Zorro
Zorro's JournalHarry Reid: The Filibuster Is Suffocating the Will of the American People
I am not an expert on all of government, but I do know something about the United States Senate. As the former majority leader, I know how tough it is to get anything through the chamber, which was designed to serve as the slower, more deliberative body of the United States Congress.
But what is happening today is a far cry from what the framers intended. They created the Senate as a majority-rule body, where both sides could have their say at length — but at the end of the day, bills would pass or fail on a simple majority vote. In their vision, debate was supposed to inform and enrich the process, not be exploited as a mechanism to grind it to a halt.
The Senate today, after years of abusing an arcane procedural rule known as the filibuster, has become an unworkable legislative graveyard. Not part of the framers’ original vision, the modern filibuster was created in 1917. The recent use of the filibuster — an attempt by a minority of lawmakers to delay or block a vote on a bill or confirmation — has exploited this rule, forcing virtually all Senate business to require 60 of the 100 senators’ votes to proceed. This means a simple majority is not enough to advance even the most bipartisan legislation.
Republicans over the past decade — knowing their policies are unpopular and that obstruction benefits them politically — perfected and increased the gratuitous use of the filibuster. Even routine Senate business is now subject to the filibuster and Republicans’ seeming obsession with gridlock and obstruction.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/opinion/harry-reid-filibuster.html
From race to plastic straws, Trump dials up culture wars in divisive play for 2020 votes
George W. Bush had “freedom fries,” Sarah Palin had the “Big Gulp” and Dan Quayle had the Hollywood portrayal of an unwed single mother named Murphy Brown.
For President Trump, it’s paper straws — the latest addition to an ever-growing list of cultural flash points his campaign is seeking to highlight as part of a base-focused reelection effort.
As cities and coffee chains across the country have adopted policies aimed at limiting environmental damage, the president’s campaign has targeted what it calls “liberal paper straws.” It’s selling a Trump-branded plastic version as a fundraising tool.
Pointing to the “runaway success” of the straws — which have earned the campaign more than $670,000 in a month — communications director Tim Murtaugh said they represent Trump’s ability to make a political point using a cultural issue everyday voters can relate to.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-dials-up-culture-wars-in-divisive-play-for-2020-votes/2019/08/12/8c5c2a96-b556-11e9-8f6c-7828e68cb15f_story.html
When the unthinkable happens: U.S.-China trade negotiations break down for good
It’s impossible to forecast where the U.S.-China trade confrontation is going, although given what the bond market is doing, it’s no place good.
The markets are trading on headlines that may become economic events, but the worst-case scenario of much higher tariffs and a much bigger slowdown in global trade has not developed yet. In other words, I don’t think we are yet at the point of no return in this trade negotiation.
I have long held the view that, because of deflationary trends in Europe and Japan, the 10-year U.S. Treasury will fall to less than 1%. The present deterioration in relations with China is adding to those deflationary trends, so a longer cycle of acrimonious recrimination actually has a deflationary impact because of the slowdown in flow of goods and services, and not inflationary because of higher tariffs, as some investors think.
Low interest rates give a boost to companies with good balance sheets, strong cash flows and high dividend yields that have more limited exposure to the trade confrontation. I can’t be more specific for the purposes of this piece — although I will try to have more picks in future missives — as in my situation I have some hard restrictions on “buy this” or “sell that,” so what I say is insight for people to make their own decisions; I am sort of over-intellectualizing it out of necessity and compliance. That said, the U.S. semiconductor sector does see some serious headwinds in further escalation of the trade war.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/when-the-unthinkable-happens-us-china-trade-negotiations-break-down-for-good-2019-08-12
Argentine peso and markets plunge after shock vote
Source: BBC
Argentine stock markets and its currency have both plunged after conservative Argentine President Mauricio Macri suffered a shock defeat in primary elections on Sunday.
The peso fell 15% against the dollar on Monday after earlier plunging around 30% to a record low.
Some of the country's most traded stocks have also lost around half of their value in one day.
Mr Macri, in response, has pledged to "reverse" Sunday's election result. At a news conference on Monday, the president also said that the drop suggested the market lacked confidence in an opposition government.
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49323553
That can't happen here. Right? Right?
Anger at being labeled racist is the new 'cultural anxiety' for Trump supporters
The people who backed Donald Trump for president in 2016 have largely continued to support him. In the previous election, many of them pointed to cultural anxiety as one of their main reasons for backing Trump’s pledge to “make America great again.” But as more Americans label the president a racist due to his worldview, the voters who continue to back him are becoming bolder in justifying their support, citing retaliation for being viewed as backing a racist.
Trump was unapologetic in stoking the fears of many white Americans when he launched his presidential campaign in 2016. In his opening campaign speech, he articulated his hard-line immigration ideas in response to fears about the impact of Mexican immigrants on America’s cultural fabric.
As a result, the neophyte politician rose to the top of the polls ahead of former governors, senators and other veteran politicos rather quickly. All of this led to claims of racism, largely from people of color on the left who saw a familiarity in Trump’s words — claims that were not boldly embraced by those on the left but that have since become more mainstream.
But fear of being accused of backing a white supremacist worldview caused many Trump fans to remain silent about their support for the real estate developer or to publicly express support for someone else while privately backing Trump.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/12/anger-being-labeled-racist-is-new-cultural-anxiety-trump-supporters/
Check for Dallas Mansion Raises New Questions About NRA Plans
Source: Wall Street Journal
In May 2018, the National Rifle Association sent a $70,000 check to an obscure Delaware entity called WBB Investments LLC, which had been incorporated a week earlier.
The check, a copy of which was obtained by The Wall Street Journal, raises new questions about the NRA’s attempts to explain a tangled transaction involving its then-outside advertising agency and an abortive plan to purchase a $6 million Dallas mansion for NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre.
The advertising agency, Ackerman McQueen, recently turned over documents to the proposed house purchase to the New York attorney general’s office, which is probing Mr. LaPierre’s dealings with the agency as part of a broad investigation of the NRA.
When the Journal broke the story last week, the NRA initially said the plan to buy the mansion was hatched by Angus McQueen, the ad agency’s late co-CEO, as a kind of safe house for Mr. LaPierre. The NRA chief had concerns about his security in the wake of the February 2018 mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla.
Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/check-for-dallas-mansion-raises-new-questions-about-nra-plans-11565626607
Why Big Oil fears being put on trial for climate change
Oil and gas companies are desperate to stop the wave of lawsuits seeking to hold them financially responsible for their role in climate change. Should these suits get to trial, their executives would have to testify about whether they knowingly misled the public about the climate threat posed by their products going back to the 1970s.
A federal district judge in a recent ruling made it harder for the defendants to shut down a lawsuit filed by the state of Rhode Island to have the industry pay the costs associated with climate change.
Judge William E. Smith ruled that the suit against 21 oil and gas companies, including Exxon, Shell and BP, should be heard in state court — a venue that the companies fear would be less likely to dismiss the case. Federal judges in Northern California and Baltimore, likewise, have ruled that these cases belong in state court. (I have been a pro bono consultant to lawyers representing government plaintiffs in these cases.)
Judge Smith also noted in his opinion: “Defendants understood the consequences of their activity decades ago, when transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy would have saved a world of trouble. But instead of sounding the alarm, Defendants went out of their way to becloud the emerging scientific consensus and further delay changes — however existentially necessary — that would in any way interfere with their multibillion-dollar profits. All while quietly readying their capital for the coming fallout.”
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-10/climate-change-lawsuits-oil-companies-state-courts
Hong Kong shuts down airport as Beijing says protesters show 'signs of terrorism'
Source: LA Times
Hong Kong’s government canceled all flights departing from the international airport on Monday afternoon, sending police toward the airport as thousands of protesters occupied the terminals in a peaceful sit-in.
The Airport Authority said flights were canceled because large numbers of protesters were “disrupting operations.” The shutdown began at 4 p.m., just as a spokesman for the State Council’s highest Hong Kong affairs office in Beijing said protesters showed “signs of terrorism.”
“These violent, illegal actions must be met with determined legal crackdown, with no softening of hands or any sign of mercy,” said the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Spokesman Yang Guang in a press briefing, accusing protesters of throwing gasoline bombs .
“Hong Kong has arrived at a critical point.”
Read more: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-08-12/hong-kong-shuts-down-airport-as-beijing-says-protesters-show-signs-of-terrorism
The Global Machine Behind the Rise of Far-Right Nationalism
RINKEBY, Sweden — Johnny Castillo, a Peruvian-born neighborhood watchman in this district of Stockholm, still puzzles over the strange events that two years ago turned the central square of this predominantly immigrant community into a symbol of multiculturalism run amok.
First came a now-infamous comment by President Trump, suggesting that Sweden’s history of welcoming refugees was at the root of a violent attack in Rinkeby the previous evening, even though nothing had actually happened.
“You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden! Who would believe this? Sweden!” Mr. Trump told supporters at a rally on Feb. 18, 2017. “They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible.”
The president’s source: Fox News, which had excerpted a short film promoting a dystopian view of Sweden as a victim of its asylum policies, with immigrant neighborhoods crime-ridden “no-go zones.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/world/europe/sweden-immigration-nationalism.html
A Common Trait Among Mass Killers: Hatred Toward Women
The man who shot nine people to death last weekend in Dayton, Ohio, seethed at female classmates and threatened them with violence.
The man who massacred 49 people in an Orlando nightclub in 2016 beat his wife while she was pregnant, she told authorities.
The man who killed 26 people in a church in Sutherland Springs, Tex., in 2017 had been convicted of domestic violence. His ex-wife said he once told her that he could bury her body where no one would ever find it.
The motivations of men who commit mass shootings are often muddled, complex or unknown. But one common thread that connects many of them — other than access to powerful firearms — is a history of hating women, assaulting wives, girlfriends and female family members, or sharing misogynistic views online, researchers say.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/us/mass-shootings-misogyny-dayton.html
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