Month: November 2018

No Blue Wave In 2018… But A Tsunami Of Hate

Authored by Brigitte Gabriel, op-ed via The Daily Caller,

In the early evening following the midterm elections, Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s wife was home alone when she suddenly became startled by a loud thumping at her door. The thumping came from a group of Antifa radicals, whose desire it was to strike terror into the hearts of Carlson’s family.

Susan Carlson ran upstairs as the mob that CNN refers to as “protesters” screamed disgusting threats at the Carlson residence, spray-painted the driveway and continued to try to force entry through the front door, which they broke.

The only thing seemingly missing from this display of intimidation and hatred were burning tiki torches. While the radical left seems preoccupied with labeling everyone that disagrees with their political views as white supremacist Nazis, including Israel-loving Middle Eastern women such as myself, threatening displays like this seem awfully similar to the days of the KKK burning crosses on the lawns of blacks they wanted to leave town.

That was the message these radicals wanted to send to Tucker Carlson, along with his wife and children, who thank God were not home at the time: leave town and shut up.

As someone who has had my own personal address posted publicly by a leftist reporter, the thought of a mother of four hiding in her upstairs closet fearing for her life sends chills down my spine, as it should any decent human being.

How did we get here?

Why is this thirst for intimidation and violence becoming more commonplace?

Let’s take a trip down memory lane:

Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up … If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd, and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.

Those were the exact words of Congresswoman Maxine Waters at a rally in June 2018. Waters then doubled down on her calls for intimidation and harassment in an MSNBC interview, declaring that she has “no sympathy” for Trump supporters.

The people are going to turn on them. They’re going to protest. They’re going to absolutely harass them until they decide that they’re going to tell the president, ‘No, I can’t hang with you.’

CNN bravely came to Waters’ defense when it reported that President Trump “misconstrued” the congresswoman’s words.

Support the president, and it’s open season on you. That’s the message of not only the black-masked Antifa cowards who attempted to force entry into Tucker Carlson’s home, but Rep. Maxine Waters, and increasingly, the new Democrat party.

Former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder recently corrected Michelle Obama’s notion that “when they go low, we go high,” referring of course to anyone who didn’t support her husband’s political agenda.

“When they go low, we kick them. That’s what this new Democrat party is all about.” Holder proclaimed to a crowd of cheering supporters.

Or how about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statement,

“You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about. That’s why I believe if we are fortunate enough to win back the House and/or the Senate, that’s when civility can start again.”

There is a disturbing dehumanization coming from the very heart of the Democrat party, while dangerous radicals continue to take them at their word, blocking traffic in the streets, chanting obscenities toward the president and his supporters, and even engaging in violence and destruction of property.

This dangerous trend should’ve been stopped years ago when it started.

On the same day that CNN “reporter” Jim Acosta threw a tantrum over not being able to interrupt and talk over the president of the United States at a news conference, Tucker Carlson’s wife was hiding in a closet, calling 911, as a leftist mob gathered outside her home.

It’s time for local and federal law enforcement to put Antifa on notice that their domestic terrorism will not be tolerated any longer.

It’s time for big tech platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to give as much diligence to snuffing out true hate from the left as they do political opposition from the right.

Waters should have been removed from her position by the Ethics Committee for her incitement to harm her political opponents. Sadly, the GOP — which will soon be in the House minority — failed to even investigate the matter. Consequence? Say hello to the new head of the House Financial Services Committee.

Tolerance for terrorizing those you disagree with is not tolerance. It’s complicity. If those who fan the flames of radicalism are not held accountable, we can expect more threats, more mobs and more violence.

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Debate: ‘The Message of Anti-Racism Has Become as Harmful a Force in American Life as Racism Itself’

“The message of anti-racism has become as harmful a force in American life as racism itself.”

That’s the proposition under debate at the next Reason/Soho Forum debate, which will feature Columbia University linguist John McWhorter and NYU historian Nikhil Pal Singh and will take place at New York’s Subculture Theater on Wednesday, November 14.

The Soho Forum is a monthly debate series moderated by Gene Epstein and sponsored by Reason. It’s an Oxford-style debate, meaning the audience is polled before and after discussion and the winner is the person who moves the most people toward his or her position. On November 14, McWhorter will defend the proposition and Singh will oppose it. Tickets cost between $12 and $24 and must be purchased in advance. (Go here to buy tickets.) The admission cost includes a buffet of appetizers and light fare, and there’s a cash bar serving beer, wine, and soft drinks.

Each Soho Forum is released as a Reason video and podcast. Go here for a full archive of past debates.

Here’s more information on the debaters:

John McWhorter is associate professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, teaching linguistics, western civilization, and music history (in the Core Curriculum program) and American Studies. He is a regular columnist for Time and CNN, writes for the Wall Street Journal “Taste” page, and writes a regular column on language for The Atlantic. He has also been contributing editor for The New Republic, The Root, and City Journal and a regular columnist at The New York Sun, The New York Daily News, and The Daily Beast.

Nikhil Pal Singh is professor of social and cultural analysis and history at New York University, and founding faculty director of the NYU Prison Education Program. A historian of the civil rights movement, foreign policy, and national security in the 20th-century United States, his most recent book is Race and America’s Long War (University of California Press, 2017). He is also the author of the award-winning Black Is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2004). Singh’s writing and historian interviews have appeared in a number of popular venues, including New York, n+1, Time, The New Republic, The Intercept, Open Source, and Code Switch.

And here are details about the event:

Cash bar opens at 5:45pm
Event starts at 6:30pm
Subculture Theater
45 Bleecker St,
New York, NY 10012

Seating must be reserved in advance.

Moderated by Soho Forum Director Gene Epstein.

Here’s the video of the most-recent Soho Forum debate, featuring Epstein debating Jacobin magazine’s Bhaskar Sunkara over whether capitalism or socialism is more effective at bringing freedom to the masses.

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Saudi Crown Prince Claims Assassination Attempt Against Him Was Thwarted

BBC Arabic reports based an exclusive Jerusalem Post story that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman told a group of Evangelical leaders who met with him in Riyadh earlier this month there was a recent plot to assassinate him, and that the plan was thwarted by Egyptian intelligence. 

The Jerusalem Post first broke the story this week based on accounts of the returning Evangelical delegation who met with the crown prince on November 1. Joel Rosenberg, who led the delegation of American Evangelical Christians said MbS relayed that the head of Egyptian intelligence recently came to Riyadh to inform Saudi authorities that a terrorist cell with Saudi citizens had been caught in northern Sinai. “They were planning to assassinate me,” MbS told the American delegation. 

Image via Bloomberg

The assassination plotters were reportedly arrested on Egyptian soil but it is unclear if they were transferred to Saudi Arabia or if they remain in an Egyptian prison. Likely MbS revealed the detail to elicit sympathy at a moment when for over a month he’s faced unprecedented media scrutiny over the October 2nd murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul.

He told the Evangelical delegation concerning Khashoggi’s death that his “enemies are exploiting this to the fullest” — perhaps implying that he’s put at greater risk of an assassination attempt or violence due to the backlash and wave of criticism he’s currently facing. He denied being behind the Khashoggi killing and condemned it as “a mistake” and a “heinous act” that will not go unpunished.

MbS further recently tried to present himself as vital to the West’s war on terror, and said further in the meeting with American pastors: “We must fight the extremists and defeat them or they will stop us and the reforms we are making to make life better for the people of Saudi Arabia.” He also vowed to shore up relations with the US and other regional allies and said: “We are fighting extremists in the ideological war and we are fighting terrorists in a physical war,” according to the Jerusalem Post. 

MbS told a delegation of American Evangelical Christian Leaders in Riyadh that he was subject of an assassination plot. 

Interestingly, at a time when a number of international leaders have appeared to pull back public support for MbS, Israeli officials have issued rare positive words in defense of the Salman regime after recent years of quiet behind the scenes coordination with Saudi intelligence in places like Syria or Yemen. Last week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a summit with East European leaders in Bulgaria that while the killing of the Saudi journalist at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul was “horrendous,” stability in Saudi Arabia is vital to global security.

Netanyahu’s frank assessment of the Khashoggi affair was as follows, according to Haaretz: 

What happened in the Istanbul consulate was horrendous, and it should be duly dealt with. Yet at the same time I say that it is very important for the stability of the world, of the region and of the world, that Saudi Arabia remains stable.

Likely MbS will continue to emphasize his “war on terror” rhetoric to continue to attract positive relations with both Washington and Israel, and will also put himself forward as the victim. 

Perhaps we will hear of more thwarted “assassination plots” to come from the mouths of Saudi officials, eliciting sympathy from a momentarily hostile press and world officials. 

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Weekend Reading: American Gridlock & Why Mid-Terms Don’t Matter

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

With some bit of relief, I am glad to see the mid-term elections now behind us as another cloud of uncertainty is removed. However, in reality, I suspect the outcome of the elections will have much less impact on the markets than most currently think.

Barbara Kollmeyer penned a note earlier this week for MarketWatch:

“For financial markets, one takeaway mattered above all others in the midterm election—no curveballs.

And that’s basically what was delivered as pundits who got it so wrong in 2016, correctly forecast the end of one-party rule this time. With Dems calling the shots in the House, we could see no end to investigations, subpoenas and possibly impeachment talk and a hard push for POTUS to cough up those tax returns.

All that may slow down President Donald Trump’s MAGA plans.”

While that is entirely true, I think the markets are going to quickly look past the now “gridlocked” Congress to the more important drivers of the market – earnings and share buybacks.

As I noted in yesterday’s missive on rising headwinds to the market, earnings expectations have already started to get markedly ratcheted down for the end of 2019.

More importantly, beginning in 2019, the quarterly rate of change in earnings will drop markedly and head back towards the expected rate of real economic growth. (Note: these estimates are as of 11/1/18 from S&P and are still too high relative to expected future growth. Expect estimates to continue to decline which allow for continued high levels of estimate “beat” rates.)

So, really, despite all of the excitement over the outcome of the mid-terms, such is really unlikely to mean much going forward. The bigger issue to focus on will be the ongoing impact of rising interest rates on major drivers of debt-driven consumption such as housing and auto sales. Combine that with a late stage economic cycle colliding with a Central Bank bent on removing accommodation and you have a potentially toxic brew for a much weaker outcome than currently expected.

Of course, the one thing that a “gridlocked” Congress can likely agree on is “more spending.” While there will likely not be any funding approved for “boarder walls,” immigration reform, or further defense spending, they can probably reach an agreement for an “infrastructure spending” bill. The problem, as President Obama found out when he tried it, is that:

“Shovel ready jobs weren’t all the shovel ready.” 

Furthermore, most of the things that will likely be funded are “pet projects” from Congressional members which have very low returns on investment. As Woody Brock wrote in his book “American Gridlock:” 

“Country A spends $4 Trillion with receipts of $3 Trillion. This leaves Country A with a $1 Trillion deficit. In order to make up the difference between the spending and the income, the Treasury must issue $1 Trillion in new debt. That new debt is used to cover the excess expenditures, but generates no income leaving a future hole that must be filled.

Country B spends $4 Trillion and receives $3 Trillion income. However, the $1 Trillion of excess, which was financed by debt, was invested into projects, infrastructure, that produced a positive rate of return. There is no deficit as the rate of return on the investment funds the ‘deficit’ over time.”

There is no disagreement about the need for government spending. The disagreement is with the abuse, and waste, of it.

Keynes’ was correct in his theory. In order for government “deficit” spending to be effective, the “payback” from investments being made through debt must yield a higher rate of return than the debt used to fund it.

The problem, as noted by Dr. Brock, is that government spending has shifted away from productive investments, like the Hoover Dam, that create jobs (infrastructure and development) to primarily social welfare, defense and debt service which has a negative rate of return.  According to the Center On Budget & Policy Priorities, nearly 75% of every tax dollar goes to non-productive spending. 

In other words, the U.S. is “Country A.” 

As Dr. Brock aptly stated in his speech:

“Today we are borrowing our children’s future with debt. We are witnessing the ‘hosing’ of the young.’”

So, yes, the markets may love a “gridlocked Congress” as the restriction of “Trumponomics” will remove some of the daily angsts. However, longer-term, the trend of spending, deficits, and demographics will continue to weigh heavily on American prosperity.

Just something to think about as you catch up on your weekend reading list.

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Voters in Florida, North Carolina Just Made It Much Harder to Pass Future Tax Hikes

While voters in San Francisco were saying yes to a huge (and possibly unconstitutional) tax increase, and while voters in Maine were soundly defeating an income tax hike on high earners, voters in two southern states took big steps Tuesday to fend off future tax increases.

North Carolina voters approved an initiative to amend the state’s constitution to cap the income tax rate at 7 percent, down from the old constitutionally mandated cap of 10 percent. That won’t have any affect on the current income tax rates in North Carolina—the state has a flat income tax of 5.5 percent—but supporters say it’s a forward-looking measure that will force the growing state to live within its means in years to come.

In Florida, voters endorsed what could be an even more powerful tool for limiting the growth of government. More than 65 percent of the state’s voters said yes to Amendment 5, which changes the state’s constitution to require a two-thirds vote in both chambers of the General Assembly for any future increase in taxes or fees, rather than the simple majority previously required. The change effectively guarantees that Florida will retain its status as one of the lowest-tax states in the country for the foreseeable future—and is perhaps another sign that Florida is moving away from its longtime status as a swing state.

“North Carolina and Florida, two states that have enacted repeated rounds tax relief in recent years, are indicative of what conservative Republican policymakers can accomplish when in power,” says Patrick Gleason, vice president of state affairs at Amercians for Tax Reform, a conservative nonprofit that favors tax cuts. “Those low-tax, free market fiscal policies were affirmed by voters in those states.”

Indeed, both measures garnered widespread support. In Florida, Amendment 5 received more than 5.1 million yes votes. That’s more than 1 million more than any of the candidates for governor or senate who were on the ballot Tuesday.

There was no statewide election in North Carolina to measure the tax cap amendment against, but it got more than 57 percent of the vote despite opposition from Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and a collection of special interests. The lead-up to the election featured a variety of scare tactics from opponents, who warned that schools would be underfunded and the state would be unprepared for an emergency such as a hurricane if it was unable to raise income taxes in the future—implying that politicians would be incapable of doing the basic budget-making task of determining priorities for spending.

The fact that North Carolina has any cap on income taxes was unusual to begin with. Georgia, where voters approved a constitutional cap of 6 percent in 2014, is the only other state with such a mechanism. Voter approval of the lower cap comes five years after the state legislature replaced a progressive tax system with a flat income tax. Under the previous system, the state’s highest-earning individuals and households paid 7.75 percent, so Tuesday’s vote is perhaps most significant for how it would forbid North Carolina lawmakers from returning to the old model in the future—or would at least require lower rates if they do.

In Florida, the two-thirds majority required to raise taxes will change the political calculus in Tallahassee. Future tax increases will likely have to be bipartisan in nature, but tax cuts could still be enacted with a simple majority. That’s “a wise and common sense policy” that will “preserve one of Florida’s most attractive assets: our low-tax climate,” according to the James Madison Institute, a pro-market think tank.

Amendment 5’s success was another political rebuke for the state’s Democrats. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum had called for raising the state’s corporate income tax from 5.5 percent to 7.5 percent in order to spend more money on schools. Not only did he lose the election, but it will now be significantly more difficult for a similar policy to be enacted by a future governor—and, indeed, it changes how Democrats in particular will have to campaign at the state level.

That opponents of the measures in North Carolina and Florida leaned heavily on the idea that limits on future tax increases would harm schools is not really a surprise. Voters are generally unwilling to support tax increases, but many are interested in making sure schools are up to snuff. While special interests are happy to draw a connection between higher taxes, more spending, and better schools, the reality is that how much a state spends on education is only one factor in determining the effectiveness of a school system—as and pointed out in a recent Reason cover story.

“Expenditures are not linked to student performance,” they conclude. “It turns out that throwing more money at something isn’t guaranteed to yield improvement.”

But it’s easier to throw more money at a problem when you have an unlimited supply of money. Limits like the ones adopted this week mean lawmakers will have to prioritize how to spend existing tax revenues without reaching deeper into residents’ wallets.

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The Meaning of the Midterms: They Solve Nothing, Mean Nothing

The good folks at Spiked asked me (and four other writers) to explain “the meaning of the midterms.” Here’s my contribution:

This election solves nothing, means nothing, writes Nick Gillespie.

There was no ‘blue wave’ and there was no ‘red wall’. What we are experiencing in America is the politics of exhaustion, of two large, lumbering ideological golems whose energy and forward momentum is completely spent.

Party affiliation is at or near historically low levels, and who can blame us? Neither party even pretends to offer an appealing, let alone viable, vision of the future.

The Democrats are vowing to expand government bureaucracy. But in an age of Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, and Amazon, who wants the government to control every aspect of our personal, cultural, commercial and economic lives? Meanwhile, most of what the GOP talks about is a sense of being invaded—by people who talk and smell funny and eat weird food, or griping over the loss of factory jobs that started disappearing (thank God, says those of us who ever worked in a factory) in 1943.

The only interesting question is: what flowers, weeds, and, better yet, mutant plants will be fertilised as America’s two major parties finally beat each other to death trying to make their desiccated visions of the past a reality? We live in a world in which economic, cultural and individual power is more dispersed and decentralised than ever before. In the richer parts of the world and, increasingly, the poorer parts too, elite fantasies of mass control and consolidated power have been replaced by something like autonomy. In America, we’re still waiting for our politics to catch up.

Read more, including sharp entries from Sean Collins and Reason contributors Brendan O’Neill, Michael Tracey, and Wendy Kaminer, here.

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Stocks Slump As Post-Election Surge Ends With Post-Powell Purge

It was such a great ride… until today…

China stocks started the week confidently but ended weak with Shanghai Composite back below the 2600 Maginot Line…

 

Very mixed picture in Europe with Spain outperforming, Italy worst and the rest unch…

 

A roller-coaster week of oddness as US stocks were bid on post-election ‘gridlock’ when it was the opposite of gridlock that has sent stocks higher in the last two years… and then dumped when The Fed explained how great the economy was (and therefore it needs to be tamped down by hiking rates)… and then the ubiquitous Friday-closing-ramp…

 

Futures show the post-election pump and post-Powell dump best…

 

Dow bounced at its 50DMA, S&P bounced at its 200DMA, NASDAQ ended up below its 200DMA

 

On the week, Communication Services was crushed and Healthcare outperformed (especially post-election)…

 

FANG Stocks ended the week in the red after giving it all back today…

 

Financials outperformed (perhaps because they know Maxine Waters is running the show now), even as the yield curve flattened notably post-Fed…

 

GE was a bloodbath…

 

Treasury yields tumbled after the stronger than expected PPI print struck and extended on Navarro’s hawkish tone…30Y outperformed dramatically, 2Y was worst…

 

The Yield Curve flattened significantly on the week…

 

Breakevens tumbled today, finally catching down to crude’s collapse…

 

The Dollar was up for the second week in a row, erasing much of the drop from two weeks ago…

 

Offshore Yuan tumbled this week – its worst week since July

 

Bitcoin was unchanged on the week, Bitcoin Cash (ahead of its fork) was up 20%…

 

Dollar gains left their mark on the commodity space which ended notably weaker across the board…

 

WTI Crude fell for the 10th day in a row, retracing 50% of the two-year uptrend’s gains…

 

That is an all-time record losing streak…

 But if you think WTI below $60 is bad – Canadian crude is back below $20!!

And the good news is – gas prices should come down…

Gold had an ugly week as the dollar rallied…

And while Yuan was weak, it strengthened notably against gold…

Finally, completely burying the lead, we note the price action of the largest equity market capitalization index in the world – the $24 trillion NYSE Composite…

As Brad Wishak notes, “Text book throw back fail at both the 200 and uptrend resistance…Bull trap the call from here…It’s just a matter of trickle down…”

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Trump Warns: Dems Are Sending “Their Best Election-Stealing Lawyer” To Florida

Is Florida gearing up for Bush vs. Gore redux?

It’s starting to look that way.

As Fox News reports, lawyers are arriving in Democratic strongholds in Florida as the state prepares for a recount in Broward County, the epicenter of the vote-counting controversy that led to Bush vs. Gore, and Palm Beach County. Both are Democratic strongholds that have been extremely slow to deliver final ballot totals for Tuesday’s election.

Elias

To try and push for a hand recount, defeated incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson has hired Democratic attorney Marc Elias of law firm Perkins Coie to help plead his case and point out suspicious “inconsistencies” with the vote count in Broward, where more than 20,000 voters voted in down-ballot races but left out their votes for governor’s race, in which Nelson’s Democratic ally, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, has already conceded to Republican Ron DeSantis. 

The controversy has already attracted the attention of President Trump, who in a series of tweets Friday afternoon warned that Democrats were dispatching attorneys, including their best “election stealing lawyer,” to try and rig the vote after earlier hinting that he might authorize a federal investigation

Trump even praised his former political rival, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, for helping expose the possible corruption happening in Broward County, where boxes of what appear to be uncounted provisional ballots have been discovered at polling stations.

Rubio has highlighted a range of suspicious developments in Broward, including what appeared to be a mystery delivery of ballots. The senator has also criticized local officials for their molasses-like process of counting ballots in Florida’s senate race.

Meanwhile, in a press conference held Thursday evening, Scott, who is also the outgoing governor, warned of “rampant fraud,” and filed lawsuits against the top election officials in two heavily Democratic counties as they continue to report new votes.

Rubio pointed out in a tweet on Friday that Broward is violating state laws about the tallying and submission of vote totals from mail-in ballots.

Rubio also pointed out that early voting in Broward County had ended “108 hours ago”, and that the county wouldn’t disclose “how many ballots are left.”

Last night, Scott specifically called out elections supervisors in both counties, Brenda Snipes in Broward and Susan Bucher in Palm Beach.

“Late Tuesday night, our win was projected to be around 57,000 votes,” Scott told reporters. “By Wednesday morning, that lead dropped to 38,000. By Wednesday evening, it was around 30,000. This morning, it was around 21,000. Now, it is 15,000.”

He continued: “On election night, Broward County said there were 634,000 votes cast. At 1 a.m. today, there were 695,700 ballots cast on election day. At 2:30 p.m. today, the number was up to 707,223 ballots cast on Election Day. And we just learned, that the number has increased to 712,840 ballots cast on Election Day. In Palm Beach County, there are 15,000 new votes found since election night.”

Snipes’ behavior looks particularly suspect, considering that she has expressed a “personal animus” toward Gov. Scott? And also has a record of illegal and unethical behavior, including the illegal destruction of ballots.

Of course, Florida isn’t the only state where Democratic candidates are gaining ground in the vote tallies days after the election ended. In Arizona, Democrat Kirsten Sinema is now leading Republican Martha McSally in that state’s senate race, which has yet to be officially called.

In a tweet sent late Friday afternoon, Trump cryptically warned of new evidence of election tampering in Arizona when he tweeted that “signatures don’t match” on some of the ballots.

In Georgia, Democrat Stacey Abrams is gaining on Republican Brian Kemp in the governor’s race. Whatever the outcome, it’s increasingly looking like the final outcomes of some of these races won’t be known for some time.

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Texas State Rep Wins Uncontested Election From His Jail Cell

Texas Rep. Ron Reynolds (D–Missouri City) has won reelection to the Texas House of Representatives , with a commanding 100 percent of the vote in an uncontested race for a seat representing District 27 in the Houston suburbs.

Despite that wide margin of victory, Reynolds can’t exactly crack open the champagne, as he is currently serving time in Montgomery County jail.

Back in 2015, Reynolds, a former personal injury attorney, was convicted of five misdemeanor charges for his role in a scheme where he and seven other attorneys paid a local chiropractor to sign up patients injured in traffic accidents as clients.

Reynolds filed several appeals of his conviction, all of which were denied.

Since being found guilty, he has managed to win a number of primaries in his heavily Democratic district. In 2016 he won a four-way primary with 48 percent of the vote. In 2018 he managed to get 60 percent in a two-way contest with attorney Wilvin Carver.

“The unfortunate thing about Reynolds is that he is has a strong record for supporting environmental protection and gay rights, but with the possible jail sentence hanging over his head it’s hard to support him,” wrote the Houston Chronicle editorial board, which threw its support behind Carver.

Because Reynolds was convicted of misdemeanors rather than a felony, he was not forced to resign. He is now serving a year-long sentence, and should be released by September 2019. Unless he is released from jail early, he will miss the entire 2019 legislative session.

Reynolds’ inability to introduce or vote on legislation just might dampen his effectiveness as a legislator. It surely isn’t an ideal arrangement for any constituents who expect him to represent their interests in the State House.

This does not seem to bother Democratic politicos, who seem to be in no rush to disavow Reynolds.

A July election flier shared by Fort Bend County Democratic Party Chairwoman Cynthia Ginyard features Reynolds alongside other county candidates. Reynold’s Twitter feed shows him at a September Houston-area African American Faith Leaders Breakfast, which was also attended by failed Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke.

This speaks to a chronic lack of competition. In 2018, nearly a third of Texas’ state representatives faced no opponent in the general election. That’s not good for state-level democracy, which is supposed to entail, if not good options, at least an option when voters go to the polls.

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Want A Free $100k? Quit Your Job & Move Here…

Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

According to the latest jobs report, averages wages for US workers increased 3.1% – the strongest growth since 2009.

Median individual income in the US is now around $31,000, which means the typical American put an extra $1,000 in their pocket last year.

That’s solid extra cash.

But if you really want to see your wages grow, quit your job and become homeless.

Just be sure you move to San Francisco.

There are about 7,500 homeless people in San Francisco.

The number of homeless in the city has stayed constant for years, but the rest of the population has been booming. And that expansion means tech companies and their workers are now coming face to face with homelessness on a daily basis.

And the collective guilt of the Silicon Valley elite is just too much to handle.

Before Tuesday’s election, San Francisco was already spending over $50,000 on each and every homeless person.

That’s well above the median individual income… and it actually rivals the median household income of about $60,000.

So the average homeless person in San Francisco is using up more resources each year than the average American household earns in wages (and has to pay tax on).

And that money does NOT include the costs of police officers, nurses, doctors, and prison staff who deal with the consequences of homelessness.

But on Tuesday, the good people of San Francisco saw fit to almost double that homeless benefit. 60% of San Franciscans voted for a tax on businesses to support homeless people.

And now the city will spend over $90,000 per year, for each homeless person in the city.

If those costs were split evenly among the residents of San Francisco, each man woman and child would fork over $770 per year to support the city’s homeless.

But Silicon Valley will foot the extra $300 million.

The new tax levies an extra 0.5% on large businesses’ total receipts… No, not profit, but revenue.

So a business could turn no profit, but bring in $100 million in revenue, and it would still owe the homeless people of San Francisco half a million dollars.

That’s half a mil that can’t be used to hire new workers or invest back into the business.

But why bother toiling for 3% wage growth anyway? Homeless people just got an 80% raise.

Now, each homeless person in San Francisco takes three times as much as the median individual income, and 150% of the median household income.

But hey, San Francisco is a rich city. Maybe they can afford to lift homeless people above the middle class.

So what’s the plan then? How will all this extra money be used to alleviate homelessness?

Actually… the money was the plan.

And it has been the plan for the 30 years that spending on homeless programs has increased in San Francisco.

And that plan hasn’t changed as homelessness has increased along with the cash.

So the new plan is throw more money at the same problem, and hope it goes away.

San Francisco doesn’t even have the metrics to say what “success” is with this new tax. Where is that money going? Who is it helping? Has it improved the situation? By what measures?

The data just isn’t there. No one has bothered to track it.

For $90k per person, you could hire someone to follow every homeless person around and clean up the, well, let’s say “mess” they leave behind on the streets.

Hell for that price, you could rent every homeless person in San Francisco a room at the Marriott every single night of the year, and still have money left over… or just buy them a home outside of town.

But the streets are still littered with waste, next to the tents that house the homeless on every street corner.

It should be obvious by now that the problem isn’t a lack of funding. The problem is handing out an absurd amount of free money to the homeless population and having absolutely no plan for how that money will be put to work to solve the homeless problem.

But now that there’s a free $100k worth of benefits up for grabs, why wouldn’t every hobo west of the Mississippi come running?

It’s a gold rush fit for the times we live in.

And to continue learning how to ensure you thrive no matter what happens next in the world, I encourage you to download our free Perfect Plan B Guide.

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