Republican Candidates Would Rather Campaign on Fear Than Tax Cuts

|||Wael Alreweie/Dreamstime.comTax cuts and other fiscally conservative positions are in the backseat of Republicans’ 2018 campaign rhetoric. In fact, the Associated Press (AP) found in a new report that tax cuts have been replaced by something much more alarming: fear.

In December 2017, President Trump signed off on tax-cut legislation that he promised would lead to positive outcomes “for businesses, for people, for the middle class, [and] for workers.” Following passage of that legislation, reports indicated that as many as 90% of employees nationwide would take home more money as withholding rates were lowered. The tax cuts were hailed as such a success that Lowe’s announced it would give bonuses and expand benefits packages in response.

One would think Republican candidates might campaign on these tax cuts, but it appears more are interested in playing up their constituents’ fears of immigration, socialism, and House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.).

“We wish it got the pitch forks out and it doesn’t,” GOP ad maker Will Ritter told the AP in reference to the shift from promoting economic policy success to fearmongering.

In July, at least two congressional Republican candidates in states that don’t touch the southern border gained national attention for their heavily Trump-centric ads. Jason Emert of Tennessee created his own version of a 2013 insurance ad featuring the disgraced former University of Tennessee coach Butch Jones. Unlike Butch Jones, Emert promised, “When I say I’m going to do something, I actually mean it.” Emert went on to pledge his support to the president and his tough immigration policies by literally building a wall in his own yard.

Later in the month, Rep. Ron DeSantis (R—Fla.) released a campaign ad where his wife insisted he was “so much more” than just a Trump supporter. DeSantis demonstrated this by using a “Make America Great Again” sign to teach his children how to read and also building a physical wall with them in the middle of their living room. Unlike Emert’s wall, however, DeSantis’ wall was created with toddler building blocks.

The heavy focus on the wall signals a shift away from fiscal conservatism not just as a campaign talking point, but as a policy goal. Just weeks before Trump’s inauguration, Congressional Republican leaders revealed that U.S. taxpayers would have to pay for a border wall, with one estimate putting the price of the first phase at $18 billion. That does not include maintenance costs, which would be an additional $48.3 billion during the wall’s first decade. Both estimates are likely too low, as the Cato Institute found they rely on “unrealistically cheap construction costs.”

The tribalistic fears that Republicans are running don’t connect well on paper, but Republicans are tying them together regardless and hoping the emotional impact will overshadow the intellectual dissonance. Rep. Claudia Tenney (R—N.Y.), for example, has released several ads tying Democrat challenger Anthony Brindisi’s “dangerously wrong” views on immigration—including claims that he desires open borders—to alleged support for Pelosi. Tenney only mentions tax cuts in one of her ads, and only after accusing Brindisi of supporting Pelosi. Brindisi, who has already announced that he would not support any bid from Pelosi to lead the party in the future, responded to the strategy by saying, “I’d think after almost two years of being in Congress, the first advertisement that my opponent would run would be something about her accomplishments.”

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Dem Senator Claims Russia Has Penetrated Florida Voter Registration Systems

Authored by Joseph Jankowski via PlanetFreeWill.com,

Democrat Senator Bill Nelson has claimed that Russian operatives have “penetrated” some of Florida’s voter registration systems ahead of the 2018 midterms.

On Wednesday, Nelson told the Tampa Bay Times that “(Russian operatives) have already penetrated certain counties in the state and they now have free rein to move about.”

Nelson said something similar a day earlier in Tallahassee but did not elaborate.

“That’s classified,” the Democrat said Tuesday.

The Senator outlined a scenario in which Russian entities have stripped voters of their registration in order to cause disorder within American democracy.

“You can imagine the chaos that would occur on Election Day when the voters get to the polls and they say, ‘I’m sorry Mr. Smith, I’m sorry Mr. Jones, you’re not registered,’” Nelson said. “That’s exactly what the Russians want to do. They want to sow chaos in our democratic institutions.”

In November Nelson will square off in a re-election bid with current Florida governor Rick Scott, whose administration has insisted they have no knowledge of any meddling in state voter registration.

Last month, Republican Marco Rubio joined Nelson in penning a letter to the 67 county election supervisors about potential threats, but according to the Tampa Bay Times, that letter lacked the specificity Nelson laid out this week.

“We were requested by the chairman and vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee to let the supervisors of election in Florida know that the Russians are in their records,” Nelson said Wednesday.

Communications Director at the Florida Department of State, Sarah Revell, said in a statement that the agency “has received zero information from Senator Nelson or his staff that support his claims.”

“Additionally, the Department has received no information from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Florida Department of Law Enforcement that corroborates Senator Nelson’s statement and we have no evidence to support these claims,” her statement read.

“If Senator Nelson has specific information about threats to our elections, he should share it with election officials in Florida,” Revell added.

Senator Neilson’s claim sparked Pinellas County elections officials to immediately get in contact with the FBI, Homeland Security and other state and federal agencies.

“Our office has not seen any indication that we have had any penetration by any bad actions,” said Pinellas election’s office spokesman Dustin Chase.

Considering Nelson’s re-election bid will have to overcome Rick Scott, who has a seen approval ratings of 60% and currently holds a 3% lead in midterm polling, the unsubstantiated claims of Russia meddling in Florida could shine a light on post-November voting drama as the Democrat could use the claim to discredit his opponent if re-election fails.

Also, consider that the Mueller investigation after a year has failed to substantiate the claims that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, a claim that is still being used by Democrats and their media complex to discredit President Trump.

Flordia turned red to support Trump in 2016, and current polls show that the current president has a 50% approval rating within the state and 50% nationwide.

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The Economic Ignorance of Bernie Sanders: New at Reason

Sen. Bernie Sanders is all over the internet!

New York Magazine says he is “quietly building a digital media empire.” Mic.com calls it “one of the most powerful progressive media outfits in America.”

This matters because bettors rank Sanders one of the top four Democratic presidential contenders. And as John Stossel observes, Sanders posts a new economically ignorant video most every day.

View this article.

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Trump’s Latest Plan To Slam Legal Immigrants Who Merely Qualify for Public Benefits Is a Travesty

Nosey TrumpWhite House aide Stephen Miller, an arch restrictionist, is about to release rules that would make it almost impossible for legal immigrants to obtain green cards, citizenship, extend their visas, or even obtain visas in the first place if they or their American family members so much as qualify for a whole slew of public benefits.

As I note in my Week column, under the guise of protecting American taxpayers from “welfare-mooching” immigrants, Miller is making a diabolical use of administrative powers to restrict legal immigration to only the tippy top. He is also doing an end-run around Congress which pointedly refused to accept Trump’s DACA fix when he attached to it his poison pill to cut legal immigration by nearly 40 percent.

I note:

The perversity of this [Miller’s scheme] cannot be overstated.

An immigrant would be barred from upgrading his status if he married, say, an American woman on Social Security disability till he crossed the 250 percent earning threshold. Or consider, a real-life example of a Haitian green-card holder who works 80 hours a week as a nursing assistant but has a severely disabled American daughter who receives public assistance. His citizenship petition may not have a prayer. In effect, Miller’s plan would penalize immigrants not because they are needy but because they have Americans in their lives who are.

What’s particularly unfair about this is that it’s not like legal immigrants get any reprieve from taxes. With very, very few exceptions, they pay all the taxes that Americans do and then some (if you count all the fees that they and their employers have to constantly cough up to get and keep their visas). Denying them a shot at citizenship would mean creating a permanently disenfranchised class that can be taxed but will be barred from basic assistance (in addition to all the federal means-tested benefits), and won’t be allowed to vote, eviscerating America’s bedrock commitment to no taxation without representation.

Go here to read the piece.

But while I’m at it, let me point out that the restrictionist right had long maintained that it wasn’t motivated by nativist concerns and its beef wasn’t with legal immigration, just illegal immigration. That few on the right have pushed back against Trump’s near daily assaults on legal immigration reveal that claim to be a complete lie. In fact, the right has only egged him on. Just last night, Laura Ingraham ranted on air, “The America we know and love doesn’t exist anymore. Massive demographic changes have been foisted on the American people, and they are changes that none of us ever voted for, and most of us don’t like … this is related to both illegal and legal immigration.” [Emphasis mine.]

Referring to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Latina social democrat who won New York’s congressional primary, Ingraham said, “Let’s face it, they [immigrants] are not too big on Adam Smith and the Federalist Papers.”

Ingraham is, of course, right about Ocasio-Cortez. However, the fact of the matter is that she, Trump, and Miller, aren’t too big on Adam Smith, either—or for that matter The Federalist Papers, or else they wouldn’t show so much contempt for the checks-and-balances that the founders enshrined. They wouldn’t know the Wealth of Nations from Das Kapital if Jesus himself appeared on her show and read it to them. Indeed, Trump’s entire mercantilist-restrictionist agenda is a giant middle finger to Smith’s carefully articulated case for free trade and free immigration in the Wealth of Nations. Trump’s stupid attack on America’s “trade deficit” or what Smith called, “the strong Jealousy with regard to the balance of trade,” is exactly what his magnum opus was debunking.

The reality is that Trump’s scheme to enrich American workers by limiting trade and immigration is more in line with Marx, given that Marx was perhaps the only major political economist of any political persuasion post-Smith to bad mouth immigration.

Marx regarded England’s decision to absorb the “surplus” Irishmen being driven out of their country during the Great Famine not as a benefit but a ploy by the English bourgeoisie to “force down wages and lower the material and moral position of the English working class.” Trump and Miller’s protestations that Third World immigration will “immiserate” the American worker has its genesis in Marxist thought. And their efforts to do an end-run around Congress to implement their anti-immigration agenda are a slap on the face of the Founders.

So if Ingraham wants to restore respect for Smith and the founders of this country, she may want to begin by holding Trump and Miller accountable for their anti-American machinations. Then she should put down her copy of Das Kapital and crack open the Wealth of Nations and The Federalist Papers.

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VP Pence Unveils Trump’s Space Force; Will Cost $8 Billion Over 5 Years

Back in March, President Trump first introduced the idea of a US “space force”, renewing a long-running debate that began almost 20 years ago whether the Pentagon’s space activities should be moved to a new command. Then in June, Trump explicitly called for the new branch to be created, despite resistance from the Air Force which oversees military space programs.

Fast forward to today, when Vice President Mike Pence announced the first steps in the creation of a space force as a entirely new military branch.

Speaking alongside Defense Secretary James Mattis at the Pentagon Thursday, Pence announced that “establishing the Space Force is an idea whose time has come.”

And while big questions remain – while the Pentagon has begun the process of establishing Space Force as a 6th branch of the U.S. military, only Congress has the power to establish a new branch of the military – one thing is clear: Trump’s reorganization of US defense will cost a lot of money, and for the first time we learned just how much when Mike Pence said that the Trump administration will call on Congress to allocate $8 billion over the next five years to establish the U.S. Space Force as the sixth branch of the military.

“It’s not enough to have an American presence in space,” Pence said. “We must have American dominance in space. And so we will.”

“Our adversaries have transformed space into a war fighting domain already and the United States will not shrink from this challenge,” Pence said. “History proves that peace only comes through strength, and in the realm of outer space, the United States space force will be that strength in the years ahead,” he added.

Today there are “tens of thousands of military personnel, civilians and contractors operating and supporting our space systems, together they are the eyes and ears of America’s warfighters around the globe”, Pence said.

The first step in the creation of Trump’s space force calls for the creation of U.S. Space Command, led by a four-star flag officer. The second step is the creation of an “elite group of joint warfighters specializing in the domain of space.”

The report also calls for a Space Development Agency to develop new technologies, and establishing a new civilian position to oversee the standup of Space Force – an assistant secretary of defense for space.

Curiously, while Secretary of Defense James Mattis previously disapproved of the idea saying last year he opposed creating additional bureaucracy at the Pentagon, on Thursday Mattis – perhaps impressed with all those billions that would be collected from taxpayers – changed his mind and said “space is one of our vital national interests” and is “no longer a new domain.”

Still, a major hurdle remains as Congress would have to approve a new military service, and lawmakers have been divided on the idea. The new branch would need to compete for money with other big, politically protected Defense Department priorities that Congress already funds. However, as Pence said today, the administration is already working with Congress to get approval for the Space Force service branch, including Reps. Thornberry, Smith, Rogers, Cooper, and will ask for authorization in FY20 NDAA.

What is strange is that the U.S. already has a space-based military footprint as Bloomberg notes:

The sky is teeming with spy satellites and other platforms that support government surveillance, communications, weather forecasting and other activities. The Air Force also has a top-secret aircraft, the X-37B, built by Boeing Co., which orbits the earth for extended periods.

But why spend less, when one can spend more?

As Bloomberg further adds, the primary driver behind the push to formalize a space branch of the U.S. armed forces is motivated by space investment by Russia and China. In 2007, China fired a missile to destroy an aged weather satellite, demonstrating in a dramatic fashion its ability to deploy anti-satellite weapons.

For those curious, following Mattis’ speech the DoD is expected to release a report to Congress on the creation of a separate Space Force.

* * *

Predictably, it did not take long for the Democrats to lash out at the idea. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) on Thursday blasted the Trump administration’s commitment to a space force, and suggested its only moving forward because Republicans won’t speak out against it.

“The VP just announced a new military branch – a ‘Space Force,’ because no R is willing to tell POTUS it’s a dumb idea,” Schatz tweeted.

“Although ‘Space Force’ won’t happen, it’s dangerous to have a leader who cannot be talked out of crazy ideas,” he added, urging followers to elect Democrats in the November midterms.

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Human Rights Group Hires Man Who Oversaw ‘Indiscriminate and Haphazard’ Detentions

When I hear the phrase “human rights,” the first words that jump to my mind are not “Michael Chertoff.” In the wake of 9/11, the then–assistant attorney general helped write the USA Patriot Act; he also played a central role in detaining hundreds of Arabs and Muslims without filing charges against them, a roundup that the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General later called “indiscriminate and haphazard.” After George W. Bush tapped him to run the Department of Homeland Security, Chertoff’s intrusive efforts ranged from warrantless ICE raids to a push for a national ID card. Since leaving office, he has been a vocal advocate of installing full-body scanners in airports—and a lobbyist for the companies that manufacture the scanners.

And now he’s got a new gig. Freedom House—a much-cited organization that pitches itself as a place that “works to defend human rights and promote democratic change, with a focus on political rights and civil liberties”—sent out a press release this morning:

Freedom House today announced that Michael Chertoff, a former Secretary of Homeland Security and former U.S. Court of Appeals judge, and Executive Chairman of the Chertoff Group, will become chairman of their Board of Trustees in October 2018.

“It will be an honor to lead the Board of an organization that champions the principles and promise of democracy, work that could not be more vital,” Chertoff said. “Freedom House was created for this moment, a time of great peril for freedom and democracy. I look forward to working with the superb professional staff to build bipartisan support to defend and strengthen democratic values.”

Chertoff will assume the chair’s duties from D. Jeffrey Hirschberg at the Board’s next meeting, on October 17.

“Judge Chertoff has long earned respect for his integrity, intellect, and commitment to democracy and the basic freedoms that Freedom House works to advance, said Hirschberg.

You can read the rest here. I especially enjoyed the part that says Chertoff “provides strategic counsel to enterprise and government leaders on a range of security issues.” Just the sort of résumé that a human rights group looks for, amirite?

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“Step Back From The Brink” UN Warns As Major War Looms After Overnight Gaza Airstrikes

In the third serious flare-up of violence in the last month, a major escalation began between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza overnight, which involved approximately 180 projectiles fired towards Israeli territory, and more than 150 Israeli airstrikes on targets inside Gaza, according to statements by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

Overnight strikes on Gaza. Image source: AFP/Getty 

A number smaller scale and sporadic tit-for-tat incidents led to the start of the late Wednesday night massive exchange of rockets began Monday, when an Israeli tank fired on a northern Gaza Hamas border post, killing two Hamas members. Israel claimed Hamas had fired on Israeli positions, while a Hamas statement said the fighters had merely been involved in a military exercise and not an act of aggression against Israeli soldiers. 

Another Israeli tank attack followed on Wednesday in response to what the IDF described as shots fired at civilian workers constructing an underground barrier on the Israeli side of the border wall. After sunset, the first significant barrage of rocket and mortar fire was unleashed from Gaza on southern Israel, sending civilians in the town of Sderot and other close southern settlements running for shelters while alarms across the region sounded. 

Reports citing Israeli sources say of about 180 projectiles launched from Gaza overnight, the Iron Dome defense system intercepted over 30, while most hit open fields. However, official statements also noted strikes on playgrounds, houses, cars, and factories. 

“IDF fighter jets targeted over 20 terror sites in military compounds and in a Hamas training camp. Among the sites targeted were a weapons manufacturing and storage facility, a complex used for the Hamas naval force and a military compound used for rocket-launching experiments,” the IDF said Thursday morning.

The BBC reports up to seven Israeli civilians wounded by the rocket and mortar fire, with Palestinian health officials confirming the death of a pregnant Palestinian woman and a toddler. The AFP identified the victims as 23-year old Enas Khammash and her 18-month-old daughter Bayan, killed in the Jafarawi area of central Gaza.

During the daylight hours early Thursday it appears that rockets and airstrikes have ceased, however, warning sirens have continued to sound in various Israeli communities across the south of the country.

An IDF statement said the overnight strikes successfully targeted “over 140 of Hamas’ strategic military sites.” 

At least one Hamas militant has been reported killed in the fighting, and this is likely not the end of this current round of violence. 

Indeed on Thursday a senior Israeli army official warned that a full-blown confrontation is coming in the Gaza Strip while further suggesting the government is prepared to begin evacuations of settlements along the coast and in southern Israel. 

“We are rapidly nearing a confrontation,” the IDF senior officer said as cited by the Times of Israel. “Hamas is making serious mistakes, and we may have to make it clear after four years that this path doesn’t yield any results for it and isn’t worth it.”

A separate Israeli military official said in an ominous sign of an escalating Israel-Gaza war to come: The current round of violence “is definitely not over.”

Meanwhile, a special United Nations envoy for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, condemned the voilence, saying in a statement, “I am deeply alarmed by the recent escalation of violence between Gaza and Israel, and particularly by today’s multiple rockets fired towards communities in southern Israel.”

Mladenov urged all sides to step “back from the brink” and restore calm.

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A Bearish Market Warning From The Tech Bubble Is Back

Authored by @pattidomm via CNBC.com,

Stocks are moving out of step with each other the most they have since just before the end of the tech bubble, and with stock valuations at a high, that could be a warning.

In January 2001, before tech went bust, stocks diverged as growth flourished. Everything named dotcom boomed, but old line industries puttered.

There hasn’t been such a divergence between stocks in the overall market since then, not even during the Great Recession.

The current market’s low correlation comes as valuations soar. At 22, as measured by the trailing price-to-earnings multiple, valuations are higher than they’ve been 84 percent of the time since 1952.

“Correlation is at one of the lowest levels in the post-War era,” said James Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Leuthold Group. “The combination is damaging. We now have record low correlation at the same time we have high valuations, and the combination is bad for the market.”

“When you have this situation of the lowest quintile correlation against the highest quintile valuation since 1952, you have 10 percent declines on average,” said Paulsen.

The aging bull market, Fed policy changes and the trade wars, which have resulted in weakness in stocks of multinational companies and strength in domestic-oriented names, are all potential factors behind the fall in correlations.

He said that, alone, low correlations and high valuations do not necessarily spell trouble, but the combination has been a negative warning for the market. While the bull market could even continue for a few more years, the correlation and valuation extremes suggest a period of turbulence, he said.

Paulsen studied correlation, using 48 sectors that include a broad universe of stocks that went well beyond the S&P 500. He charted the past 24-month rolling-average correlation of returns from the 48 industry sectors to the return of the overall stock market since 1952.

Paulsen said correlation may reflect Fed policy actions, like now. During periods of easy money, liquidity increases and interest rates fall, sending stocks higher across the board. But when the Fed is tightening, liquidity is restricted, yields rise and more stocks are left “impaired,” as correlation declines. For instance, Fed rate hikes might be bad for some sectors, like housing, but good for others, like banking.

“Trade wars have played a role,” he also said. Basic materials, industrials and emerging markets have all taken a hit in recent months, but tech has not been as affected, and small caps have been boosted because of their domestic focus.

Paulsen said correlation is also a proxy for market breadth. High correlation implies all stocks are moving in tandem, with broad participation. Low correlation means more stocks are falling behind. Correlations often decline, or become looser, as a bull market matures and investors are more confident and able to discriminate between names and sectors.

Correlation can become high again during periods of investor panic or bear markets, when all stocks get sold. When investors get fearful, they shift focus from individual stocks to asset classes, pushing correlations higher.

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Chapman U. President Doesn’t Want His Campus “UnKoched”: Podcast

“The demand that research funding be declined because of its origin poses a grave threat to academic freedom,” Daniele Struppa, the president of Chapman University, wrote earlier this year in The Wall Street Journal. “I am being asked to turn down donations from the dreaded Koch brothers, even when…the proposal for funding was inspired, developed and fully fleshed out by my faculty, in the most important exercise of their own academic freedom.”

In the culture wars playing out on the nation’s campuses, Chapman University, a private university about 90 minutes south of Los Angeles, is one of the hottest combat zones. The university received $15 million to help fund The Smith Institute, which seeks to bring the study of economics and of the humanities together in a way that benefits both sides. The Smith Institute is named both for Adam Smith, widely considered the father of economics, and Vernon Smith, the 2002 winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.

Because some of the money to fund The Smith Institute came from the Charles Koch Foundation, some students and faculty are protesting the Institute and demanding that the university return the gift. Across the country, groups organized by “UnKoch MyCampus” are pushing for schools to return any money from libertarian philanthropists Charles and David Koch, arguing that the money comes with ideological strings. (Disclosures: Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this podcast, receives money from the Koch foundation and David Koch has been on our board of trustees for over 25 years.)

But do funders actually dictate university research and teaching? Or is this simply an attempt to quash ideological diversity? And in an age when the humanities—the study of history, literature, art, philosophy, and more—are rapidly declining at universities, what are the best ways to revive interest in the very activities that make us, well, human? Those are some of the questions I put to Daniele Struppa in a conversation recorded at FreedomFest, the annual libertarian gathering held each July in Las Vegas.

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Audio production by Ian Keyser.

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