Tag: news

“Schlonged”: As Trump Dominates New Polls, Here Are 10 Unforgettable Images

Donald Trump is on an electoral roll.

After sweeping to victory in New Hampshire, the bellicose billionaire steamrolled into South Carolina and as we noted on Saturday, served notice that “this is no longer a matter of whether he can make a serious run at the presidency, it’s now a matter of whether Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio can mount a serious challenge.”

The GOP establishment, having watched Jeb Bush’s campaign crash and burn despite an impassioned plea to voters from his brother, is now left to ponder the unthinkable: Donald Trump might well win the Republican nomination.

As for voters, Trump’s long list of incredibly inflammatory soundbites have had no effect on the electorate’s willingness to support his candidacy. In fact, nearly three quarters now say they could see themselves supporting Trump, a complete reversal from where things stood at this time last year.

For his part, Trump is rubbing it in, as evidenced by this hilarious tweet that came on the heels of his big win in the Palmetto state:

Now, heading into a bevy of primaries set to play out across the country, it appears as though everyone else is “playing for second,” to quote Nevada political analyst Jon Ralston.

In Nevada for instance, Trump holds an astounding 26 point lead, polling at 45%.

Meanwhile, in Illinois, a recent poll by Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s Paul Simon Public Policy Institute shows Trump ahead by 13 points, and an Elon University poll says he’s surged to a 9 point lead in North Carolina. He’s also ahead in Michigan and Massachusetts. At the risk of following Trump down the raunchy rhetoric rabbit hole, Cruz, Rubio, and everyone else are getting “schlonged.” 

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is a rout. Plain and simple.

Given all of the above, this seemed like an opportune time to bring you the following set of pictures that vividly demonstrate the extent to which the Teflon Don has secured an almost religious following among some American voters.

Making America great again one convert at a time.

*  *  *

And because we’d be remiss…


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The GOP Primary Race Demonstrates How Little Republicans Care About Governance

One striking lesson of the 2016 GOP primary race so far is how little governance seems to matter. Indeed, proven experience crafting, passing, and implementing policy increasingly looks like a liability in the Republican race.

Donald Trump, who has never held elected office and seems to regard policy mainly for its expressive value, leads the race by a significant margin. Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon who also has also never held political office before, has fallen to last place in the polls, but is also the only candidate in the race to ever come close to equaling Trump’s standing in national polling.

The two most likely candidates to beat Trump, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, are first-term senators with little in the way of legislative achievement. Indeed, Rubio now says his most prominent legislative initiative, the immigration reform plan he co-sponsored as part of the gang of eight, was never even intended to pass. Cruz’s most significant act as senator, meanwhile, was an act of anti-governance, when he rallied Republicans around a doomed plan to stop Obamacare by shutting down the government.

All of the GOP governors in the race—Scott Walker, Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, and Jeb Bush—have dropped out save for one, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who has little to no path to the nomination. Kasich’s supporters, meanwhile, are running ads that explicitly downplay policy and governing experience in favor of an emotional appeal. The first line spoken in the new ad, “The Hug,” put together by a pro-Kasich Super, is, “Being president is more than the economy or health care.” The ad centers on a moment in which Kasich hugged an emotionally bereft supporter at a campaign event, and pitches Kasich as someone who could figuratively embrace the nation in the same way—not as an executive, but as a hugger in chief.

Out of all of the GOP candidates, Trump has taken this approach the furthest. He argues that his utter lack of connection to or experience with the political system is what will help him reshape it. In effect, he has made his lack of political experience or policy knowledge into a virtue.

It is often true in elections that governance and legislative records play secondary roles. And Democrats are not exactly celebrating candidates with long records of governing or policy success; neither Bernie Sanders nor Hillary Clinton are particularly known for their major legislative achievements, and the one governor who entered the race, Maryland’s Martin O’Malley, barely made a blip. 

But the disregard for governance and legislative effectiveness is most evident on the GOP side of the aisle, and in the campaign of its frontrunner: What Trump’s success has made clear is that for many GOP voters, governance is not just a non-factor, it is a liability.

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‘Unfortunately we have not been able to trust the federal government when it comes to surveillance’

Last night I appeared on Fox Business Network’s eponymous Kennedy program to debate Apple vs. the FBI with fellow panelists Tom Shillue and Gillian Turner, who were contemptuous of our alleged desire to “prioritize the privacy rights of Syed Farook, a terrorist.” Here’s a video of the exchange:

Reason on Apple vs. the FBI here.

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GS Bank’s Troubling Thought Of The Week: “Are We Back In February 2008?”

As we reported yesterday, less than two weeks after calling for a short-term market bounce on February 11, Geneva Swiss Bank said it was taking profits and going neutral.

This is how it justified its decision:

After this nice rebound in equities, we are moving tactically cautious. Actions taken today: we moved to market neutral (long equities / short index futures) on our new Swiss Tactical Equity Certificate and have bought downside protection on the S&P500 in our portfolios.

 

We believe that :

  • This was just a bear market rally driven essentially by hedge funds covering their shorts…
  • Many risks including China/CNY, Oil supply, US economy, German economy/social situation, BREXIT, earnings growth, high valuations,  still remain in mind.
  • Investors are losing confidence in Central Banks hazardous monetary policies and buying gold as the ultimate hedge

And by the way…

  • Negative: Major equity indices have technical opening-gaps to be closed (15.02.2016) >>> 1860 for the S&P500 and 2756 for the Eurostoxx50
  • Positive: something interesting might come out of next G20 meeting in Shanghai. Finance ministers and central bank governors are due to meet on Feb. 26 and 27 to discuss issues including China’s excess capacity, oil prices and global growth….

It timed its move well.

We bring it up, because after what appears to have been a smart call on the end of the short-covering rally, GS Bank has followed up with a more disturbing thought: are we now back in February 2008?

Its observations:

  • Like in 2007, volatility is rising and spreads are widening
  • Do you remember that there was NO way that Lehman would fail. Well… it did.
  • Oh but wait. Today is different. No housing subprime, but just $276.5 billion in loans to oil companies and a few trillion $ of derivatives…

Are we there yet?


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Wisconsin City Finds New Way to Punish Sex Workers and Their Clients

As it stands, cops who suspect someone of prostitution must actually prove it before arresting them. But that’s a lot of work. So Eau Claire, Wisconsin, officials have a new plan: make non-sexual commercial companionship illegal without the proper paperwork. 

To this end, the Eau Claire City Council is considering an ordinance that would require anyone advertising as an escort to get an occupational license from the government.

The term “escort” is a broad and vague one, of course. Escorts may accompany their clients to events or join them for other forms of non-sexual companionship, and this is perfectly legal. Yet most of the time, escorting is a euphemism for some sort of sex work. And when you add sexual services into this equation, the activity then becomes a crime. 

But because being an escort does not necessarily mean one is engaged in prostitution, police can’t just go around arresting anyone who advertises as an escort. Not yet, anyway. Ostensibly, cops must still interact with the individual and get them to agree to some sort of sexual activity for a fee. As Eau Claire Assistant City Attorney Douglas Hoffer put it, police are forced to do “intensive investigations” and get their targets to use “explicit language” in order to make charges stick. 

Now city officials want to change that. Under their proposed legislation, escorts and escort businesses would have to be licensed by the city and subject to extensive regulations. Any escort operating without a license would be subject to a fine of up to $5,000. 

But that’s not all: the proposed law would also punish customers who contract with unlicensed escorts. Hoffner said the idea is to end “demand” for prostitution. Anyone attempting to hire an unlicensed escort could also be charged up to $5,000, as well.

To get an escort license, Eau Claire residents would have to undergo a background check and pay a $200 annual fee; for escort business owners the annual fee would be $500, in addition to a $500 application fee. Hoffer told local news station WEAU that the city expects to receive “little to no applications” for such licenses. In other Michigan cities with similar schemes—including Milwaukee, Gree Bay, and La Crosse—no licenses have ever been granted. 

So what’s the point, if no one will actually apply for or be granted an escort license? So authorities don’t have to go through the trouble of tricking sex workers into offering sex to undercover cops, of course. Now law enforcement could simply punish anyone who advertises escort services online but is not registered with the city. 

Said Eau Claire City Attorney Stephen Nick: “This is another means, as opposed to actually having evidence of an act of prostitution, pandering, or offering a sexual act for money, so we can follow up” on sex-work suspects. He bragged to the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram that it would allow the city to bring in more money in fines while using fewer police resources. 

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Goldman Asks: “What Should We Make Of The Growing Link Between Oil And EM Currencies?”

Earlier today, Standard Chartered delivered a set of truly terrible results.

Impairments skyrocketed by 87% and the total pre-tax red ink for the year added up to $1.5 billion. 2015 marked the first annual net loss for the bank in more than 25 years.

The problem: EM and commodities which are of course inextricably bound up with one another. The slump in crude prices precipitated by Saudi Arabia’s epic quest to bankrupt the US shale space and the downturn in mining facilitated by China’s acute overcapacity problem have played havoc with emerging markets and their currencies. The pain is compounded by prolonged USD strength and the (however unrealistic) threat of more Fed hikes which, were they to occur, would trigger further EM outflows.

According to an interesting new note out today from Goldman, persistent OPEC headline hockey and the attendant volatility in crude may be set to cause more trouble for EM FX than has traditionally been the case.

“The oil price has recently become more important for EM FX,” Goldman writes, adding that “the tighter link between oil and EM FX began during the 2014 oil price shock.”

What’s notable here is that, as you can see from the regression diagrammed below, it’s not just exporters that have become more sensitive to oil prices – it’s importers as well.

That, Goldman says, is evidence that the FX market is attempting to divine something about demand and thus about the health of the global economy from fluctuations in crude. “Recent fluctuations in the oil price appear to be driven by supply shifts specific to the oil market, not shifts in demand that can be used to make meaningful inferences about the health of the global economy [and] while fluctuations in the oil price, whatever their cause, are likely to affect oil currencies such as the RUB, MXN and COP, it is less clear why supply-driven fluctuations in the oil price would drive other EM currencies, including those of oil importers like INR,” Goldman writes. Here are two possible explanations:

  • One possibility is that market participants are attempting to extract a demand signal in the lower oil price, affecting global risk more broadly, as evidenced by the rising correlation between oil and a variety of global risk assets.
  • Another, potentially more rational, explanation is that, after the 2014 oil price shock, the market has become especially sensitive to shifts in the oil price, interpreting every daily fluctuation in the price of oil not as benign trading noise but instead as, potentially, the beginning of the ‘next’ dramatic shift 

Underscoring the above are the following two charts which plot oil price volatility and the relative importance of that volatility for EM FX. As you can see, the correlation has increased markedly.

In short, it would appear that the oil price shock of 2014 has changed the dynamic when it comes to how EM currencies respond to trading and volatility in oil markets. 

Oil has become the barometer for global demand and as such, EM FX trades blindly off of price fluctuations regardless of whether the main drivers of day-to-day price action are supply-related. 

Of course the market has a way of getting things right and we’ve been saying for quite some time now that while supply concerns (the Saudis, US shale, etc.) certainly play an outsized role in the downturn, the situation wouldn’t be as acute if global demand were robust.

So perhaps EM FX is reading the market exactly as it should and that, as Goldman notes above, isn’t good news for risk assets.


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Arms Sales To Saudi Arabia And Qatar Almost Triple In Four Years

Submitted by MiddleEastEye via TheAntiMedia.org,

Weapons imports by Saudi Arabia and Qatar have rocketed by over 275 percent over the past four years, a new report found on Monday.

Between 2011 and 2015, Gulf states were the most significant market for sales by the United States, the world’s biggest arms exporter, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) found.

In a new report assessing worldwide trends in arms sales over the last four years, SIPRI found that increased demand from the Middle East had led a 14 per cent global rise in arms transfers.

The increase was not marked universally – arms imports to European states fell by 41 per cent between 2011 and 2015.

By contrast, arms imports by Middle Eastern states grew by 61 per cent – the largest regional increase – during a period marked by massive internal unrest as well as the rise of Islamic State.

At the forefront of this growth were Saudi Arabia – now the world’s largest importer of weapons – and Qatar.

Arms purchases by Qatar between 2011 and 2015 jumped by 279 per cent, while Saudi Arabia’s increased by 275 per cent over the same period compared to the previous four years.

Despite increased competition from China – whose arms exports increased by 88 per cent – the US has remained the world’s largest arms dealer.

Arms

9.7 percent of US arms deals were made with Saudi Arabia, while 9.1 per cent were with the UAE.

Saudi Arabia is currently leading a coalition of regional states including the UAE in a bombing campaign targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The report notes that the campaign has been “facilitated by high levels of arms imports to several of the states leading the intervention.”

“Although concerns have been raised in arms-supplying states over Saudi air attacks in Yemen, Saudi Arabia is expected to continue to receive large numbers of major arms from those states in the next five years,” the report finds, noting that Saudi Arabia has yet to receive 150 new combat aircraft it has recently ordered from the US and 14 from the UK.

The campaign, which receives logistical support from the US and the UK, has been strongly criticised for causing a high level of civilian casualties.

Last month the UN found that nearly 2,800 civilians had been killed since March either by Saudi-led air strikes or the Houthi rebels, who often shell civilian areas and impose sieges on entire towns.

Military advisers from the UK and US are present in the Saudi-led campaign’s control room, it was revealed last month.

Amnesty International last week also alleged that a net profits jump of nearly $1.4 billion for UK arms giant BAE Systems was fuelled by its sales to Saudi Arabia, whose campaign is being investigated by the UN over potential violations of international law.

The world’s largest defence company, America’s Lockheed Martin, has signed several multi-billion deals with Saudi Arabia over the past year.

The company’s sales revenue was $46.1 billion in 2015, up by around $500 million on 2014 figures, and it has seen a sustained increase in its share price over the past year.

Arms


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US Marshals Shoot Innocent Man While Looking For Someone Else—No Explanation Provided

U.S. marshals hunting for a murder suspect in Albuquerque instead shot and killed 23-year-old Edgar Alvarado, who lived two trailers down from the suspect.

The shooting occurred on Saturday, and according to KOB 4, the U.S. marshals have not yet offered an explanation for the shooting. Alvarado’s family also told KOB 4 they haven’t been contacted about Edgar’s killing and insist he was an innocent bystander.

Some family members believe marshals shot and killed Alvarado because they mistook him for George Hunt, the murder suspect. “It’s the fault of the boss of this police,” Juan Manuel Alvarado told KOB 4. “If he’s training people to kill, then he should just say it out loud so people know.”

According to Juan, Alvarado did not die instantly and was denied medical attention. In a statement, the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) said it was called to the scene after shots were fired, in order to “provide perimeter and emergency medical services to the scene.” They deny any member of their force was there during the shooting.

The APD is currently being monitored by the Department of Justice after it found a pattern and practice of abuse in a 2014 investigation.

But, as KOB 4 explains, the feds don’t hold their own law enforcement officials to the same standards as those they monitor:

The US Department of Justice talks a big game about transparency and the need for officers to wear lapel cameras, but their own federal officers are not required to wear them.

In fact, local officers working with federal agents don’t have to wear them either, as federal policies trump local ones.

The U.S. Marshals service policy does not allow for lapel cameras at scenes, and federal agents have not released any information on the shooting, directing all requests to New Mexico State Police.

There was a lack of a body camera at the recent FBI shooting at the end of the Oregon stand-off as well. Instead, the feds released video from a helicopter in an attempt to appear transparent. That shooting did not create an impetus to equip federal law enforcement officials with body cameras in the way the feds themselves are helping local law enforcement officials be equipped.

Neither, for that matter, did the U.S. marshals shooting of an unarmed man in 2015 who had spent eight years under state supervision after being caught once with 20 oxy pills. Even Black Lives Matters’ fairly comprehensive policy agenda makes no mention of federal law enforcement officials and the rules that should apply to them.

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Spike Lee Endorses Bernie Sanders

Film director Spike Lee has endorsed Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination, saying that the Vermont senator and Brooklyn native will “do the right thing” for African Americans.

“How can we be sure? Bernie was at the March on Washington with Dr. King, he was arrested in Chicago for protesting segregation at public schools,” Lee says in [a] one-minute spot. “He fought for wealth and education equality throughout his whole career. No flipping, no flopping. Enough talk. Time for action….

I know that you know the system is rigged,” he said. “Ninety-nine percent of Americans were hurt by the great recession of 2008 and many are still recovering, and that’s why I’m officially endorsing my brother Bernie sanders. Bernie takes no money from corporations – nada — which means he is not on the take.”

More here.

The South Carolina primary for Democrats is in four days and Hillary Clinton is ahead of Sanders in the polls by a margin of 57 percent to 33 percent.

Lee is, in the words of New York magazine, the “angriest auteur,” so it’s not surprising to see him endorse Sanders rather than Clinton. Sanders is the Democrat channeling anger and resentment at the status quo and despite Hillary Clinton’s endorsements from establishment blacks, he has much-better chops when it comes to police abuses and issues such as the drug war. It’s far from clear whether Lee’s endorsement will matter at all, especially in South Carolina, which is far from his stamping grounds of New York and Los Angeles.

One issue on which Sanders and Clinton agree is education policy. Unfortunately, both are very much in the pocket of the status quo when it comes to K-12 education. Clinton praised charter schools in the late 1990s but has since crticized them on the (wrong) grounds that they don’t take “the hardest-to-teach kids.” In an event earlier this year, Sanders said he was against “privately-run charter schools.”

“If we are going to have a strong democracy and be competitive globally, we need the best educated people in the world. And I believe in public education. I went to public schools my whole life. I think rather than give tax breaks to billionaires, I think we invest in teachers and we invest in public education.”

Exactly what a “privately-run charter school” is remains unclear, as most are run by nonprofits. And which part of massive increases in per-pupil spending over the past 40 years Sanders has missed is also unclear. Last summer, in The New York Observer, Sanders characterized his childhood in terms that doubtless resonated with Spike Lee, arguably Brooklyn’s biggest booster since The Robicellis packed it in.

“I grew up in Brooklyn. Many of the families were immigrants and they understood the importance of education,” he says. “We don’t have a strong economy unless we have a very well-educated workforce.”

If Sanders and Clinton were serious about improving public education in Brooklyn and beyond, they’d do well to revise their opinions of charter schools, which have been shown again and again to particularly help inner-city minority kids when it comes to education.

From University of Arkansas’ Jay Greene’s writeup of the relevant research:

When you have four RCTs – studies meeting the gold standard of research design – and all four of them agree that charters are of enormous benefit to urban students, you would think everyone would agree that charters should be expanded and supported, at least in urban areas.  If we found the equivalent of halving the black-white test score gap from RCTs from a new cancer drug, everyone would be jumping for joy – even if the benefits were found only for certain types of cancer.

For what it’s worth, Spike Lee’s kids “attend one of the top private schools in the city,” according to New York.

Related video: “How one school in Camden, New Jersey is breaking the cycle of poverty.”

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Tom DeMark Warns If The S&P Closes Below This Level, It Could “Wreak Havoc To The Downside”

The S&P 500 is three trading days from reaching “trend exhaustion,” according to infamous technical analyst Tom DeMark. “The foundation of the ongoing rally is suspect,” warns DeMark, noting that if the market closes below these key levels in the next three days, DeMark warns “the decline is going to be sharp.”

 

As Bloomberg reports, a top in the S&P 500 would also be confirmed should the S&P 500 finish below 1,926.82 on Tuesday, or close less than 1,917 on Wednesday or Thursday, DeMark said.

If any of those S&P 500 triggers occur, the benchmark index will decline at least 8.2 percent from Monday’s close to 1,786, a level last seen in February 2014, according to DeMark. Should the market top correspond with what he referred to as “bad news,” the S&P 500 could see deeper selling down to 1,736, an 11 percent decline. DeMark sees the ongoing market rally as temporary relief as investors exit short positions.

 

“We’ve seen some pretty vicious short-covering come in, which has caused the market to move up,” said DeMark. “When that happens, it really plays havoc with the market once the downside move begins.”

 

“The foundation of the ongoing rally is suspect,” DeMark, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, said in a phone interview. “The temporary buying produces a price vacuum beneath the market and accelerates the subsequent decline. The decline is going to be sharp.”

*  *  *

A handful of chart-based calls by DeMark have looked prescient in recent weeks, including a prediction on Feb. 11 that oil would rally and a Jan. 20 forecast for a temporary bottom in the S&P 500. And traders pay close attention to the levels he suggests.


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