Watch: Apache Gunships Attempt To Disperse Mob As Kataib Hezbollah Flags Erected Over Embassy Walls
Dramatic footage over the US embassy in Baghdad as enraged protesters continue to encircle the compound with US Marines still inside, and reportedly with more Marines on the way from nearby Kuwait:
VIDEO: AH-64 Apaches protect @USEmbBaghdad. 🚁“We have taken appropriate force protection actions to ensure the safety of American citizens…and to ensure our right of self-defense. We are sending additional forces to support our personnel at the Embassy.”~@EsperDoD 🇺🇸🇮🇶 pic.twitter.com/amABHBAOcL
— OIR Spokesman Col. Myles B. Caggins III (@OIRSpox) December 31, 2019
The Pentagon announced that a pair of AH-64s Apache helicopters would be used to attempt to disrupt and disperse protests. The US coalition in Iraq spokesman released video of low flying Apaches making aggressive maneuvers and releasing flares on the crowds below.
“We have taken appropriate force protection actions to ensure the safety of American citizens… and to ensure our right of self-defense. We are sending additional forces to support our personnel at the Embassy,” Col. Myles B. Caggins said in an official statement.
This was hours after the Pentagon announced the US will send additional troops to Baghdad specifically to protect the US Embassy in Iraq. According to the statements this is to include about 100 Marines sent from nearby Kuwait. According to one defense official cited by Bloomberg, the Marines will likely fly to the embassy area in V-22 Ospreys.
But the tactics don’t appear to be working given the mob has set the embassy compound walls on fire, including the main gate and security pass through reception area.
Crucially, in a stunning image sure to send shockwaves through the US administration, multiple Kataib Hezbollah flags have now been erected along the walls of the US embassy.
Likely the Apaches will continue encircling the area through the night as things look to get worse before they get better.
All of this portends that the potential for even greater escalation and confrontation is in the air as Trump continues to call on Iranian proxies to leave Iraq.
As the new year comes around, it’s a perfect time to look at what legacies we leave behind us. What glories of the past year can we proudly point out to friends and family? What milestones in our journey can we single out and say “that’s what got me here”? Here we present a few of the more prominent milestones and markers of the political left on their own journey of discovery through 2019.
I’ve Got The (White) Power
Did you know that if you flash the OK finger gesture, you are really asking, “Where’s the nearest Klan meeting?” Yep. Anytime someone gives you the OK sign that person is conveying to you a clandestine message that you belong to a brotherhood of white supremacy culture. Well, at least that is the paranoia emanating from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which updated its list of hate symbols. What was a seemingly innocuous gesture that dates back to 18th-century Britain has now metastasized into a symbol that has leftists clutching their pearls and searching for the nearest hate crime officer to file a complaint of racism.
What’s next? A childhood game that will now be condemned as perpetuating white power? Oh, wait…
Kids These Days
Do you remember the Circle Game from when you were a kid? You make a circle with your fingers and place it below your waist. You must convince another person to look at the shape. If he or she does, then that individual gets a punch to the shoulder. Unfortunately, the fun police are not amused, and now anyone who participates in this game shall be punished for life because it is a calling card for the Ku Klux Klan.
Case in point, a few West Point Cadets and U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen flashed the upside-down OK finger gesture during a live broadcast of the Army-Navy football game. Years ago, reasonable people would have viewed it as a bunch of young people having fun. But the population of reasonable folks is diminishing, so, of course, the Circle Game now requires investigations to satisfy the perpetually perturbed. Naval Academy and West Point announced that they will be probing the matter.
Sigh…
Honoring ISIS And Insulting MAGA Kids
There they go again. The left-leaning mainstream media’s blatant bias was exposed by fake news and story suppression. It was another ugly year for the fourth estate.
The media seemingly honored the killed ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as an “austere religious scholar” and attempted to diminish the successful mission because Trump was president at the time. An agenda-driven press attacked a bunch of white Catholic high schoolers for allegedly blocking the path of a Native American, which turned out to be fake news. It was learned that ABC News stopped a story involving Jeffrey Epstein because the network feared it would no longer land interviews with Will and Kate. A legacy media delivering their news on President Donald Trump with a 90% negative slant.
It was a typical year for an industry that is losing trust of the people.
Drag Queens Twerk And Strip
One of the oddest fads forming across North America is something called Drag Queen Storytime. This involves men dressed in women’s clothing – oftentimes the frightening attire will trigger nightmares – reading children’s stories at public libraries. Over the last 12 months, some footage has been released showing that they really are not reading classic Dr. Seuss tales or Peter Rabbit books.
Instead, these drag queens are twerking and performing stripteases in front of pre-schoolers. The key question that should be asked is: Where the heck is the police and why is nobody getting arrested?
Go Back Where You Came From
Hate hoaxes were prevalent in 2019. Actor Jussie Smollett claimed that a couple of white guys attacked him on a bitterly cold Chicago evening by tossing a noose around his neck and declaring that this is MAGA country. The story seemed implausible from the very beginning. Firstly, it was unlikely that any residents of MAGA country even know who Smollett is. The second is an obvious question: Who carries a noose around with them at 1 a.m.?
Erica Thomas, a Georgia lawmaker, accused a man at a supermarket of telling her to “go back where you come from.” The incident occurred after she went to the express checkout lane and had several more items than what was accepted. She captured national attention and the narrative was that white people are racists and President Trump is inciting these acts. Well, the whole thing turned out to be a hoax and Thomas, who had initially cried in front of the cameras, then pivoted by telling a reporter:
“I don’t know if he said ‘go back,’ or those types of words… I don’t know if he said ‘go back to your country’ or ‘go back to where you came from,’ but he was making those types of references is what I remember.”
These were the most prominent cases of hate hoaxes, but they were common throughout 2019, committed mostly by people with an agenda. Ostensibly, universities have turned into “hate-crime hoax mills,” writes the City Journal. Yet the mainstream media continue to believe the boy who cried wolf without any skepticism or additional reporting. Shame.
A Hostile Climate
You could say that 2019 has been the year of climate action. Thanks to some random Swedish teenager who was propelled to the spotlight because of the mainstream media, protests have been held all over the world to demand the government confiscate a greater share of our money and regulate our lives even more. One of the more common types of demonstration involves professional activists taking to the streets and blocking traffic. This results in motorists not only being late to work but also their cars are sitting idly by emitting pollutants into the air. The irony seems to be lost on the climate activists.
That’s gold, Jerry. Gold!
Left Cannot Find Salvation
For more than 150 years, the Salvation Army has been one of the greatest organizations on the planet for operating shelters to help the homeless, delivering humanitarian assistance to developing countries, and providing disaster relief to the people impacted by severe weather events. The organization does a lot of good for local communities and impoverished nations. What should be a celebrated institution is now a target for the left. Why? They have just learned it is a religious institution.
Facing pressure from left-wing mobs over its donations to what they call anti-LGBTTQQIAAP initiatives, Chick-fil-A announced that it would no longer be contributing to Christian non-profit groups, including the Salvation Army. The left is so militaristic and hellbent on forcing everyone to cave to their whims that they want to slash funding for a charity.
It is similar to the left protesting the Koch brothers’ $100 million gift for a new wing at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in 2014.
Blame Russia!
On the left, it is all Russia, all the time. Anytime something does not go according to plan, the left will immediately blame Russia. Don’t believe it?
When Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Conservatives enjoyed a resounding electoral victory in the U.K., it was somehow the fault of Moscow. Because Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) voted “present” on articles of impeachment, it was evidence she is a puppet for Russia. Alberta wanting to secede from Canada? Russia. President Donald Trump slapping new sanctions on Moscow? Russia. Oh, wait. Never mind. Scratch that one from the record!
This paranoia would make Joseph McCarthy’s face turn red. Wait a minute. Red? As in the red scare? Was a secret code just transmitted to President Vladimir Putin? Putin asset confirmed!
An Antifa Embarrassment
And then there was Antifa. This group never ceases to amaze any person who has little gray cells. All year long, Antifa has spent its time destroying property, attacking individuals from all walks of life, and proving that its foot soldiers do not possess much of a vocabulary. They injured journalist Andy Ngo so badly that he suffered a brain hemorrhage.
They bullied and intimidated an elderly lady because she wanted to attend a Maxime Bernier event in Hamilton, ON. They attacked a senior citizen in his car in Portland, OR. And, about as predictable as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, they prevented invited guests from speaking on college campuses.
Making A Hard Left In 2020
As Arthur Fleck from Joker said, “Is it just me or are things getting crazier out there?”
Over the years, we have witnessed the left howl at the sky, perform odd dances to fight climate change, and mirror the behavior of a crazy man on a street corner predicting the end of days in 12 years (or is it 10 now?). The left has ostensibly veered further to the cusp of insanity, incrementally extinguishing the last vestiges of sensibility. There are many theories as to what triggered this descent into madness, such as college indoctrination and mainstream media programming. All we know is that the left is now actively fighting against their rights. What the heck is happening? We might be living in some toxic concoction of Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Metamorphosis, and The Trial.
‘Smart Camera’ Data Leak Exposes Personal Data Of 2.4 Million Users
A massive data leak by smart home device manufacturer Wyze revealed the personal details of 2.4 million users for over three weeks, according to the Daily Mail, citing the December 26 discovery by consulting firm Twelve Security. The find was confirmed by video surveillance authority IVPM.
Wyze, based in Seattle, was founded by former Amazon employees. The company produces inexpensive smart cameras, light bulbs, plugs and security devices.
Compromised data includes usernames, email addresses, Alexa tokens, and information specific to people’s wireless home networks.
Also exposed (albeit for just 140 users) were health stats – including weight, height and gender for the company’s upcoming smart scale product.
“We are confirming that some Wyze user data was not properly secured and left exposed from December 4th to December 26th,” wrote Wyze co-founder and chief product officer Dongsheng Song in a December 27 forum post.
“We copied some data from our main production servers and put it into a more flexible database that is easier to query. This new data table was protected when it was originally created,” he added. “‘However, a mistake was made by a Wyze employee on December 4th when they were using this database and the previous security protocols for this data were removed.”
“We are still looking into this event to figure out why and how this happened.”
According to Wyze, the compromised information did not include any passwords, nor personal financial data, physical addresses or ‘government-regulated’ personal information.
Mr Song denied Twelve Security’s report that the compromised information included the bone density and daily protein intakes of the smart scale testers — and the claim that Wyze was sending user data to the Alibaba Cloud in China.
He also refuted the allegation that the firm had experienced a similar data breach earlier this year.
‘We’ve often heard people say, “You pay for what you get,” assuming Wyze products are less secure because they are less expensive. This is not true,’ Mr Song added. –Daily Mail
“We’ve always taken security very seriously, and we’re devastated that we let our users down like this,” said Song.
The company has secured the exposed database and forced users to reset their account passwords, along with their Alexa and/or Google assistant connections.
Climate alarmists think they are always right, and when they aren’t… they just move the goalposts ahead 10 years. Our friend Willis Eschenbach calls it “serial doomcasting“.
Some perspective:
“What historians will definitely wonder about in future centuries is how deeply flawed logic, obscured by shrewd and unrelenting propaganda, actually enabled a coalition of powerful special interests to convince nearly everyone in the world that CO2 from human industry was a dangerous, planet-destroying toxin.
It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world – that CO2, the life of plants, was considered for a time to be a deadly poison.” ~ Richard Lindzen
What follows are climate predictions forecast to come true during the 2010s – one for each year.
A few timely missed predictions for 2020 are also added as a bonus feature.
Trump Encourages Iraqi “Freedom” Uprising Against Iran; Esper Sends More Troops To Embassy
President Trump just called for a mass “freedom” uprising not in Iran, but in Iraq of all places, at a moment the US embassy in Baghdad continues to be encircled by enraged protesters bent on expelling the Americans after US airstrikes killed dozens of Iran-backed Iraqi militia over the weekend.
Trump’s provocative tweet, coming after an hours long embassy standoff that has reportedly trapped the Marine guard inside, anxiously awaiting a defusing of the tense situation, further implies that it is ultimately Iran that’s running the show inside Iraq. He blamed Iran for orchestrating the current mayhem. The country, though invaded and occupied by US forces since Bush’s war in 2003, is “dominated and controlled by Iran” the president said.
To those many millions of people in Iraq who want freedom and who don’t want to be dominated and controlled by Iran, this is your time!
However, by all appearances it’s the Americans that have fallen out of favor. Naturally, Iraqis across the religious and political spectrum don’t like seeing their country bombed repeatedly by both the US and Israel multiple times over the past months.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has announced it will be sending additional forces as security to protect US facilities. Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced the US will send additional troops to Baghdad specifically to protect the US Embassy in Iraq.
The breaking details, via Bloomberg, will include about 100 Marines sent from nearby Kuwait and two AH-64s Apaches which will fly over the embassy in a show of force. According to one defense official cited by Bloomberg, the Marines will likely fly to the embassy area in V-22 Ospreys.
But now the question remains: will the bulk of the Iraqi population join the Shia militias’ calls to expel the ‘foreign occupiers’ and thus intensify pressure on American forces to leave?
Or will Iraqis actually head President Trump’s call to rise up against those leaders in Iraq who are ‘tainted’ by their links to Iran?
As Ron Paul noted this week, the greatest threat to peace in 2020 now looks to be a possible disastrous Iraq War 3.0.
Remember the Kansas police officer who claimed that McDonald’s employees had written “fucking pig” on his coffee cup? Welp, it was a hoax: The officer wrote the message himself.
Herington Police Chief Brian Hornaday did not reveal the 23-year-old officer’s name, but did say that the individual has been fired, according to KSNT.
“Now, this is absolutely a black eye on law enforcement,” said Hornaday. “I truly hope that the former officer of the Herington Police Department that did this, I hope he understands the magnitude of the black eye that this gives the law enforcement profession from coast to coast. None of us can be excluded from that.”
The incident should remind everyone not to immediately succumb to knee-jerk outrage when they read news stories like the initial one about the coffee cup. Not every hateful incident is exactly what it appears to be, or even real. It’s always prudent to wait for more details, since in manycasesthesekindsof things turn out to be hoaxes—and the police are perfectly capable of spreading misinformation.
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What’s the difference between an independent Tupperware salesperson and a prolific freelance writer? OK, probably many things. But in California, we can add one more difference to the list: the former is legally allowed to exist, while the latter is not.
This and a host of other strange new distinctions come courtesy of California’s AB 5, slated to take effect in the Golden State tomorrow. Now, Uber and Postmates are suing to stop it. The ride-sharing and food delivery companies, joined by two individual workers, argue that the statute unconstitutionally discriminates against them and impermissibly hampers their economic liberty.
California lawmakers passed AB 5 with the promise that this would lead companies like Uber and Postmates—along with any employer that relies heavily on independent contractors, freelancers, or consultants—to hire most workers as full-time employees and provide a range of benefits to their contingent workforces. (Well, that or go out of business, supposedly paving the way for their workers to find better jobs.) Companies and workers argued this would only lead to job cuts and, for those who remained, a loss of the flexibility and other things that drew them to freelance or gig work in the first place.
We’ve already seen evidence that the companies and workers were right. For instance, Vox Media recently canceled its contracts with hundreds of freelance writers in order to comply with the law, which says anyone who writes for a publication more than 35 times in one year must be considered a full-time employee (with all the benefits and burdens that entails). Freelancers, backed by the nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation, filed a lawsuit last week to stop enforcement of the law.
“This civil rights lawsuit seeks to vindicate the constitutional rights to free speech, the press, and equal protection for the members of Plaintiffs American Society of Journalists and Authors and the National Press Photographers Association,” the introduction to the freelancer lawsuit states.
The Uber and Postmates lawsuit also alleges that AB5 is unconstitutional—and their attorneys “have thrown the entire economic liberty kitchen sink at the law,” The Volokh Conspiracy‘s Josh Blackman writes.
The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on behalf of Uber, Postmates, and individual plaintiffs Lydia Olson and Miguel Perez. Olson “uses on-demand work to supplement her primary income while still ensuring that she can always care for her husband, who has multiple sclerosis, whenever he needs her,” says the lawsuit. “Perez uses on-demand work more regularly to earn a more substantial income than he previously did as a trucker, while still making it to all of his son’s little league games.”
Olson, Perez, Postmates, and Uber “bring this lawsuit to protect their constitutional rights and defend their fundamental liberty to pursue their chosen work as independent service providers and technology companies in the on-demand economy,” the complaint states.
It goes on to accuse AB 5 of drawing “irrational distinctions” between the types of workers and companies to whom the law applies and those to whom it does not, thereby unconstitutionally singling out “a certain class of citizens for disfavored legal status or general hardships.”
Much of AB 5’s text consists of “a list of exemptions that carve out of the statutory scope dozens of occupations, including direct salespeople, travel agents, grant writers, construction truck drivers, commercial fisherman, and many more,” notes the lawsuit. “There is no rhyme or reason to these nonsensical exemptions, and some are so ill-defined or entirely undefined that it is impossible to discern what they include or exclude. For example, some types of workers are excluded (e.g., a delivery truck driver delivering milk) while others performing substantively identical work are not excluded (e.g., a delivery truck driver delivering juice).”
While the new restrictions do not apply to “professional service providers…[such as] fine artist services,” the law does not define “fine artist services.”
And while someone choosing to work as an independent salesperson for the likes of Tupperware, Mary Kay, or any of their more modern offshoots is OK, someone choosing to deliver such products would have to be classified as a full-time employee or else the person who hired them could face criminal penalties.
Lawyers for Uber and Postmates say AB 5 violates the Ninth Amendment, the protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment, and the Contracts Clause in Article I of the U.S. Constitution, along with a number of provisions of California’s state constitution. You can read the whole thing here.
Clearly, AB5 was “designed to target and stifle workers and companies in the on-demand economy,” the complaint concludes.
From a common-sense perspective, this all seems pretty spot on. But the lawsuit’s legal merits might be lacking, according to Blackman. For one thing, the suit argues that a strict scrutiny standard must be applied to judging the law’s constitutionality, rather than simply a rational basis or intermediate scrutiny standard.
“To pass the rational basis test, the statute or ordinance must have a legitimate state interest, and there must be a rational connection between the statute’s/ordinance’s means and goals,” explains the Legal Information Institute. “The intermediate scrutiny test and the strict scrutiny test are considered more stringent than the rational basis test. The rational basis test is generally used when in cases where no fundamental rights or suspect classifications are at issue.”
Uber and Postmates argue that with AB5, a rational basis test is too weak, since the law burdens people’s “fundamental rights…to pursue their chosen profession and determine when and how they earn a living.”
Writes Blackman: “I’m not sure there is a single vote on the Supreme Court for this position. I don’t think even Justice [Neil] Gorsuch would review economic regulations with strict scrutiny.”
Argue Uber et al.: “The right to work on one’s own terms—as an independent service provider, rather than an employee—is one of those fundamental rights” that may not be expressly laid out in a constitutional amendment but which the Founding Fathers still intended to protect, as evidenced by the Ninth Amendment.
But the Ninth Amendment “doesn’t limit state action,” notes Blackman. Meanwhile, “the complaint makes no reference of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause, which would be the proper constitutional vehicle to raise this sort of claim.”
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Remember the Kansas police officer who claimed that McDonald’s employees had written “fucking pig” on his coffee cup? Welp, it was a hoax: The officer wrote the message himself.
Herington Police Chief Brian Hornaday did not reveal the 23-year-old officer’s name, but did say that the individual has been fired, according to KSNT.
“Now, this is absolutely a black eye on law enforcement,” said Hornaday. “I truly hope that the former officer of the Herington Police Department that did this, I hope he understands the magnitude of the black eye that this gives the law enforcement profession from coast to coast. None of us can be excluded from that.”
The incident should remind everyone not to immediately succumb to knee-jerk outrage when they read news stories like the initial one about the coffee cup. Not every hateful incident is exactly what it appears to be, or even real. It’s always prudent to wait for more details, since in manycasesthesekindsof things turn out to be hoaxes—and the police are perfectly capable of spreading misinformation.
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What’s the difference between an independent Tupperware salesperson and a prolific freelance writer? OK, probably many things. But in California, we can add one more difference to the list: the former is legally allowed to exist, while the latter is not.
This and a host of other strange new distinctions come courtesy of California’s AB 5, slated to take effect in the Golden State tomorrow. Now, Uber and Postmates are suing to stop it. The ride-sharing and food delivery companies, joined by two individual workers, argue that the statute unconstitutionally discriminates against them and impermissibly hampers their economic liberty.
California lawmakers passed AB 5 with the promise that this would lead companies like Uber and Postmates—along with any employer that relies heavily on independent contractors, freelancers, or consultants—to hire most workers as full-time employees and provide a range of benefits to their contingent workforces. (Well, that or go out of business, supposedly paving the way for their workers to find better jobs.) Companies and workers argued this would only lead to job cuts and, for those who remained, a loss of the flexibility and other things that drew them to freelance or gig work in the first place.
We’ve already seen evidence that the companies and workers were right. For instance, Vox Media recently canceled its contracts with hundreds of freelance writers in order to comply with the law, which says anyone who writes for a publication more than 35 times in one year must be considered a full-time employee (with all the benefits and burdens that entails). Freelancers, backed by the nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation, filed a lawsuit last week to stop enforcement of the law.
“This civil rights lawsuit seeks to vindicate the constitutional rights to free speech, the press, and equal protection for the members of Plaintiffs American Society of Journalists and Authors and the National Press Photographers Association,” the introduction to the freelancer lawsuit states.
The Uber and Postmates lawsuit also alleges that AB5 is unconstitutional—and their attorneys “have thrown the entire economic liberty kitchen sink at the law,” The Volokh Conspiracy‘s Josh Blackman writes.
The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on behalf of Uber, Postmates, and individual plaintiffs Lydia Olson and Miguel Perez. Olson “uses on-demand work to supplement her primary income while still ensuring that she can always care for her husband, who has multiple sclerosis, whenever he needs her,” says the lawsuit. “Perez uses on-demand work more regularly to earn a more substantial income than he previously did as a trucker, while still making it to all of his son’s little league games.”
Olson, Perez, Postmates, and Uber “bring this lawsuit to protect their constitutional rights and defend their fundamental liberty to pursue their chosen work as independent service providers and technology companies in the on-demand economy,” the complaint states.
It goes on to accuse AB 5 of drawing “irrational distinctions” between the types of workers and companies to whom the law applies and those to whom it does not, thereby unconstitutionally singling out “a certain class of citizens for disfavored legal status or general hardships.”
Much of AB 5’s text consists of “a list of exemptions that carve out of the statutory scope dozens of occupations, including direct salespeople, travel agents, grant writers, construction truck drivers, commercial fisherman, and many more,” notes the lawsuit. “There is no rhyme or reason to these nonsensical exemptions, and some are so ill-defined or entirely undefined that it is impossible to discern what they include or exclude. For example, some types of workers are excluded (e.g., a delivery truck driver delivering milk) while others performing substantively identical work are not excluded (e.g., a delivery truck driver delivering juice).”
While the new restrictions do not apply to “professional service providers…[such as] fine artist services,” the law does not define “fine artist services.”
And while someone choosing to work as an independent salesperson for the likes of Tupperware, Mary Kay, or any of their more modern offshoots is OK, someone choosing to deliver such products would have to be classified as a full-time employee or else the person who hired them could face criminal penalties.
Lawyers for Uber and Postmates say AB 5 violates the Ninth Amendment, the protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment, and the Contracts Clause in Article I of the U.S. Constitution, along with a number of provisions of California’s state constitution. You can read the whole thing here.
Clearly, AB5 was “designed to target and stifle workers and companies in the on-demand economy,” the complaint concludes.
From a common-sense perspective, this all seems pretty spot on. But the lawsuit’s legal merits might be lacking, according to Blackman. For one thing, the suit argues that a strict scrutiny standard must be applied to judging the law’s constitutionality, rather than simply a rational basis or intermediate scrutiny standard.
“To pass the rational basis test, the statute or ordinance must have a legitimate state interest, and there must be a rational connection between the statute’s/ordinance’s means and goals,” explains the Legal Information Institute. “The intermediate scrutiny test and the strict scrutiny test are considered more stringent than the rational basis test. The rational basis test is generally used when in cases where no fundamental rights or suspect classifications are at issue.”
Uber and Postmates argue that with AB5, a rational basis test is too weak, since the law burdens people’s “fundamental rights…to pursue their chosen profession and determine when and how they earn a living.”
Writes Blackman: “I’m not sure there is a single vote on the Supreme Court for this position. I don’t think even Justice [Neil] Gorsuch would review economic regulations with strict scrutiny.”
Argue Uber et al.: “The right to work on one’s own terms—as an independent service provider, rather than an employee—is one of those fundamental rights” that may not be expressly laid out in a constitutional amendment but which the Founding Fathers still intended to protect, as evidenced by the Ninth Amendment.
But the Ninth Amendment “doesn’t limit state action,” notes Blackman. Meanwhile, “the complaint makes no reference of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause, which would be the proper constitutional vehicle to raise this sort of claim.”
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Last week, I posted our 2020 Outlook, which focused on the futility of trying to predict the future and the understanding of the current market risks headed into the next decade:
“The reality is that we can’t control outcomes. The most we can do is influence the probability of certain outcomes through the management of risks, and investing based on probabilities, rather than possibilities, which is important to capital preservation and investment success over time.
So, as we head into 2020, here is a short-list of the things we are either currently hedging portfolios against, or will potentially need to:
China fails to comply with the terms of the “Phase One” trade deal, which reignites the trade war.
Earnings growth fails to recover, and valuations finally become a concern for the markets.
Corporate profits, which have been essentially flat since 2014, deteriorate due to slower economic growth both domestically and globally.
Excessively high consumer confidence converges with low levels of CEO Confidence as employment begins to weaken.
Interest rates rise, which trips up heavily leveraged consumers and corporations.
Investors become concerned about excess valuations.
A credit-related event causes a market liquidity crunch. (Convent-Lite, Leveraged Loans, BBB-rated downgrades all pose a potential threat)
The Fed’s “repo-crisis” continues to grow and turns out to be something much more significant.
Similar to 2016, a shocking election result.”
However, while the media looks to every headline as a reason to buy stocks, the reality is investing is about both the buying and the selling.
As an investor, advisor, or portfolio manager, it is important to become divorced from day-to-day headlines, and focus on the investment process and risk management of portfolios. A good place to start is by looking at the wisdom of other successful investors and learning from their experience.
These wisdoms were born out of years of mistakes, miscalculations and trial-and-error. Of course, what made them all successful was the ability to learn from their mistakes and capitalize on that knowledge in the future. Experience is an expensive commodity to acquire which is why it is always cheaper to learn from the mistakes of others.
12 Market Wisdoms From Gerald Loeb
1. The most important single factor in shaping security markets is public psychology.
2. To make money in the stock market you either have to be ahead of the crowd or very sure they are going in the same direction for some time to come.
3. Accepting losses is the most important single investment device to insure safety of capital.
4. The difference between the investor who year in and year out procures for himself a final net profit, and the one who is usually in the red, is not entirely a question of superior selection of stocks or superior timing. Rather, it is also a case of knowing how to capitalize successes and curtail failures.
5. One useful fact to remember is that the most important indications are made in the early stages of a broad market move. Nine times out of ten the leaders of an advance are the stocks that make new highs ahead of the averages.
6. There is a saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” One might paraphrase this by saying a profit is worth more than endless alibis or explanations. . . prices and trends are really the best and simplest “indicators” you can find.
7. Profits can be made safely only when the opportunity is available and not just because they happen to be desired or needed.
8. Willingness and ability to hold funds uninvested while awaiting real opportunities is a key to success in the battle for investment survival.-
9. In addition to many other contributing factors of inflation or deflation, a very great factor is the psychological. The fact that people think prices are going to advance or decline very much contributes to their movement, and the very momentum of the trend itself tends to perpetuate itself.
10. Most people, especially investors, try to get a certain percentage return, and actually secure a minus yield when properly calculated over the years. Speculators risk less and have a better chance of getting something, in my opinion.
11. I feel all relevant factors, important and otherwise, are registered in the market’s behavior, and, in addition, the action of the market itself can be expected under most circumstances to stimulate buying or selling in a manner consistent enough to allow reasonably accurate forecasting of news in advance of its actual occurrence.
12. You don’t need analysts in a bull market, and you don’t want them in a bear market
Jesse Livermore’s Trading Rules Written in 1940
1. Nothing new ever occurs in the business of speculating or investing in securities and commodities.
2. Money cannot consistently be made trading every day or every week during the year.
3. Don’t trust your own opinion and back your judgment until the action of the market itself confirms your opinion.
4. Markets are never wrong – opinions often are.
5. The real money made in speculating has been in commitments showing in profit right from the start.
6. At long as a stock is acting right, and the market is right, do not be in a hurry to take profits.
7. One should never permit speculative ventures to run into investments.
8. The money lost by speculation alone is small compared with the gigantic sums lost by so-called investors who have let their investments ride.
9. Never buy a stock because it has had a big decline from its previous high.
10. Never sell a stock because it seems high-priced.
11. I become a buyer as soon as a stock makes a new high on its movement after having had a normal reaction.
12. Never average losses.
13. The human side of every person is the greatest enemy of the average investor or speculator.
14. Wishful thinking must be banished.
15. Big movements take time to develop.
16. It is not good to be too curious about all the reasons behind price movements.
17. It is much easier to watch a few than many.
18. If you cannot make money out of the leading active issues, you are not going to make money out of the stock market as a whole.
19. The leaders of today may not be the leaders of two years from now.
20. Do not become completely bearish or bullish on the whole market because one stock in some particular group has plainly reversed its course from the general trend.
21. Few people ever make money on tips. Beware of inside information. If there was easy money lying around, no one would be forcing it into your pocket.
Bernard Baruch’s 10 Investing Rules
1. Don’t speculate unless you can make it a full-time job.
2. Beware of barbers, beauticians, waiters — of anyone — bringing gifts of “inside” information or “tips.”
3. Before you buy a security, find out everything you can about the company, its management and competitors, its earnings and possibilities for growth.
4. Don’t try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. This can’t be done — except by liars.
5. Learn how to take your losses quickly and cleanly. Don’t expect to be right all the time. If you have made a mistake, cut your losses as quickly as possible.
6. Don’t buy too many different securities. Better have only a few investments which can be watched.
7. Make a periodic reappraisal of all your investments to see whether changing developments have altered their prospects.
8. Study your tax position to know when you can sell to greatest advantage.
9. Always keep a good part of your capital in a cash reserve. Never invest all your funds.
10. Don’t try to be a jack of all investments. Stick to the field you know best.
James P. Arthur Huprich’s Market Truisms And Axioms
1. Commandment #1: “Thou Shall Not Trade Against the Trend.”
2. Portfolios heavy with underperforming stocks rarely outperform the stock market!
3. There is nothing new on Wall Street. There can’t be because speculation is as old as the hills. Whatever happens in the stock market today has happened before and will happen again, mostly due to human nature.
4. Sell when you can, not when you have to.
5. Bulls make money, bears make money, and “pigs” get slaughtered.
6. We can’t control the stock market. The very best we can do is to try to understand what the stock market is trying to tell us.
7. Understanding mass psychology is just as important as understanding fundamentals and economics.
8. Learn to take losses quickly, don’t expect to be right all the time, and learn from your mistakes.
9. Don’t think you can consistently buy at the bottom or sell at the top. This can rarely be consistently done.
10. When trading, remain objective. Don’t have a preconceived idea or prejudice. Said another way, “the great names in Trading all have the same trait: An ability to shift on a dime when the shifting time comes.”
11. Any dead fish can go with the flow. Yet, it takes a strong fish to swim against the flow. In other words, what seems “hard” at the time is usually, over time, right.
12. Even the best looking chart can fall apart for no apparent reason. Thus, never fall in love with a position but instead remain vigilant in managing risk and expectations. Use volume as a confirming guidepost.
13. When trading, if a stock doesn’t perform as expected within a short time period, either close it out or tighten your stop-loss point.
14. As long as a stock is acting right and the market is “in-gear,” don’t be in a hurry to take a profit on the whole positions. Scale out instead.
15. Never let a profitable trade turn into a loss, and never let an initial trading position turn into a long-term one because it is at a loss.
16. Don’t buy a stock simply because it has had a big decline from its high and is now a “better value;” wait for the market to recognize “value” first.
17. Don’t average trading losses, meaning don’t put “good” money after “bad.” Adding to a losing position will lead to ruin. Ask the Nobel Laureates of Long-Term Capital Management.
18. Human emotion is a big enemy of the average investor and trader. Be patient and unemotional. There are periods where traders don’t need to trade.
19. Wishful thinking can be detrimental to your financial wealth.
20. Don’t make investment or trading decisions based on tips. Tips are something you leave for good service.
21. Where there is smoke, there is fire, or there is never just one cockroach: In other words, bad news is usually not a one-time event, more usually follows.
22. Realize that a loss in the stock market is part of the investment process. The key is not letting it turn into a big one as this could devastate a portfolio.
23. Said another way, “It’s not the ones that you sell that keep going up that matter. It’s the one that you don’t sell that keeps going down that does.”
24. Your odds of success improve when you buy stocks when the technical pattern confirms the fundamental opinion.
25. As many participants have come to realize from 1999 to 2010, during which the S&P 500 has made no upside progress, you can lose money even in the “best companies” if your timing is wrong. Yet, if the technical pattern dictates, you can make money on a short-term basis even in stocks that have a “mixed” fundamental opinion.
26. To the best of your ability, try to keep your priorities in line. Don’t let the “greed factor” that Wall Street can generate outweigh other just as important areas of your life. Balance the physical, mental, spiritual, relational, and financial needs of life.
27. Technical analysis is a windsock, not a crystal ball. It is a skill that improves with experience and study. Always be a student, there is always someone smarter than you!
James Montier’s 7 Immutable Laws Of Investing
1. Always insist on a margin of safety
2. This time is never different
3. Be patient and wait for the fat pitch
4. Be contrarian
5. Risk is the permanent loss of capital, never a number
