28,000 American Flight Attendants Refuse To Work On Boeing 737 Max Planes
The Boeing 737 Max crisis continues to get more serious.
Tens of thousands of American Airlines’ flight attendants fear for their safety and will not work on Boeing 737 Max planes if they return to the air in 2020, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) union’s president wrote in a letter to Boeing’s CEO this week, reported Reuters.
“The 28,000 flight attendants working for American Airlines refuse to walk onto a plane that may not be safe and are calling for the highest possible safety standards to avoid another tragedy,” APFA President Lori Bassani said in the letter (seen by Reuters).
Reuters noted the letter was dated Oct. 30, which followed several days of Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg being grilled by lawmakers in Washington after two Max crashes killed 346 people and led to a worldwide grounding of the plane in March.
Muilenburg, during the hearing, told US lawmakers that Boeing made “mistakes” and “have learned from both accidents and identified changes that need to be made.”
Lawmakers accused Boeing of knowing about flight control issues in the plane’s MCAS system, which has been identified by the flight regulators as a significant factor behind both Max crashes.
Bassani told Muilenburg that the hearings in Washington reveal “breakdowns in the supervision of the 737 MAX and raise questions about the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) resources for oversight,” said Reuters.
The letter told Muilenburg that American Airlines’ flight attendants won’t step on the plane until her union has all the safety reports.
Since the grounding of the Max in March, Boeing has been desperately trying to get the planes back in the air as carriers across the world are abandoning Max orders for Airbus planes.
Boeing has a credibility crisis. They will need to rebuild confidence in the Max with not just flight attendants but also the American people, along with global carriers and regulators.
To do this, you’ll hear it here first, Boeing will have to go on Good Morning America, followed by a 60 Minutes segment, to reach as many people as possible, all in the attempt to restore confidence. If Boeing can’t regain trust, they should rebrand, something President Trump said earlier this year.
Alison Hernandez, police and crime commissioner for Devon and Cornwall, England, says women should call the 999 emergency number if someone wolf-whistles or cat-calls them on the street. Meanwhile, knife crime in England and Wales is at a record high, robberies are at their highest level since 2007, and less than one in 13 reported crimes leads to a prosecution.
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Earlier this month, I blogged favorably about a Connecticut trial court decision, under the title “Civil Court Can’t Decide What ‘Torah Law’ Means, Even if Contract Calls for Applying It.” Prof. Michael Broyde at Emory University School of Law passed along this response, which I’m delighted to post. (I should note that, as I read the Connecticut decision, it rests in part on the court’s conclusion that “[T]he plaintiff has not asked the court to order the parties to arbitrate their alimony and property division dispute before the Beit Din”; I do think that express agreements to arbitrate before religious tribunals should generally be enforceable, to the same extent as agreements to arbitrate before secular tribunals.)
There is No Constitutional Problems with Religious Arbitration or With Courts Resolving Religious Terms Neutrally in Contract Disputes
In a recent case[1] the Superior Court of Connecticut ruled that a ketubah (a ritual agreement mandated by Jewish Law enacted prior to a Jewish marriage) could not be enforced, even if it mandates arbitration in front of a rabbinical court. The Court ruled that since this Ketubah refers to “Torah Law” it cannot be enforced since such enforcement violates the Establishment Claus of the First Amendment. This approach is mistaken.
The facts of this case are simple: Husband and Wife signed a Lieberman Clause Ketubah provision directing that should they have a disagreement about the giving of a Jewish divorce, they would submit this dispute to a rabbinical tribunal to be resolved according to “Torah law.” Husband had already given, and wife had already received a Jewish divorce, but husband moved to enforce this agreement to prevent the Court from deciding matters of alimony. The Court ruled that enforcing this agreement violates the First Amendment.
Five things are disturbing about this opinion: arbitration law, constitutional law and family law are all mis-applied in the course of this opinion.
No Constitutional Issues Needed to be Decided. The opinion rushes right into a constitutional law problem and avoids resolving the issues posed in this case on statutory grounds. The opinion tells us that “Assuming, without deciding, that the Ketubah is otherwise a valid prenuptial agreement under Connecticut law, does the First Amendment to the United States constitution nonetheless forbid the court to enforce the cited provision?” This approach is wrong. As is well known, if Constitutional questions can be avoided on statutory grounds, courts should seek to do so. This is certainly true in First Amendment law. The Court should have decided this case on statutory grounds.
The Ketubah is Certainly Not a PNA. Second, it is obvious that the Ketubah in question is certainly not a valid prenuptial agreement under Connecticut law. The court set up a straw man to decide a Constitutional question, since Connecticut has detailed disclosure requirements for prenuptial agreements [PNAs] and no one could reasonably think that this agreement meets these criteria. This is an easy PNA case and should have been decided on those grounds. The Court hypothesizes PNA validity—and only for the purposes of striking a blow against religious arbitration—to allow it to voice its opinion on a Con Law problem.
The Leiberman Ketubah is an arbitration agreement and valid. The Lieberman Ketubah looks like a binding arbitration agreement with a choice of law provision to “Torah Law,” and that is the way it was understood in Avitzur.[2] The idea that one cannot have a binding arbitration agreement with a choice of law provision to any religious legal system was recently proposed in the Yale Law Journal article entitled The Reverse-Entanglement Principle: Why Religious Arbitration of Federal Rights Is Unconstitutional but this is certainly not the law in the United States. Arbitration agreements to submit to Sharia tribunals, Rabbinical courts and Christian panels are regularly enforced by courts. (Yes, go right now and buy my book Sharia Tribunals, Rabbinical Courts, and Christian Panels: Religious Arbitration in America and the West(Oxford, 2017) for more on this!).
The Agreement Between the Parties was Moot. The Ketubah in question says directly that its purpose is to insure that the parties agree to divorce according to Torah Law (i.e., the husband will give and wife will receive a Jewish divorce). Furthermore, the court tells us that “the plaintiff has given the defendant a Get; the parties are already divorced under Jewish law” making this binding arbitration agreement moot in purpose. This agreement directs the parties to appear in front of a rabbinical court to give a Jewish divorce, which they have already done. You cannot kill the same horse twice and you cannot have a second Jewish divorce. The agreement is moot, as the parties have fulfilled its terms already. It cannot be enforced more.
Courts May Use Neutral Contract Rules to Enforce Religious Terms in a Contract. So too, they can certainly send parties to arbitration for interpretation if they agree to that. No one argues that a contract for delivery of “kosher food” cannot be enforced merely because the word “kosher” has more than one reasonable interpretation—courts need to determine what the parties intend and not what the word truly means in God’s eye when they asked for “kosher” food. So too, courts can send the question of “kosher” to arbitration in front of a rabbinical tribunal—or even a canon law panel!—if the parties agree, even as this entails waivers of many rights protected by the Constitution, just as they may agree to arbitration generally, which entails waivers of many Constitutional rights. Arbitration law is essentially a product of Federal law under the Federal Arbitration Act, which protects even religious arbitration. PNA are a product of state law with greater diversity of standards.
(As a final note, I agree that this case did reach the correct result by dismissing the Husband’s claim, even as the reasoning was wrong. The “divorce according to Torah Law” provision of the Lieberman Ketubah has nothing to do with alimony. The agreement between them did not address whether and how much alimony should be paid between the parties. There was no valid prenuptial agreement or arbitration agreement present under Connecticut law about alimony. No Constitutional issues need to be decided.)[3]
Conclusions
Courts can decide contract disputes between the parties even if the terms have a religious meaning (like “kosher”) if the Court can use neutral principles of law to determine what the parties intended. The Federal Arbitration Act permits parties to submit to arbitration in front of religious tribunals in the same way that they can submit to any arbitration. Decisions by religious arbitration tribunals ought to be enforced by the courts unless they fit into one of the few and rare grounds (like fraud) for not enforcing arbitration agreements generally: The First Amendment is not one of those grounds for good reason.
[1]Tilsen v. Benson, 2019 WL 4898971 (Conn. Super. Ct.).
[2]Avitzur v. Avitzur, 58 N.Y.2d 108, 113 (Ct. App. 1983).
[3]This Decision Also Badly Misunderstands Jewish Law. The root of the error is the Court’s insistence that “Jewish Law” is somehow involved thorough the ketubah, which it seems to use as a synonym for any contractual agreements between the parties about religion. For example, the Court tells us that:
“[A] husband’s refusal to give his wife a Get has led to a number of civil cases in which the wife sought to specifically enforce a provision in a Ketubah requiring the husband to give her a Get, or which imposed certain monetary penalties if he refused. For example, in Light v. Light, 55 Conn. L. Rptr. 145, 148-49 (Conn.Super. Dec. 6, 2012) [55 Conn. L. Rptr. 145], the Ketubah stated that the husband agreed to pay his wife $100 per day from the date they separated until the husband granted the wife a Get. (emphasis added)”
This is an error of Jewish law of some importance. The Ketubah in Light said no such thing. Rather, the parties in Light had a contract—having nothing to do with the Ketubah—for support until a Jewish divorce is given. No Orthodox ketubah ever specifies payments until Jewish divorce. This error of Jewish Law allows the Court to image that there is actually a First Amendment problem in the enforcement of contracts that address religious issues, since it thinks they are “Ketubahs” which are religious.
The Court compounds this problem by misreading Masri v. Masri, 55 Misc.3d 487, 499, 50 N.Y.S.3d 801 (2017), which is limited to a case where the Husband has sincere religious objections to giving a Jewish divorce—not true in this case, as the Husband gave a Jewish divorce without complaint. Masri discusses the New York Get Law and there was no contract at all. Had there been a contract, it would have been enforced; one can does not raise First Amendment objections to a contract one agreed to. Indeed, it is very hard to argue (absent a separate contract like the kind found at https://theprenup.org/) that the Ketubah itself ever mandates that a secular court can order a Jewish divorce to be given (although there are ossified cases in New York and elsewhere that make such an argument). For this reason, separate contracts are used that can be adjudicated. By obfuscating the Jewish Law issue, the Court here incorrectly notes that enforcing a ketubah to direct a get be given is difficult and then undermines Light. In Light the court is merely enforcing a secular agreement. The misunderstanding of Jewish law impacts American law.
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Liberal politicians are shocked—shocked, I tell you—to find gambling going on in a gambling house, or to find that lobbying is going on in the U.S. Capitol.
“The rich and the powerful have been calling the shots in Washington forever and ever,” said presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren. She’s proposed an “anti-corruption” package that would impose as much as a 75-percent tax rate on corporations that spend millions on lobbying.
Railing against corporate lobbyists is common sport among populists. It’s easy to understand the tendency. Whenever I go to the state Capitol, I see lobbyists, huddled in the lobbies outside the hearing rooms, wearing stylish suits and following the fate of bills that were crafted by their attorneys and presumably pitched to lawmakers over cigars on a Sacramento steakhouse patio.
In reality, lobbying is just part of the ugly sausage-making process. It’s no sleazier than the process of running for election or the insider game that takes place in the bowels of some regulatory agency, where bureaucrats—presumably wearing less fashionable attire—craft rules that govern how we live. The real problem is that government is so massive and powerful that it forces companies to defend themselves and also attracts favor seekers.
For all their harrumphing about the evils of corporate influence-peddling, left-wing demagogues such as Warren are amazingly—perhaps willfully—blind to the biggest influence-seekers in state and federal capitols. I’m referring to government agencies. “The money spent on lobbying by government agencies—cities, counties, school districts, water agencies, even rent control boards across the Golden State—consistently ranks at or near the top of the heap,” according to a KQED report.
It’s a big problem at the local level, too. The League of California Cities, one of those powerful Sacramento-based government interest groups that spends big on statehouse lobbying, held a training academy at a recent conference in Long Beach.
One of its sessions taught local government officials how to “generate critical revenues to address city needs” by “carrying out a local ballot measure campaign.” The program encouraged cities to launch these campaigns – and provided detailed information on how to craft the ballot measures, conduct polling and create the right messaging. For instance, it taught them to pitch these measures as a way to protect public services rather than as tax hikes.
So, a government-funded interest group is “educating” government officials how to run a political campaign to convince voters to raise taxes. This is done on the public dime. Cities even hire consulting groups to run the process. “It sounds exactly like a campaign,” said Newport Beach Mayor Pro Tem Will O’Neill. “They poll ahead of time. They draft the ballot and draft the educational materials. Some cities put the election information in utility bills.”
Isn’t this essentially lobbying? I asked. “It isn’t essentially lobbying. They are lobbyists,” O’Neill added. In 2018, he sponsored a City Council resolution prohibiting public money from being spent on tax increases, but so far Newport Beach is the only city to pass it. It’s allowable under the guise of education, but he’s right that officials who attend such seminars should be held accountable by voters. “Hopefully there will at least be a seminar in the future about how to operate a city within actual budgets,” he added.
A lot of private lobbying is a form of government lobbying, too. Top lobbyists include public-sector unions, which are funded by people who work for the government. At the local level, these unions use concerns about overcrowded classrooms and crime to arm-twist for higher taxes, even if the extra dollars end up funding their pensions. The most influential state lobbyists include utilities, which are a creation of government, and the healthcare industry, which is dominated by government.
You might say, “thank heavens for the initiative process, where the people can bypass the sleaze and vote directly on laws that affect them.” Not so fast. That was the goal of the Progressive-era reformers, such as Gov. Hiram Johnson, who created California’s initiative, referendum, and recall. Johnson said they “give to the electorate the power of action when desired, and they do place in the hands of the people the means by which they may protect themselves.” However, lobbyists – including government lobbyists – dominate that process, too.
Statewide initiatives, including multibillion-dollar bond measures, often are the product of government-related interests that fund measures that provide them with more money. Take a look at the Secretary of State website at the funders of statewide and local bond measures and you’ll see that the millions they dump into the campaign can pay off handsomely.
Corporate lobbying may be concerning, but at least companies are spending private dollars and many of their efforts are defensive. If populists were serious about standing up against vested interests, they should forbid government from lobbying government for more government. But Warren and others clearly want a limitless government, so their anti-corruption campaigns really are nothing more than grandstanding.
This column was first published in the Orange County Register.
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“These are people who are doing their duty or responding to a higher call.”
Two former intelligence heads bragged about how the deep state is engaged in a coup to remove President Trump Thursday, with one even praising God for the existence of the deep state.
During an interview with Margaret Brennan of CSPAN, former CIA head John McLaughlin along with his successor John Brennan both basically admitted that there is a secretive cabal of people within US intelligence who are trying to ‘take Trump out’.
“Thank God for the ‘Deep State,’” McLaughlin crowed as liberals in the crowd cheered.
Former CIA director John McLaughlin on Trump’s impeachment: “Thank God for the deep state” pic.twitter.com/t4pQhFOBuj
“I mean I think everyone has seen this progression of diplomats and intelligence officers and White House people trooping up to Capitol Hill right now and saying these are people who are doing their duty or responding to a higher call.” he added.
“With all of the people who knew what was going on here, it took an intelligence officer to step forward and say something about it, which was the trigger that then unleashed everything else,” McLaughlin said, referring to the unnamed ‘whistleblower’, who it seems worked for Obama, Biden And Brennan.
🚨BREAKING 🚨
The White House “whistleblower” is Eric Ciaramella.
– Registered Democrat
– Worked for Obama
– Worked with Joe Biden
– Worked for CIA Director John Brennan
– Vocal critic of Trump
– Helped initiate the Russia “collusion” investigation hoax https://t.co/4rSdvIvkyZ
“This is the institution within the U.S. government — that with all of its flaws, and it makes mistakes — is institutionally committed to objectivity and telling the truth,” McLaughlin claimed.
“It is one of the few institutions in Washington that is not in a chain of command that makes or implements policy. Its whole job is to speak the truth — it’s engraved in marble in the lobby.” he continued to blather.
Brennan also expressed praise for the deep state and admitted that the goal is to remove the President.
“Thank goodness for the women and men who are in the intelligence community and the law enforcement community who are standing up and carrying out their responsibilities for their fellow citizens.” he said.
.@JohnBrennan on the whistleblower coming from the intel community: They’re “ighting in the trenches here and overseas … I’m just pleased every day that my former colleagues in the intelligence community continue to do their duties.” pic.twitter.com/7YW9lkQMj0
There you have it. Two former CIA heads admitting that there is a plot to take out a duly-elected President.
Brennan lecturing anyone about telling the truth is also a complete joke, given that he publicly lied to Congress without any repercussions.
Americans reacted in droves to these intel slugs laughing about trying to remove Trump:
I’m old enough to remember being told the Deep State was just a “right-wing conspiracy theory”. Funny, because that’s exactly what they call what’s about to be reported by the IG and prosecuted by the DOJ…..
This is not what a democracy does, the mandate of the voters is what counts, not what the “deep state” wants, Hoover style, changes are made at the ballot box, Shame on you.
This is not what a democracy does, the mandate of the voters is what counts, not what the “deep state” wants, Hoover style, changes are made at the ballot box, Shame on you.
The Higher Call? “A Higher Loyalty” – the trend is clear. Convincing yourself you are righteous in your collective subversion for the “Sake of a Nation”. Basically the same thing Neocons tell themselves almost everyday.
Unbelievable! 🙄 This should disturb every single American. The Deep State has an ugly plan for all of us, if we don’t stand up to their corruption! They will turn their back on everyone that’s not part of their team. Scary times. 😔
Futures Rebound On Fake Chinese Data, Ahead Of Slump In US Payrolls
US stock index futures gained on Friday alongside European and Asian markets, after a surprise rise in China’s “other” manufacturing activity survey boosted sentiment, offsetting fading trade deal optimism, as investors awaited a crucial U.S. jobs report.
One day after China’s official NBS PMI tumbled to post-crisis low, confirming a manufacturing recession and depressing risk sentiment around the globe, China’s Caixin PMI survey showed manufacturing in the world’s second-largest economy paradoxically expanded at the fastest pace in more than two years in October. Indeed, the schizophrenic divergence between the two PMIs reached a level unseen before, confirming once again that when it comes to fake data, nobody does it like China.
As futures rose, Europe’s Stoxx 600 Index advanced, as miners and industrial goods makers led the way after. Earlier in the session, Asian stocks climbed, led by technology firms, as Chinese manufacturing continued to pick up in October with new orders rising at the quickest pace since January 2013. Markets in the region were mixed, with China leading gains and Indonesia retreating. The Topix closed little changed, as Daiichi Sankyo slumped and Keyence surged after reporting earnings. Two measures of the Japanese labor market softened in September, with the jobless rate unexpectedly rising from a 27-year low. The Shanghai Composite Index gained 1%, reversing earlier losses after the release of positive manufacturing data. China Merchants Bank and Ping An Insurance Group were among the biggest boosts. India’s Sensex added 0.2%, supported by IndusInd Bank and ITC, as better-than-expected company earnings buoyed sentiment.
The US Labor Department’s non-farm payrolls data is likely to show jobs growth slowed sharply last month, weighed down by a strike at General Motors, while the unemployment rate is expected to tick up from near a 50-year low of 3.5% (see our full preview here). Also of interest to investors would be the Institute for Supply Management’s (ISM) manufacturing report due at 10 a.m. ET, which is expected to show the PMI index rose to 48.9 in October from a 10-year low of 47.8 a month earlier.
Markets were looking for footing on the first day of the month after being rattled on Thursday as Chinese officials cast doubts about reaching a comprehensive long-term trade deal with the U.S., even as the two sides close in on signing a “phase one” agreement. Investors will look for the next catalyst in the monthly U.S. non-farm payrolls report due on Friday and a read on American manufacturing for October. On the trade front, negotiators are expected to hold a call today.
“Markets participants, as well as maybe even the Fed, have been very optimistic” on the trade truce, Tiffany Wilding, chief U.S. economist at Pacific Investment Management Co., told Bloomberg TV. “We can see some more deterioration there.”
European bonds drifted lower, while the pound stayed positive after data showed that U.K. manufacturing almost returned to growth last month amid Brexit stockpiling.
In FX, the dollar was little changed against most G-10 peers ahead of U.S. labor data and a series of speeches by Federal Reserve officials; it followed the biggest monthly decline for the greenback since January 2018.
Elsewhere, the yen held gains and the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index trimmed the morning’s losses after hitting the lowest since July. Norway’s krone climbed against G-10 peers as unemployment fell. The rand edged lower against the dollar before a ratings decision.
In commodities, oil edged higher though still headed for its biggest weekly loss in a month on swelling American stockpiles. Gold slipped after surging more than 1% on Thursday.
Looking at the day ahead, the obvious data focus is the US employment report for October and ISM manufacturing for October. We’ll also get the final October manufacturing PMI and September construction spending data. The only data of note this morning is the final October manufacturing PMI for the UK. Meanwhile it’s a busy day for Fedspeak headlined by Clarida, while Kaplan, Quarles, Daly and Williams are due to speak. Earnings highlights include Exxon, Chevron and AbbVie.
Market Snapshot
S&P 500 futures up 0.2% to 3,041.00
STOXX Europe 600 up 0.4% to 398.19
MXAP up 0.3% to 163.68
MXAPJ up 0.5% to 524.51
Nikkei down 0.3% to 22,850.77
Topix down 0.03% to 1,666.50
Hang Seng Index up 0.7% to 27,100.76
Shanghai Composite up 1% to 2,958.20
Sensex unchanged at 40,130.48
Australia S&P/ASX 200 up 0.09% to 6,669.10
Kospi up 0.8% to 2,100.20
German 10Y yield fell 1.0 bps to -0.417%
Euro up 0.04% to $1.1156
Italian 10Y yield fell 6.6 bps to 0.582%
Spanish 10Y yield fell 0.5 bps to 0.232%
Brent futures down 0.7% to $59.79/bbl
Gold spot little changed to $1,513.66
U.S. Dollar Index little changed at 97.29
Top Headline News from Bloomberg
The U.K.’s main political parties are going into their third election in five years promising the most-radical shakeup in the nation’s economy in decades. Boris Johnson’s Conservatives want to implement a Brexit deal which economists say could leave the economy a substantial 3.5% smaller in the long-run. That’s compared with staying in the European Union — one possible outcome of Labour’s policy of holding a second referendum
Donald Trump’s presidency stands on its most treacherous ground after the House voted Thursday to approve and proceed with its impeachment inquiry. He may be the first president to run for a re-election after being impeached
Trump said Johnson’s Brexit deal will make it difficult for the British prime minister to strike a trade deal with the U.S. after the U.K. leaves the EU and that the two countries could “do much bigger numbers” if Johnson made a cleaner break with the EU
Minouche Shafik is the U.K. government’s favored candidate to take over the top job at the institution, according to the BBC. She is currently director of the London School of Economics and Political Science and, if appointed to the BOE, would be its first female chief
Asia’s factory hubs remained in the doldrums in October despite anticipation that the U.S. and China are moving toward an interim trade agreement. Purchasing manager indexes for South Korea, Japan, Malaysia and Indonesia remained in contraction territory
China’s PMI data show a pick up but a rare, simultaneous bout of weakness is hitting Chinese bonds and stocks, exposing growing unease about the dual brunt of slowing output growth and rising prices in the world’s second-largest economy
Asian equity markets mostly staged a turnaround of the weak lead from Wall St. where sentiment was dampened after mixed trade rhetoric stoked further US-China uncertainty and with participants tentative ahead of US NFP data, although risk appetite has somewhat improved with the help of encouraging Chinese Caixin Manufacturing PMI data. ASX 200 (+0.1%) was relatively flat as resilience in commodity related stocks just about offset the continued underperformance in the largest weighted financials sector, while Nikkei 225 (-0.3%) lagged and suffered the ill effects of the currency-risk dynamic. Hang Seng (+0.7%) and Shanghai Comp. (+1.0%) were initially weighed by a substantial weekly liquidity drain and after reports suggested that China had doubts about the possibility of a long-term trade deal with US President Trump amid concerns of his impulsive nature, although Chinese bourses later recovered following better than expected Chinese Caixin PMI data which matched its highest since February 2017. Finally, 10yr JGBs extended on the prior day’s rally following recent comments from BoJ Governor Kuroda who continued to stress the possibility for lower rates, while prices were also supported amid underperformance of Japanese stocks and with the BoJ present in the market for JPY 350bln in 5yr-10yr JGBs.
Top Asian News
Don’t Call It Stagflation, But China Assets Flash Economic Worry
Bank Run in Rural China Tests Faith in Thousands of Lenders
Mongolian Coal Giant Is Said to Select Banks for $1 Billion IPO
Top Indian Automaker Posts First Jump in Sales in Nine Months
Major European Bourses are slightly firmer (Euro Stoxx 50 +0.2%) with the region buoyed by encouraging Chinese Caixin Manufacturing PMI which helped boost sentiment during APAC hours. Trade this morning has been tentative as is usually the case ahead of the US labour market report, with some gains handed back ahead of the release with US ISM Manufacturing PMI also on the docket. Sector performance is reflective of an improved risk tone; Tech (+0.7%), Energy (+0.7%), Materials (+0.5%), Industrials (+0.7%) and Consumer Discretionary (+0.7%) are all firmer, while Utilities (-0.3%), Consumer Staple (+0.3%) and Health Care (+0.1%) lag. Financials (U/C) are also lower; yields have broadly failed to recover since yesterday’s downbeat Chicago PMI and post-FOMC, while stock specific news in the form Danske Bank’s (-3.1%) earnings could also being weighing, after the Co. narrowed its FY19 net outlook to the lower end of range with further potential downside as the Russian Central Bank revoked the Co.’s license for its Russian unit. Elsewhere, stock specifics; DSV (+7.5%) shares are bid after solid earnings. Elsewhere, better than expected results from US Steel (X) is giving a boost to ThyssenKrupp (+1.6%) and Salzgitter (+0.5%). Softer earnings also see Aker ASA (-4.2%) shares under pressure, while Fiat Chrysler (+1.6%) opened lower amid ongoing protestation from various labour unions against the Co.’s proposed merger with Peugeot (+3.3%).
Top European News
Danske Cuts Outlook as Compliance Costs, Negative Rates Bite
Billionaire Rokke’s Aker Drops After More Ghana Oil Delays
SNB Can’t Get the Banks Off Its Back About Negative Rates
Nokia Staff Say Internal Politics Distracting Managers From 5G
In FX, the DXY seems to have stabilised after its post-FOMC reversal, with the index holding above the 97.000 level in a confined 97.162-348 range and the restrained trade reflecting the overall tone that often pans out in the run up to US labour data. Indeed, Usd/major pairings and even Dollar/EMs are relatively quiet and contained bar the odd exception.
G10 – As noted above, not much deviation across the board even though data and manufacturing PMIs have thrown up some surprises, like the more encouraging Chinese Caixin survey overnight. The Kiwi continues to outperform and sits firmer on the 0.6400 handle vs its US counterpart, while the Aussie appears wary about hefty option expiries at the 0.6900 strike and with the Aud/Nzd cross capped at 1.0750. Elsewhere, Cable only got a brief/modest lift from a significant UK PMI beat as sub-components were less upbeat and Brexit stock-piling flattered the headline number. Note also, expiry interest resides close by (1.1 bn at 1.2950) and 0.8600 is still proving impenetrable in Eur/Gbp pending the looming Brexit Party pre-election conference, as Eur/Usd remains solid around 1.1150 where a massive 3.1 bn expiries reside. Meanwhile, the Loonie remains rooted to 1.3150 and Franc is pretty resilient between 0.9855-75 and around 1.1000 vs the single currency amidst very mixed Swiss macro releases (CPI back in deflation, but retail sales and manufacturing PMI recovering quite well). Conversely, Scandi PMIs diverged further to provide some respite for the Norwegian Krona vs its Swedish peer and the Euro, as Eur/Nok tests 10.2000 vs Eur/Sek sticky above 10.7000.
EM – Contrasting fortunes for the Lira and Rand, as the former felt the weight of a bleak Turkish manufacturing PMI, but the latter took comfort from a decent improvement in SA (though still sub-50) awaiting Moody’s ratings review.
In commodities, crude markets are treading water with little in the way of significant price action to report after the complex benefitted from the tailwind of firmer than expected Chinese PMI data. In fitting with market’s broader tentative feel, ranges are thin ahead of key today’s US data. For now, WTI Dec’ 19 and Brent Jan’20 contracts are consolidating around the USD 54.50/bbl and USD 59.90/bbl marks respectively. US Secretary of State Pompeo stated that the US is to impose further Iranian sanctions and nuclear curbs. Metals are similarly tentative ahead of headline US data; gold is holding onto yesterday’s gains, despite a recovery in risk appetite, and is rangebound around the USD 1510/oz mark for now. Meanwhile, Copper has stabilised after yesterday’s steep declines but been unable to garner significant impetus on the back of promising Chinese data. “The more downbeat sentiment came from China’s power sector” notes ING, “which is a key area for copper consumption”. Investment in power network infrastructure over the first nine months of 2019 declined 12.5% Y/Y, according to the Chinese Electricity Council.
US Event Calendar
8:30am: Change in Nonfarm Payrolls, est. 85,000, prior 136,000; Change in Private Payrolls, est. 80,000, prior 114,000
8:30am: Unemployment Rate, est. 3.6%, prior 3.5%
8:30am: Average Hourly Earnings MoM, est. 0.3%, prior 0.0%; YoY, est. 3.0%, prior 2.9%
9:45am: Markit US Manufacturing PMI, est. 51.5, prior 51.5
10am: ISM Manufacturing, est. 48.9, prior 47.8; Employment, prior 46.3; New Orders, prior 47.3
10am: Construction Spending MoM, est. 0.2%, prior 0.1%
Wards Total Vehicle Sales, est. 17m, prior 17.2m
DB’s Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap
Welcome to the world of Mrs Lagarde’s ECB tenure which also brings in the month of November. I can’t believe 2019 is already coming towards an end. I might get our Data Innovation Group to explain to me why time seems to accelerate as you get older and also why retirement seems to also get further away. There must be an equation for this.
As it’s the start of a new month, Craig has already published our monthly performance review where he showed that risk appetite returned to markets once again in October as the trade war, Brexit and liquidity in the US all improved relative to where they were at the start of the month. Interestingly for YTD there now isn’t a single asset in our sample with a negative total return. If we look at the last 13 years of returns over the first 10 months of a year, this has never happened before under our sample of assets. After 2018 being close to the worst year on record for the number of assets in negative territory this shows the high vol there is in markets regardless of what standard vol measures suggest. See Craig’s note here for the month and YTD performance numbers.
How markets fare on the first day of November (and perhaps for the rest of the month) will likely depend on the data in the US with the October employment report and October ISM manufacturing report under the spotlight. As we’ll see below China’s Caixin PMI has beaten expectations this morning in contrast to the official number yesterday. What stops this from being an even bigger day is that European PMIs will be delayed until next week due to today’s All Saints holiday. So we have that to look forward to then. The consensus for payrolls today is for an +85k nonfarm payrolls reading which as a reminder follows +136k in September. DB is at +50k. Some of the expected weakness partly reflects the GM strike impact so there may well be some noise in the data. The expectation is for it to reduce employment by 46k but the second round industry impacts could increase this. Our economists also noted that Census hiring could have an impact so private payrolls may be a better print to watch. DB is again below consensus at 40k and think the weakness goes beyond ones offs. As for the rest of the report, the unemployment rate is expected to increase one-tenth to 3.6% and earnings rise +0.3% mom.
Arguably the ISM data will be more important, given the potential distortions from one-offs and also considering the weaker China PMIs this week. October’s data is expected to improve on the month prior with a 49.0 print expected versus 47.8 in September. Expect the market to be highly tuned into the new exports orders component which is typically seen as a leading indicator. See here for DB’s preview (published last night) of these two big releases today.
Yesterday’s Chicago PMI won’t have raised much hopes for today’s ISM however after the October reading dropped nearly 4pts to 43.2 (vs. 48.0 expected). That is the lowest since a one-off plunge at the end of 2015 and prior to that you have to go back to July 2009 to find the last time it was lower. That data contributed to a sharp rally for Treasuries with 10y yields down -8bps and thus further extending the post-Fed move. They are now over 15bps lower than the peak during the middle of Wednesday. At the front end 2y yields also dropped -7.3bps which flattened the 2s10s curve a little to 16.3bps. The market is now pricing around a 30% chance of a cut at the Fed meeting in December which compares to 22% post the Fed meeting on Wednesday. The Fed were pretty confident about the outlook just 36 hours ago and there were a lot of eyebrows raised yesterday over that assessment after the data.
Meanwhile US equity markets closed lower but around half a percentage point above their session lows with the S&P 500 closing down -0.3% and NASDAQ down -0.14% with the results from Apple and Facebook the previous night at least helping to buffer some of the move. A Bloomberg story noting that officials in China were said to doubt a long-term trade deal is possible with Trump got plenty of airtime but ultimately shouldn’t be seen as a great surprise especially ahead of the election. Importantly it also didn’t refer to the phase one agreement already well on the way. On that note President Trump tweeted that the US and China are working on selecting a new site for the signing of that deal and will be announced “soon”. In other news we learnt yesterday that the House voted by 232 to 196 to begin open hearings into the Trump impeachment measure. While markets were non-fussed expect plenty of twists and turns left in this.
This morning in Asia markets are largely trading higher after a surprise beat from China’s Caixin manufacturing PMI (details below). Chinese bourses are leading the advance with the CSI (+1.28%), Shanghai Comp (+0.71%) and Shenzhen Comp (+0.96%) all up. The Hang Seng (+0.44%) and Kospi (+0.41%) are also up while the Nikkei is down (-0.48%). The strength of Japanese yen – which is trading at three week highs – is weighing on the Nikkei. The US dollar index is also trading down a further -0.14% (-0.30% yesterday) this morning, marking five continuous days of declines in a week (if it holds) for the first time since December 2017. Elsewhere, futures on the S&P 500 are up +0.28% and yields on 10y JGBs are down -4.4bps to -0.197% after yesterday’s rally in USTs. WTI crude oil prices are up +0.52% this morning while spot gold prices are down -0.17% after advancing by +1.16% yesterday.
As for overnight data releases, China’s October Caixin manufacturing PMI came in at 51.7 (vs. 51.3 expected), marking the third month in a row of being above 50 and in stark contrast to the official manufacturing PMI (October print at 49.3) which has remained below for the past six months. The output sub index rose to 53.0 (vs. 52.5 last month), the highest reading since December 2016 while the new orders component also rose from last month to the highest since January 2013. So clearly quite a contrasting message from the two PMIs. The difference between the Caixin PMI and the official PMI is that the former is more geared towards SMEs/private sector/exporters so arguably gives a better picture of private sector activity while the later captures a broader swath of companies. Meanwhile, Japan’s final October manufacturing PMI printed one-tenth lower than the initial read at 48.4.
Back to the other data that was out yesterday, the September core PCE reading in the US was a shade softer than expected (0.0% vs. +0.1% expected) although it was largely known from the GDP report on Wednesday. The Q3 ECI was in line at +0.7% qoq while jobless claims ticked 5k higher to 218k.
In Europe there was a moderate upside surprise in the Q3 GDP reading for the Euro Area of +0.2% qoq (vs. +0.1% expected) however our economists have made the point that the latest data signal for Q4 is slightly weaker and the latest Eurostat survey implies that not only manufacturing but also consumer uncertainty has reached its highest levels since the Great Recession. Meanwhile the October core CPI reading for the Euro Area was a tenth ahead of expectations at +1.1% yoy. In other news, Reuters reported that new ECB President Lagarde is to keep Draghi’s top aides which at the margin might be a positive given policy continuity although it might depend on what you think of current policies. It’s worth flagging that Lagarde will be making her first public engagement as President on Monday at 6pm GMT. For completeness, equity markets in Europe spent most of the day in the red yesterday with the STOXX 600 ultimately closing down -0.49%. Bond markets mirrored the moves in the US though with 10y Bunds back down -5.2bps.
Finally to the day ahead, where the obvious data focus is the US employment report for October and ISM manufacturing for October. We’ll also get the final October manufacturing PMI and September construction spending data. The only data of note this morning is the final October manufacturing PMI for the UK. Meanwhile it’s a busy day for Fedspeak headlined by Clarida, while Kaplan, Quarles, Daly and Williams are due to speak. Earnings highlights include Exxon, Chevron and AbbVie.
Earlier this month, I blogged favorably about a Connecticut trial court decision, under the title “Civil Court Can’t Decide What ‘Torah Law’ Means, Even if Contract Calls for Applying It.” Prof. Michael Broyde at Emory University School of Law passed along this response, which I’m delighted to post. (I should note that, as I read the Connecticut decision, it rests in part on the court’s conclusion that “[T]he plaintiff has not asked the court to order the parties to arbitrate their alimony and property division dispute before the Beit Din”; I do think that express agreements to arbitrate before religious tribunals should generally be enforceable, to the same extent as agreements to arbitrate before secular tribunals.)
There is No Constitutional Problems with Religious Arbitration or With Courts Resolving Religious Terms Neutrally in Contract Disputes
In a recent case[1] the Superior Court of Connecticut ruled that a ketubah (a ritual agreement mandated by Jewish Law enacted prior to a Jewish marriage) could not be enforced, even if it mandates arbitration in front of a rabbinical court. The Court ruled that since this Ketubah refers to “Torah Law” it cannot be enforced since such enforcement violates the Establishment Claus of the First Amendment. This approach is mistaken.
The facts of this case are simple: Husband and Wife signed a Lieberman Clause Ketubah provision directing that should they have a disagreement about the giving of a Jewish divorce, they would submit this dispute to a rabbinical tribunal to be resolved according to “Torah law.” Husband had already given, and wife had already received a Jewish divorce, but husband moved to enforce this agreement to prevent the Court from deciding matters of alimony. The Court ruled that enforcing this agreement violates the First Amendment.
Five things are disturbing about this opinion: arbitration law, constitutional law and family law are all mis-applied in the course of this opinion.
No Constitutional Issues Needed to be Decided. The opinion rushes right into a constitutional law problem and avoids resolving the issues posed in this case on statutory grounds. The opinion tells us that “Assuming, without deciding, that the Ketubah is otherwise a valid prenuptial agreement under Connecticut law, does the First Amendment to the United States constitution nonetheless forbid the court to enforce the cited provision?” This approach is wrong. As is well known, if Constitutional questions can be avoided on statutory grounds, courts should seek to do so. This is certainly true in First Amendment law. The Court should have decided this case on statutory grounds.
The Ketubah is Certainly Not a PNA. Second, it is obvious that the Ketubah in question is certainly not a valid prenuptial agreement under Connecticut law. The court set up a straw man to decide a Constitutional question, since Connecticut has detailed disclosure requirements for prenuptial agreements [PNAs] and no one could reasonably think that this agreement meets these criteria. This is an easy PNA case and should have been decided on those grounds. The Court hypothesizes PNA validity—and only for the purposes of striking a blow against religious arbitration—to allow it to voice its opinion on a Con Law problem.
The Leiberman Ketubah is an arbitration agreement and valid. The Lieberman Ketubah looks like a binding arbitration agreement with a choice of law provision to “Torah Law,” and that is the way it was understood in Avitzur.[2] The idea that one cannot have a binding arbitration agreement with a choice of law provision to any religious legal system was recently proposed in the Yale Law Journal article entitled The Reverse-Entanglement Principle: Why Religious Arbitration of Federal Rights Is Unconstitutional but this is certainly not the law in the United States. Arbitration agreements to submit to Sharia tribunals, Rabbinical courts and Christian panels are regularly enforced by courts. (Yes, go right now and buy my book Sharia Tribunals, Rabbinical Courts, and Christian Panels: Religious Arbitration in America and the West(Oxford, 2017) for more on this!).
The Agreement Between the Parties was Moot. The Ketubah in question says directly that its purpose is to insure that the parties agree to divorce according to Torah Law (i.e., the husband will give and wife will receive a Jewish divorce). Furthermore, the court tells us that “the plaintiff has given the defendant a Get; the parties are already divorced under Jewish law” making this binding arbitration agreement moot in purpose. This agreement directs the parties to appear in front of a rabbinical court to give a Jewish divorce, which they have already done. You cannot kill the same horse twice and you cannot have a second Jewish divorce. The agreement is moot, as the parties have fulfilled its terms already. It cannot be enforced more.
Courts May Use Neutral Contract Rules to Enforce Religious Terms in a Contract. So too, they can certainly send parties to arbitration for interpretation if they agree to that. No one argues that a contract for delivery of “kosher food” cannot be enforced merely because the word “kosher” has more than one reasonable interpretation—courts need to determine what the parties intend and not what the word truly means in God’s eye when they asked for “kosher” food. So too, courts can send the question of “kosher” to arbitration in front of a rabbinical tribunal—or even a canon law panel!—if the parties agree, even as this entails waivers of many rights protected by the Constitution, just as they may agree to arbitration generally, which entails waivers of many Constitutional rights. Arbitration law is essentially a product of Federal law under the Federal Arbitration Act, which protects even religious arbitration. PNA are a product of state law with greater diversity of standards.
(As a final note, I agree that this case did reach the correct result by dismissing the Husband’s claim, even as the reasoning was wrong. The “divorce according to Torah Law” provision of the Lieberman Ketubah has nothing to do with alimony. The agreement between them did not address whether and how much alimony should be paid between the parties. There was no valid prenuptial agreement or arbitration agreement present under Connecticut law about alimony. No Constitutional issues need to be decided.)[3]
Conclusions
Courts can decide contract disputes between the parties even if the terms have a religious meaning (like “kosher”) if the Court can use neutral principles of law to determine what the parties intended. The Federal Arbitration Act permits parties to submit to arbitration in front of religious tribunals in the same way that they can submit to any arbitration. Decisions by religious arbitration tribunals ought to be enforced by the courts unless they fit into one of the few and rare grounds (like fraud) for not enforcing arbitration agreements generally: The First Amendment is not one of those grounds for good reason.
[1]Tilsen v. Benson, 2019 WL 4898971 (Conn. Super. Ct.).
[2]Avitzur v. Avitzur, 58 N.Y.2d 108, 113 (Ct. App. 1983).
[3]This Decision Also Badly Misunderstands Jewish Law. The root of the error is the Court’s insistence that “Jewish Law” is somehow involved thorough the ketubah, which it seems to use as a synonym for any contractual agreements between the parties about religion. For example, the Court tells us that:
“[A] husband’s refusal to give his wife a Get has led to a number of civil cases in which the wife sought to specifically enforce a provision in a Ketubah requiring the husband to give her a Get, or which imposed certain monetary penalties if he refused. For example, in Light v. Light, 55 Conn. L. Rptr. 145, 148-49 (Conn.Super. Dec. 6, 2012) [55 Conn. L. Rptr. 145], the Ketubah stated that the husband agreed to pay his wife $100 per day from the date they separated until the husband granted the wife a Get. (emphasis added)”
This is an error of Jewish law of some importance. The Ketubah in Light said no such thing. Rather, the parties in Light had a contract—having nothing to do with the Ketubah—for support until a Jewish divorce is given. No Orthodox ketubah ever specifies payments until Jewish divorce. This error of Jewish Law allows the Court to image that there is actually a First Amendment problem in the enforcement of contracts that address religious issues, since it thinks they are “Ketubahs” which are religious.
The Court compounds this problem by misreading Masri v. Masri, 55 Misc.3d 487, 499, 50 N.Y.S.3d 801 (2017), which is limited to a case where the Husband has sincere religious objections to giving a Jewish divorce—not true in this case, as the Husband gave a Jewish divorce without complaint. Masri discusses the New York Get Law and there was no contract at all. Had there been a contract, it would have been enforced; one can does not raise First Amendment objections to a contract one agreed to. Indeed, it is very hard to argue (absent a separate contract like the kind found at https://theprenup.org/) that the Ketubah itself ever mandates that a secular court can order a Jewish divorce to be given (although there are ossified cases in New York and elsewhere that make such an argument). For this reason, separate contracts are used that can be adjudicated. By obfuscating the Jewish Law issue, the Court here incorrectly notes that enforcing a ketubah to direct a get be given is difficult and then undermines Light. In Light the court is merely enforcing a secular agreement. The misunderstanding of Jewish law impacts American law.
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Liberal politicians are shocked—shocked, I tell you—to find gambling going on in a gambling house, or to find that lobbying is going on in the U.S. Capitol.
“The rich and the powerful have been calling the shots in Washington forever and ever,” said presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren. She’s proposed an “anti-corruption” package that would impose as much as a 75-percent tax rate on corporations that spend millions on lobbying.
Railing against corporate lobbyists is common sport among populists. It’s easy to understand the tendency. Whenever I go to the state Capitol, I see lobbyists, huddled in the lobbies outside the hearing rooms, wearing stylish suits and following the fate of bills that were crafted by their attorneys and presumably pitched to lawmakers over cigars on a Sacramento steakhouse patio.
In reality, lobbying is just part of the ugly sausage-making process. It’s no sleazier than the process of running for election or the insider game that takes place in the bowels of some regulatory agency, where bureaucrats—presumably wearing less fashionable attire—craft rules that govern how we live. The real problem is that government is so massive and powerful that it forces companies to defend themselves and also attracts favor seekers.
For all their harrumphing about the evils of corporate influence-peddling, left-wing demagogues such as Warren are amazingly—perhaps willfully—blind to the biggest influence-seekers in state and federal capitols. I’m referring to government agencies. “The money spent on lobbying by government agencies—cities, counties, school districts, water agencies, even rent control boards across the Golden State—consistently ranks at or near the top of the heap,” according to a KQED report.
It’s a big problem at the local level, too. The League of California Cities, one of those powerful Sacramento-based government interest groups that spends big on statehouse lobbying, held a training academy at a recent conference in Long Beach.
One of its sessions taught local government officials how to “generate critical revenues to address city needs” by “carrying out a local ballot measure campaign.” The program encouraged cities to launch these campaigns – and provided detailed information on how to craft the ballot measures, conduct polling and create the right messaging. For instance, it taught them to pitch these measures as a way to protect public services rather than as tax hikes.
So, a government-funded interest group is “educating” government officials how to run a political campaign to convince voters to raise taxes. This is done on the public dime. Cities even hire consulting groups to run the process. “It sounds exactly like a campaign,” said Newport Beach Mayor Pro Tem Will O’Neill. “They poll ahead of time. They draft the ballot and draft the educational materials. Some cities put the election information in utility bills.”
Isn’t this essentially lobbying? I asked. “It isn’t essentially lobbying. They are lobbyists,” O’Neill added. In 2018, he sponsored a City Council resolution prohibiting public money from being spent on tax increases, but so far Newport Beach is the only city to pass it. It’s allowable under the guise of education, but he’s right that officials who attend such seminars should be held accountable by voters. “Hopefully there will at least be a seminar in the future about how to operate a city within actual budgets,” he added.
A lot of private lobbying is a form of government lobbying, too. Top lobbyists include public-sector unions, which are funded by people who work for the government. At the local level, these unions use concerns about overcrowded classrooms and crime to arm-twist for higher taxes, even if the extra dollars end up funding their pensions. The most influential state lobbyists include utilities, which are a creation of government, and the healthcare industry, which is dominated by government.
You might say, “thank heavens for the initiative process, where the people can bypass the sleaze and vote directly on laws that affect them.” Not so fast. That was the goal of the Progressive-era reformers, such as Gov. Hiram Johnson, who created California’s initiative, referendum, and recall. Johnson said they “give to the electorate the power of action when desired, and they do place in the hands of the people the means by which they may protect themselves.” However, lobbyists – including government lobbyists – dominate that process, too.
Statewide initiatives, including multibillion-dollar bond measures, often are the product of government-related interests that fund measures that provide them with more money. Take a look at the Secretary of State website at the funders of statewide and local bond measures and you’ll see that the millions they dump into the campaign can pay off handsomely.
Corporate lobbying may be concerning, but at least companies are spending private dollars and many of their efforts are defensive. If populists were serious about standing up against vested interests, they should forbid government from lobbying government for more government. But Warren and others clearly want a limitless government, so their anti-corruption campaigns really are nothing more than grandstanding.
This column was first published in the Orange County Register.
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“Specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance.” An “emanation” refers to a ray of light. During a lunar eclipse, the “umbra” refers to the darkest part of the shadow formed when the Earth orbits between the sun and the moon. The “penumbra” refers to the lighter part of the shadow, where some of the “emanations” from the sun are visible.
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It used to be that the scariest things in Martin Scorsese’s gangland dystopias were the bullet storms and the barroom stompings. Now there’s a more formidable menace: time—a commodity out of which all of the characters are running, some of them suddenly.
The Irishman is Scorsese’s most extensive examination of this subterranean culture. The movie is three and a half hours long, but it justifies most of that length with its sustained display of the director’s still-dazzling gifts—his mastery of pace and camera movement, his intimate attention to actors, and the echoes he sets up with his previous films, either with familiar faces (Scorsese veterans Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Harvey Keitel) or memory-prodding visual markers (a glowing nightclub visit, a funny prison food scene). At 76 years old, Scorsese is still operating at the peak of his powers, and still taking chances, too. He has opted to apply expensive digital de-aging technology to his lead actors, most of whom are also in their seventies (Keitel is 80). This could have gone distractingly wrong. But the intent wasn’t to turn these men into teenagers; it was to send them back into their forties and fifties when the story required. And I think it works—after a few minutes I forgot about it.
Scorsese’s narrative eyes and ears and attitude this time out are provided by Frank Sheeran (De Niro), a ruthless mob hitman whom we see first being taken under the wing of mafia bosses Russell Bufalino (Pesci) and Angelo Bruno (Keitel) and then later lured into the service of corrupt Teamsters chieftain Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) with a single veiled phrase: “I heard you paint houses” (the title of the Charles Brandt book from which the movie is drawn). Frank does indeed paint houses—red, of course—and we see him practicing his lethal specialty in the long-unsolved 1972 execution of gangster Crazy Joe Gallo (Sebastian Maniscalco) at Umberto’s Clam House in New York. (Sheeran claimed to be Gallo’s sole executioner; other accounts disputed that.)
Sheeran’s underworld exploits keep us anchored in time. We see him delivering a shipment of guns to a CIA depot in Florida in preparation for the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, which was intended to (but didn’t) dislodge Fidel Castro from Cuba so the mob could move back in. (We also see a red-headed gun-runner at this camp who would seem to be David Ferrie—an eccentric character played by Pesci in Oliver Stone’s JFK.) The movie takes the view that the Bay of Pigs fiasco led directly to the Kennedy assassination in 1963—an event applauded by Jimmy Hoffa, who had become a particular target of Kennedy’s attorney general, his brother Bobby. “Bobby Kennedy is just another lawyer now,” Hoffa crows after the president’s murder.
Pacino is also in top form here, whipping himself up into hot-headed tantrums over miniscule slights, but also settling into sensual enjoyment of his favorite food, the ice cream sundae. Pacino and De Niro have never spent this much time together onscreen, and they’re perfectly balanced: Pacino the loud, voluble extrovert, De Niro his coolly undemonstrative opposite. These two men genuinely love one another—Hoffa has set up Sheeran in his own union fiefdom—but Hoffa is running off the rails and making trouble for the mob higher-ups, and Sheeran is worried that he may be called upon to do something about it. He’s right to worry.
Hoffa’s mysterious disappearance in 1975 was never solved (he was officially declared dead in 1982). The real-life Sheeran claimed to have the inside story, but who knows? (Sheeran died in 2003). Scorsese could have stopped his movie after showing us Sheeran’s version of what went down, but he doesn’t. Instead, he carefully slows the pace—still maintaining masterful control of the story—and watches his few surviving characters wobble off to their rewards. In the end we see Sheeran, stooped with age, picking out a burial slot in a mausoleum and purchasing his own coffin (from Action Bronson!) for imminent use. Before long, with Sheeran peering out at us through a rest-home door, Scorsese cues up the Five Satins’ “In the Still of the Night,” that most resonant of doo-wop oldies, with its mournful chorus of “I remember, I remember.” And we’re left to wonder if Sheeran could have found anything in his homicidal life worth remembering—or if he’s being justly tormented by an inability to forget.
(The Irishman is in theaters now. It will start streaming on Netflix on November 27.)
Terminator: Dark Fate
The good news: The new Terminator movie is much better than the last three Terminator movies, if you remember them. Which you may not. It doesn’t matter. You do remember the drill—it hasn’t changed much in the 35 years since the first Terminator movie. Some all-powerful cyberbot is dispatched from the future to the present to terminate an Earthling who’s scheduled to cause problems in that aforementioned future. This murderous entity is quickly followed by another emissary from the same future, a good human who wants to protect the now-endangered Earthling.
So what’s new, you ask. Well, the good guys (or whatever) are all women. Linda Hamilton is back, looking all badass and flourishing a great big gun clearly designed to blow holes in Terminators (not that the sort of thing makes any difference to the Terminators at all). And Mackenzie Davis, whom I will watch in anything, plays the good human (well, “augmented” human—she’s pretty badass herself). And the target Earthling is a young Mexican woman called Dani (Natalia Reyes), who at first doesn’t know what’s going on any more than we do.
Let us pause for a moment to take in the news that Skynet—you remember Skynet—is no more. The new bad news from the future is called Legion, and it’s responsible for the latest killer cyberbot, which is called Rev-9…by its friends, presumably. Anyway, Rev-9, played by Gabriel Luna, achieves a new level of Terminator inexpressiveness and is anti-interesting in every way. Fortunately, Arnold Schwartzenegger is still on hand in a big way. Yes, it seems the original Terminator has settled down in Texas with a human wife (who finds him “very funny,” he says) and an adopted child. I think he said he works in the drapery business, but I could be wrong about that. Anyway, Arnold is the best thing in the movie.
Let us pause again to ask: Why are these movies still being made? Why? They all consist of basically the same situation: Terminators chase humans. Humans run, then fight back, then quickly realize there’s no effective way to fight back against a Terminator unless the script insists on terminating one. Then they run some more. I’d like to get with this program, but we’ve been with this program for, again, the last 35 years.
Before signing off, let me note here that James Cameron, creator of the original Terminator, graciously took a break from working on his 37 Avatar sequels to produce this movie, and his presence didn’t make a whole lot of difference. Also, the director, Tim Miller, who gave us Deadpool, and is the latest filmmaker to have his name attached to a prospective Neuromancer movie, shows little affinity for tight, cohesive action—it’s hard to follow what’s going on in some of the bang-boom scenes, and before you know it, it’s also hard to care. You’ll see what I mean. Or, if you’re smart, you won’t.
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