting a firestorm of grievance and objurgation from the political ghetto. Isn’t the point exactly that the people, and the place where they live, are not doing any better despite decades of federal programs, household assistance, affirmative action, and every other attempt to (theoretically) improve their existence? And isn’t the heart of the matter the desperate shame and chagrin of Democrats that none of this has worked?

It hasn’t worked… so, do more of it! That’s the Democratic Party’s neurotic strategy for winning the hearts and minds of this republic. Driving men out of households via the welfare rules that don’t allow “a man in the house,” and destroying family formation wasn’t bad enough. The Democratic party has spent the past three years vilifying and demonizing men and their “toxic masculinity,” and retailing the insane multiplication of “genders’ in a bad faith attempt to manufacture sexual “diversity” — with the net effect of negating all previous understandings of the relations between men and women.

Newsflash: that’s not going to work, either.

The shriekings of “racism” aren’t helping much anymore. Few observers have missed the fact that the city of Baltimore has been run by an African American city hall (Mayor, Police Chief, District Attorney) for many years, with over a billion dollars in additional federal assistance. So, if political power is the answer, how’s that working out? Add some extra shrieking about “white privilege” to explain the situation? How does “white privilege” explain the fact that 86 percent of kids in Baltimore primary schools can’t read and 89 percent can’t do arithmetic to grade level? This, despite the fact that at $15,564 per pupil, Baltimore is fourth highest per student of the 100 largest school districts in the nation, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Maybe becoming the party of a national race hustle isn’t such a good idea. The race hustle is wearing out its welcome in American politics, and the more the Democratic Party resorts to race hustling as its chief strategy, the sooner the party will go extinct. That is, if it doesn’t incite some kind of civil war first. Cue the cry, “That’s racist!”

Maybe there is a whole range of human values and human behaviors that have nothing to do with race — like reading to small children and helping them learn the English language so they don’t grow into adults who have to say “know what I mean?” every other sentence because they’ve barely acquired enough language skill themselves to know what they mean. Maybe there’s something called an American common culture that contains values and behaviors worth emulating rather than opposing. Maybe “multiculturalism” wasn’t such a good idea after all. Maybe ghetto culture is not such a precious foundation for a successful life. Maybe the Democratic Party should move out of the ghetto it’s built for itself.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/336XqxQ Tyler Durden

Trump Says NKorea Missile Tests “Not A Violation Of Singapore Agreement”

With the resurgence of US-China trade tensions and Friday’s jobs number (which confirmed that US labor-market growth is beginning to slow) raising expectations for more Fed rate cuts just days after Fed Chairman Powell appeared to suggest during the Q&A that the July cut might be a “one and done”, President Trump is finally getting around to addressing one of the other major developments from the past week that had, until now, seemingly gotten lost in the shuffle: North Korea.

Over the past couple of weeks, North Korea has carried out several short-range missile tests. Yesterday, we cited media reports that the Pentagon had tracked a projectile launched from North Korea early Friday morning (local time), citing an unnamed senior official, who further added it appeared similar to others launched over the past weeks.

To be sure, Trump has taken news of these tests in stride. Following reports of the short-range missile launches, which, as Trump once again pointed out, don’t violate Kim’s agreement with Trump to refrain from ICBM launches, Trump reportedly appeared “unbothered” by Pyongyang’s latest salvos. When asked if he was worried about them, he told a reporter “no, not at all.”

But in a series of tweets on Friday morning, the President warned Kim Jong Un not to “disappoint me with a violation of trust”, adding that “there is far too much for North Korea to gain – the potential as a Country, under Kim Jong Un’s leadership, is unlimited.”

However, “there is also far too much to lose.” To fulfill Kim’s “great and beautiful vision for his country” the North Korean leader needs “the United States, with me as President” to “make that vision come true.”

Trump finished by asserting that Kim “will do the right thing because he is far too smart not to, and he does not want to disappoint his friend, President Trump!”

For what it’s worth, the North has said its missile tests were a warning to South Korea, which plans to resume military exercises with the US later this month.

Trump also insisted that the tests are “not a violation of our signed Singapore agreement”…though they might constitute a violation of United Nations sanctions…but that’s besides the point. But another thing to consider: Did Kim get “the tap” from Beijing to start acting up as the latest trade truce between the world’s two largest economies started to unravel? If so, might we expect more brinksmanship from the North in the coming weeks?

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

The Elephant In The Room Forcing The Fed Rate Cut

Via Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI),

Many in the consensus regard the widely-expected Fed rate cut as unnecessary. Yet, the elephant in the room remains the inflation cycle downturn that leaves the Fed with little choice but to cut rates.

This is because Fed officials believe they need to cut rates now to boost inflation while economic growth is still good. As Fed Chairman Jerome Powell recently stated, they wish to avoid the trap that Japan has fallen into and now confronts the Eurozone, where “lower expected inflation gets baked into interest rates, which means lower interest rates, which means less room for the central bank to react” when recession threatens.

The early-2018 downswing in ECRI’s U.S. Future Inflation Gauge (USFIG) predicted the current inflation cycle downturn. But this downturn was missed by most – including the Fed, which hiked rates last September and December after we warned of the downside risk for inflation. 

In fact, following the USFIG downturn (chart, upper panel), year-over-year (yoy) CPI inflation (lower panel, gray line) and yoy growth in the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) deflator (lower panel, black line) – the Fed’s inflation target measure – both turned down in mid-2018. That cyclical downswing continues, despite the latest uptick in core PCE deflator growth (not shown) that looks to be tariff-driven and thus likely to be temporary.

Now, many are focused on whether the Fed is acting in time to head off a recession, still ignoring the elephant in the room – the inflation cycle. However, it is the inflation cycle that bears watching.

Indeed, the downturn in the USFIG allowed our clients to be forewarned and prepared for the plunge in bond yields that began last fall. That downturn was a precursor to the Powell pivot early this year. Today, the ongoing inflation cycle downturn predicted by the USFIG gives the Fed plenty of room to cut rates.

*  *  *

Click here to review ECRI’s recent real-time track record. For information on ECRI professional services please contact us. Follow @businesscycle on Twitter and on LinkedIn.

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2YBOX6B Tyler Durden

Mike Gravel Ends His Unorthodox Twitter Campaign for the Presidency

Mike Gravel, the quirky 89-year-old former senator from Alaska, is shuttering his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Gravel served in the U.S. Senate from 1969 to 1981, and he ran for president once before, making unsuccessful bids for the Democratic and then the Libertarian nominations in 2008. Although he never appeared on a debate stage this time around, Gravel garnered attention for his eccentric campaign strategy: His operation is spearheaded by two teenagers, and the former senator did not leave his house in pursuit of his White House ambitions.

“No party’s gonna carry me other than these kids,” he told Reason in June, referring to David Oks and Henry Williams, the two teens at the heart of his campaign. “But I’m gonna have a patio campaign. I’m gonna sit on my patio, and see what happens.”

He was ready and willing to make a debate appearance, though. Gravel hit the 65,000-donor threshold for the July matchup, but he did not meet the 1 percent polling requirement. While candidates were only required to hit one mark to qualify, only 20 slots were available, with 21 presidential hopefuls checking off at least one box. The Democratic National Convention prioritizes polling results over donors, making Gravel the one candidate to be excluded.

Gravel told Reason in June that he wants to see federal marijuana legalization enshrined via constitutional amendment. He also said he wants to eradicate private health insurance in service of a single-payer system. And Gravel—who famously read the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record in 1971 and who fiercely criticized the Iraq war during his previous presidential run—positioned himself as a committed foe of the military-industrial complex, calling among other things for ending the drone war, pursuing normal relations with North Korea, closing all military bases abroad, ending all aid to Saudi Arabia, and pulling out of the fights in Yemen and Afghanistan.

Though the former senator is retiring from the race, he—and his online teens—are not letting the sun set on his career. They plan to create the Gravel Institute, a think tank that will write policy papers on “ending the American empire,” “reforming our Democracy,” and “direct action by elected officials to end injustice and suffering.”

“We need to keep up Mike’s fight until the wars are over, until no one is too poor to live, until the people’s voice is heard,” the teens tweeted.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2ZrLPr5
via IFTTT