Month: October 2018

New California Law Bans Bars, Liquor Stores from Selling Marijuana-Infused Drinks

One surefire way to know that cannabis-infused booze is growing in popularity: Governments are starting to regulate it.

Last week, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill prohibiting bars and liquor stores in the state from selling cannabis products that are also alcoholic beverages, including “an infusion of cannabis or cannabinoids derived from industrial hemp into an alcoholic beverage.” The bill had sailed through the state legislature, passing the state Assembly with unanimous support and getting a 34–3 vote in the state Senate.

The bill strikes a blow against the innovative pot cocktails that had been springing up in California, where marijuana has been legal for recreational uses since January 1. In April, L.A. Weekly profiled several Los Angeles–area bars where mixologists were experimenting with using cannabidiol (CBD) oil in drinks. Though CBD does not contain tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive component present in marijuana, it has a calming effect and adds a new twist to traditional cocktails.

Those concoctions were ruled illegal by the state’s Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control in July. The agency issued new rules banning the sale of alcoholic beverages made with cannabis or cannabis-derived oils, and the bill signed by Brown codifies those existing rules.

The bill was backed by a predictable mix of law enforcement and public health groups, but it faced no significant opposition. The County Health Executives Association of California, which submitted comments to the state Senate about the bill, warned that “combining the relatively unknown effects of cannabis with the known sedative effects of alcohol may have devastatingly unpredictable and harmful impacts on Californians.”

California’s status as the largest market for legal marijuana means that what happens there will likely send a signal to other states that either have or are considering legal weed. The new law will further entrench the separation of the two products that’s already implicit, if not explicit, in state laws—marijuana dispensaries are not licensed to sell alcohol, and bars or liquor stores are not licensed to sell pot.

That’s likely to limit experimentation with CBD cocktails and with marijuana-infused beers. As I wrote in a July feature, brewers are increasingly interested in cannabis-derived products for a variety of reasons. Hemp-flavored beers or brews made with hemp seeds can be found at breweries in Colorado, Utah, California, Oregon, and beyond. Even the hip-hop duo Run The Jewels, which has partnered with a series of six breweries around the world to produce beers named after some of the group’s songs, is planning to release a CBD-infused pilsner with the German brewery BRLO.

Keith Villa, the man who originally created Blue Moon beer, is now producing a line of THC-infused beers. His beer gets around some of these regulatory hurdles because it is non-alcoholic—it will taste like beer, but you’ll have to buy it at a pot shop. Similarly, the California-based Lagunitas Brewing Company has recently launched a series of THC-infused seltzer waters made with hops.

Thanks to a legal loophole, California’s nascent CBD-cocktails might remain legal even under the new law. A state Senate analysis of the bill points out that CBD can be derived from industrial hemp—which, despite being grown as cannabis, is actually not classified as a “cannabis” in state law. Although they are often used interchangeably, the terms cannabis, hemp, and marijuana have important biological and legal distinctions. The former term describes the whole plant; there are several different species, but all come from the Cannabis genus. Hemp usually refers to the stalks and stems of the plant, which contain CBD oil and are minimally psychoactive. Marijuana is derived from the plant’s leaves and flowers or buds, where higher concentrations of THC are found. The seeds are a bit of a grey area, with federal law classifying them as hemp if they are sterilized, as marijuana if not. Marijuana is completely illegal on the federal level, while hemp can be legally imported, though there are strict limits on growing it.

As it happens, Brown also signed a bill last week that legalizes industrial hemp production in the state—a move that was praised as a “major victory” by Vote Hemp, a group pushing for legalization of industrial hemp at the state and federal levels. The bill clarifies that legal hemp includes extracts and derivatives from non-psychoactive parts of the cannabis plant, and it allows California farmers to grow hemp as well as process hemp seed, oils, and other extracts.

“It is unclear whether these [cocktails additives] are cannabis- or hemp-derived,” the Senate analysts wrote in their assessment of the marijuana-alcohol bill, “but policymakers may wish to reconsider whether this broad exemption for all industrial hemp is justified.”

As always in California, expect more regulations ahead.

from Hit & Run https://ift.tt/2NsO6vv
via IFTTT

Mystery Trader Bets $2.5 Million That Rates Will Soar To 3.6% In Two Months

Benchmark Treasury yields have jumped to a new 7 years high of over 3.24% following today’s strong, if weather-affected jobs report, rising at a furious speed that has prompted the biggest two-day selloff in US stocks since May. Yet with concerns mounting that this selloff would be similar to the January rout, the key difference between the current move and the one from early in the year is only modestly increasing rates vol this time, suggesting investors perceive interest rates will soon stabilize at the new higher levels, especially since if yields rise too much there would be significant stabilizing foreign buying in the back end of the curve.

However, one Treasury trader has made a big that this week’s selloff is just the beginning.

According to Bloomberg, on Thursday afternoon a buyer of Treasury put options wagered $2.5 million that 10-year yields will rise 3.6% over the next two months; the bet expires two days after Fed’s December 19 meeting. According to Edward Bollingbroke, the 18,000-lot put block was bought at 9 ticks, when the 10Y rates was trading at roughly 3.19%. And with the yield rising above 3.24% on Friday afternoon after the payrolls report, the bet was already almost $1 million in the money.

The trade, which showed up as new risk in CME open interest data, was proof that demand is starting to emerge for protection against a significant run-up in yields through year-end. Furthermore, the wager is the first major put purchase in the January 2019 expiries, and could lead to many more similar trades in the coming days.

It’s not just the January expiry that has been attracting attention: hedges have also been purchased in the November puts, targeting a much faster Treasuries selloff, and per the Bloomberg report, open interest Thursday surged by a combined 233,132 lots across strikes.

Those holding long positions in the options would mostly be hedging against 10-year yields rising anywhere between 3.3 percent and 3.45 percent. The options expire in just three weeks’ time

After breaking out from their multi-year base, and springing higher, the recent bond market shakeup has left traders listening to Gundlach who predicts a sharper rise now that the resistance level has been breached, and running to find cover for a continued march higher in yields.

Incidentally, if Goldman and UBS are right, and Treasurys indeed tumble as much and as fast as the trader believes they will, the result would be a rout in the stock market, which begs the question: is a levered Treasury short the cheapest way to hedge against a market crash?

via RSS https://ift.tt/2y1WLQi Tyler Durden

Susan Collins, Joe Manchin Say They’ll Vote ‘Yes’ on Kavanaugh Confirmation

Sen. Susan Collins (R–Maine) said today that she’ll vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. Minutes later, Sen. Joe Manchin (D–W.Va.) said he’ll vote yes as well. With both senators’ support, Republicans appear to have the 50 votes necessary to confirm Kavanaugh.

Collins made the announcement during a speech on the Senate floor. Earlier, Collins voted yes on a cloture vote to end floor debate on the nomination. Fifty-one senators, including Collins, supported the measure, while 49 opposed it.

The moderate Maine Republican acknowledged the allegations of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh, which were the subject of an FBI background check over the past week. But Collins asserted that “the allegations fail to meet the ‘more likely than not standard.'” Ultimately, Collins said, “I do not believe these charges can fairly prevent Judge Kavanaugh from serving on the court.”

Collins and Manchin are among four swing senators likely to decide Kavanaugh’s fate. The others are Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R–Alaska) and Jeff Flake (R–Ariz.). Murkowski voted no on the cloture vote, then later said Kavanaugh was “not the right man for the court.” Flake and Manchin, on the other hand, both voted yes. Flake later said he would continue to support Kavanaugh “unless something big changed.”

Collins and Manchin’s support means Kavanaugh is likely to be confirmed. A final vote could take place as soon as tomorrow afternoon.

from Hit & Run https://ift.tt/2QtZNDZ
via IFTTT

Small Caps, Semis Smashed; Homebuilders Hammered Amid Greatest Jobs Data In 49 Years

We suspect more than a few traders will be saying this tonight…

A big week…

  • Unemployment Rate at 49 year lows

  • US Stocks – worst 2-day drop since May

  • Small Caps, Nasdaq – biggest weekly drop in 7 months

  • Small Caps – biggest 5-week drop since Nov 2016

  • China (closed) ETF – biggest weekly drop in 7 months

  • Semis – biggest weekly drop in 6 months

  • FANGs – biggest weekly drop in 7 months

  • Homebuilders – worst.losing.streak.ever…

  • USD Index – best week in 2 months

  • HY Bonds – biggest weekly price drop in 8 months

  • IG Bonds – biggest weekly drop since Nov 2016

  • Treasury Yields – biggest weekly yield spike in 8 months

  • Yield Curve – biggest weekly steepening in 8 months

  • Gold – best weekly gain in 6 weeks

Chinese stocks were closed for Golden Week but the China ETF slumped…

European Stocks tumbled on the week…

 

US Small Caps stocks were the worst – though Nasdaq was close – suffering their biggest drop since March…Even The Dow gave up early week gains…

Small Caps – down 4 of the last 5 weeks (the biggest 5-week drop since Nov 2016 – Trump Election) – broke the most below their critical technical support 50DMA since May… but bounced off its 200DMA today…

 

 

The S&P bounced off its 50DMA…

The Dow-Small Caps divergence remains yuuge… (the last 5 weeks have been the biggest divergence since Sept 2011)

Semis slaughtered…

FANGs f##ked…

Banks bid but weak…

But homebuilders are getting hammered – down 13 days in a row…lowest since April 2017.

TSLA tumbled back into the red, giving up all those post-SEC gains…

VIX exploded above 17…

And the VIX curve inverted…

 

But GE had its best week since 2009!!

 

IG and HY bond prices plunged this week…

 

But while stocks caught a lot of eyes, bonds were really where the bloodbath hit…

Don’t forget Bonds are closed on Monday (Columbus Day)

Treasury volatility exploded from record lows this week…

 

Breaking bond yields to multi-year highs…

 

The yield curve exploded this week – steepening most since February…

 

The Dollar managed solid gains on the week but slipped in the latter half…

 

Cryptos ended mostly lower amid low volatility with only Ether managing very modest gains…

 

WTI and Gold managed gains on the week despite dollar strength as silver and copper slipped…

 

Gold managed to hold above $1200…and WTI above $74

 

Finally, as is increasingly occurring here, we give Gluskin Sheff’s David Rosenberg the last words…

 

via RSS https://ift.tt/2BZnhgf Tyler Durden

Dazed & Confused – How Government Became Hopelessly Unmanageable

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

The opening chapters of Michael Lewis’s new book, The Fifth Risk, detail the carelessness of the Trump transition team in the months leading up to his swearing-in as president. Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie led the team, with its binders full of possible agency chiefs, before he was summarily canned by Steve Bannon, who would be dumped soon himself by the ascending Golden Golem of Greatness. There was, in fact, a set of rigorous protocols for managing the transition of power based on decades of cumulative practice — and anxiety over the frightening nuclear demons at the core of US power — and they were disdained, to the horror of the permanent bureaucracy waiting in place for leadership.

In those months after the election, Mr. Trump was apparently dazed and confused by his unexpected victory, and completely unprepared to actually run the country. His super-sized “stable genius” brain surveyed the scene and his field-of-view saw nothing but swamp from sea to shining sea, populated by lizards, snakes, raptors, and poisonous insects, with higher-order mammalian predators in the C-suites. When he finally caught on to the game being played, Mr. Trump rounded up his own menagerie of crispy critters and sent them forth to run operations like the Department of Energy — in that case, former Texas governor Rick Perry, who knew next-to-nothing about the department’s responsibilities, and had sworn to abolish it in the primary elections (when he remembered it existed).

The politics around these deadly serious matters are interesting enough, and Michael Lewis, as always, excels at unpacking the fraught mysteries of highly complicated systems run by comically limited humans. But something else emerges from this story, perhaps unintentionally: that the complexities of government are now hopelessly unmanageable, no matter who is in charge of them, and that the actual path of this still-growing complexity leads to criticality and collapse. If Lewis catches onto this later in the book, which I doubt, if only for his cavalier references to the dodgy business of shale oil, there’s no sign of it in the early chapters.

But this is not intended to be a book review based on a so-far partial reading. It is to say that even some of the best analytical minds of our time are missing the main thread of the story: that human affairs in the 21st century have entered a hazardous period of disorderly change largely due to that age-old pitfall of making ever-increasing investments in complexity with diminishing returns. That is exactly how societies collapse and that is where things stand in the Time of Trump. One might even theorize that Mr. Trump’s simplemindedness is a kind of virtue in the face of runaway complexity. His instinct, at least, is to repel it.

But at the macro level, this system and its subsystems are out-of-control and shaking themselves loose. Government has attempted to prop them up by schemes that amount to racketeering of one kind or another – the dishonest manipulation and representation of money – and now money itself is in revolt, as can be seen in the sudden rise of interest rates, especially the ten-year US Treasury Bond above 3.2 percent just before today’s market open

The US government can’t handle interest rates at this level, after decades of debt accumulation. Other nations can’t pay back their dollar-denominated loans either, and that has produced havoc at the so-called margins of the global economy — as currencies crash, and companies go under, and sovereign debt instruments melt down. You can be sure that this disorder will eventually spread from the margins to the center, which is the USA.

It’s already up-and-running in our politics, which might be considered the early warning system of the larger picture. In my long life of three-score and ten, I’ve never seen a political fiasco as demented as the Kavanaugh confirmation process, with its harking back to Medieval social hysterias and stunning exercises in bad faith.

This riveting horror show has also distracted the nation — and a media fully invested in compounding the psychodrama — from the momentous tectonic movements in the world’s money system, now shaking apart. Among other things, it will blow up the fantasy that Mr. Trump has magically orchestrated a new miracle economy. But it will also bring to an abrupt close the pornographic machinations of his adversaries in Swamptown. And then we will get on in earnest with the true business of the long emergency – making new arrangements, however difficult – to escape the deadly clutter of our own constructed hyper-complex hyper-reality.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2O8YZYo Tyler Durden

Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke Convicted of Second-Degree Murder for Killing Laquan McDonald

Jason Van DykeChicago cop Jason Van Dyke was found guilty this afternoon of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Laquan McDonald in 2014. McDonald’s death was an abrupt encounter that tore at open wounds between Chicago’s government and its community.

At the time of the deadly encounter, McDonald, then 17, was high on PCP and armed with a small knife. Police had been called out on the evening of October 20, 2014, because a suspect (later identified as McDonald) was allegedly breaking into vehicles parked in a lot.

Van Dyke was a late arrival to the confrontation. Before he got there, McDonald had reportedly swung his knife at one witness, who had called 911. Then, as police attempted to corral McDonald while still in their vehicles, he stabbed one of the cars in the tire and hit it in the windshield with his knife.

McDonald eventually fled to a Burger King parking lot and then into a nearby street, which is where Van Dyke and his partner arrived. When Van Dyke exited his police car, he pulled out his gun and opened fire on McDonald almost immediately, though the other officers on the scene didn’t even have their guns drawn. He emptied his gun into McDonald, shooting him 16 times.

It’s what happened afterward that drew the most outrage. Police officers worked to conceal what happened on the scene, and in initial reports they stated that McDonald had lunged at them with his knife.

Dash camera footage from one police car would show that this description of the encounter was not true. McDonald was not moving toward the officers at all at the time of the shooting. But it would take a year of resistance from Chicago officials (both in the police and at City Hall) and an order from a federal judge before that footage would be publicly released. And only as the footage was released was Van Dyke charged with murder.

Yesterday, as the Van Dyke case jury began deliberations, a judge unsealed internal police documents detailing the efforts to shield the officer, which included another officer saying a detective had ordered him or her to submit an incident report with false information to conceal what had actually happened on scene. A special prosecutor plans to use that information to file charges against three others at the Chicago Police Department for their role in the cover-up.

That the city (predictably) chose to protect an employee at the expensive of public transparency and accountability is probably no surprise to most residents of Chicago. The anger at how the city had handled the Van Dyke case may be one reason why Mayor Rahm Emanuel abruptly decided not to seek a third term.

Van Dyke was also found guilty of 16 counts of aggravated battery, one for each bullet he fired. He was found not guilty of official misconduct. He was charged with first-degree murder, but the jury had the option to determine that there were mitigating factors to classify the shooting as a second-degree murder instead. The judge revoked his bail and he was taken into custody.

Van Dyke faces at least 15 years for the murder conviction and between six and 30 years for each of the 16 aggravated battery charges.

from Hit & Run https://ift.tt/2RtiSr2
via IFTTT

The “Mystery” Of America’s Mounting Multiple Jobholders

After a decade of generally positive job market data (even if largely thanks to job growth among lower-wage recipients), one measure has failed to validate this narrative: multiple job holders made up 5.1% of the total employed in August, and that share of the job market has been hovering around 5% since the beginning of the “recovery” in mid-2009.

In fact, the share of multiple job holders has remained the same,  even though unemployment has fallen to 3.7%, the lowest since 1969. This 3.7% figure is also less than half the level in the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis. Monthly hiring gains are ahead of the pace they set in 2017, averaging over 200,000 in 2018.

However, wage inflation and pay gains have mostly been disappointing and employers have been reluctant to increase hours and job benefits. This is likely the key reason why many workers continue to work more than one job at a time. Ryan Sweet, head of monetary policy research at Moody’s told Bloomberg:

“The labor market is not as equally tight across the country, and the pickup in worker pay hasn’t been strong enough. At the same time, by almost every metric the labor market is really strong, which means there’s a lot more opportunity for people.”

Normally, a decline in the number of multiple jobholders would mean that people are transitioning to regular job positions with normalized schedules and better benefits. But according to Sweet, these multiple job holder numbers are capturing “something more structural”. That’s a macroeconomist’s way of saying that having two jobs is becoming the new normal.

There are also a litany of indications that the labor market is tightening. Openings for jobs exceeded the number of unemployed by the most on record in July of this year. Part-timers who would prefer a full-time position have fallen to a post recession low of 4.4 million. Those holding multiple jobs felt to 7.9 million people in August after a spike over 8 million in July, although it is that particular number that has failed to shrink demonstrably in the past decade.

Bloomberg tells the story of Komi Assogba, who took on a second job to support his family after moving to the United States from France. The 58 year old, a former chemistry teacher, works as both a barista for Starbucks and a bellhop at the Arlington, Virginia Crowne Plaza Hotel. He started working two jobs nearly a decade ago while his kids were growing up.

“I was looking for an opportunity for my kids. They were growing so fast, and I said, why not make the sacrifice for them?” he stated.

His kids are now grown and pursuing graduate degrees, but he still likes working two jobs. He told Bloomberg that he prefers to stay busy and that he likes the benefits. Starbucks is helping him with tuition, and he’s submitting applications for a Masters degree so he can eventually return to teaching chemistry. He plans on taking classes on his only day off during the week, Saturday. 

Still, the prevalence of multiple jobholders in the US remains a bit of a mystery, at least in the face of official data.

Back in early September, after the last jobs report, we posed the question whether the U.S. job market was overheating. The report in early September showed that the Phillips curve is finally coming back to life as average hourly earnings spiked, rising by double the expected 0.2% M/M, and posting a 2.9% increase annually, the highest since the financial crisis.

We also took note of several additional trends that we will continue to watch, such as:

It currently takes 31 days to fill a vacant job, up from 23 days in 2006:

Businesses are very worried about tight labor market:

It’s much harder to fill a job today than in 2005-2006:

Small business hiring plans at record highs:

Workers working part-time for economic reasons at pre-crisis levels:

And yet, despite all the favorable trends, many of which confirm that the job market has rarely been stronger – or tighter – the “mystery” of multiple jobholders remains, and all else equal, is the biggest clue why for all the confidence and economic indicators, wage inflation has yet to truly pick up, some ten years after the financial crisis started.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2y5q9Fq Tyler Durden

US Consumer Credit Hits All Time High As Credit Card Usage Jumps

After a surprising slump in the use of revolving, i.e. credit card, debt when in the months of June and July US consumers “charged” only $639 million during the peak summer months, moments ago, the Fed reported that in August, consumer credit posted a significant rebound, rising by $20 billion, above the $15.0 billion expected, and bringing the total to a $3.94 trillion, a 6.2% annualized increase from a year ago, and a new all time high, largely on the back of a newfound love with credit cards.

More notably, after a two-month dormancy in using credit cards, American consumers returned to doing what they do best – spending money they don’t have – with revolving credit jumping by $4.8 billion, the highest monthly increase since May, and the second highest of 2018. The monthly increase brought the total to a new all time high of $1.042 trillion.

At the same time, growth in non-revolving credit, i.e. student and auto loans, was stable and in line with recent months, increasing by $15.2 billion, the same as July increase, and also bringing the total to a new all time high of $2.894 trillion.

In other words, while Americans continued to spend on cars and college, they once again rediscovered their enthusiasm to buy every day items on credit.

And while the rebound in revolving credit use will silence any questions about the resilience of the US consumer during the summer, the recent dramatic upward revision to personal savings notwithstanding, one place where there were no surprises, was in the total amount of student and auto loans: here as expected, both numbers were at fresh all time highs, with a record $1.532 trillion in student loans outstanding, an increase of $8 billion in the quarter, auto debt also hit a new all time high of $1.131 trillion, an increase of $18 billion in the quarter.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2y1UB3q Tyler Durden

Woohoo! People Are Driving More and Dying Less

Americans are driving more, and dying less while we drive. So says the latest Fatal Motor Vehicle Crashes report, an annual study from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

According to NHTSA, 37,133 people were killed in traffic collisions last year. That’s about a 1 percent decline from 2016, when 37,806 people were fatally injured. It’s also a 2.5 percent decrease in the fatality rate, given that Americans drove an additional 50 million miles in 2017. Adding to the good news are preliminary stats from the first part of 2018, which suggest that this year auto collision deaths are on track to decline by as much as 3 percent.

Of course, one should not assume too much from a single-year decline in the traffic accident fatality rate. “A one-year decrease, while pleasing news, does not constitute a trend,” NHTSA’s Heidi King tells The Wall Street Journal.

Indeed, 2017’s decline comes after two years of sharp increases in the number of road deaths, driven in large part by a post-recession spike in the annual number of vehicle miles travelled. Nevertheless, the long-run trend shows an ongoing decrease in deaths from auto crashes.

In the 1975, 44,525 people died in crashes, for a fatality rate of 3.35 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. That fell to a low of 1.10 in 2011, thanks to the travel-suppressing effects of the Great Recession. That rate has ticked up along with economic activity, but at a fatality rate of 1.16 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, it’s still below mid-2000s pre-recession levels.

This is impressive given record high levels of employment, and it suggests that—even accounting for increased economic activity—auto fatalities will continue to fall.

One element of this decline is better safety technology, says Russ Rader of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), a research organization funded by insurance companies.

“Vehicles are much more crashworthy than they used to be,” says Rade. They’re more likely to sport multiple air bags, and they’re more likely to have technologies such as electronic stability control, which helps prevent drivers from losing control in emergency situations.

The IIHS argues that newer crash prevention technologies could bring fatalities down even further. A 2017 study from the organization found that relatively new lane departure warning technology lowers the rate of sideswipe and head-on crashes by 11 percent—and it brings down the injury rate from those crashes by 21 percent. Another IIHS study found that automatic breaking reduced front-end collisions by 40 percent.

“The latest advanced technologies hold a lot of promise in reducing crashes in the future,” says Rader, though he stresses that there are limits to how much improved technology can increase safety. It’s crucial, he says, to cut down on risky behaviors such as speeding and particularly drunk driving.

Here too, technology is at work saving lives. There’s a growing body of evidence that ridesharing, for instance, is helping keep drunk drivers off the road.

Miami has seen a 65 percent decline in alcohol-related crashes, which local police and safety activists attribute to the rise of Uber and Lyft. A 2017 working paper from City University of New York credited ridesharing for a 25 to 35 percent decline in alcohol-related crashes. Another paper from that year saw accidents decline by 60 percent in Portland, Oregon, and 40 percent in San Antonio, Texas, after suspended ridesharing services were allowed to return to the city. (That same paper also looked at Las Vegas and Reno, but it found the presence of ridesharing had no effect on those cities’ accident rate.) Alcohol-impaired driving fatalities fell 1.1 percent last year, and they made up their lowest percentage of all driving fatalities since 1982.

Another takeaway from this year’s crash statistics should be the death spikes that haven’t appeared.

When Congress slashed taxes on craft distillers, brewers, and viticulturalists last year, one Brookings Institution scholar warned the cheaper booze would result in an additional 280 to 660 motor vehicle deaths per year. But NHSTA’s crash data from January to June of this year shows traffic fatalities falling another 3 percent.

It goes without saying that 37,000 people dying unexpected deaths while trying to get from point A to point B is 37,000 too many. But the fact remains that fewer people are perishing on the nation’s roadways even while they go more places. That’s well worth celebrating.

from Hit & Run https://ift.tt/2Rv5BOX
via IFTTT

Watch Live: GOP Swing Vote Susan Collins Announces Her Decision On Kavanaugh

GOP Senator Susan Collins of Maine is announcing whether she will vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Collins was one of three GOP holdouts, along with Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – who is likely to vote no after stating on Friday that Kavanaugh was “not the right man for the court.” 

Collins joined with Flake and Murkowski in demanding the FBI investigate claims of sexual harassment against Kavanaugh. 

Watch: 

via RSS https://ift.tt/2QwLfTV Tyler Durden