Flash back to October 2016. Justice Scalia’s seat was vacant. Hillary Clinton was almost President-elect. And a quasi-conservative majority would soon be a thing of the past. Forget Merrick Garland. The Court would now have a permanent liberal majority for a generation. And progressives were ecstatic. Conservative precedents like Heller, Citizens United, Shelby County, and others cases were on the chopping block. Originalism was dead. And then election day happened. Trump won and appointed Justice Gorsuch to the Court. Then, Justice Kennedy retired, and was replaced by Justice Kavanaugh.
Now, flash back to September 2016. Joe Biden was almost President-elect. He would be ushered into Congress by a blue wave. Large majorities in both houses of Congress would eliminate the filibuster, and pass “Court Reform” legislation. Nine is a good number, but eleven is better. Conservative precedents like Heller, Citizens United, Shelby County, and others cases were once again on the chopping block. But once again, things did not go according to plan. Justice Ginsburg passed away. President Trump filled the vacancy with Justice Barrett. Biden won the election, but there was no blue wave. The Democratic majority shrank. And, best case scenario, the Democrats will have 50 votes in the Senate. “Court Reform” is off the table, at least for the next two, and probably four years.
This loss must be so difficult, because victory was so close. For the second election cycle in a row, progressives counted their SCOTUS chickens before they hatched. I don’t take joy in this loss–call it Garlandfreude. Instead, I take away an important lesson. Over the next two-to-four years, when progressives criticizes the Court–as they certainly will–I will frame that criticism in terms of what could have been. Every Kagan dissent could have been a Kagan majority. Every Gorsuch concurrence could have been a Gorsuch dissent. Every conservative cert grant should have been a cert denied. Every circuit vacancy that remains vacant should have been filled with a shortlister. Every conservative circuit en banc opinion should have been a conservative dissental. And so on.
Conservatives can commiserate. Stevens. O’Connor. Bork. Ginsburg. Kennedy. Souter. Roberts. Victory was so close, they could taste it. And so on.
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NYC Pub Declares Itself “Autonomous Zone” After Government Tries To Shut It Down Tyler Durden
Sun, 11/29/2020 – 17:25
In what is a hilarious bit of irony for Democrat politicians in New York, a pub that had its liquor license yanked due to Covid rules has now declared itself an “Autonomous Zone” and is continuing to do business.
The bar, called Mac’s Public House in Staten Island, said publicly: “We refuse to abide by any rules and regulations put forth by the Mayor of NYC and Governor of NY State.”
They also painted “AUTONOMOUS ZONE” on the sidewalk outside the bar and put signs in the windows claiming “As of November 20, 2020, we hereby declare this establishment an AUTONOMOUS ZONE”.
The pub had its liquor license revoked by the state and was slapped with thousands of dollars in fines after defying New York’s latest move to “orange zone status” (whatever that means) thanks to the very huge brain of “Emmy nominated” Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Co-owner Danny Presti told The Post: “At this point, we’re OK with it, because we’re not paying it. [The Sheriff’s Department] is issuing us $1,000 fines, so they keep coming back. We’re still here. We’re not letting them in.”
Co-owner Keith McAlarney said in a recent YouTube video: “We’re not backing down. You think you scared me by . . . saying I don’t have a license now to serve liquor now? Well guess what? That liquor license is on the wall. If that liquor license is gonna come off the wall, it’s gonna be done by Cuomo. You wanna come down here and pull that license off the wall?”
He continued: “De Bozo – you want to come down here and pull the license off the wall? Feel free to end up comin’ down, and we’ll end up having a conversation before you even think about stepping foot on my property. I will not back down.”
On Saturday, the bar was operating without a license, offering booze for free to a small group of customers. The move is try and exploit a loophole in Cuomo’s bill by not actually charging customers.
One customer said: “He’s alright, he’s doing the right thing.”
Another customer – who didn’t pay for his drink and left a $100 tip on a glass of water – said: “I totally support what he is doing. I don’t support the tyrannical nonsense they have in place.”
Here is a video update on the bar from the weekend:
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3llw7bd Tyler Durden
If CPI Measured Actual House Prices, Inflation Would Be 3% Right Now Tyler Durden
Sun, 11/29/2020 – 17:00
Submitted by Joseph Carson, formerly chief economist at AllianceBernstein
“Actual” consumer price inflation is rising during the recession. That runs counter to the normal recessionary pattern when the combination of weak demand and excess capacity works to lessen inflationary pressures.
The main source of faster consumer price inflation is centered in the housing market. The Case-Shiller Home Price Index posted a 7% increase the last year, more than twice the gain of one-year ago.
The sharp acceleration in house price inflation represents the fastest increase since 2014 and runs counter to the patterns of the past two recessions. During the 2001 recession house price inflation slowed by one-third, while in the Great Financial Recession housing prices posted their largest decline in the post-war period, falling over 12% nationwide.
The consumer price index (CPI) does not show in house price inflation because it uses a non-market rent index to capture the trends in housing inflation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates that the non-market rent index has increased 2.5% in the past 12 months, or 450 basis points below the rise in house prices.
If actual house prices were used in place of rents core CPI would have registered a 3% gain in the past year, nearly twice the reported gain of 1.6%.
If aggregate price measures did not exist house prices would be one of the most important measures to gauge inflation and the proper setting of official interest rates. That’s because house price cycles include easy credit/financial conditions, excess demand, and inflation expectations, three key ingredients of inflation cycles.
Rising consumer price inflation is added to the list of unique features of the 2020 recession. Others include an increase in corporate debt levels instead of debt-liquidation and rising equity prices instead of share price declines.
If the 2020 recession has economic and financial features that normally appear during economic recovery what does that imply for the next growth cycle? The debt overhang at the corporate and federal debt should impede the next growth cycle. And if the cyclical rise in housing demand is occurring in recession it can’t be repeated during recovery.
The next economic cycle will be filled with unique tipping points, and no one should assume that policymakers can control or offset them.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2JobNsk Tyler Durden
FBI Asks Pro-Trump Statistician To Share Findings Into Illegal Ballots Tyler Durden
Sun, 11/29/2020 – 16:35
The FBI – which President Trump on Sunday suggested may be ‘involved’ in election fraud – has asked former Trump data chief Matt Braynard to share his findings on possible illegal ballots cast in the 2020 election.
According to Braynard, who runs the Voter Integrity Project, “The @FBI has proactively and directly requested from me the VIP findings that indicates illegal ballots,” adding “By Tuesday, we will have delivered to the agency all of our data, including names, addresses, phone numbers, etc.”
– While there has been legit criticism of the actions of leaders of the agency over the last several years, I can personally attest to the many patriots within the rank-and-file who are fighting on the side of the Constitution and Law and Order.
Braynard added that “everything I pass on to local/state/fed law enforcement, litigants, legislatures, journalists, etc, is always a copy,” and noted “despite sharing it with individuals from all of those groups, there’s never guarantee of a productive result.”
According to Braynard, his team has found multiple irregularities in the 2020 – including voters who never requested absentee ballots, potentially uncounted votes, and people registering their addresses at postal annex-type businesses in violation of state laws.
“I estimate that the number of ballots that were either requested by someone other than the registered Republican or requested and returned but not counted range from 89,397 to 98,801,” said Steven Miller – a Williams College professor who analyzed Braynard’s data, according to Just The News.
Meanwhile, former Kansas Attorney General Phillip Kline – current director of the Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society and Braynard’s partner in the project, tweeted on Sunday: “After learning that hundreds of thousands of ballots are potentially fraudulent- The FBI has now requested to look at our data.”
Kline noted that Braynard was contacted by “FBI Special Agent Young Oh of the FBI Los Angeles Field Office,” and that they were fully cooperating.
After learning that hundreds of thousands of ballots are potentially fraudulent- The FBI has now requested to look at our data.
The notion of Branyard handing over data to the same agency which performed espionage on the 2016 Trump campaign, led by a director which sat on the Hunter Biden laptop evidence of Biden corruption in Ukraine – sitting by while Democrats impeached Trump over asking Ukrainians to investigate exactly that, has many wondering if the agency’s request is intelligence gathering on an opponent, or related to a legitimate investigation into voter fraud.
President Trump on Sunday suggested to Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo that the FBI and Justice Department ‘may be involved.’
President @realDonaldTrump: “There are a lot of dead people that so-called voted in this election… This is total fraud— and how the FBI and [DOJ], I don’t know, maybe they’re involved — but how people are allowed to get away with this stuff is unbelievable.” pic.twitter.com/C8VgkuqRNn
Biden Twists Ankle While Playing With Psychic Dog Tyler Durden
Sun, 11/29/2020 – 16:10
Presumptive President-Elect Joe Biden slipped and twisted his ankle on Saturday while playing with his dog – which, coincidentally, telepathically told a British psychic that the 78-year-old former Vice President would make a “great president.”
Per Biden’s office, “On Saturday Nov. 28, President-elect Biden slipped while playing with his dog Major, and twisted his ankle. Out of an abundance of caution, he will be examined this afternoon by an orthopedist.”
Biden’s alleged mishap sparked a lively debate on Twitter:
Scrub and spray everything with chemicals, bathe in Purell, mask up, stand no nearer to anyone else than six feet, stay away from crowds, douse yourself with alcohol, wash your hands and face raw, protect yourself from germs at all costs.
Some nations are closed completely. No one in or out.
We panic about “cases” even when they say nothing about severe consequences. Avoidance and finally suppression are the watchwords of the day, for a virus that is relatively mild by any historical standard, as Holman Jenkins just explained:
U.S. government scientists now estimate that 40% of cases are asymptomatic and 80% of symptomatic cases are mild—in short, 88% of subjects don’t know they are infected or have no great incentive to find out if they are suffering from Covid or some more familiar bug.
We could also mention the 99.9% survival rate, and that doesn’t consider the wildly disproportionate risk between the sick and healthy.
Is this an experiment? Yes, and likely a deadly one.
What precisely are we doing to ourselves? What are we doing to children?
Early in the pandemic, doctors went on the national stage to frame it up clearly: we are wrecking our immune systems and making ourselves vulnerable to more serious pathogens later.
The great discovery that viruses must be owned to be controlled was an achievement of 20th century cell biology. It’s the Godfather rule: keep your friends close but your enemies closer. It’s counterintuitive, which is precisely why it took thousands of years to discover, and a century to educate people about the problem of the conduct of public health.
But this year, starting soon after lockdowns, this wisdom strangely seemed to have vanished from the public mind. Did we just succumb to a strange anti-science hysteria?
Who knows, but if you read the New York Times carefully, and look past the insufferable political bias, what you find is something that will shock many people.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the world is unwittingly conducting what amounts to the largest immunological experiment in history on our own children. We have been keeping children inside, relentlessly sanitizing their living spaces and their hands and largely isolating them. In doing so, we have prevented large numbers of them from becoming infected or transmitting the virus. But in the course of social distancing to mitigate the spread, we may also be unintentionally inhibiting the proper development of children’s immune systems….Immunological memory and tolerance learned during childhood serves as the basis for immunity and health throughout adulthood.
Just so we are clear, we are doing something to children that will affect their immune systems for the rest of their lives? That’s what the writer says.
The article then continues and actually invokes the great taboo word of our age: exposure. It’s good. Exposure is good. It is necessary. It is needed. Not bad. Good.
However, for memory T cells to become functionally mature, multiple exposures may be necessary, particularly for cells residing in tissues such as the lung and intestines, where we encounter numerous pathogens. These exposures typically and naturally occur during the everyday experiences of childhood — such as interactions with friends, teachers, trips to the playground, sports — all of which have been curtailed or shut down entirely during efforts to mitigate viral spread. As a result, we are altering the frequency, breadth and degree of exposures that are crucial for immune memory development.
Okay, now it is time for the writer to invoke a bit of memorable scientific knowledge. It’s a beautiful paragraph with a stunning opening sentence.
Failing to train our immune systems properly can have serious consequences. When laboratory mice raised in nearly sterile conditions were housed together in the same cage with pet mice raised in standard conditions, some of the laboratory mice succumbed to pathogens that the pet mice were able to fight off. Additional studies of the microbiome — the bacteria that normally inhabit our intestines and other sites — have shown that mice raised in germ-free conditions or in the presence of antibiotics had reduced and altered immune responses to many types of pathogens. These studies suggest that for establishing a healthy immune system, the more diverse and frequent the encounters with antigens, the better.
Remember that absolutely public hysteria about alleged peanut allergies to the point that if we ate one on a plane people could die? Check this out:
Introduction of peanuts to infants resulted in reduced incidence of peanut allergy, while avoidance had the opposite effect of promoting unwanted, severe allergic immune responses to peanuts.
The article concludes with a perfunctory endorsement of masking (poor kids!), else it wouldn’t have been published, but ends with this riposte:
The sooner we can safely restore the normal experiences of childhood, interacting with other children and — paradoxically — with pathogens and diverse microorganisms, the better we can ensure their ability to thrive as adults in this changing world.
Really, all this is something my mother knows. She taught it to me. Her mother taught it to her. They were all taught it in school. The knowledge has not been deprecated. It just strangely evaporated. Or perhaps censored. I don’t know. I do know this article is a welcome relief from the poppycock of mysophobia that has taken over the public square.
Imagine wrecking the immune systems of children for a lifetime for a disease that poses almost zero risk to their lives. I call that immoral. Deeply so. People will be suffering for many decades due to this bout of anti-science hysteria.
It takes one’s breath away to contemplate the scale of the destruction these lockdowns and quarantines have caused, particularly among the most vulnerable. It’s not just depression, poverty, and demoralization of living in the midst of near-universal violations of human rights. As it turns out, we could be biologically dooming a whole generation too.
Get those kids out there! You get out there too! Sooner the better.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/33pCNPu Tyler Durden
Over Half Young American Adults Now Live With Their Parents Tyler Durden
Sun, 11/29/2020 – 15:45
In the last few decades, young adults have faced harsh economic realities – from the financial crisis in 2008 to this year’s global pandemic, both triggering catastrophic losses in jobs and financial stability.
And while the widespread effects of COVID-19 have yet to be fully captured, Visual Capitalist’s Aran Ali notes that young adults are already now living with their parents to a greater degree than witnessed in 120 years – surpassing even the Depression-era generation.
Young adults today are categorized as either late Millennials and Gen-Zers. For them, COVID-19 has just been another addition to the list of financial hardships they’ve been up against, such as a precarious job market and the rising cost of living.
There are a few possible factors that could explain the increase in young adults living with their parents.
1. The lackluster job market
The barista or server with multiple degrees has become a common portrayal of the struggling millennial. Despite the less than rosy outcomes, it has not been for want of trying. Younger people today are actually the most educated generation in history. Unfortunately, a degree does not map out a path to success the way it did for prior generations.
2. Tying the knot later
Today, people get married nearly a decade later than prior historical averages, and many young adults are opting to stay with their parents until they tie the knot. It’s also worth noting that as time goes on, young adults are getting married at lower rates than in the past.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3o0GVgu Tyler Durden
Dr. Anthony Fauci, an infectious diseases expert and top advisor to the White House on the COVID-19 pandemic, said that he was for closing bars and restaurants but reopening schools in an interview on Sunday.
“The default position should be to try as best as possible, within reason, to keep the children in school, to get them back to school,” Fauci told ABC News reporter Martha Raddatz, who noted that New York City public schools had recently closed down again due to rising coronavirus rates in the community.
While some on Twitter reacted as if Fauci had finally admitted some truth that he had previously denied, this is not really a new opinion: In May, when Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) questioned the doctor about pandemic mitigation efforts, the two appeared to largely agree that a one-size-fits-all policy was the wrong approach, and that some school schools should open on a district-by-district basis. Still, with public schools not even attempting to reopen in many large city districts—including Washington D.C. and Los Angeles—it’s useful to hear Fauci state so clearly and unequivocally that this is misguided.
“If you look at the data, the spread among children and from children is not very big at all, not like one would have suspected,” said Fauci. “So let’s try to get the kids back and try to mitigate the things that maintain and push the kind of community spread we are trying to avoid.”
“Close the bars and keep the schools open,” Dr. Anthony Fauci says, adding that while there is no solution that is “one size fits all,” the “best way to ensure the safety of the children in school is to get the community level of the spread low.” https://t.co/th9oAKhHYapic.twitter.com/pDuTdQ0Vfp
OPEC+ Fails To Agree On Output Hike Ahead Of Big Meeting With UAE, Kazakhstan Opposed Tyler Durden
Sun, 11/29/2020 – 15:28
One day before a crucial OPEC meeting which could determine if oil trades above $50 or back under $40 in the coming weeks, a panel of OPEC+ ministers failed to reach an agreement on whether to delay January’s oil-output increase, leaving the matter unresolved before tomorrow’s meeting.
According to Bloomberg – which cited an anonymous delegate – while most participants including Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak in the informal online discussion on Sunday evening supported maintaining the production curbs at current levels into the first quarter, the United Arab Emirates and Kazakhstan were opposed. The opposition comes following public complaints from Iraq and Nigeria, which have also indicated they would like to see an end to the production cuts.
As a result, due to the two minor nations’ opposition, unless the agreement is revised this week OPEC+ will restart about 1.9 million barrels a day of halted output, potentially pushing the global market back into surplus and sending crude price tumbling after a cautious recovery pushed Brent back to $48/barrel, the highest since March.
“Saudi Arabia will have to lean hard to get an agreement,” said Mohammad Darwazah, an analyst at research firm Medley Global Advisors LLC. “There have been particularly acute rumblings of dissatisfaction with the status quo from Abu Dhabi.” Then again, considering that the UAE is one of OPEC’s minor producers, pumping just 2.4MM b/d in October, or about 10% of OPEC’s total…
… it’s clear that if OPEC indeed wants to maintain the output cuts – which both Russia and Saudi Arabia are in favor of – then that’s what will happen, and today’s report is just an attempt to add fake drama to an outcome that is already predetermined.
As a reminder Saudi Arabia and Russia summoned a small group of OPEC+ countries for last-minute talks this weekend, in an apparent effort to forge a consensus before making a final decision at a conference scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, Bloomberg reports.
“Despite the lack of an agreement so far, negotiations in the coming days could still result in a deal, said another delegate.”
Not “could” but will because when 90% of OPEC+ producers agree that the price of oil has to go up with at least another 3-6 months of production cuts, that’s what will happen.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3qb5LMD Tyler Durden
Dr. Anthony Fauci, an infectious diseases expert and top advisor to the White House on the COVID-19 pandemic, said that he was for closing bars and restaurants but reopening schools in an interview on Sunday.
“The default position should be to try as best as possible, within reason, to keep the children in school, to get them back to school,” Fauci told ABC News reporter Martha Raddatz, who noted that New York City public schools had recently closed down again due to rising coronavirus rates in the community.
While some on Twitter reacted as if Fauci had finally admitted some truth that he had previously denied, this is not really a new opinion: In May, when Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) questioned the doctor about pandemic mitigation efforts, the two appeared to largely agree that a one-size-fits-all policy was the wrong approach, and that some school schools should open on a district-by-district basis. Still, with public schools not even attempting to reopen in many large city districts—including Washington D.C. and Los Angeles—it’s useful to hear Fauci state so clearly and unequivocally that this is misguided.
“If you look at the data, the spread among children and from children is not very big at all, not like one would have suspected,” said Fauci. “So let’s try to get the kids back and try to mitigate the things that maintain and push the kind of community spread we are trying to avoid.”
“Close the bars and keep the schools open,” Dr. Anthony Fauci says, adding that while there is no solution that is “one size fits all,” the “best way to ensure the safety of the children in school is to get the community level of the spread low.” https://t.co/th9oAKhHYapic.twitter.com/pDuTdQ0Vfp
