Month: May 2019

Florida Men Screw Up Less Than Usual

Florida, man.

At Reason, we try to keep tabs on what’s happening in state legislature as much as possible. But there are a lot of state legislatures, and as important as their work is, a lot of what gets passed tends to be stuff like naming bridges and designating official state amphibians. When things do get interesting, it’s usually less because legislators operating fruitful laboratories of democracy and more because some kooky lawmaker thinks the death penalty can’t be abolished because Jesus.

But sometimes state legislatures have the capacity to surprise you. This week, it seems like not a day has passed without someone on the Reason staff passing around some bit of news from Tallahassee. The news hasn’t been all good, but an awful lot of it has. When you’re used to being disappointed by elected officials at all levels, what Florida’s done in the past few weeks looks mighty impressive:

School Choice: Possibly the most significant piece of legislation is a new private school voucher program that cleared the state House on April 29 after two days of debate and is now awaiting a signature from Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeSantis is expected to sign it—expanding Florida’s school choice programs was a centerpiece of his campaign for governor last year.

The bill will create a new scholarship program for students from families earning less than $77,000 annually, though lower-income families will have priority if there are more applicants than available scholarships. Families will be able to use those dollars to pay for tuition at charter, private, or religious schools of their choosing; the money will come from the state’s contribution to the student’s assigned school district.

There will be 18,000 scholarships available when the program begins next fall, with 7,000 scholarships added to that total in each subsequent year. And there should be no doubt about the demand. This year, more than 170,000 students sought the 10,000 available scholarships in one of Florida’s already existing school choice programs.

Armed Teachers: Speaking of schools, the Florida House on Wednesday passed a bill to let teachers carry guns in the classroom. The measure is a direct response to last year’s mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 people dead. School districts would have to agree to allow teachers to be armed, and any teacher who wants to carry a firearm on school property would have to complete a specialized training course.

The Second Amendment doesn’t stop at the front door of a school building. And given how poorly law enforcement handed the Parkland shooting while it was happening, it can’t hurt to have an additional deterrent to any would-be copycats.

Criminal Justice Reform: Lawmakers only get half credit for this one, considering what could have been. Crucial sentencing reforms that would have allowed nonviolent felons to be released from prison earlier and that would have given judges the power to ignore mandatory minimums for drug offenders were stripped out of a criminal justice omnibus bill that reached DeSantis’ desk this week.

Still, the measure does contain some worthwhile provisions, including an amendment that would prohibit occupational licensing boards from disqualifying applicants based on crimes that occurred more than five years ago, unless they were violent or sexual offenses. According to the National Employment Law Project, Florida’s occupational licensing laws have more than 800 disqualifications merely for having a criminal record.  Reducing those barriers to finding a job will help former prisoners find work—and studies show that not having a job is the best indicator of whether someone will commit another crime after getting out of prison.

Felon Voting Rights: Now some bad news. Last year, Florida voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot question restoring voting rights to more than 1.4 million people with criminal records. But this week the state legislature sent DeSantis a bill that would prohibit those same people from voting unless they have paid all court fines and fees as well as completed any restitution payments associated with their crime.

That’s a direct rebuke of the will of the voters. It’s also a nakedly political maneuver that will likely keep many individuals who have served their time from being able to participate in future elections.

Needle Exchanges: The Florida Senate voted unanimously this week to let county governments greenlight safe injection site programs modeled on a successful pilot program run by the University of Miami since 2017. Such programs allow heroin addicts to access not only clean needles but also to get tested for AIDS and hepatitis C, and to receive naloxone, which can help treat overdoses. It’s not an overstatement to say this bill will literally save lives.

Hospital Deregulation: If this bill doesn’t save lives, it will certainly improve them. As I wrote this morning, Florida’s hospitals will no longer have to get the state government’s permission before expanding or offering new services if Gov. Ron DeSantis signs a bill that reached his desk this week. That bill overhauls the state’s Certificate of Need regulations—little-known rules that were supposed to hold health care costs down by limiting unnecessary capital expenditures, but often do the opposite. By operating as artificial limitations on the supply of health care services, they inflate costs and reduce access to care.

Telemedicine: If you’re improving health care laws, why stop there? This bill is a bit technical, but it gives health care providers more say in setting their rates for telemedicine services instead of forcing providers to comply with rates set by the state.

Speaker of the House Jose Oliva (R–Miami-Dade) has made health care reform a priority this year. In a session-opening speech in March, he said Florida should do a better job of providing “choice and competition in provider markets.” Repealing Certificate of Need rules are one way to do that, and this is another.

Banning Straw Bans: At least 10 Florida cities have banned one-use plastic straws, but this week the state legislature told them to suck it this week. It passed a bill that effectively nullifies those laws until 2024. The measure is similar to the preemption laws some states have used to keep overly aggressive city councils from banning plastic bags and other useful items. That steps all over local control, but sometimes a state legislature has to be the adult in the room.

The legislation also authorizes the state legislature’s policy commission to study the rationale for straw bans. As Reason’s Christian Britschgi put it earlier this week: “That’s a welcome provision given how often bogus straw stats are cited by legislators and city officials, or even incorporated into the text of straw bans.”

Banning Sanctuary Cities: Other times, stepping all over local control isn’t a good idea. A bad bill landed on DeSantis’ desk this week that would ban sanctuary cities—places where local officials refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials’ request to detain individuals suspected of being in the country illegally. “The bill would essentially make the ‘request’ a requirement,” says the Miami Herald.

Are two bad laws worth seven decent ones? You’ll have to decide that yourself, but how often does a state even bat above .500?

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Try Claiming America Is “Booming” After Reading These 19 Facts About Our Current Economic Performance

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

After taking an honest look at the facts, I don’t know how anyone can possibly claim that the U.S. economy is “booming”.  I really don’t. 

We hear this sort of rhetoric from the mainstream media all the time, but it doesn’t make any sense.  As I discussed yesterday, nobody should be using the term “booming” to describe the state of the U.S. economy until we have a full year when GDP growth is 3 percent or better, and at this point we haven’t had that since the middle of the Bush administration.  And as you will see below, the latest numbers are clearly telling us that the U.S. economy is not even moving in the right direction.  Economic conditions are getting worse, and they weren’t that great to begin with.  According to the calculations that John Williams has made over at shadowstats.com, the U.S. economy is already in a recession, but of course the Federal Reserve will continue to tell us that everything is just fine for as long as they possibly can.  Unfortunately for them, they can’t hide the depressingly bad numbers that are coming in from all over the economy, and those numbers are all telling us the same thing.

The following are 19 facts about our current economic performance that should deeply disturb all of us…

#1 In April, U.S. auto sales were down 6.1 percent.  That was the worst decline in 8 years.

#2 The number of mortgage applications has fallen for four weeks in a row.

#3 We just witnessed the largest crash in luxury home sales in about 9 years.

#4 Existing home sales have now fallen for 13 months in a row.

#5 In March, total residential construction spending was down 8.4 percent from a year ago.

#6 U.S. manufacturing output was down 1.1 percent during the first quarter of this year.

#7 Farm incomes are falling at the fastest pace since 2016.

#8 Wisconsin dairy farmers are going bankrupt “in record numbers”.

#9 Apple iPhone sales are falling at a “record pace”.

#10 Facebook’s profits have declined for the first time since 2015.

#11 We just learned that CVS will be closing 46 stores.

#12 Office Depot has announced that they will be closing 50 locations.

#13 Overall, U.S. retailers have announced more than 6,000 store closings so far in 2019, and that means we have already surpassed the total for all of last year.

#14 A shocking new study has discovered that 137 million Americans have experienced “medical financial hardship in the past year”.

#15 Credit card charge-offs at U.S. banks have risen to the highest level in nearly 7 years.

#16 Credit card delinquencies have risen to the highest level in almost 8 years.

#17 More than half a million Americans are homeless right now.

#18 Homelessness in New York City is the worst that it has ever been.

#19 Nearly 102 million Americans do not have a job right now.  That number is worse than it was at any point during the last recession.

But at least the stock market has been doing well, right?

Actually, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been down for two days in a row, and investors are getting kind of antsy.

Hopes of a trade deal with China had been propping up stocks in recent weeks, but it looks like negotiations may have hit “an impasse”…

The latest round of US-China trade talks may have hit an impasse, raising doubts about the chances of an early trade deal between the world’s two leading economies, Chinese official media reported on Thursday.

Unlike the previous negotiations, the 10th round of high-level economic and trade talks, which concluded here on Wednesday, had fewer details about specific discussions and results, state-run Global Times reported.

I warned my readers repeatedly that this would happen.  The Chinese are going to negotiate, but they are going to drag their feet for as long as possible in hopes that the U.S. will free Meng Wanzhou.

Of course that isn’t going to happen, and so at some point the Chinese will have to decide if they are willing to move forward with a trade deal anyway.

But if the Chinese drag their feet for too long, Trump administration officials may lose patience and take their ball and go home.

In any event, the truth is that the U.S. economy is really slowing down, and no trade deal is going to magically change that.

And a lot of other pundits are also pointing out that a substantial economic slowdown has now begun.  For example, the following comes from Brandon Smith’s latest article…

The bottom line is, the next crash has already begun. It started at the end of 2018, and is only becoming more pervasive with each passing month. This is not “doom and gloom” or “doom porn”, this is simply the facts on the ground. While stock markets are still holding (for now), the rest of the system is breaking down right on schedule. The question now is, when will the mainstream media and the Fed finally acknowledge this is happening? I suspect, as in 2008, they will openly admit to the danger only when it is far too late for people to prepare for it.

Hopefully things will remain relatively stable for as long as possible, because nobody should want to see a repeat of 2008 (or worse).

Unfortunately, we can’t stop the clock.  We are already more than a third of the way through 2019, and we will be into 2020 before we know it.

It has been an unusual year so far, but I have a feeling that it is about to get much, much more interesting.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2PN1sWc Tyler Durden

Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Opinions

Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature from the Institute for Justice.

Since the Nixon administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission has refused to settle civil or administrative enforcement actions unless defendants agree to lifetime gag orders preventing them from criticizing the SEC. Say the agency has a weak case against you but is willing to let you go for less than it would cost to defend yourself. Do you settle? Not if you ever want to defend your name in public. The agency’s press release maligning you will be the last word on the matter. Which violates the First Amendment, argues IJ Senior Attorney Robert McNamara over at Bloomberg Law.

  • A Massachusetts ban on certain semiautomatic weapons and magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds does not violate the Second Amendment, says the First Circuit. Though law-abiding, responsible citizens will no longer be able to use such weapons in defense of hearth and home, they can still use handguns. “[W]hen asked directly, not one of the plaintiffs or their six experts could identify even a single example of the use of an assault weapon for home self-defense, nor could they identify even a single example of a self-defense episode in which ten or more shots were fired.”
  • Massachusetts sues the feds, challenging federal rules that grant religious and moral exemptions from the contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act. Feds: Massachusetts doesn’t have standing, because it “cannot point to a single woman who will lose coverage she would otherwise want.” First Circuit: But the Commonwealth has shown a substantial risk that at least some women will lose coverage (and thereby cause Massachusetts to incur costs). That’s enough for standing.
  • Recovering addict is due to be jailed for 40 days, during which time Aroostook County, Me. jail officials tell her she will not receive her duly prescribed, twice-daily dose of medication to treat her opioid-use disorder. (Which will force her into painful withdrawal and increase her risk of relapse, overdose, death.) District court: Given her likelihood of prevailing under the Americans with Disabilities Act, she gets a preliminary injunction protecting her access to the meds. First Circuit: Just so.
  • Most class actions involve classes of plaintiffs, but keep a weather eye out for what the Fourth Circuit (cribbing from the Seventh) describes as the “unicorn” class action—the class is getting sued, not doing the suing! Sadly, though, this sort of unicorn is a unicorn even amongst unicorns: Unlike the standard unicorn—”majestic and even magical,” in the Fourth Circuit’s experience—defendant class action unicorns can suffer from hideous deformities relating to due process and to inadequate representation of absent class members.
  • ICE agents stop, arrest nine Latino men in Northern Virginia and then initiate deportation proceedings. (One of the men is a U.S. citizen.) Can the men seek damages from the agents for stopping them without a reasonable, articulable suspicion of unlawful activity, among other claims? Fourth Circuit: No can do. Only Congress can provide a money damages remedy against ICE agents, and it hasn’t done that.
  • Tattnall County, Ga. guard discovers prisoner in solitary confinement hanging from a noose. Guard: Which I thought might be a ploy to lure me into the cell so he could ambush me. So I called for backup and did paperwork. (Officers enter the cell seven minutes after the guard first saw the prisoner.) The prisoner dies. Fifth Circuit: The guard, who was 6 inches taller and 30 pounds heavier than the inmate, reasonably feared for his security. No Eighth Amendment violation here.
  • While Donna, Tex. jail officers are preoccupied putting up posters that say “Welcome to Donna Hilton” and display a logo of the Punisher (a comic book character known for meting out extrajudicial punishment), detainee hangs himself. Do the signs indicate a municipal policy of mistreating detainees? Fifth Circuit: No.
  • Now-repealed Texas law required plaintiff, a blind sex offender, to pay to wear GPS tracking device. Not paying was a felony. But plaintiff’s only source of income was his Social Security benefits, which are protected against “execution, levy, attachment, garnishment, or other legal processes.” Is the threat of criminal prosecution an “other legal process”? The Fifth Circuit says no; here, “other legal processes” means processes that are similar to the ones listed, and criminal liability is quite different from garnishment, et al.
  • Defendants must be tried in the place where they committed their alleged crimes. So important is this venue requirement that it is found in two separate parts of the Constitution. Prosecutors take heed of this Sixth Circuit decision overturning 17 counts of mail fraud because the feds failed to establish they were in the correct venue. The defendant, who had lied to FedEx to get a shipping discount and then pocketed the difference when he overcharged his customers for shipping, may face new trials, as a dismissal on venue grounds doesn’t qualify for double jeopardy protections.
  • A member of the American Board of Forensic Document Examiners writes an article for an American Bar Association journal, in which he opines that judges should trust handwriting experts certified by the ABFDE and “be wary of other certifying bodies.” Board of Forensic Document Examiners: Say what! We’re an “other certifying body,” and that spurious article has defamed our esteemed members. Seventh Circuit: “[T]he appropriate avenue for expressing a contrary point of view was through a rebuttal article, not a defamation lawsuit.”
  • Sex offenders imprisoned by Indiana are required to participate in treatment sessions in which they are asked to identify victims of their abuse and how they abused them. The questions aren’t about just the crimes of conviction; they’re about any sex abuse ever. And if the inmates don’t participate, they can lose good time credits that would shorten their prison sentences. Seventh Circuit: The Fifth Amendment prohibits this sort of compelled self-incrimination.
  • Over a dissent, the Seventh Circuit holds that death from autoerotic asphyxiation, even if accidental, still involves an “intentionally self-inflicted injury” that can prevent a life insurance payout. The Second and Ninth Circuits disagree. (Will the Supreme Court resolve the split? Don’t hold your breath.)
  • Man convicted for a 1993 Anderson, Ind. murder is released in 2010 when it’s revealed that investigators withheld evidence. Can he now get damages from an investigator who allegedly hid a video of witnesses identifying another suspect as the shooter? District court: No. Seventh Circuit: Maybe. There’s enough evidence to get past summary judgment.
  • Real estate holding companies go through Chapter 11 bankruptcy, strike a deal that allows them to repay all creditors in full and keep operating. But wait! The United States Trustee objects because one of the companies leases property to a marijuana farm in Washington state, in violation of federal law. Will the debtors’ repayment plan “go up in smoke”? Ninth Circuit: It will not. Federal law prohibits only plans that are proposed by means forbidden by law. Nothing about the way this plan was proposed was illegal.

After Jerome Davis and Veronica Walker-Davis’ car was damaged in an accident, they took it to a Chicago body shop for repairs. But a shop employee, who took it for a joyride and was pulled over, didn’t have a valid license, so police impounded the car. The city refused to release the car unless Jerome and Veronica paid thousands of dollars in fines and fees for someone else’s crime. Their innocence was not a defense, and when they returned with the money, the city had already disposed of the car. This week, Jerome and Veronica teamed up with IJ to sue over Chicago’s impound racket, which ensnares over 22,000 vehicles a year. Click here to learn more (and be sure to let us know if the city impounded your car).

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Dow Suffers Longest Weekly Losing Streak Of Year As Fed Loses Control Of Short-End

The Fed’s tweak to the funding markets failed to take back control…

As The Fed’s IOER cut left EFF still 6bps rich…

And so, a ‘murder’ of Fed Speakers were unleashed today and they managed to inch the market’s rate expectations in a dovish direction, but on the week, thanks to Powell’s “transitory”

The key message was obvious:

Chinese markets remain on holiday (and will be through Tuesday) but Chinese stocks remain the leader in 2019…

 

European stocks were very mixed with Germany’s DAX leading and UK and Spain lagging…

 

An epic short-squeeze ramped US equities back into (or near) the green for the week…

 

With Small Caps and Trannies leading… Nasdaq and S&P were levitated almost perfectly into the green for the week…

Nasdaq up 6 week sin a row and 16 of the 18 weeks in 2019.

Nasdaq soared today on the back of Berkshire buying some Amazon shares… (FANG stocks managed to get back to breakeven on the week only though after the GOOGL drop)

 

For The Dow, this is the same panic-bid we saw last Friday… Dow down for 2nd week in a row – first time since Dec 2018

 

VIX has now risen for 3 straight weeks (albeit marginally) – the longest streak since Oct 2018

 

Treasuries were bid today, shifting the long-end yields back to unchanged on the week, while the short-end remain notably higher in yield…

 

The yield curve flattened dramatically on the week (after a brief spike initially on the Fed statement)…This was the biggest weekly flattening in 5 months

 

Roller-coaster week for the dollar surging back to unchanged on the week after The Fed, then tumbling today after payrolls…

 

Yuan ended the week unchanged (after a big bounce back today) even with China closed…

 

The peso surged today ahead of Cinco de Mayo…

 

Big week for Cryptos with Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash leading…

 

As Bitcoin tests $5800…

 

Strong bounce back day for commodities today was unable to get them green on the week but gold outperformed as copper lagged…

 

Gold bounced off its 200DMA once again…

 

WTI fell for the 2nd week in a row – the biggest 2-week drop since 2018…hugging the 200DMA…

 

Finally, as BofA notes, ISM’s collapse (which everyone seemed to ignore this week) is a major warning signal for US EPS growth…

Which is already lagging the market’s enthusiasm for free money…

Global money supply better start picking up again soon…

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2H0pr11 Tyler Durden

Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Opinions

Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature from the Institute for Justice.

Since the Nixon administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission has refused to settle civil or administrative enforcement actions unless defendants agree to lifetime gag orders preventing them from criticizing the SEC. Say the agency has a weak case against you but is willing to let you go for less than it would cost to defend yourself. Do you settle? Not if you ever want to defend your name in public. The agency’s press release maligning you will be the last word on the matter. Which violates the First Amendment, argues IJ Senior Attorney Robert McNamara over at Bloomberg Law.

  • A Massachusetts ban on certain semiautomatic weapons and magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds does not violate the Second Amendment, says the First Circuit. Though law-abiding, responsible citizens will no longer be able to use such weapons in defense of hearth and home, they can still use handguns. “[W]hen asked directly, not one of the plaintiffs or their six experts could identify even a single example of the use of an assault weapon for home self-defense, nor could they identify even a single example of a self-defense episode in which ten or more shots were fired.”
  • Massachusetts sues the feds, challenging federal rules that grant religious and moral exemptions from the contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act. Feds: Massachusetts doesn’t have standing, because it “cannot point to a single woman who will lose coverage she would otherwise want.” First Circuit: But the Commonwealth has shown a substantial risk that at least some women will lose coverage (and thereby cause Massachusetts to incur costs). That’s enough for standing.
  • Recovering addict is due to be jailed for 40 days, during which time Aroostook County, Me. jail officials tell her she will not receive her duly prescribed, twice-daily dose of medication to treat her opioid-use disorder. (Which will force her into painful withdrawal and increase her risk of relapse, overdose, death.) District court: Given her likelihood of prevailing under the Americans with Disabilities Act, she gets a preliminary injunction protecting her access to the meds. First Circuit: Just so.
  • Most class actions involve classes of plaintiffs, but keep a weather eye out for what the Fourth Circuit (cribbing from the Seventh) describes as the “unicorn” class action—the class is getting sued, not doing the suing! Sadly, though, this sort of unicorn is a unicorn even amongst unicorns: Unlike the standard unicorn—”majestic and even magical,” in the Fourth Circuit’s experience—defendant class action unicorns can suffer from hideous deformities relating to due process and to inadequate representation of absent class members.
  • ICE agents stop, arrest nine Latino men in Northern Virginia and then initiate deportation proceedings. (One of the men is a U.S. citizen.) Can the men seek damages from the agents for stopping them without a reasonable, articulable suspicion of unlawful activity, among other claims? Fourth Circuit: No can do. Only Congress can provide a money damages remedy against ICE agents, and it hasn’t done that.
  • Tattnall County, Ga. guard discovers prisoner in solitary confinement hanging from a noose. Guard: Which I thought might be a ploy to lure me into the cell so he could ambush me. So I called for backup and did paperwork. (Officers enter the cell seven minutes after the guard first saw the prisoner.) The prisoner dies. Fifth Circuit: The guard, who was 6 inches taller and 30 pounds heavier than the inmate, reasonably feared for his security. No Eighth Amendment violation here.
  • While Donna, Tex. jail officers are preoccupied putting up posters that say “Welcome to Donna Hilton” and display a logo of the Punisher (a comic book character known for meting out extrajudicial punishment), detainee hangs himself. Do the signs indicate a municipal policy of mistreating detainees? Fifth Circuit: No.
  • Now-repealed Texas law required plaintiff, a blind sex offender, to pay to wear GPS tracking device. Not paying was a felony. But plaintiff’s only source of income was his Social Security benefits, which are protected against “execution, levy, attachment, garnishment, or other legal processes.” Is the threat of criminal prosecution an “other legal process”? The Fifth Circuit says no; here, “other legal processes” means processes that are similar to the ones listed, and criminal liability is quite different from garnishment, et al.
  • Defendants must be tried in the place where they committed their alleged crimes. So important is this venue requirement that it is found in two separate parts of the Constitution. Prosecutors take heed of this Sixth Circuit decision overturning 17 counts of mail fraud because the feds failed to establish they were in the correct venue. The defendant, who had lied to FedEx to get a shipping discount and then pocketed the difference when he overcharged his customers for shipping, may face new trials, as a dismissal on venue grounds doesn’t qualify for double jeopardy protections.
  • A member of the American Board of Forensic Document Examiners writes an article for an American Bar Association journal, in which he opines that judges should trust handwriting experts certified by the ABFDE and “be wary of other certifying bodies.” Board of Forensic Document Examiners: Say what! We’re an “other certifying body,” and that spurious article has defamed our esteemed members. Seventh Circuit: “[T]he appropriate avenue for expressing a contrary point of view was through a rebuttal article, not a defamation lawsuit.”
  • Sex offenders imprisoned by Indiana are required to participate in treatment sessions in which they are asked to identify victims of their abuse and how they abused them. The questions aren’t about just the crimes of conviction; they’re about any sex abuse ever. And if the inmates don’t participate, they can lose good time credits that would shorten their prison sentences. Seventh Circuit: The Fifth Amendment prohibits this sort of compelled self-incrimination.
  • Over a dissent, the Seventh Circuit holds that death from autoerotic asphyxiation, even if accidental, still involves an “intentionally self-inflicted injury” that can prevent a life insurance payout. The Second and Ninth Circuits disagree. (Will the Supreme Court resolve the split? Don’t hold your breath.)
  • Man convicted for a 1993 Anderson, Ind. murder is released in 2010 when it’s revealed that investigators withheld evidence. Can he now get damages from an investigator who allegedly hid a video of witnesses identifying another suspect as the shooter? District court: No. Seventh Circuit: Maybe. There’s enough evidence to get past summary judgment.
  • Real estate holding companies go through Chapter 11 bankruptcy, strike a deal that allows them to repay all creditors in full and keep operating. But wait! The United States Trustee objects because one of the companies leases property to a marijuana farm in Washington state, in violation of federal law. Will the debtors’ repayment plan “go up in smoke”? Ninth Circuit: It will not. Federal law prohibits only plans that are proposed by means forbidden by law. Nothing about the way this plan was proposed was illegal.

After Jerome Davis and Veronica Walker-Davis’ car was damaged in an accident, they took it to a Chicago body shop for repairs. But a shop employee, who took it for a joyride and was pulled over, didn’t have a valid license, so police impounded the car. The city refused to release the car unless Jerome and Veronica paid thousands of dollars in fines and fees for someone else’s crime. Their innocence was not a defense, and when they returned with the money, the city had already disposed of the car. This week, Jerome and Veronica teamed up with IJ to sue over Chicago’s impound racket, which ensnares over 22,000 vehicles a year. Click here to learn more (and be sure to let us know if the city impounded your car).

from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2PJhO1T
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Medical HIV Suppression Is Well Within Reach

A new study published today in The Lancet shows that the medical therapy currently used to treat HIV is capable of preventing people from spreading it through sexual activity, even when they’re not using condoms.

The theory is far from new, and this isn’t the first study to show that HIV can be suppressed enough so that those who are infected can’t pass the virus along to others. But it nevertheless is an important development. Advances in medicine and science are turning a once-deadly public health nightmare into something that can be managed.

This study involved more than 700 gay couples spread across 14 European countries where one partner was HIV positive and one was negative. The HIV-positive partner was taking regular drug therapy to suppress the levels of the virus in his body. Across seven years, these couples documented more than 76,000 instances of condomless anal sex.

In exactly zero cases—none at all—did the HIV-positive man infect his partner. There were 15 new HIV infections among those participating in the study, but researchers were able to determine that these new infections did not originate from the HIV-positive partners. (Thirty-seven percent of the HIV-negative participants acknowledged having condomless sex with others besides their partner.)

These results come on the heels of a similar study that included a mix of heterosexual and same-sex couples. There too, there were no transmissions of HIV from an infected partner if that partner was on drug therapy that effectively suppressed the virus. And before that, a pivotal study in 2015, this one focused primarily on heterosexual couples, found only four transmissions of HIV between an infected person and his or her partner.

All of that is to say that at this point, the news from today’s study shouldn’t come as a surprise. (Indeed, the outcome was previewed a year ago—today is the formal publication of the study.) It’s another piece of evidence that HIV treatment doubles as HIV prevention, heralding a very important shift in the approach to managing the public health risks. The “undetectable=untransmittable” concept, shorthanded as “U=U,” is relatively young campaign launched in 2016 to try to help explain that medical suppression of HIV so that its viral levels don’t show up in blood tests means that it cannot be transmitted to other people. The hope here is to encourage more people to get tested and seek treatment.

In the United States, we’re seeing about 38,000 new HIV infections per year, and about 15 percent of people who are infected do not even know it. Furthermore, only about half of the people with HIV in the United States have been receiving enough medical treatment to reduce the virus to the point that it would be considered “undetectable.”

In his State of the Union Address in February, President Donald Trump said he wanted to eliminate the HIV epidemic in America in 10 years. It seems unlikely that it can be shut down entirely, but it is possible to get it suppressed to the point that new infections are very rare. These studies should be seen as evidence that we already have the solution to stop the spread of HIV. It’s now a logistical matter to figure out the best ways to make sure that the treatment is accessible and that people are aware it’s out there.

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Neo-Nazi Arrested For Threatening To Kill Don Jr., Jared Kushner & Ben Shapiro

A raging anti-semite who was stockpiling tactical weaponry and Nazi paraphernalia has been arrested for sending death threats to Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr. and Ben Shapiro, TMZ reports.

Barely a week after a deranged 19-year-old shot up a synagogue in Poway, Calif., claiming the Christchurch Shooter as his inspiration, Chase Bliss Colasurdo was arrested Wednesday in Washington State after the FBI and Secret Service uncovered multiple death threats against Trump’s family members.

Kushner

Authorities were acting on a tip filed in March alerting them to Colasurdo’s threatening social media posts, where he apparently targeted Kushner and Trump Jr. by name. In case his intentions hadn’t been made clear enough, he also sent emails to 5 different media outlets warning of his plans: “I’m going to personally Execute [Kushner] for his countless treasonous crimes,” according to TMZ.

Colasurdo then proceeded to taunt law enforcement, posting a photo on Instagram of himself holding a gun with the caption: “I made a death threat against [Kushner] yesterday and I have not been arrested yet.”

As if that weren’t enough, Colasurdo posted a photo of Donald Trump Jr. with the caption: “I would just like to let the secret service know that I am going to Execute this fa***t.”

When FBI and Secret Service agents visited Colasurdo at his home in March, he claimed he’d been hacked, but also told agents that he had been diagnosed with mental health issues.

Still, his online death rants continued. The very next week, Colasurdo posted a photo of himself holding a handgun with the caption: “It’s Time To Start Bombing Synagogues,” and later referenced the Poway bombing.

In April, the FBI discovered that Colasurdo had been loading up on ammunition, weapons and kevlar armor, which set off alarm bells and led to a raid that resulted n Colasurdo’s arrest. During the raid, agents discovered an expansive arsenal, Nazi flags and Hitler memorabilia.

It was later reported that Colasurdo also made death threats against conservative writer Ben Shapiro and his family.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2J03LEG Tyler Durden

Medical HIV Suppression Is Well Within Reach

A new study published today in The Lancet shows that the medical therapy currently used to treat HIV is capable of preventing people from spreading it through sexual activity, even when they’re not using condoms.

The theory is far from new, and this isn’t the first study to show that HIV can be suppressed enough so that those who are infected can’t pass the virus along to others. But it nevertheless is an important development. Advances in medicine and science are turning a once-deadly public health nightmare into something that can be managed.

This study involved more than 700 gay couples spread across 14 European countries where one partner was HIV positive and one was negative. The HIV-positive partner was taking regular drug therapy to suppress the levels of the virus in his body. Across seven years, these couples documented more than 76,000 instances of condomless anal sex.

In exactly zero cases—none at all—did the HIV-positive man infect his partner. There were 15 new HIV infections among those participating in the study, but researchers were able to determine that these new infections did not originate from the HIV-positive partners. (Thirty-seven percent of the HIV-negative participants acknowledged having condomless sex with others besides their partner.)

These results come on the heels of a similar study that included a mix of heterosexual and same-sex couples. There too, there were no transmissions of HIV from an infected partner if that partner was on drug therapy that effectively suppressed the virus. And before that, a pivotal study in 2015, this one focused primarily on heterosexual couples, found only four transmissions of HIV between an infected person and his or her partner.

All of that is to say that at this point, the news from today’s study shouldn’t come as a surprise. (Indeed, the outcome was previewed a year ago—today is the formal publication of the study.) It’s another piece of evidence that HIV treatment doubles as HIV prevention, heralding a very important shift in the approach to managing the public health risks. The “undetectable=untransmittable” concept, shorthanded as “U=U,” is relatively young campaign launched in 2016 to try to help explain that medical suppression of HIV so that its viral levels don’t show up in blood tests means that it cannot be transmitted to other people. The hope here is to encourage more people to get tested and seek treatment.

In the United States, we’re seeing about 38,000 new HIV infections per year, and about 15 percent of people who are infected do not even know it. Furthermore, only about half of the people with HIV in the United States have been receiving enough medical treatment to reduce the virus to the point that it would be considered “undetectable.”

In his State of the Union Address in February, President Donald Trump said he wanted to eliminate the HIV epidemic in America in 10 years. It seems unlikely that it can be shut down entirely, but it is possible to get it suppressed to the point that new infections are very rare. These studies should be seen as evidence that we already have the solution to stop the spread of HIV. It’s now a logistical matter to figure out the best ways to make sure that the treatment is accessible and that people are aware it’s out there.

from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2VbJwdK
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Florida Teachers Can Be “Good Guy With A Gun” Under New Bill Allowing Them To Pack Heat

Florida’s House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday allowing full-time teachers to carry guns in the classroom – expanding on a program launched in the wake of the deadly Parkland high school shooting in February, 2018. 

The bill, passed by a vote of 65 to 47 after two days of debate in which Republicans thwarted Democratic legislators’ attempts to amend, stall or kill the measure. It was approved by Florida’s Senate last week by a vote of 22 to 17, and now heads to the desk of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis who is expected to sign it into law, according to Reuters.  

Teachers who complete a 144-hour training course as part of the voluntary guardian program will be allowed to carry. 

On Feb. 14, 2018, a former student armed with a semiautomatic rifle opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 people and wounding 17 others.

President Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association have argued an armed teacher could provide the best defense against a shooter bent on mass murder.

Opponents questioned whether the solution to gun violence should be the presence of even more guns and warned of the danger of a teacher misfiring during a crisis or police mistaking an armed teacher for the assailant. –Reuters

Gun rights advocates have hailed the bill’s passage as a victory. 

Following the Parkland shooting, lawmakers in Florida quickly passed legislation requiring schools to place at least one armed staff member or law-enforcement officer on each campus, as well as a three-day waiting period to legally purchase a gun. The state also raised the age limit for buying rifles from 18 to 21. 

Backers of the new bill argue that school shootings occur too quickly for law enforcement to respond, while opponents say the measure could lead to accidental shootings or misfirings. 

Expecting the bill to pass, school employees in 40 of Florida’s 67 counties have already enrolled or planned to enroll in the 144-hour course, according to a spokesman for the Speaker of the House. Other counties have resolved not to participate in the Guardian program. 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2H0z4Nh Tyler Durden

The Wheels Of Real Justice Are In Motion Now: Kunstler Fears The “Desperate Resistance” Next Move…

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

“Impeachment is too good for him,” Nancy Pelosi declared of the president on Thursday after “his lapdog” – as she styled Attorney General William Barr – refused to be whipped by grandstanding Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. What did Madam Speaker have in mind then? Dragging Mr. Trump behind a Chevy Tahoe over four miles of broken light bulbs? Staking him onto a nest of fire ants? How about a beheading at the capable hands of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN)?

Mr. Barr’s stolid demeanor during the Wednesday session was a refreshing reminder of what it means to be not insane in the long-running lunatic degeneration of national politics.

Of course, the reason for the continued hysteria among Democrats is that the two-year solemn inquiry by the august former FBI Director, Mr. Mueller, is being revealed daily as a mendacious fraud with criminal overtones running clear through Democratic ranks beyond even the wicked Hillary Clinton to the sainted former president Obama, who may have supervised his party’s collusion with foreign officials to interfere in the 2016 election.

Mr. Barr’s hints that he intends to tip this dumpster of political subterfuge, to find out what was at the bottom of it, is being taken as a death threat to the Democratic Party, as well it should be. A lot of familiar names and faces will be rolling out of that dumpster into the grand juries and federal courtrooms just as the big pack of White House aspirants jets around the primary states as though 2020 might be anything like a normal election.

In short and in effect, the Democratic Party itself is headed to trial on a vector that takes it straight into November next year. How do you imagine it will look to voters when Mr. Obama’s CIA chief, John Brennan, his NSA Director James Clapper, a baker’s dozen of former Obama top FBI and DOJ officials, including former AG Loretta Lynch, and sundry additional players in the great game of RussiaGate Gotcha end up ‘splainin’ their guts out to a whole different cast of federal prosecutors? It’s hardly out of the question that Barack Obama himself and Mrs. Clinton may face charges in all this mischief and depravity.

It’s surely true that the public is sick of the RussiaGate spectacle. (I know readers of this blog complain about it.) But it’s no exaggeration to say that this is the worst and most tangled scandal that the US government has ever seen, and that failing to resolve it successfully really is an existential threat to the project of being a republic. I was a young newspaper reporter during Watergate and that was like a game of animal lotto compared to this garbage barge of malfeasance.

It’s a further irony of the moment that the suddenly leading Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, is neck-deep in that spilled garbage, the story unspooling even as I write that then-Veep Uncle Joe strong-armed the Ukraine government to fire its equivalent of Attorney General to quash an investigation of his son, Hunter, who received large sums of money from the Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, which had mystifyingly appointed the young American to its board of directors after the US-sponsored overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych.

That nasty bit of business comes immediately on top of information that the Hillary campaign was using its connections in Ukraine — from her years at the State Department — to traffic in political dirt on Mr. Trump, plus an additional intrigue that included payments to the Clinton Foundation of $25 million by Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk. That was on top of contributions of $150 million that the Clinton Foundation had received earlier from Russian oligarchs around 2012.

Did they suppose that no one would ever notice? Or is it just a symptom of the desperation that has gripped the Democratic Party since the stunning election loss of 2016 made it impossible to suppress this titanic, bubbling vessel of fermented misdeeds? It seems more than merely possible that the entire Mueller Investigation was a ruse from the start to conceal all this nefarious activity. It is even more astounding to see exactly what a lame document the Mueller Report turned out to be. It was such a dud that even the Democratic senators and congresspersons who are complaining the loudest have not bothered to visit the special parlor set up  at the Department of Justice for their convenience to read a much more lightly redacted edition of the report.

The mills of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine. The wheels are in motion now and it’s unlikely they will be stopped by mere tantrums. But the next move by the desperate Resistance may be to create so much political disorder in the system that they manage to delegitimize the 2020 election before it is even held, and plunge the nation deeper into unnecessary crisis just to try and save their asses.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2UYDxnx Tyler Durden