Month: June 2018

At Least 4 Injured in Annapolis Newsroom Shooting

Authorities responded Thursday afternoon to reports of a shooting at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland.

At least four people were shot before the suspect was taken into custody by police, authorities said, according to USA Today. A Capital Gazette reporter told The Baltimore Sun, which owns the newspaper, that several people had been injured.

Police were also searching the building for more suspects. According to The Washington Post, people could be seen walking out of their offices with their hands above their heads “as police cleared buildings in the area.”

“We’re doing the best we can to minimize causalities,” Lt. Ryan Frashure of the Anne Arundel Police told ABC News.

“Absolutely devastated to learn of this tragedy in Annapolis,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan wrote on Twitter. “Please, heed all warnings and stay away from the area. Praying for those at the scene and for our community.”

According to White House deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters, President Donald Trump has been briefed on the situation.

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A Post-Roe World Would Pave the Way for a New Black Market in Abortion Pills

The graphic was simple but gripping: a black background with a wire coat hanger floating in the middle over one all-caps phrase: THE END OF ROE. HuffPost‘s editor-in-chief Lydia Polgreen tweeted out the image on Thursday morning, one of a string of left-leaning media nods to the same conclusion: Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court is the beginning of a certain end to legal abortion access in America.

No one can say for sure how Justice John Roberts would go on either overturning or weakening Roe, and any number of hiccups could snag state plans to outlaw abortion, but there’s a real chance that the Court opening created by Kennedy’s departure will mean a rough patch for reproductive freedom, abortion access, and women’s autonomy in this country—and, yes, perhaps even an overturning of Roe and the outlawing of abortion in some areas.

But in a modern world where abortion is outlawed, the coat hanger is probably an ill-fitting and anachronistic symbol. The availability of easy-to-administer abortion-inducing pills and the impossibility of stopping their flow from foreign pharmacies would create a situation unlike in previous eras when it was difficult or illegal to terminate pregnancies.

Right now, the U.S. allows women to obtain what are known as “medical abortions”—the kind induced via pharmaceuticals, not surgery—through the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, using the two-step drug combo of mifepristone and misoprostol. This kind of abortion makes up a growing share of total abortions in America (a number which has been declining more or less steadily since the early 1980s).

While the regulations regarding abortion pills vary by state, most require a physician to dispense the pill. But other than confirming pregnancy and determining gestational age, there’s little (non-bureaucratic) reason why medical abortions require a doctor or even an office visit at all. Complications can certainly arise after taking the pill, necessitating further care in some cases, but these are pretty rare. For the vast majority of pregnant people who take the pill as directed, the process may be painful but can be undertaken at home.

If abortion were illegal in parts of the country, women these days would be much more likely to attempt abortion with black-market pills than coat hangers or other more dangerous measures. That’s not to say that these pills wouldn’t be without their dangers: Any drugs bought on the black market can pose quality-control problems. But with foreign pharmacies relatively easy to order from online, and abortion pills still legal in many states, opportunities to obtain legit abortion pills in an underground market may actually be pretty expansive.

In this way, pregnant women’s options and outcomes in a post-Roe world might not be a grim or gruesome as they were in an earlier era. And efforts to actually eradicate abortion stand less of a chance than they ever have before, when the only reliable ways to terminate pregnancies involved invasive and dangerous medical procedures undertaken in specific locales. As it stands now, anyone with an internet connection and a little cash can pretty easily obtain the pills, and no special or sterile setting is required.

But this also opens up other frightening possibilities. A crackdown on either pharmaceuticals ordered online from foreign pharmacies or pills flowing between states could seriously step up the time-tested brutality and civil-liberties squelching capability of the drug war.

Many states already have criminal laws against illegally induced abortions, and women have been prosecuted under these (and anti-fetacide laws) for illegally obtaining and taking pills to induce abortion. In another instance, a mother was imprisoned for illegally obtaining the pills for her teenage daughter—and this is with legal abortion. In a country where abortion was illegal or inaccessible in some states, we could almost certainly expect to see more state laws targeting both women who self-induce abortions and (especially) people who assist them in doing so in any capacity.

We’ve already seen a recent weakening of protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the federal provision protecting internet platforms and publishers from certain legal liability for the speech of their users, or conduct resulting from that speech. As of this spring, websites and apps can be sued in civil court and criminally prosecuted by states if anyone uses them to facilitate or promote prostitution. It’s not hard to imagine Congress carving out a similar provision for any website that somehow facilitated someone obtaining abortion drugs illegally.

The same goes for laws like the Mann Act, still in frequent use to punish people who drive other adults across state lines for “immoral purposes” (usually sex work). Under a slightly revised Mann Act or something similar, we could see whole new swaths of federal agents devoted to ferreting out and stopping people from helping women in states where abortion is illegal obtain abortions in other states.

With our current state of medicine and technology, eliminating abortion anywhere in the country could prove more difficult than the pro-choice side fears—a small consolation, but a consolation nonetheless. Meanwhile, the police-state antics, disastrous policy, and rising prison populations that come from outlawing abortion could prove every bit as devastating to American women and the general state of freedom in the country as any return to back-alley abortion doctors could be.

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Wells Fargo: “Someone Or Someones Are Really Scared”

With just one trading day left in the month and the (very volatile) quarter, which has recently seen the stock of Deutsche Bank plunge to new all time lows dragging down European banks, in which trade war fears have sent Chinese tech stocks and European automotive names tumbling, which has seen the Shanghai Composite enter a bear market and the yield on the 10Y flash crash, in which Emerging Market bonds, currencies and stocks have been pulverized alongside the soaring dollar and oil forcing central bank interventions by the likes of China, India, and Brazil, Wells Fargo’s head of equity strategy Chris Harvey summarized the recent action rather simply: “Someone or someones are really scared.”

While that’s the most likely explanation, Harvey offers three more:

  • Someone or something is unwinding a very large macro trade/book
  • Pension funds and asset allocaters are aggressively rebalancing
  • Investors are rushing to cut Momentum exposure

To be sure, recent price action certainly confirms this: whether it is momentum strategies, which have been slammed this month following a sharp drop this Monday when Trump double down on his trade war threats with China…

… or trend-followers who have had an abysmal year, after the February VIX explosion first and then the more recent violent moves in the broader market…

… or fundamental investors who got stopped out from positions in heavily owned industries such as technology, consumer discretionary and banks, while the most shorted names among utilities and real estate jumped, the violent, spasmodic reversals caught many managers off guard and couldn’t have come at a worse time for active-managed funds that are about to mail out their monthly performance reports to soon to be disappointed clients.

And nowhere is this more obvious than in the performance of the 50 biggest large-cap funds tracked by Wells Fargo, whose alpha was cut in half in a span of days.

The result is hardly an outcome to Harvey, who writes that “earlier this week, we put forth the belief that ‘long onlys’ had an incentive to trim momentum exposure and possibly increase cash or risk aversion assets. Currently, it doesn’t feel like it can happen fast enough.”

As a result, traders scrambled to lock in profits for the quarter and volatility spiked, culminating with last Thursday’s sharp intraday reversal as investors rushed to take advantage of the morning rally to exit positions, especially winners: here momentum stocks, which outperformed the S&P in recent months, bore the brunt of selling.

As shown above, the iShares Momentum Factor ETF, MTUM, dropped 3% this week, its worst decline in three months.

“Thursday’s action felt like the start of an unwind, and unluckily we have a reasonable amount of data to support our fears.”

Whether cause or event, the sharp momentum unwind comes in the context of a rumored $2 billion market neutral fund that has reportedly suffered major losses in the past month, although it is hardly alone as the HFRX market neutral fund index confirms, now flat for the year:

Adding to the confusion, has been the ongoing countertrend rally in Treasurys “despite the economic and inflationary improvement” which have sent a deflationary signal to stocks, which according to Harvey “is providing a significant risk off signal and the fixed income risk-off message is spilling into the equity market.”

So with the quarter almost over, is the deleveraging over?

Judging by today’s market action, traders are certainly breating in a sigh of relief, but beware: “into Friday’s close, we expect ‘sloppy’ market action with demands for liquidity eclipsing liquidity providers” Harvey warns, adding that it feels like “acute demands for liquidity will likely arise.”

Finally, next week’s start may not be any better, but for an entirely different reason: as “Macrotourist” Kevin Muir wrote yesterday, on Monday July 2 is when the Fed has some $30 billion in notes are maturing. And just like POMO in reverse, historically days of QT maturities have seen sharp drops in the S&P. 

Muir’s conclusion: “Monday July 2nd spooz should trade heavy if this QT theory holds true.”

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Multiple Fatalities Reported In Mass Shooting At Annapolis Newsroom

Police in Baltimore responded to an active shooter incident at the Capital Gazette newspaper offices in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. The building is being evacuated while offciers continue to search for more shooters, while one suspect has been reportedly apprehended.

A Maryland sheriff told Fox News that there are “multiple fatalities” at the offices of the paper owned by The Baltimore Sun. 

Anne Arundel County Sheriff Ron Bateman told Shepard Smith that a suspect has been apprehended at the newspaper’s office, located on Bestgate Road, off Defense Highway in Parole, Md.

The Capital-Gazette, which serves the Annapolis area and Kent Narrows, is a subsidiary of the Baltimore Sun newspaper, and Trace Gallagher reported that newsroom is now sweeping for possible threats. –Fox

Developing 

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John Kelly Expected To Leave White House This Summer: WSJ

Chief of Staff John Kelly is reportedly preparing to leave the West Wing this summer after serving one year as President Trump’s chief of staff after enduring a handful of scandals that strained his relationship with the president. The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump has been consulting on possible replacements for Kelly, and that he’s already settled on two frontrunners: Nick Ayers, who servers as chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, and Mick Mulvaney, who leads the Office of Management and Budget and is also the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Kelly

WSJ’s sources said Kelly’s resignation could come as soon as this week, or it could follow Trump’s mid-July trip to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit.

Kelly survived Trump’s spring housecleaning that swept away former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former National Security Advisor HR McMaster. Kelly also faced down calls for his dismissal after he reportedly pressured White House staff to lie about the timeline of events during the “Rob Porter spousal abuse controversy.” Kelly, who replaced inaugural former Chief of Staff Reince Preibus after only a few months on the job, has also drawn rebukes from Trump for implying during an interview that Trump’s views on his famed border wall had “evolved.”

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Willett, Bolick, Sykes: Three Great Picks to Replace Anthony Kennedy: Podcast

By announcing his retirement from the Supreme Court (effective at the end of July), Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy has poured more gas on a political season that’s already in flames. Since joining the Court in the late 1980s, Kennedy has been seen as the key swing vote and, in the words of Reason Senior Editor Damon Root, “perhaps the single most influential jurist alive today,” who “will surely go down in American legal history as one of the most influential justices to serve on the high court.”

In today’s Reason Podcast, I talk with Root, author of the 2014 book Overruled: The Long War for Control of the U.S. Supreme Court, about Kennedy’s crucial role in rulings on issues such as free speech, campaign finance, gay marriage, and abortion. One of the country’s keenest Supreme Court watchers, Root also talks about possible replacements for Kennedy and why he’d like to see the president nominate a jurist like Don Willett, Clint Bolick, or Diane S. Sykes.

Subscribe, rate, and review our podcast at iTunes. Listen at SoundCloud below:

Audio production by Ian Keyser.

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Iranian President Reopens Nuclear Plant: “We Will Bring The US To Its Knees”

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday: “We will bring the US to its knees in this battle of wills.” The Iranian government is continuing to warn of harsh retaliation against the United States after the Trump administration pulled out of the 2015 nuclear agreement.

According to PressTV, the threat comes as Washington continues to attempt to bully its allies into halting imports of Iranian oil after Donald Trump unilaterally quit the cornerstone international nuclear agreement instituted by his predecessor, Barack Obama.  Iran has previously said there would be consequences should the US decide to withdraw from the agreement.

The United States, meanwhile, has continued to push Iran. After withdrawing from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in May the US vowed to reinforce economic pressure and sanctions against Tehran, reported RT.  While the European capitals have so far refused to leave the cornerstone security accord, on Tuesday the State Department threatened private companies with sanctions unless they completely cut Iranian crude oil imports by November.

Rouhani also seeks to unify all Iranians. 

“We will take problems. We will take pressure. But we will not sacrifice our independence,” Rouhani vowed. “Even in the worst case, I promise that the basic needs of Iranians will be provided,” the Jerusalem Post quoted Rouhani saying live on national television. 

Rouhani additionally noted that his administration will continue to defend Iran’s interests and focus on strengthening the economy. 

“We have enough foreign currency to inject into the market.”

The seventh president of Iran also ruled out any possibility that Washington could succeed in isolating his country. But the United States has been left isolated, as even its close allies, including France, the UK, and Germany, are working against the county’s government to prevent the nuclear agreement from crumbling. Even the State Department had to acknowledge that cutting off Iranian oil imports completely is a “challenge” that no country “wants to do voluntarily.”

Iran has also opened a uranium feedstock plant in the absence of the nuclear agreement. The nuclear plant that remained closed for nine years has now reopened Iran’s atomic energy agency (AEOI) said on Wednesday.  Tehran prepares to increase uranium enrichment capacity if a nuclear deal with world powers falls apart, reported Reuters. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the AEOI to start the necessary preparations to upgrade the country’s enrichment capacity in case the European efforts at a world deal fail.

The UF6 factory is part of the Isfahan uranium conversion facility, according to AEOI’s statement on its website.  The AEOI said on Wednesday that in response to Khamenei’s order and Trump’s renunciation of the deal, a plant for the production of UF6, the feedstock for centrifuge machines that enrich uranium, had been relaunched and a barrel of yellow cake has been delivered there.

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Republican Governor Signs $15 Minimum Wage Bill in Terrible ‘Grand Bargain’

On Thursday, Massachusetts Republican Gov. Charlie Baker signed into law a bill that will raise the minimum wage in his state to $15 an hour by 2023 and authorize a generous paid leave program. The governor’s goal, it seems, was to stave off a threatened reduction in the sales tax at the ballot box.

Baker touted the legislation as a “grand bargain.” But in this case, the winners are those advocating for a higher minimum wage and more mandatory paid leave for workers. The losers, on the other hand, are the voters who won’t be able to decide on these issues for themselves—and the taxpayers and businesses who will have to face the consequences of the new policies alongside high sales taxes.

According to the Associated Press, had voters approved a ballot measure lowering the sales tax from 6.25 percent to 5 percent, the state would have lost about $1.2 billion a year.

By agreeing to a compromise that kept the sales tax issue off the ballot, Baker was trying to ensure the state won’t lose that revenue. At the same time, he also went out of his way to keep voters from deciding whether or not they wanted to lower the state’s sales tax.

The legislation will gradually raise the minimum wage from $11 an hour to $15 an hour by 2023. Tipped workers, meanwhile, will see their minimum pay increase from $3.75 an hour to $6.75 an hour over the next five years. Currently, the only other governors in the country to have signed $15 minimum wage bills into law are Andrew Cuomo of New York and Jerry Brown of California, both Democrats.

Roughly 840,000 worker will get a pay raise, according to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center. However, the bill will also eliminate time-and-a-half pay for Sundays by 2023.

Regarding the new paid leave policy, workers will be able to take as much as 12 weeks off if they need to care for either an ill family member or a new baby. They’ll be allowed up to 20 weeks to deal with their own health needs. State Rep. Paul Brodeur (D–Middlesex) said it would be the most generous in the country.

Finally, the bill does not lower the state’s sales tax, though it does institute an annual sales tax holiday in August.

“I am thankful that all parties came together, compromised and found common ground to produce a better set of policies than what the ballot questions represented,” Baker said Thursday. “The Massachusetts workforce continues to grow with more and more people finding jobs and our administration is committed to maintaining the Commonwealth’s competitive economic environment.”

Though business leaders are concerned about raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, some seem to think that it was better to implement an increase via a compromise rather than through a ballot measure.

“A lot of small businesses out there are fearful and angry over a potential $15-per-hour minimum wage and a new paid leave mandate, but we have to look at the reality of what we might be able to do through a compromise instead of what would occur through a ballot initiative,” Jon B. Hurst, the president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, told the Boston Globe. “You don’t reach compromises on the ballot. You reach compromise through the legislative process,” Hurst added.

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“Finish It The Hell Up”: Gowdy Slams Rosenstein Over Never-Ending Russia Probe

A visibly frustrated Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) unleashed on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Chris Wray during Congressional testimony on Thursday, lashing out at FBI agent Peter Strzok’s bias against Donald Trump while investigating him – before telling Rosenstein that the ongoing Russia investigation is tearing the country apart.

Transcript follows:

For Peter Strzok – at precisely the same time that Bob Mueller was appointed – precisely the same time, Peter Strzok was talking about his “unfinished business” and how he needed to fix and finish it so Donald Trump did not become President. He was talking about impeachment within three days of special counsel Mueller being appointed! 

Three days! That’s even quicker than MSNBC and the Democrats were talking about impeaching him. Within three days, the lead FBI agent is talking about impeaching the president. 

We’re two years into this investigation, we’re a year and a half into the presidency. We’re over a year into the special counsel. You have a counterintelligence investigation that’s become public. You have a criminal investigation that’s become political. You have more bias than I have ever seen manifest in a law enforcement officer in the 20 years I used to do it for a living. And four other DOJ employees who had manifest animus towards the person they were supposed to be neutrally and detachedly investigating. 

More than 60 Democrats have already voted to proceed with impeachment before Bob Mueller has found a single solitary damn thing! More than 60 have voted to move forward with impeachment! And he hasn’t presented his first finding! 

Russia attacked this country, they should be the target. But Russia isn’t being hurt by this investigation right now, we are. This country is being hurt by it. We are being divided. We’ve seen the bias. We need to see the evidence. 

If you have evidence of wrongdoing by any member of the Trump campaign, present it to the damn grand jury. If you have evidence that this president acted inappropriately, present it to the American people.

There’s an old saying: “Justice delayed is justice denied.” I think right now that all of us are being denied. 

Watch: 

A defensive Rosenstein pushed back after Gowdy’s speech, responding that he has “heard suggestions that we should just close the investigation. I think the best thing we can do is finish it appropriately and reach a conclusion.” 

Thursday’s Congressional testimony was full of contentious moments. In one exchange described by CNN’s ever-impartial Jason Morrell as “Rosenstein skillfully SMACKS DOWN” Rep. Jim Jordan,” the Deputy AG elicited laughter when he told the Congressman “There’s no way to subpoena phone calls.”  

Jordan also pressed Rosenstein over a variety of other issues.

– Slow document delivery from the DOJ 

– “Why did you hide the fact that Peter Strzok and Judge Contreras were friends?” (The original judge in Mike Flynn case)

– “Did you threaten staffers on the House Intelligence committee?” 

– Peter Strzok’s Wednesday testimony which FBI attorneys repeatedly muzzled

Full exchange here: 

In another segment, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) grilled Rosenstein over demoted DOJ official Bruce Ohr, whose wife Nellie Ohr was working for Fusion GPS in an effort to produce opposition research on Candidate Trump. Gaetz also asked whether or not Rosenstein had read the FISA warrant renewal he signed, reauthorizing an ongoing surveillance operation on Trump campaign aide Carter Page. 

In short, GOP sabre rattling was met with smug indignancy as a visibly annoyed and very confident Rosenstein batted their questions away like gnats. 

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Landlords Fight Back Against Local Governments Waging War on Short-Term Rentals

Almost two decades ago, Donald and Irma Shirkey, who live in Pacific Grove, California, bought a second house for their children and grandchildren to use when they came to visit. To cover the cost of a second home, the Shirkeys rented it out.

Starting in 2010, however, Pacific Grove began to require licenses for property owners who offer short-term rentals. Soon after the ordinance passed, the Shirkeys did what they were supposed to do, making the necessary (and costly) changes to their rental home to satisfy city regulators and obtain a license.

The local government didn’t stop there. Last year, Pacific Grove officials asked the elderly couple to obtain another short-term rental license, this time for an upstairs guest quarters too small to be viable for most renters. The new licenses are granted via an arbitrary lottery system, which means it is possible for homeowners with multiple violations or nuisance complaints to “win” the right to continue renting their space, while more law-abiding homeowners could be denied that option by the luck of the draw. If they do not win the lottery, the Shirkeys will not be able to rent out their second home any longer and consequently might not be able to afford the house.

The Shirkeys are now suing Pacific Grove in the Monterey County Superior Court over these violations of their property rights. It’s one of three lawsuits launched this week by the Goldwater Institute, a free market think tank based in Arizona. Cases also have been filed in Seattle and Miami Beach, where similar regulations are part of “a misguided war on home sharing nationwide,” says Christina Sandefur, Goldwater’s vice president.

“Cities are punishing responsible homeowners simply because a handful of landlords operate nuisance properties,” says Sandefur. “The answer is to use existing laws to crack down on bad actors, not to strip everybody of their property rights.”

In Seattle, people who own more than three homes are prevented from renting them for short periods of time, which harms homeowners who earn their livelihood that way. Goldwater is challenging that rule on behalf of a property owner who has served more than 2,500 customers.

In Miami Beach, outside of certain “rental zones,” landlords can be fined up to $100,000 for renting out one of their properties. Those penalties, city officials acknowledged last year, are “grossly disproportional.” Goldwater’s lawsuit, filed on behalf of woman who got through the 2008 recession by renting out her two properties on Biscayne Bay, notes that the Florida Constitution prohibits excessive fines.

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