Month: September 2018

Obama Slams Trump, “Nazi Sympathizers” In Fiery Speech Warning Of “Dangerous Times” 

Former President Obama jumped into the political fray on Friday, lashing out at Donald Trump by name in what appears to be his first crack at energizing Democrats for midterms. 

Trump says he fell asleep. 

“I’m sorry. I watched it, but I fell asleep. I found he’s very good — very good for sleeping,” the President said during a Fargo, ND fundraiser. 

While giving an acceptance speech for the Paul H. Douglas award for Ethics in Government at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Obama said that President Trump is simply capitalizing on discontent whipped up over many years, while asking “What happened to the Republican Party?” while adding that Americans have “moments” when people who are “genuinely, if wrongly, fearful of change” have pushed back against progressive American ideals. 

“You happen to be coming of age during one of those moments,” Obama said. “It did not start with Donald Trump, he is a symptom, not the cause. He is just capitalizing on resentment that politicians have fanning for years. A fear, an anger that is rooted in our past but is also borne in our enormous upheavals that have taken place in your brief lifetimes.”

Perhaps fanning a few flames himself, Obama then said “we sure as heck supposed to stand up clearly and unequivocally to Nazi sympathizers,” asking “How hard can that be, saying that Nazis are bad?” 

“When you vote, you’ve got the power to make sure white nationalists don’t feel emboldened to march with their hoods on or hoods off in Charlottesville,” Obama said.

This hasn’t sat well with conservatives: 

Obama also pushed back against the controversial New York Times op-ed allegedly written by an anonymous White House official claiming to be part of an internal “resistance” within the administration. 

And by the way, the claim that everything will turn out okay because there are people inside the White House who secretly aren’t following the president’s orders—that is not a check. I’m being serious here. That’s not how our democracy is supposed to work. These people aren’t elected. They are not accountable. They are not doing us a service by actively promoting 90 percent of the crazy stuff that is coming out of this White House and then saying don’t worry, we’re preventing the other 10 percent. That’s not how things are supposed to work! This is not normal. These are extraordinary times, and they are dangerous times.

The former President then made his midterm pitch, telling the audience “In two months, we have the chance—not the certainty, but the chance—to restore some semblance of sanity to our politics. Because there is actually only one real check on bad policy and abuses of power, and that’s you. You and your vote.”

Obama then took credit for the economic progress made under the Trump administration, saying “let’s just remember when this recovery started. I mean, I’m glad it’s continued, but when you hear about this economic miracle that’s been going on, when the job numbers come out, monthly job numbers, and suddenly Republicans are saying ‘it’s a miracle!’ I have to kind of remind them—actually those job numbers are the same as they were in 2015 and 2016. Anyway, I digress.” 

One might argue that the recovery started when Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke held a gun to Congress’s head in September of 2008, during the Bush administration, when they described how the US economy would implode if they didn’t urgently apply taxpayer dollars to fix decisions created in large part by Bill Clinton’s repeal of Glass Steagall. But we digress…

Trump responded to Obama’s economic diss, telling the Fargo crowd “He was trying to take credit for this incredible thing that’s happening to our country,” adding that Obama presided over the “weakest recovery in the history of our country.” 

Obama also hit Trump on tac cuts for wealthy Americans, claiming: “With Republicans in control of Congress and the White House, without any checks or balances whatsoever, they’ve provided another $1.5 trillion in tax cuts to people like me, who I promise don’t need it, and don’t even pretend to pay for them,” adding “It’s supposed to be the party supposedly of fiscal conservatism… Suddenly deficits do not matter.”

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Who’s Ready for Fall Television? New at Reason

'Rel'Technically it’s still a couple of weeks before fall television premieres truly start, but Sunday sees the launch of two new shows, Rel on Fox and Kidding on Showtime. Television critic Glenn Garvin finds the flailing about of two failing men not as entertaining as they could be:

Little Rel’s real-life stand-up act has always been built around keen character observation coupled with tales of personal misfortune, and the show makes good use of that, mixing slam-bang punchlines with slow-burn jokes that erupt unexpectedly. The bougie/street conflict is consistently funny without condescension, with both sides giving as good as they get.

But Rel wants to be a Rocky-like tale of redemption and rebirth, a guy rebuilding his life from the emotional ruins of a divorce, and those scenes inevitably fall flat. You can practically hear a screenwriter in the background whispering, “Your wife didn’t leave you for a barber but for a refuge from a stultifying marriage from which you long ago disengaged. Now, fall on your butt.” Rel‘s pretty good at delivering laughs, but his pathos is, well, pathetic.

View this article.

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Trump Touts GOP Bill To Deport Criminal Aliens That “Crazy Dems Opposed”

President Trump on Friday touted a new bill which would allow federal officials to more easily deport criminal illegal aliens. 

The Community Safety and Security Act passed in the House 247-152 after its introduction last week by Rep. Karen Handel (R-GA). It is a response to an April Supreme Court ruling that said federal law lacks clarity over how to charge immigrants with aggravated felony, since that determination is based on whether the perpetrator committed a “crime of violence” – an undefined term in federal code. 

Under the bill, the term would be defined in a way that includes a range of offenses, including assault, voluntary manslaughter, attempted kidnapping, sexual assault, domestic violence, murder, human trafficking, and others. With that change in place, the government could again charge immigrants with aggravated felony, a charge that opens up criminal aliens to mandatory removal from the U.S. –Washington Examiner

Friday morning, President Trump tweeted: “Under our horrible immigration laws, the Government is frequently blocked from deporting criminal aliens with violent felony convictions. House GOP just passed a bill to increase our ability to deport violent felons (Crazy Dems opposed). Need to get this bill to my desk fast!”

Supporters of the bill add that the legal clarification will also help federal officials prosecute people for crimes unrelated to immigration – and would boost safety and security across the country, according to Handel. 

“This legislation provides critical clarity to the definition of crime of violence in the United States code in order to keep violent criminals and ensure the safety of our communities,” Handel said ahead of the Friday vote, speaking from the House floor while touting support of the legislation from the Fraternal Order of Police. “Failure to address this issue would foster vagueness and uncertainty in our courts.”

Democrats and immigrant rights groups criticized the legislation, claiming it will be used to target immigrants and could lead to an increase in deportations. 

“Because this definition is cross-referenced widely throughout the criminal code and incorporated into federal immigration law, this bill will trigger a significant expansion of the penalties attached to even minor criminal conduct in federal criminal court, exacerbate the mass incarceration crisis, and render even more immigrants subject to the disproportionate penalty of deportation,” wrote the National Immigrant Justice Center, the Immigrant Defense Project, and other organizations said in a combined statement reported by the Examiner. 

Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D) said on Friday that the bill was brought to the floor in a “hasty, precipitous manner.” 

 

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Elon Musk Tokes and Tesla Stock Tumbles

|||Screenshot via YouTube/ PowerfulJREReal-life Tony Stark figure Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, followed his free spirit last night by getting a little high on comedian Joe Rogan’s podcast.

Rogan pulled out a joint in the middle of the interview, leading Musk to wonder if it was a tobacco cigar or cannabis. Rogan confirmed it was the latter. At one point, Musk inhaled, exhaled, and shrugged the experience off before picking up a glass of whiskey and observing that alcohol is a drug that’s “been grandfathered in.”

Following Musk’s interview with Rogan, as well as the recent resignation of a chief accounting officer, Tesla stock dropped 9 percent.

The moment was rather interesting considering some comments Musk made about marijuana and productivity just a few weeks prior. As noted, Musk once tweeted that he was considering selling shares of his company for $420. As you probably know, the number 420 is popularly associated with smoking pot.

When The New York Times asked Musk if he was smoking when he made the tweet, Musk replied, “Weed is not helpful for productivity. There’s a reason for the word ‘stoned.’ You just sit there like a stone on weed.” As for the figure, Musk said that $420 “seemed like better karma” than $419.

OK, then.

Those with over two and a half hours to spare can watch the full interview below. The hotbox begins at 2:09:05.

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When Up Is Down: Why The Jump In Hourly Earnings Confirms Economic Slowdown

Submitted by the Economic Cycle Research Institute

Earnings growth has risen for an unfortunate reason: growth in hours has fallen faster than pay growth. The chart below shows income growth slowing, and growth in hours worked slowing even faster.

Contrary to popular belief, such a slowdown is not a credible signal of an inflation upturn. And if the jump in wage growth pushes the Fed to be more hawkish, it could actually worsen the slowdown.

As we first publicly explained in May 2014, since AHE is the ratio of total weekly pay to total weekly hours, it’s useful to look at the growth rates of each, shown in the lower panel of the chart (purple and gold lines, respectively), which tells the real story. Following the post-hurricane pop, year-over-year payroll growth has edged up, while yoy hours growth has actually fallen back to its lowest reading since January 2017, excluding its September low, which was due to the hit from the hurricanes. So, rising yoy AHE growth may seem like a good thing, but in this case it is actually confirms the slowdown in economic growth that’s starting to take hold.

The bottom line is that the latest pop in overall AHE growth is not a sign of economic strength or inflation.

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Republican Members of Congress Just Sent Jeff Sessions Yet Another Letter Asking Him To Stop Holding Up Marijuana Research

A private letter obtained by Reason shows that members of Congress—both Republicans and Democrats—are still pleading with Attorney General Jeff Sessions to review 26 outstanding applications from potential new manufacturers of research cannabis.

“In light of the fact that August 11, 2018 marked two years since the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) stated that they would accept registrations for manufacturers of marijuana for research usage, we write to encourage you to finalize your review of the submitted applications,” reads the letter [PDF], which a bipartisan group of House members sent to Sessions on August 31.

The person who provided the document to Reason says it is the latest of at least 15 letters members of both the House and the Senate have sent to Sessions regarding the delayed approval of research cannabis applications. Seven of these letters have been publicly posted or shared by the legislators who signed them; Sessions has also received eight private letters asking for an explanation for the delayed review.

“No one has been answered,” the source told Reason.

Fourteen House members signed the Aug. 31 letter, including Reps. Carlos Curbelo (R–Fla.), Matt Gaetz (R–Fla.), Dana Rohrabacher (R–Calif.), Don Young (R–Alaska), Tom Garrett (R–Va.), and Ryan Costello (R–Pa.), along with eight Democrats.

Sens. Orrin Hatch (R–Utah) and Kamala Harris (D–Calif.) also sent a letter to Sessions on August 31 to follow up on a letter they sent April 12, 2018. The April letter, which Reason previously covered, asked Sessions to answer congressional queries about applications to manufacture research cannabis by May 15, 2018. Sessions ignored that deadline, along with another deadline set by Hatch: that the Justice Department resolve 26 pending applications by August 11, 2018, the two-year anniversary of the DEA’s announcement.

In short, Sessions has refused not only to allow the DEA to process these applications, but also to explain to Congress, applicants, or the public why he’s interfering in regulatory actions that are routine for companies seeking to manufacture schedule I and II substances other than cannabis.

At an April Senate hearing, Sessions said approving new research cannabis manufacturers could violate the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotics. This is almost certainly not true, and several other signatory countries—the United Kingdom and Israel among them—have managed to reconcile their cannabis research policies with the U.N. agreement without stifling innovation or research. To date, this remains the only argument Sessions has publicly offered for interfering in the application review process.

The DEA announced in August 2016 that it planned to approve new producers of research-grade cannabis for use in pharmaceutical development and human studies. Currently, and for the last several decades, the federal government has allowed only one person in the U.S. to produce cannabis for research purposes. That person is Mahmoud ElSohly, a researcher at the University of Mississippi, who grows cannabis under a contract with the National Institutes for Drug Abuse (NIDA). Researchers who are licensed by the federal government to study marijuana in the U.S. must use material obtained only from NIDA, despite credible concerns about quality control and about the agency’s ability to provide material that reflects the diversity of products available to consumers in state-legal markets.

ElSohly’s monopoly, sustained only by the Justice Department’s refusal to approve new applicants, poses an insurmountable obstacle for American academics and drug companies. The Food and Drug Administration will not approve clinical trials using ElSohly’s product, which means American companies cannot develop cannabis-based prescription drugs; federal law, meanwhile, prohibits academics from conducting human studies using the cannabis products that are commonly available in retail settings across the country. (Epidiolex, the first cannabis-derived prescription product to gain FDA approval, was developed using cannabis grown legally in the United Kingdom.)

That Americans know so little about a drug as widely consumed as cannabis is almost beyond belief; that Sessions bears some responsibility for the anemic state of U.S. cannabis research is not. But his fellow Republicans seem to be growing tired of whatever game Sessions is playing. To the House members who wrote him on Aug. 31, approving new manufacturers of research cannabis is a no-brainer: “It is good policy, it is simply the right thing to do, and it falls within our national controlled substances regulatory framework.”

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Asia Argento Is Why I Don’t Believe All Victims

ArgentoAsia Argento, the Italian actress and #MeToo movement leader who was recently accused of sexually assaulting an underage male actor named Jimmy Bennett, is now claiming that Bennett “sexually attacked” her in 2013. According to her attorney, Argento was the victim in the situation, which he summarized as “a misunderstood interaction between her and Bennett that was initiated by Bennett, perpetrated upon Asia, and resulted in her ‘freezing’ and being placed in a ‘state of shock.'”

I don’t believe her. In fact, this is a textbook example of why the fourth-wave feminist notion that we should automatically believe all victims is pernicious.

Why don’t I believe Argento? For one thing, she paid Bennett $3.5 million to keep him quiet about it. For another, she took a post-sex photo with him in bed, and it does not show a woman who looks like she was just attacked.

The statement by Argento’s lawyer claims that Bennett was himself subsequently accused of unlawfully having sex with a minor, in 2014. He would have been 18 or 19 at the time, so the alleged victim was likely just a few years younger than him—not, say, a full two decades younger. Either way, what Bennett did or did not do with someone else isn’t relevant to Argento’s charges. Whether or not Bennett later had sex with a minor, it matters that Argento had sex with Bennett.

The age of consent in California is 18. In most other states, it’s 17, which means Argento committed a crime in only a very technical sense. While I think it was wrong to take advantage of a young man who claimed he saw her as a mother figure to him—and it was certainly wrong to ply him with alcohol, as Argento allegedly did—I’m not sure the law should hold that 17-year-olds have no sexual agency. I am not eager to see Argento prosecuted, unless she truly incapacitated him first.

But even if Argento didn’t deserve to be prosecuted, she is not the victim here. Bennett’s attorneys have called her position “self-serving and slanderous,” which seems accurate. She engineered the situation by inviting him to the hotel room, she provided alcohol, and it appears overwhelmingly likely that she initiated the sex and was perfectly happy about it immediately after.

Argento is probably lying. To be clear, that would make this a false accusation of rape. We don’t have good statistics on how common such false accusations are. (Many of the low-ball figures oft-cited by activists are based on questionable data.)

In any case, it’s interesting to consider why Argento is lying. She’s lying because she is suffering social consequences for a sexual incident she now regrets. What probably seemed right to her in the moment is now an embarrassing and costly mistake. She thinks lying about what happened is the only way to recover some of her dignity and change the narrative.

It’s reasonable to presume that this is not common. But it’s naïve to pretend that it almost never, ever, ever happens, which is what campus victims’ rights activists expect of the public. In my years writing about campus sexual assault disputes, I have covered dozens if not hundreds of cases that involved an ambiguous situation: Some evidence suggested willingness of both parties to proceed with the encounter, but later one party—usually a woman—said she did not actually give consent. Was she assaulted, or was she later changing her mind about having consented because the encounter was regretted and embarrassing?

I’m not claiming that such lying is common, but I doubt it’s as rare as the activist community claims, particularly when it comes to the cases adjudicated under Title IX, the federal statute governing campus sexual misconduct tribunals. Activists assert that it would be crazy to make up a story about being assaulted—who would lie about that? But people lie all the time, about matters big and small. That’s one reason the Title IX reforms currently being considered by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos are so important. If we shed the belief that alleged victims are always and automatically telling the truth, it becomes more important to actually question the accuser and the accused, to permit some form of cross-examination, and to discover the truth of the matter.

Read more about the latest Argento news in Rolling Stone, a publication that knows a great deal about not believing all victims.

Even further reading: “Asia Argento’s Time Is Up.”

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Brazil’s Bolsonaro Lost 40% Of Blood After Knife Attack By Crazed ‘Socialist’

We previously detailed the shocking stabbing incident involving Brazil’s far-right candidate for president Jair Bolsonaro – called “Brazil’s Donald Trump” due to his at time eccentric behavior and policy suggestions – during a parade in the city Juiz de Fora Thursday. Bolsonaro’s had suffered severe blood loss and arrived to the hospital “almost dead” according to his family, but his situation has stabilized as he remains in intensive care. 

Significantly, only one month ahead of a presidential election in Brazil, the man commonly described in local media as “Brazil’s Donald Trump” and who was a presidential front-runner and current congressman will take at least two months to recover from the serious wounds, according to medical staff treating the presidential candidate. 

Hospital director Eunice Dantas told reporters on Friday that Bolsonaro had lost about 40 percent of his blood, or more than two liters, resulting in his being in shock upon arrival after the knife penetrated 12cm (4.7in) into his abdomen. Doctors now report him to be “in excellent clinical condition” after emergency surgery. 

Citing medical sources, Reuters reports of Bolsonaro’s medical status after he suffered the deep wound to his lower stomach:

Congressman Bolsonaro, who has enraged many Brazilians for years with controversial comments but has a devout following among conservative voters, could take two months to fully recover and will spend at least a week in hospital, said Dr. Luiz Henrique Borsato, who operated on the candidate.

“His internal wounds were grave and put the patient’s life at risk,” Borsato said. The challenge now is preventing infection that could result from the perforation of Bolsonaro’s intestines, he said.

He’s since tweeted that he’s doing well and recuperating; however, in a video message ot his supporters Bolsonario acknowledged he had been in “intolerable” pain and had “never hurt anyone”.

Numerous videos on social media showed Bolsonaro, who has promised to crack down on crime in Latin America’s largest nation, being stabbed with a knife to the lower part of his stomach. At the moment of the attack, Bolsonaro was on the shoulders of a supporter, looking out at the crowd and giving a thumbs up with his left hand. According to Folha, Bolsonaro’s liver – which was perforated by the stabbing – suffered a “grave injury.”

Police have arrested 40-year-old Adelio Obispo de Oliveira, and say they are currently investigating his mental health. He reportedly told police he was “on a mission from God” and has been described as a socialist. 

Immediately after the attack he was beaten by angry supporters of the 63-year old presidential candidate before being taken into custody.

Video footage of the attack has since gone viral, and Brazilian media reports the political process ahead of the upcoming presidential election is in tatters and remains uncertain.

The suspected attacker, Oliveira, was reportedly a member of the left-leaning PSOL party from 2007 to 2014. And multiple reports further note that just prior to the attack he posted messages criticizing Bolsonaro and praised the socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.

Adelio Bispo de Oliveira is suspected of stabbing Jair Boslanaro while he was campaigning in Brazil, via Brazilian Military Police official photo

According to local media reports, Pedro Augusto Lima Possa, the suspect’s lawyer said his client has confessed to the knife attack.

Possa said, “Adelio confessed and claimed responsibility for the attack. But he said he had not intended to kill [Bolsonaro].”

The incident comes after a tumultuous period in Brazilian history that saw a president impeached 2 years ago and the still popular former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva jailed and barred from running in the election. It is the most unpredictable election since Brazil’s return to democracy in 1985 with a highly splintered field of candidates.

According to the latest Ibope poll, Bolsonaro had 22% of first-round vote intentions, more than 10% points ahead of his closest rivals. Former Environment Minister Marina Silva and left-wing candidate Ciro Gomes each have 12 percent while former governor of Sao Paulo, Geraldo Alckmin, has 9%. Fernando Haddad, the likely substitute for Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has 6%, although it remains unclear how much of Lula’s vote, which was in the 30% range, would transfer over to Haddad now that Lula has been barred from running for president.

Bolsonaro has relied heavily on social media and rallies across the country in a grass roots populist oriented campaign, thus his inability to take to the streets and give speeches could greatly impact the results.

President Temer, an unpopular leader, is not standing for re-election, and millions of voters remain undecided.

Mr Bolsonaro is expected to have a strong first round but lose a run-off to leftist Ciro Gomes, environmentalist Marina Silva or ex-Governor of Sao Paulo Geraldo Alckmin, according to leading research company Ibope. — BBC 

However, Flavio Bolsonaro, the candidate’s son, made a surprise statement on Friday, saying “the attack was a political boost”.

Indeed with Bolsonaro’s story of surviving this vicious attack now spread across the globe, and with an outpouring of sympathy from Brazilians, many of which are still on the fence regarding the upcoming election in October, this could be the very thing that pushes him over the edge to victory. 

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Scott Walker’s Anthem-Flag Bitmoji Is Republicanism Under Donald Trump

To understand what has happened to the Republican Party under Donald Trump, consider the case of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

There was a time, not too many years ago, when Walker looked like a plausible, even likely, candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.

Walker, who spent nearly all of his adult life running for and holding office, rose to national prominence after a highly visible showdown with his state’s public sector unions. He wrote a book about the experience and toured the country touting his policy record and his state’s strong economy in the years after the recession. In many ways, he looked like—or at least played the role of—a serious, governance-focused conservative politician.

In 2015, Walker launched a bid for the GOP presidential nomination, positioning himself as the substantive antithesis to the crude triviality of Donald Trump. But it quickly became clear that the governor wasn’t ready for the national stage. He stumbled over questions about building a Canadian border wall (really), ending birthright citizenship, and whether or not he supported federal ethanol subsidies (which he was against until he started campaigning for president). Like many Republican candidates that year, he seemed unsure of how to respond to Trump, who dominated the field from early on.

In September 2015, Walker, facing poor polls and financial strains, exited the race. As he did, he called for other struggling GOP candidates to do the same, so that the party could unite behind “a positive conservative alternative to the current front-runner.” It was an explicit shot at Trump, and a warning to others in the GOP that the reality-show star’s brand of shallow, resentment-driven culture-war politics could overtake the party at the expense of both conservative ideology and governance.

Today, Trump as president commands the strong support of the vast majority of Republican voters, and, at least in public, the backing of nearly all GOP elected officials. He spends his days tweeting about enemies, real and imagined, and fanning the flames of the culture war in order to energize Republican voters. Among the most frequent topics of the president’s tweets are the NFL players who have decided to protest police brutality by taking a knee during the national anthem. In both style and (lack of) substance, the Trump takeover that Walker warned about three years ago has come to pass.

Among those who have fallen in line is Scott Walker, who spent part of yesterday—the first day of the NFL’s regular season—tweeting inane pablum about the kneeling players and asking whether Tony Evers, his Democratic opponent in Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race, supports the player protests. (Walker and Evers are currently tied in the polls.) Among those tweets was this heart-on-flannel Bitmoji, which resembles a goofy parody of flag-waving GOP patriotism.

Walker’s policy record since exiting the presidential race (like his record prior to entering it) is rife with shady local deal making in the name of job creation, including a county-led plan to locate a FoxConn facility in the state using state subsidies and the threat of eminent domain. That effort was backed by none other than President Trump.

Walker is no longer a figure of national significance, nor is his political trajectory all that unusual. His tweets are embarrassing, but not in a way that stands out, particularly when compared to Trump himself.

But Walker’s evolution from policy-focused governor to figure of pure political pandering illustrates the overall trajectory of the GOP, which has surrendered itself almost entirely to Trump’s hostile takeover. Donald Trump’s victory over Scott Walker, and the Republican Party, is all but complete.

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Ratings For NFL Opener Sink To Lowest Level In Nearly A Decade

Days after the NFL issued a statement in support of controversial new Nike spokesman Colin Kaepernick (who is suing the league), ratings for last night’s season opener between the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles and the Atlanta Falcons dropped to its lowest level since 2009.

NBC announced a 13.4 overnight rating – a drop of over 8% over last year, and nearly 25% since 2015, marking the third year of declines.

That said, many have suggested the dip in ratings was due to extenuating circumstances, after the kickoff was delayed by nearly an hour due to thunderstorms in Philadelphia.  

As NBC Sports‘ Michael David Smith notes, however: 

there are only so many times that the NFL can spin its ratings decline as being the result of extenuating circumstances. Whatever the reasons, the league’s television ratings are not the juggernaut they once were. The NFL still gets national television ratings that any other sport (or, for that matter, any entertainment program) would kill for, but it no longer gets the kinds of television ratings it got a few years back. –NBC Sports

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