| Trump says 'I don't know' how map was altered to show Alabama in Hurricane Dorian's path Posted: 04 Sep 2019 01:15 PM PDT  During an Oval Office briefing, the president showed reporters an enlarged map that he said was the initial forecasted path of the storm. It appeared to have been altered with a marker to include Alabama.
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| Mom who was teaching son to drive killed in Milwaukee road rage shooting Posted: 04 Sep 2019 03:37 PM PDT  A road rage incident took the life of a mother who was teaching her son to drive in Milwaukee. Matthew Lee Wilks was charged in the shooting.
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| U.S. judge rules terrorism watchlist violates constitutional rights: NY Times Posted: 04 Sep 2019 06:55 PM PDT ![U.S. judge rules terrorism watchlist violates constitutional rights: NY Times]( "U.S. judge rules terrorism watchlist violates constitutional rights: NY Times") A U.S. judge ruled on Wednesday that a federal government database of people identified as "known or suspected terrorists" violates the constitutional rights of those placed on the watchlist, the New York Times reported. Several thousand U.S. citizens are among the more than 1 million people on the list, which can keep people off planes and block them from entering the United States. U.S. District Court Judge Anthony Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia ruled in favor of 19 Muslim U.S. citizens who challenged the watchlist, the Times said.
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| Regulator discord could delay the return of Boeing's MAX jets Posted: 04 Sep 2019 08:53 AM PDT  Nearly six months after its 737 MAX jets were grounded, Boeing is now close to applying to recertify the aircraft, according to sources, but the timeframe for flights to resume remains murky. Regulators will have final say on when the planes to return to service, clouding the outlook, in part because of signs of discord between US and international regulators. Boeing has completed work on an upgrade to the anti-stall system known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System that has been linked to two crashes, said a person familiar with the matter.
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| Feds decline to charge FBI agent who killed kidnap victim Posted: 04 Sep 2019 06:20 PM PDT  Federal authorities will not charge an FBI agent who fatally shot a hostage during a rescue attempt in Houston last year, a U.S. attorney's spokesman said Wednesday. Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement that her office initially deferred the case to federal authorities because it involved an FBI agent. "Now that the U.S. Attorney's Office has declined to file federal charges, the District Attorney's Office has an independent obligation to present this matter to a local grand jury to determine if state criminal charges are warranted," Ogg said Wednesday.
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| China found a mysterious 'gel-like' substance on the moon's uncharted far side Posted: 05 Sep 2019 02:31 AM PDT  Researchers have suggested that the strange substance could be "melt glass," formed from meteorites crashing into the lunar surface.
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| Nunes: The courts are going to have to come in and clean up Fusion GPS Posted: 04 Sep 2019 07:04 PM PDT  House Intelligence Committee ranking member Rep. Devin Nunes on his lawsuit against Fusion GPS on 'Hannity.'
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| Tropical Storm Fernand makes landfall in Mexico as Gabrielle spins in the Atlantic Posted: 04 Sep 2019 02:00 PM PDT ![Tropical Storm Fernand makes landfall in Mexico as Gabrielle spins in the Atlantic]( "Tropical Storm Fernand makes landfall in Mexico as Gabrielle spins in the Atlantic") Tropical Storm Fernand made landfall along the Mexico coast just south of the U.S. border, and Tropical Storm Gabrielle is spinning in the Atlantic.
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| 'I feel sorry for the president’: Pete Buttigieg brands Trump’s fake Hurricane Dorian map ‘pathetic’ Posted: 05 Sep 2019 05:44 AM PDT  Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg says he feels "sorry" for Donald Trump after the president presented the public with an altered official map of Hurricane Dorian's forecast to seemingly back his unfounded claims Alabama was within the storm's trajectory.The 2020 presidential hopeful slammed Mr Trump in an interview with CNN on Thursday morning, saying: "On one level it's laughable, on another it's exactly why we've got to do something."
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| Kosovo jails six for plans to attack NATO troops, other countries Posted: 04 Sep 2019 10:58 PM PDT ![Kosovo jails six for plans to attack NATO troops, other countries]( "Kosovo jails six for plans to attack NATO troops, other countries") A court in Kosovo said it had jailed six people, including a woman, for terms ranging from one to 10 years, for planning attacks on NATO troops and the public in Kosovo, Belgium and France. The population of Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008, is nominally 90 percent Muslim, but largely secular. NATO has fewer than 4,000 troops there, with the mission to keep the fragile peace since the war ended in 1999.
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| The Latest: Texas executes man for killing 2 women Posted: 04 Sep 2019 04:54 PM PDT  A Texas death row inmate has been executed for fatally stabbing an 89-year-old woman and her daughter more than 16 years ago after entering their Fort Worth home under the pretense of doing some work for them. Billy Jack Crutsinger received a lethal injection Wednesday evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. The 64-year-old Crutsinger was condemned for the 2003 killings of Pearl Magouirk and her 71-year-old daughter Patricia Syren.
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| America's 'democratic experiment' is inextricably tied to the history of slavery Posted: 05 Sep 2019 07:10 AM PDT  The year 1619 laid out rough boundaries of citizenship, freedom, and democracy that are still being policed'What we politely refer to as the 'legacy' of slavery is a political and economic system built on racial exploitation and the theft of black labor.' Photograph: Carlos Barría/ReutersThis year marks 400 years since enslaved Africans from Angola were forcibly brought to Jamestown, Virginia. This forced migration of black bodies on to what would become the United States of America represents the intertwined origin story of racial slavery and democracy. This year also marks what would have been the 90th birthday of Martin Luther King, the most well-known mobilizer of the civil rights movement's heroic period between 1954 and 1965.While Americans are quick to recognize Jamestown as the first episode of a continuing democratic experiment, the nation remains less willing to confront the way in which racial slavery proved crucial to the flourishing of American capitalism, democratic freedoms, and racial identity. The year 1619 laid out rough boundaries of citizenship, freedom, and democracy that are still being policed in our own time.Although we hardly remember this today, King often discussed how the imposing shadow of slavery impacted the civil rights struggle, perhaps most notably on 28 August 1963, during the March on Washington.Addressing a quarter of a million people in front of the Lincoln Memorial, King acknowledged racial slavery's uncanny hold on the American imagination. A century earlier, Abraham Lincoln, whom King called "a great American", signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Yet 100 years later, black people remained marginalized from the American dream. "Instead of honoring this sacred obligation," King said, African Americans had received a "bad check" – one that the nation would have to pay in full to overcome the tragic dimensions of a racial past that continued to constrain its future.King longed to reconcile the fundamental contradiction of American democratic traditions: the existence of racial slavery alongside individual freedom and liberty. What King interpreted as a contradiction, Malcolm X recognized as ironic symmetry. According to Malcolm, racial slavery in America helped to undergird a system of racial democracy that became the exclusive provision of whites.In his stinging denunciations of white supremacy and his bold support for revolutionary violence against anti-black racism, Malcolm often invoked African Americans' experience of 400 years of racial oppression. 2019 is the exact anniversary of the date that Malcolm often extolled in speeches, televised debates, and jaw-rattling interviews.Both Malcolm and Martin understood the intimate connection between the struggle for black dignity and citizenship during the civil rights and Black Power era and the movement to end racial slavery in the nineteenth century.Perhaps no single figure more elegantly represents that century's struggle over racial slavery, freedom, and citizenship than Frederick Douglass, whose reputation has swelled in the aftermath of the historian David Blight's recent Pulitzer-winning biography.A former enslaved African American from Maryland's Chesapeake Bay, Douglass narrated his escape from slavery to freedom as a journey emblematic of the nation's entire democratic experiment. A brilliant writer and public speaker, Douglass became the 19th century's most-photographed American, the nation's leading abolitionist, and a proponent of the violent overthrow of slavery by any means necessary. Douglass, no less than Abraham Lincoln, came to represent the freedom dreams that animated not only the struggle for black citizenship but the destiny of democracy.Racial slavery – a ruthless system of bondage closely tied to the rise of global capitalism – collapsed in 1865 only after the deaths of over 700,000 Americans in the civil war. Black soldiers' patriotism in the face of white supremacy was only begrudgingly, if ever, acknowledged by northern politicians. New constitutional amendments designed to settle the debate over black freedom by abolishing slavery and establishing birthright citizenship and the vote competed with the rise of political, economic, and racial terror against black Americans.Reconstruction between 1865 and 1896 found black women and men on the cutting edge of new interracial democratic experiments that helped to establish public education, historically black colleges, churches, businesses, civic groups, and mutual aid societies and elect black officials. Yet those triumphs were challenged by violence, political betrayal, and legal and legislative assaults on black citizenship. In 1896, the supreme court's Plessy v Ferguson decision made segregation the law of the land and ushered in a dark period of history.Contemporary black-led social movements such as Black Lives Matter confront not only the racial ghosts of the Jim Crow south memorialized in popular culture. They face the larger specter of racial slavery that our society often still refuses to acknowledge. What we politely refer to as the "legacy" of slavery represents the evolution of a political and economic system built on racial exploitation, the theft of black labor, and the demonization and dehumanization of black bodies.What is all the more remarkable is the way in which black folk have embraced an expansive vision of democracy even when the nation refused to recognize it as legitimate. Ida B Wells, the 19th-century anti-lynching crusader, was a trailblazing social justice activist whose work anticipated the rise of mass incarceration in America. Ella Jo Baker, the founder of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), understood the sit-in movement to be less about gaining access to white lunch counters than about eradicating oppressive and anti-democratic systems that had flourished since the bullwhip days of antebellum slavery.Similarly, King's Letter From Birmingham Jail extolled the heroism of black schoolchildren jailed for violating Jim Crow laws in Alabama. Those young people, King argued, would be one day recognized as heroes for having transported the entire nation back to those "great wells of democracy" that were dug deep by the founding fathers.The relationship between slavery and freedom and our contemporary understanding of this history remains at the core of the American democratic experiment, one that has global reverberations for a sprawling communities of indigenous and immigrant people around the world who, in the best of times, have looked to America as a beacon of liberty. Barack Obama's extraordinary rise to the presidency in 2009 burnished the United States as a symbol of racially transcendent freedom even as Trump has tempered such celebrations as premature.Perhaps the most important lesson from Jamestown for the present is the indefatigable nature of the black freedom struggle. Courageous individual acts of resistance during slavery inspired collective rebellions that transformed American democracy. Yet this change, as we are painfully experiencing today, remains fraught with the weight of a history rooted in racial slavery. Contemporary debates over racial privilege, white supremacy, and identity politics flow from political, economic, and social relations that have become normalized by our history but are far from normal.Confronting slavery's indelible impact on conceptions of freedom, citizenship, and democracy offers us essential tools for confronting our contemporary age – what might be considered a Third Reconstruction – where efforts to embrace racial justice and an expansive vision of democracy compete alongside movements for racial bigotry rooted in ancient hatreds dressed up in new clothes. * Peniel E Joseph is the founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin
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| Chinese shoppers adopt facial payments in cashless drive Posted: 04 Sep 2019 08:24 AM PDT  No cash, no cards, no wallet, and no smartphones: China's shoppers are increasingly purchasing goods with just a turn of their heads as the country embraces facial payment technology. China's mobile payment infrastructure is one of the most advanced in the world, but the new systems -- which require only face recognition -- being rolled out nationwide could make even QR codes seem old-fashioned. Customers simply make a purchase by posing in front of point-of-sale (POS) machines equipped with cameras, after linking an image of their face to a digital payment system or bank account.
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| Students Repeatedly Posed in Blackface and Threatened Black Classmates. Their School Ignored, Lawsuit Alleges. Posted: 04 Sep 2019 11:35 AM PDT  Star Tribune via Getty ImagesSome white students at Chaska High School in Minnesota ended last school year the same way they began it: In photos, wearing blackface.The academic year in the 28,000-person suburb began in September 2018 with white students attending a football game in blackface, and, in one student's case, an afro. In December, a middle school student in the same district—located roughly 30 miles southwest of Minneapolis—found that his gym shirt had been stolen, vandalized with the n-word, and returned to his locker. In February 2019, two white students in the district put on charcoal face masks and put the photos on social media with the hashtag: blackface.That same month, another student allegedly posted on Snapchat, holding a gun, and threatened to shoot a list of students if they attended a Chaska High School assembly on race relations. In April, white students posted an image on Snapchat with the faces of 25 African-American students, calling the location "Negro Hill."The lede on a local news story in April began: "Chaska, it happened again. Another racially charged incident in Eastern Carver County Public Schools."And by the time a photo of a student wearing blackface appeared in the yearbook in May, the response from parents on the newly created Equity Task Force was: "Not again, are you serious? The same exact issue of blackface again?"On Tuesday, they'd had enough.Six current and former students from the district filed a 50-page civil-rights lawsuit in federal court against Independent School District 112, also known as Eastern Carver County Schools, claiming that teachers and administrators demonstrated "deliberate indifference" and failed to take "any meaningful action" in response to repeated complaints of racist bullying. The school district "turned a blind eye" to black students who were called the n-word, "monkey," told they "don't belong," and threatened with physical violence, the lawsuit claims."School staff have little, if any, proper training or experience with respect to properly responding to reports of racism," according to the complaint, which alleges that "often times, complaints of discrimination are simply met by silence."Students of color were even prohibited from posting "Black Lives Matter" signs and materials featuring African-American leaders during Black History Month, the lawsuit states.Four of the six students in the lawsuit relocated from the district as a direct result of the racism they experienced over the past few years, according to the lawsuit.The Minneapolis Star-Tribune first reported the legal action, which followed months of pressure from parents in the school district, where only 3 percent of students are black, per data from the Office of Civil Rights.Amanda Flowers Peterson told the Star-Tribune last month that her 6-year-old son was punched in the face—twice—by a classmate and "told he doesn't belong." Administrators declined to call the incident racially motivated, she said. Peterson and her husband are plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which says that they removed their son from the district after repeated concerns about neglect—including an incident where he was allegedly left unsupervised for 45 minutes after he was sent home on the wrong bus and another where he was sent outside for recess for 20 minutes in 23-degree weather with no coat on.Schools officials called Amanda Peterson, who is black, "too aggressive" when she complained, the lawsuit states. In May 2019, a substitute teacher with the district "contacted Ms. Peterson's employer and demanded she be fired" over her advocacy efforts to correct the racism that had systematically affected the district, according to the lawsuit. The six students are seeking a jury trial to determine damages in excess of $75,000 over the mental anguish and emotional distress caused by the racism at the school district."At some point, enough is enough," attorney Anna Prakash, who represents some of the families, told The Daily Beast on Wednesday."Our public schools are supposed to respect and keep children safe while creating an educational environment in which they can thrive. That didn't happen for African-American students in Chaska," said Prakash."Our clients tried and continue to try to get help from the administration," said Prakash, "But, with all they have experienced and because meaningful change has not happened, they filed this lawsuit." "It is a pervasive problem and it goes back years," she added. "These students and their parents are incredibly brave."Prakash said none of the families involved in the lawsuit were available to comment to The Daily Beast by press time.* * *'LEAVE NOW'* * *The allegations in the lawsuit involve students as young as six and up through seniors in high school who are now adults.A former student at Chaska Middle School East, identified in the lawsuit only by "T.B.," recalled that white students at his school kicked him in the knees and called him "monkey," sometimes even writing the word on his school folders and placing a picture of a monkey on his desk. White students allegedly smashed T.B.'s computer, told him that he stinks, and repeatedly told him that his dad "is a drug dealer or rapper, saying that is what all black dads are," according to the lawsuit.In December, students took T.B.'s gym shirt out of his locker and wrote the n-word on it, along with "leave now." Since T.B. was "worried about the cost of a new T-shirt, he put the T-shirt on and put a sweatshirt over it," the lawsuit states.When he reported the vandalism to the school's assistant principal, he was given a new shirt and an email was sent to his mother, which spelled out the slur. "It was very vague, very cold and no apology or how they were going to handle it going forward other than we got him a new T-shirt," T.B.'s mother said in a local news interview."The city... looks at kids of color differently than kids that walk around with white skin," she said. "I don't think their staff is equipped at the school to handle it or know how in the right way. And I think they'd rather just keep pushing it under the rug."T.B.'s parents pulled him and his siblings out of the district. Jquan Fuller-Rueschman, a former Chaska High student who left the school midway through his senior year, said in the lawsuit that he was punched in the face by a white student, repeatedly called the n-word, accused of being stupid and dumb, had food thrown at him, and had his car egged. He was labeled "aggressive" and suspended after confronting a student who repeatedly called him the n-word, the complaint states.When he was on the football team in October 2016, Jquan said he was threatened by a white teammate who said he would "bring a gun to shoot you." The coach allegedly responded by noting that "all of the drama seems to involve you."Even after he left the school in September 2018, Jquan's was one of the 25 student faces superimposed on the Google map labeled "Negro Hill" by white Chaska students, the lawsuit contends."They don't like black people," then-sophomore Darius Stewart, whose face was also on the map, told a local news station. "They want us gone. I mean, I am hopeful but I don't think racism is going to stop."Several current and former high school students in the lawsuit expressed that they felt "unwelcome" and unsafe attending school. One former student was hospitalized last school year over severe anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts, which she linked to racism at school.After the yearbook printed the photo of a student in blackface, Assistant Principal Jim Swearingen said in a letter to the school community claiming that administrators had "talked" about "the racist history behind wearing blackface."But Tonya Coleman, one of the parents who filed suit on Tuesday, disagreed with Swearingen's interpretation of events. "They haven't had any dialogue about it all, according to many, many parents," she told the Star-Tribune in the spring.Swearingen's letter said that school officials discovered the image after the book was printed but before it was distributed and that the administration does not "condone the ridicule or demeaning of humans, particularly our own students" and apologized for the "delay in our yearbook distribution."In April, concerned parents in the district formed a group called Residents Organizing Against Racism (ROAR) and created a petition for the removal of Chaska High School's principal. The petition, which was signed by more than 700 people, also called for a zero-tolerance anti-racism policy and significant changes to the curriculum. Utah State Student Killed Herself After Eight Months of Racist Attacks—and the School Did Nothing, Suit ClaimsJenna Cruz, a 34-year-old mother of three biracial kids in Chaska, who is part of ROAR, told The Daily Beast on Wednesday that the district's responses have failed to even use the word "racism.""It's labelled as bullying and inappropriate behavior," said Cruz, who has two elementary-school-aged children. ROAR currently has about 126 parents and community members who are helping organize, she added.Cruz said that her children have not yet been directly affected by the incidents named in the lawsuit."I don't want them to experience this," she said. "I can't sit back and do nothing and watch kids just be harmed by going to school. Whether it's my kid or someone else's.""We can't hold the school accountable for the students' actions, but the school is responsible for their reaction to it, and how they communicate that to parents," she added. "The significance of not relaying this information to parents so that they can protect their children is negligence. There's no grey area in this.""There's been a shift in the climate in the last two years, and there's been this emboldened voice for people acting like this is OK," said Cruz. "I'm not shocked, but what was shocking is the lack of appropriate response from the administrators." "There's a large [group] that stands in solidarity with the brave parents and students that are doing this lawsuit," said Cruz. "They made the decision to do what's right."Last month, ROAR invited Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to speak to the community. "I have read about some things I find deeply disturbing," Ellison, who is black, said at the 90-minute meeting on August 20, cautioning the 30 parents in attendance not to give up on "any of these knuckleheads.""Speak up even if your voice quivers," he said to the crowd. "Don't let the ugly ideas soak into the soil."The district declined to comment on specific litigation to The Daily Beast but forwarded an open letter that Superintendent Clint Christopher wrote to Ellison on Aug. 26, after his visit, which claimed that the school board and district staff "are committed to an educational environment where all students feel safe, welcome, and included, and have the tools and resources to succeed.""We have not yet realized that for every student, and have been working in earnest to move the needle and improve outcomes for every child that walks through our doors," Christopher said.Christopher's letter noted that the district hired a new director of equity and inclusion this summer, that 40 district and building administrative leaders have in recent months participated in more than two days of training based on the University of Minnesota's Urban Leadership Academy, and that the district has formed an Equity Advisory Council of parents and community members. The district also hired a "nationally-recognized researcher" to conduct an audit of "our policies, practices, and performance data using an equity lens," which will conclude this month, he said. "This is important work, it's the right work, and we are all committed to doing better for each student," said Christopher. "They're the reason we're here."Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Under siege in Nigeria, South African businesses shut stores Posted: 04 Sep 2019 06:32 AM PDT  ABUJA/JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African companies MTN and Shoprite closed stores in Nigeria on Wednesday in the face of attacks targeting their premises in retaliation to similar violence in their home country. Nigeria's vice president is also boycotting an economic forum in Cape Town on boosting intra-African trade, the country's foreign minister said, after days of rioting in South Africa aimed at foreign-owned businesses. At a Shoprite supermarket on the outskirts of the Nigerian capital Abuja, hundreds of protesters tried to break into the premises, throwing stones, setting fire to tires and nearly overwhelming police protecting the site.
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| California becomes the first state in the nation to outlaw fur trapping Posted: 04 Sep 2019 10:27 PM PDT  Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation Wednesday banning the controversial fur industry in California.
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| Texas governor resists calls for quick votes after shooting Posted: 04 Sep 2019 03:52 PM PDT  Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday rejected calls from Democrats for immediate votes on new gun safety measures in Texas following a violent August that began and ended with mass shootings that left 29 people dead and injured dozens more. The Texas Legislature doesn't meet again until 2021.
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| The worm that turned: fossils shed light on early animal movement Posted: 04 Sep 2019 06:51 PM PDT  More than half a billion years ago, a worm-like creature wriggled its last, creating a groove preserved as a fossil that offers new insights into some of the earliest animal movement. The origins of movement in animal species remains fairly murky, though there is evidence of "directional movement" -- as opposed to the meandering drift of a jellyfish for example -- as early as 560 million years ago. The fossils provide the first "direct supporting evidence" of early movement by a segmented animal, Shuhai Xiao, a professor at Virginia Tech university's geosciences department, told AFP.
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| View Photos of the 2020 Porsche 911 Carrera Posted: 04 Sep 2019 04:59 AM PDT |
| James Mattis’s Blistering Criticism of Obama Posted: 04 Sep 2019 10:27 AM PDT  Most of the coverage of James Mattis's new book, Call Sign Chaos, co-authored with Bing West, deals with the former defense secretary's relationship with President Trump. The Atlantic's pre-publication interview with Mattis was headlined, "The Man Who Couldn't Take It Anymore." The New York Times editorial page ran a column about Mattis called "The Man Trump Wishes He Were."Both articles establish that Mattis doesn't have much to say right now, in either the book or in interviews, about President Trump. Neither piece, though, mentions another president about whom Mattis is more than willing to dish. That would be Barack Obama, who was Mattis's commander in chief when the then–Marine general led Central Command. Mattis's critique of Obama isn't just harsh. It's blistering.Mattis's tenure at Central Command lasted from 2010 to 2013. It was during this time that the Obama administration took steps that diminished American influence in the greater Middle East and empowered Iran. The spillover effect includes the migrant crisis that contributed to the rise of national populism in Europe. Mattis dissented from Obama policy. "In 2010," he writes, "I argued strongly against pulling all our troops out of Iraq."When the Arab Spring came to Egypt in 2011, "I thought we should use quiet diplomacy to urge inclusive government." Obama instead called for Hosni Mubarak to resign. Mattis writes:> President Obama came out vocally against Mubarak, insisting that in Egypt, "we were on the right side of history." Having read a bit of history and found that events, good and bad, had been "written" by both good and evil characters, I put little stock in the idea that history books yet to be written would somehow give yearning Arabs what they fervently desired today.In the spring of 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder revealed an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador on U.S. soil. Mattis urged the White House to make the public case for reprisals against Tehran. He was rebuffed. "We treated an act of war as a law enforcement violation, jailing the low level courier."Through it all, Mattis was dealing with Iran's malign behavior across the region. "Each step along the way, I argued for political clarity and offered options that gave the Commander in Chief a rheostat he could dial up or down to protect our nation." The commander in chief wasn't interested. He turned the rheostat off.Mattis was informed he would be relieved of command in December 2012. He writes:> I was leaving a region aflame and in disarray. The lack of an integrated regional strategy had left us adrift, and our friends confused. We were offering no leadership or direction. I left my post deeply disturbed that we had shaken our friends' confidence and created vacuums that our adversaries would exploit.The following year, Barack Obama failed to enforce his "red line" against Syrian dictator Bashar Assad's use of chemical weapons against civilians. "This was a shot not heard around the world," Mattis writes. He continues:> Old friends in NATO and in the Pacific registered dismay and incredulity that America's reputation had been seriously weakened as a credible security partner. Within thirty-six hours, I received a phone call from a friendly Pacific-nation diplomat. "Well, Jim," he said, "I guess we're on our own with China."Americans will have to wait for Mattis's full assessment of the Trump presidency. We were provided some clues in his resignation letter. It has also been reported that Mattis left over differences with the president regarding troop deployments in Syria and the potential abandonment of U.S. partners there.In the meantime, at this very moment, we have Mattis's devastating assessment of Barack Obama's foreign policy and its calamitous effects on American prestige and American power. Maybe we ought to pay attention?
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| Tucker Carlson: Gun Buybacks Would Lead to ‘Civil War’ Posted: 03 Sep 2019 06:41 PM PDT  Hours after The View's Meghan McCain warned that there would be "lots of violence" if the American government enforced mandatory gun buybacks, Fox News host Tucker Carlson took that argument even further on Tuesday night and claimed buybacks would lead to a "civil war."Following yet another mass shooting in Texas this past weekend, Carlson led off his Tuesday night primetime program by blasting Democratic calls for mandatory buybacks of assault-style weapons. (The Odessa shooter used an AR-15, a weapon that has become commonplace in mass shootings.)"They are not buying them back," Carlson grumbled. "It's gun confiscation. Nothing but that. An attempt to eliminate a constitutional right the ruling class finds inconvenient.""It won't reduce gun violence," the right-wing cable news host continued. "In fact, sending armed authorities door-to-door to seize people's lawfully owned weapons is a sure-fire recipe for causing violence. If you cared about America and the people who live here, you would not suggest that. But they don't hesitate."Carlson went on to grouse some more over Democrats pointing the finger at firearms and high-capacity magazines and clips as a root cause of America's gun violence problem, bringing on a former Army ranger to back up his criticisms. The Fox host then brought on Democratic strategist Bernard Whitman to debate the merits of buybacks and gun reform in general, resulting in a predictably heated exchange.After Whitman pointed out that the vast majority of American citizens support universal background checks—the Odessa shooter failed a federal background check—Carlson pivoted back to buybacks, insisting they would result in war."What you are calling for is civil war," Carlson exclaimed, noting that several 2020 candidates support buybacks. "What you are calling for is an incitement to violence. It's something—I wouldn't want to live here when that happened, would you?!"The Fox host went on to allege that this was really about the ruling class punishing and attacking rural America, adding that "there is no violent crime in most places where everyone owns a gun." Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Why Boris Johnson Lost His Bid for a New Election Before Brexit Posted: 04 Sep 2019 04:19 PM PDT  U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson had been pinning his hopes on public fatigue with Brexit, betting it would help him unite "leave" voters.
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| Hurricane Dorian is bringing 'life-threatening' flash floods, tornadoes, and power outages to the Carolinas — here are the latest updates Posted: 05 Sep 2019 09:02 AM PDT  Dorian's winds and rain are hitting the Carolinas. A hurricane warning is in effect from the Savannah River to the North Carolina-Virginia border.
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| Palestinian women demand legal protection after suspected 'honor killing' Posted: 04 Sep 2019 09:29 AM PDT  Hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated in the West Bank on Wednesday to demand legal protection for women after a 21-year-old woman died last month in what rights groups say was a so-called honor killing. A Palestinian Authority investigation is underway into the death of Isra'a Ghrayeb, a make-up artist who activists say was beaten by male relatives after a video posted on Instagram allegedly showed a meeting between her and a man who had proposed to her. At least 18 Palestinian women have been killed this year by family members angered at perceived damage to their honor, which may involve fraternizing with men or any infringement of conservative values regarding women, according to the General Union of Palestinian Women and Feminist Institutions.
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| 'Over the top:' McConnell still mad about #MoscowMitch, calls attention to 2020 election Posted: 04 Sep 2019 03:17 AM PDT  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was first called "Moscow Mitch" in July by MSNBC host Joe Scarborough on on his "Morning Joe" show
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| 'Any suggestion?' Duterte asks after Xi reaffirms sea claims Posted: 04 Sep 2019 08:15 PM PDT  President Rodrigo Duterte spoke for the first time about his talk with Xi about the thorny disputes in a televised news conference Wednesday night where he was asked what move he would take next. Duterte, who has nurtured friendly ties with China, met Xi in Beijing last week. "They're claiming it as their own and the bad part is that they are claiming it as their historical right and they have the control over the property," Duterte said.
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| Albanian crime boss who ran multi-million pound drugs racked ordered to pay only £14,380 Posted: 04 Sep 2019 12:38 PM PDT  An Albanian drugs kingpin who ran a multi-million pound cocaine racket only has to pay back £14,380 after the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) requested a "risible" sum, a judge has complained. Gang leader Erald Mema who was jailed for 25 years for flooding the UK with class A drugs was this week given three months to repay and to allow time for the auctioning of his Rolex watch. Judge Peter Ross said he had no option but to approve the pay back order but criticised the CPS for agreeing the figure. The 34-year-old, who had lived in Botley, Hampshire, brought class A drugs from Albania into the UK together with his co-conspirators and distributed them all over Oxfordshire and beyond. He was caught after a sting operation involving undercover police and drugs raids. At a hearing this week to recover his ill-gotten gains, the CPS asked for just £14,380 despite the racket raking in millions of pounds. Cocaine production: Cocaine-related deaths in England and Wales Presiding Judge Peter Ross said: "This is a man through whose hands millions of pounds of cocaine went. This is a man who on the face of the evidence I heard in the trial has profited massively from what was an enormous drugs operation. "He was a man who was organising what was undoubtedly an organised criminal group, receiving the cocaine at the point of importation, managing its wholesale distribution across the UK to other significant organised criminal groups. "The idea that the only available assets are under £14,500 is simply risible." Judge Ross also said the case could have been eligible for a "hidden assets" application whereby prosecutors could force him to justify his claims about his lack of wealth. In response, prosecutors said that checks had been made in Albania and in the UK and given the available evidence the decision was taken not to pursue a hidden assets case and to seek just over £14,000 instead. Judge Ross said: "I don't know who made this choice, made this decision, but whilst I have to make the order, and it seems to me I have no alternative, it should not be taken by the public as an indication that I approve of this. "His sentence reflected the significant role, the huge role, he had. He was at the top of this organised crime group in the UK. I imagine that the defence are delighted to agree to this order." FAQ | County lines Judge Ross formally declared that the total benefit from criminal activity was £701,680 and that a total of £14,380 could be confiscated as ill-gotten gains. If he defaults on the cash owed he will serve a further three years and six months in prison to run consecutive to his current jail term of 25 years. During Mema's original trial which was held at Oxford Crown Court in October it was revealed that he had been at the helm of a country-wide drugs plot between June 1, 2016, and December 2, 2016. Mema had denied any involvement in the drugs ring but a jury took nine hours and 12 minutes to find him guilty by a majority to two counts of conspiracy to supply class A drugs. After the arrest of one of his co-conspirators - Mema's subordinate Khalad Uddin, officers found hundreds of thousands of pounds of cash at his Scholars Mews apartment as well as at Little Brewery Street in Oxford. Sentencing at the time Judge Ross, who presided over the two-month case, said that Mema had run a 'sophisticated and organised' gang. He said: "The organisation that you headed supplied millions of pounds worth of cocaine around the UK. It was an organisation run on business lines. You are a rarity, you are the top man when it comes to this organised crime operation. "No one reading the newspapers, watching the television news can be in any doubt criminal enterprises such as yours generate violence, serious violence, involving the use of guns and knives."
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| The Holes in Warren’s Wealth Tax Can’t Be Plugged Posted: 05 Sep 2019 06:30 AM PDT  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- Elizabeth Warren's proposed wealth tax on the most well-off Americans is very popular, according to several opinion polls taken in the months since she announced her idea. But her fellow Democratic politicians — both in Congress and in the party's presidential race — have largely seemed to remain cool to her idea. Why is that?It may be for political reasons, as an article last month in the Hill suggested: A number of Democrats have their own plans to collect more revenue from the top tier of taxpayers. Others may be wary of embracing Warren's signature plan lest it be seen as an endorsement of her presidential bid.I hope this absence of enthusiasm is at least in part because Democratic leaders know just how flawed and unrealistic the whole thing is. Let's back up. What does she propose? The federal government already taxes income, which is the flow of financial resources a household receives in, say, a given month. For example, your paycheck. Warren's plan would augment the existing income tax by adding a tax on wealth. (For example, the balance in retirement accounts.) The tax would apply to fortunes above $50 million, hitting them with a 2% annual rate; there would be a surcharge of 1% per year on wealth in excess of $1 billion. Economists advising her estimate that this tax on 75,000 families would raise $2.75 trillion in revenue over a 10-year period.Not only would such a tax be very hard to administer, as many have pointed out. It likely won't collect nearly as much revenue as Warren claims. The U.S. estate tax system already finds it challenging to determine wealth once in a person's lifetime (at the time of death). Under Warren's proposal, the fair market value of all assets for the wealthiest 0.06% of households would have to be assessed every year. It would be difficult to determine the market value of partially held private businesses, works of art and the like every year. This helps to explain why the number of countries in the high-income OECD that administer a wealth tax fell from 14 in 1996 to only four in 2017. (Or six, if you include the nonstandard wealth taxes in the Netherlands and Italy.) It is highly unlikely that the tax would yield the $2.75 trillion estimated by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, the University of California, Berkeley, professors who are Warren's economic advisers. Lawrence Summers, the economist and top adviser to the last two Democratic presidents, and University of Pennsylvania professor Natasha Sarin used a different methodology based on the U.S.'s experience with the estate tax. They convincingly argued Warren's plan would bring in a fraction of what Saez and Zucman expect once real-world factors like tax avoidance and the loopholes that Congress would be likely to add are factored in. Another reason to doubt such a high revenue estimate is that Saez and Zucman are likely relying on an inflated wealth base. In a paper released in July, economists Matthew Smith, Owen Zidar and Eric Zwick present preliminary estimates suggesting that the Warren proposal would raise half as much as projected. They find the share of wealth held by the top 1%, top 0.1% and top 0.01% falls by 20%, one quarter and one third, respectively, relative to the Saez-Zucman estimates. Importantly, they also estimate a larger role for private business holding among high-wealth households. Less than half of wealth at the top consists of securities with clear market values. The need to value these assets would make Warren's plan difficult to execute. Many legal scholars believe the idea might be unconstitutional because "direct taxes," other than income taxes, must be apportioned among states according to their populations. (My Bloomberg colleague Noah Feldman views it as a tough call, but concludes the tax probably is constitutional.) Why would Democrats want to risk adopting a tax that would trigger years of litigation and might be struck down? With wealth taxes, small numbers have big effects. In Warren's case, a household worth $50 million would lose 2% of its wealth every year to the tax, or 20% over the first decade. For an asset yielding a steady 1.5% return, a 2% wealth tax is equivalent to an income tax of 133%. (At this writing, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note was 1.5%.) And remember that the wealth tax would operate along with the existing income tax system. The combined (equivalent income) tax rate would often be well over 100%. Underlying assets would routinely shrink. This may be the advocates' goal. If so, it is misplaced. The tax would likely reduce national savings, resulting in less business investment in the U.S. or larger capital inflows from abroad to meet investment needs. Less investment spending would reduce productivity and wages to some extent over the longer term. Larger inflows of foreign capital would reduce national income relative to what the U.S. produces. The tax would also discourage risk taking and the incentives for potential innovators. It would be better to find extra revenue by closing deductions and exemptions in the income tax code, or by taxing consumption or pollution.The ostensible purpose of the wealth tax would be to finance the expanding entitlement state the Democrats want — the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, free college, universal child care, student debt forgiveness. According to Saez and Zucman, another aim would be to reduce the political power of the wealthiest households. They argue that the "root justification" for high tax rates "is not about collecting revenue." Instead, "they aim at preventing an oligarchic drift that, if left unaddressed, will continue undermining the social compact and risk killing democracy."I am not such a purist as to think that the only purpose of taxation should be to collect revenue — for example, I support tax credits for low-income households to encourage labor force participation and to fight poverty. But the "save democracy" approach is a bad use of the tax code. For one, it won't work. You need a lot less than $50 million to be politically influential. And influence is much more diffuse than the plan's advocates seem to think. Warren's wealth tax would be an abuse of government power. It is the tax-code equivalent of looting mansions. What is wrong with the way these 75,000 families made their money? Why should we have special tax rules for a tiny fraction — 0.06% — of households? Paying taxes is not a punishment, and the tax code should not be used to penalize any group of citizens. Not even the very rich.To contact the author of this story: Michael R. Strain at mstrain4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Katy Roberts at kroberts29@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the editor of "The U.S. Labor Market: Questions and Challenges for Public Policy."For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Five Things They Don’t Tell You about Slavery Posted: 04 Sep 2019 12:07 PM PDT  The same people most obsessed with slavery seem to have little interest in the full scope of its history.There has been an effort for decades now — although with new momentum lately, as exemplified by the New York Times' 1619 project — to identify the United States and its founding with slavery.To the extent that this campaign excavates uncomfortable truths about our history and underlines the central role of African Americans in our nation, it is welcome. But it is often intended to undermine the legitimacy of America itself by effacing what makes it distinctive and good.Yes, slavery and racial prejudice were our great original sins. It would have been better if we had, like the British, been leaders against the slave trade and for abolition (the representation of slaveholders in Congress and the rise of King Cotton forestalled this). But we didn't invent slavery, even in its race-based form.Slavery didn't make us unique, which is obvious if we consider its history in a little broader context. Critics of the American Founding don't like to do this because it weakens their case and quickly brings them up against politically inconvenient facts that they'd prefer to pass over in silence.Let's dwell, then, on a few things they don't tell us about slavery. None of these are secrets or are hard to find, but they are usually left out or minimized, since they don't involve self-criticism and, worse, they entail a critical look at societies or cultures that the Left tends to favor vis-à-vis the West.None of what follows is meant to excuse the practice of slavery in the United States, or its longevity. Nor is it to deny that the Atlantic slave trade was one of history's great enormities, subjecting millions to mistreatment so horrifying that it is hard to fathom. But if we are to understand the history of slavery, it's important to know what happened before 1619 and what happened elsewhere besides America.1\. Through much of human history, slavery was ubiquitous and unquestionedSlavery wasn't the exception in human history; it was the norm. The "perennial institution," as historian Seymour Drescher calls it, was an accepted feature of the ancient world, from ancient Egypt to Greece to Rome, and of traditional societies.The Greeks, according to the compelling David Brion Davis book Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World, "came to see slave labor as absolutely central to their entire economy and way of life" and deployed it in a wide range of occupations. Roman slavery wasn't race-based but was brutal all the same (see the fate of slave gladiators, among many other atrocities).In the post-Roman world, the Byzantines, the Vikings, and Central Asian societies all embraced slavery in various forms.Again, this wasn't remarkable. Consider, for instance, Ethiopia. Stewart Gordon writes in his book Shackles of Iron: Slavery Beyond the Atlantic that its first legal code, dating from the mid-13th century, "recognized slaves as central to the economy and defined the acquisition and holding of slaves as the natural order of things." In the 16th century, Ethiopia "was a full slave society," even taking tribute from some provinces in the form of slaves.Slavery knew no bounds of color or creed. During one period, from 1500 to 1700, there were more white European slaves held captive on the Barbary Coast than slaves sent from West Africa to the Atlantic world, according to Gordon.All this history wasn't incidental to what eventually arose in the Atlantic world. Davis notes, "There was a genuine continuity of slave-trading and slave-holding from Ancient Greece to Rome and from the late Roman Empire to the Byzantine and Arab worlds, from the medieval shipment of slaves from the Balkans, the Black Sea and Caucasia to Muslim and Christian Mediterranean markets, and from there to the beginnings in the fifteenth century of an African slave trade to Portugal and Spain, and then to the Atlantic Islands and New World."And slavery was widespread throughout the New World. "An imaginary 'hemispheric traveler,'" Davis writes, "would have seen black slaves in every colony from Canada and New England all the way south to Spanish Peru and Chile."2\. The East African slave trade lasted into the 20th centuryThe United States ended slavery too late (again, Britain is a better model). But let's not forget how long the slave trade, ended in 1808 in the United States, lasted elsewhere.Gordon discusses the East African slave trade, also called the Arab slave trade: "Throughout the vast Indian Ocean region," he writes, "slave trade and ownership were considered completely moral and legal, regardless of the religion of the slaver or the buyer."More than a million slaves were taken from East Africa in the 1800s. Despite British attempts at suppressing it, this trade continued into the 20th century. According to Gordon, "Perhaps the last large-scale movement of East African slaves to the Middle East was in the 1920s."Relatedly, the Muslim world was a vast empire of slavery and enslaved countless black Africans.3\. Islam was a great conveyor belt of slavery"Long before the establishment of African slavery in the Americas," James Walvin writes in his A Short History of Slavery, "Islamic societies were characterized by the widespread and generally unchallenged use of slavery. Indeed slavery was commonplace throughout Arabia well before the rise of Islam. But as Islam spread between the eighth and 15th centuries, and especially to black Africa, it extended and confirmed the commonplace use of slavery and slave trading."According to Walvin, Muslim slavers transported enslaved Africans across vast distances — via overland routes — "long before the European pioneers in the Americas began to consider the use of African slaves as laborers in the American settlements." The routes across the Sahara, he adds, "survived from the seventh to the twentieth century, and millions of Africans were force-marched along them from their homelands to the slave markets to the north."This story is relevant to the nature of slavery in the Atlantic world. At first, slavery in the Muslim world wasn't race-based, but that changed. Davis writes: "The Arabs and other Muslim converts were the first people to make use of literally millions of blacks from sub-Saharan Africa and to begin associating black Africans with the lowliest forms of bondage."It may well be, he continues, that "racial stereotypes were transmitted, along with black slavery itself — to say nothing of the algebra and knowledge of the ancient Greek classics — as Christians treated and fought with Muslims for the first Islamic challenges to the Byzantine Empire, in the seventh and eighth centuries, through the era of the crusades."Certainly, while slavery was in eclipse in the rest of Europe, it had a new vitality on the Muslim-occupied Iberian peninsula, with Muslims and Christians both engaged in the practice."By the fifteenth century," historian James Sweet notes, "many Iberian Christians had internalized the racist attitudes of the Muslims and were applying them to the increasing flow of African slaves to their part of the world." He adds, "Iberian racism was a necessary precondition for the system of human bondage that would develop in the Americas during the sixteenth century and beyond."One would think that there would be more attention paid to the Muslim world's contribution to race-based slavery, but since it doesn't offer any opportunity for Western self-reproach, it's mostly ignored.4\. The Atlantic slave trade would have been impossible without African cooperation Slavery wasn't a European imposition on West Africa. It was already a common practice before the European slavers showed up to subject African captives to the hideous Atlantic passage and bondage in the New World.According to John Thornton, "slavery was widespread in Atlantic Africa because slaves were the only form of private, revenue-producing property recognized in African law."Europeans didn't capture millions of slaves on their own. The slavers were confined to the coasts. They weren't capable of enslaving masses of Africans, and even when they attempted it, they risked disrupting the entire system (and retribution from the Africans).In the interior, slaves were captured in battles and raids and marched to the coast in unspeakable conditions. They were then sold to the Europeans for liquor, textiles, tobacco, and other goods.Davis notes "the rise of predatory states, such as Futa Jallon, Dahomey, Asante, Kasanje, and the Lunda Empire, which found it financially profitable to wage war on neighbors and sell prisoners to the Portuguese, Dutch, English, French, Danes, or Americans."The system of West African enslavement kept running even when the Europeans stopped coming, "flooding various regions with nonexportable slaves," as Davis puts it. The slave population in West Africa would come to exceed that of the New World.5\. Brazil took the lion's share of slaves from the Atlantic slave tradeAny historical accounting of the Atlantic slave trade has to judge Brazil harshly.Ninety-five percent of the slaves transported across the Atlantic went to places south of the present-day United States, with Brazil alone taking about 40 percent.Black slaves were already about 10 percent of Lisbon's population in 1550, and Brazil had about 1 million slaves by 1790.Even though a relatively small 5 percent of African slaves went to colonial America, the population in the colonies and the United States grew until there were four million slaves by the time of the Civil War. Brazil never had this natural increase because the life expectancy of the slaves there was so low. Life on Brazil's sugar plantations was brutal and regimented."Beginning in the 1960s," Davis writes, "historians have demolished the myths that Brazilian slavery was benign or humane and that Brazil was relatively free from racism." The record shows, he writes, "extreme forms of racial prejudice coupled with the view that slaves were mere instruments of production."Even when the Atlantic slave trade was mostly illegal and on the way out, the beat went on. Brazil and Cuba received most of the more than 2 million slaves transported between 1820 and 1880, according to Davis.***To repeat, none of this justifies American cruelty and hypocrisy across the centuries. It does suggest, however, that an appropriate perspective should take full account of all that sets us apart, which emphatically wasn't chattel slavery.None of the other societies tainted by slavery produced the Declaration of Independence, a Washington, Jefferson, and Hamilton, the U.S. Constitution, or a tradition of liberty that inspired people around the world for centuries. If we don't keep that in mind, as well as the broader context of slavery, we aren't giving this country — or history — its due.
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| ‘Fox & Friends’ Host Brian Kilmeade: Trump ‘Never Should Have Said’ Mexico Would Pay for Wall Posted: 05 Sep 2019 08:42 AM PDT  Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade admitted on Thursday morning that President Trump "never should have said" Mexico would pay for his border wall, a promise he made constantly during his 2016 campaign. During a segment about backlash to the Trump administration using Pentagon money to fund the project, Kilmeade first attempted to highlight the hypocrisy of "the people that could not care less, as President Obama's administration starved the military year after year and watched it rot away." But then he pivoted to the "sensationalist headlines" over the move, including one from The Daily Beast that read, "Trump Raids Elementary Schools to Pay for Wall; Mexico Off Hook.""He's right," Kilmeade said in response to that headline—though it's unclear who he meant by "he" in that sentence. "The president never should have said Mexico was going to pay for the wall, though he says they're going to get it in fees at border crossings."In an attempt at damage control, Kilmeade's co-host Steve Doocy said, "I think he did think initially that he would find a way for Mexico to pay for it but as we know, that did not work." Just last week, in a radio interview with Kilmeade, President Trump praised the host's loyalty—compared to some others at the network. "You're a solid, I used to say, you're a solid six or maybe seven," Trump said. "But you're getting much better. You're getting great."Fox Host Brian Kilmeade's Response to Jimmy Kimmel Is Just SadRead more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| ‘Squad’ members vow to help pay bail for protesters arrested at 'Straight Pride' parade Posted: 04 Sep 2019 04:37 AM PDT  Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley vow to pay bail for protesters of the 'Straight Pride' parade in Boston.
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| Florida is ready, but where is the hurricane? Posted: 03 Sep 2019 12:30 PM PDT  Houses and businesses are boarded up, bridges to barrier islands are blocked and many residents of Florida's beachside communities are long gone. "The uncertainty is a little nerve wracking," says Drew Gabrielson, clutching his trembling Chihuahua Rodney as he looks across a beach at the roughening surf. On Tuesday, Dorian began moving at five miles per hour (eight kilometers per hour), a positively jaunty pace after being stuck at a near standstill for the better part of two days as it battered the helpless Bahamas.
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| UPDATE 1-Iran's Zarif tweets: U.S. Treasury is nothing more than a "jail warden" Posted: 05 Sep 2019 12:16 AM PDT ![UPDATE 1-Iran's Zarif tweets: U.S. Treasury is nothing more than a "jail warden"]( "UPDATE 1-Iran's Zarif tweets: U.S. Treasury is nothing more than a \"jail warden\"") The U.S. Treasury is nothing more than a "jail warden", Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted on Thursday, a day after Washington imposed fresh sanctions designed to choke off the smuggling of Iranian oil. The United States on Wednesday blacklisted an "oil for terror" network of firms, ships and individuals allegedly directed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for supplying Syria with oil worth hundreds of millions of dollars in breach of U.S. sanctions.
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| Kamala Harris wants to ban plastic straws but says paper straws too 'flimsy' Posted: 05 Sep 2019 04:05 AM PDT  During CNN's climate change town hall Wednesday, the California senator said that she believes single-use plastics like plastic straws need to be banned, but that the paper alternative breaks too often and is ripe for some innovation.
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| ACLU criticizes bill criminalizing domestic terrorism Posted: 03 Sep 2019 10:13 PM PDT  The American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday urged ranking members of the House Judiciary Committee to oppose a bill that targets white supremacist groups by criminalizing domestic terrorism. The ACLU said the bill would unnecessarily expand authorities used by the Trump administration to target and discriminate against the very communities Congress hopes to protect. "People of color and other marginalized communities have long been targeted under domestic terrorism authorities for unfair and discriminatory surveillance, investigations, and prosecutions," the civil rights group said in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat, and Rep. Doug Collins, the ranking Republican member.
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| A Mississippi Wedding Venue Refused to Serve Gay or Interracial Couples. Amid Backlash, the Owner Is Now Apologizing Posted: 04 Sep 2019 11:25 AM PDT  The alleged owner of the event hall cited her "Christian belief"
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| If You Want to Index the Capital-Gains Tax, Do It the Right Way Posted: 04 Sep 2019 02:30 AM PDT  After some waffling, it appears that President Trump is again thinking about "indexing" the capital-gains tax.The case for doing so is simple enough. The tax, of up to 20 percent, applies when you sell investments or property that have appreciated in value, and there is no adjustment for inflation. So if your $100 worth of stock grows to $110 over a certain period, and prices in general rose 10 percent over that same period, you'll owe tax on a $10 "gain" that is not even real. Tax experts across the political spectrum agree this is not ideal. If we're going to tax capital gains, the money should come from investors who actually made gains.But there are serious legal and policy problems with making this change the way the administration is considering: simply reinterpreting the word "cost" in current law to refer to the inflation-adjusted cost rather than the nominal price paid.This would be a big change, cutting revenue at least $10 billion a year — in the ballpark of 10 percent of what the tax brings in — at a time when we're already running trillion-dollar deficits. And if the president does this himself, he can't raise the overall capital-gains rate, hike other taxes, or cut spending to compensate. This is not a decision to be made lightly, and it's the kind of change that should inspire conservative skepticism when pursued by executive fiat. (Liberal skepticism, of course, is also a given, because the capital-gains tax is overwhelmingly paid by the richest Americans.)Legally, it's far from clear this is even allowed, as Daniel Hemen and David Kamin have nicely explained in the Yale Journal on Regulation. The law at issue was written in 1918, and it has always been interpreted to refer to nominal (i.e., not inflation-adjusted) costs. Other portions of the tax code explicitly require inflation adjustments, suggesting that Congress knows how to do this when it wants and did not wish to in this case. Further, in subsequent laws, Congress decided to tax capital gains at a lower rate than ordinary income in part because capital gains include inflation. There is simply no sign that Congress intended to allow for an inflation adjustment, or that it intentionally delegated this choice to the executive.In 1992, the George H. W. Bush administration considered making this very same move but ultimately decided it didn't have the legal authority to. If Trump proceeds, his action will likely provoke a court challenge, the biggest questions in which will be (1) how much courts should defer to the executive branch when it stretches the meaning of laws and (2) whether any plaintiff has standing to sue, given how few people would face concrete harms from a tax cut given to other people. (Blue states, Democratic members of Congress, and some entities hurt by the change for technical reasons are some possible plaintiffs.)There are major policy problems here too, and not just the loss of revenue. Indexing the capital-gains tax but not certain other provisions of the tax code, such as deductions for interest paid on loans, will create "arbitrage" opportunities where people can shift money around to evade taxes. Here's an example from Hemel and Kamin:> Imagine that a taxpayer buys an asset for $100 that is fully financed by a loan. Assume that the real interest rate is zero, that the inflation rate is 10%, and that the nominal interest rate on the loan is 10% as well. One year later, assuming no change in the real value of the asset, the asset will be worth $110 on account of inflation. If basis is indexed for inflation, the taxpayer can sell the asset for $110 and recognize no taxable gain. Assuming that the interest is properly allocable to a trade or business, the taxpayer can claim an interest deduction of $10 with no offsetting gain, despite the fact that the taxpayer is in the same pre-tax position as previously. Put differently, the effort to eliminate the taxation of phantom gains leads to opportunities for the creation of phantom losses.The lender in that case might owe taxes on his $10 gain — but not if it's a non-profit, and these taxes can be lower than what would be owed on a capital gain anyhow.Not to mention the trivial effects on growth. The Tax Foundation, a right-leaning think tank generally bullish on the economy-boosting effects of tax cuts, puts the long-run GDP boost at 0.1 percent.Reworking how we treat capital gains could be a worthy project for Congress as part of further tax reform. But if Congress won't do this, presidential action is not a good substitute.
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| Jacob Wohl Charged With Felony in California Posted: 04 Sep 2019 12:01 PM PDT  Joshua Roberts/ReutersCalifornia authorities issued an arrest warrant for blundering conservative operative Jacob Wohl, who is now due to be arraigned on a felony charge next month, court records show.As The Daily Beast first reported earlier on Wednesday, Wohl and a former business partner were both wanted on a warrant signed in Riverside County on Aug. 19.The warrant was recalled after Wohl—best known for a spree of bizarre, half-baked political schemes—appeared in court on Wednesday. He was released on his own recognizance until his Oct. 24 arraignment on a charge of unlawful sale of securities, prosecutors said.The allegation that Wohl and Johnson unlawfully sold securities centers on one of Wohl's financial companies, Montgomery Assets. A warrant application filed by the Riverside County District Attorney's Office notes that the three-year statute of limitations on the case was set to expire at the end of August 2019, meaning prosecutors had to file by the end of last month if they wanted to pursue charges."In 2016 Jacob Wohl and Matthew Johnson represented themselves as members of a company called Montgomery Assets," the warrant application reads. "On July 27, 2016 through August 27, 2016 Jacob Wohl and Matthew Johnson offered for sale unqualified securities in violation of California Corporations Code 25110 which has a three year statute of limitations and must be tolled by the issuance of an arrest warrant."Send The Daily Beast a TipWohl, who became infamous on Twitter for his devoted replies to presidential tweets and fake claims to have heard liberals praising Trump in "hipster coffee shops," didn't respond to a request for comment. Johnson also couldn't be reached for comment.Wohl's detractors have often puzzled over how, until now, he had avoided serious legal consequences. That's because Wohl has routinely pushed the legal and political envelope to seemingly absurd lengths.In November 2018, Wohl teamed up with Washington lobbyist Jack Burkman for a spectacularly failed attempt to concoct a bogus sexual assault smear against then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The pair also attempted to fake a similar allegation against Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg, which flopped after The Daily Beast obtained audio of Wohl and Burkman trying to pressure a potential "victim" into making a false allegation against Buttigieg. In February, Wohl faked a death threat against himself, then reported the bogus crime to Minneapolis police. This summer, a phone number associated with Wohl was used to threaten a former GOP campaign worker, although Wohl denied involvement in the incident.Did a Far-Right Star Recruit Jacob Wohl to Terrorize Women?The California charge against Wohl, 21, dates back to his pre-politics career in finance. In 2016, Wohl, then a teenager, portrayed himself in media reports and pitches to potential investors as a hedge fund wunderkind. Investigators with the National Futures Association started to look into the operations of another Wohl company after a client complained that Wohl claimed to have rapidly increased the client's $75,000 investment to $89,000. When the client tried to withdraw his money, however, Wohl allegedly only sent back $44,000. The investigators noted in a report that Wohl's promotional materials for the company claimed that Wohl had nine years of trading experience. That claim meant that Wohl, then 17 or 18 years old, would have been trading since he was 8 or 9 years old. Wohl withdrew from the NFA ahead of the investigation, and eventually received a lifetime ban from the group. Jacob Wohl Defends Tricking College Kid to Accuse Mayor Pete of Sexual Assault: He Got a Caramel FrappuccinoWohl has faced other consequences over his financial work. In 2017, the Arizona Corporation Commission ordered Wohl to pay nearly $33,000 in restitution, as well as an additional $5,000, for alleged violations of securities law. A commission spokeswoman told the Arizona Republic in Nov. 2018 that Wohl had not made any payments on the money that he owed under the fine.Despite those setbacks, Wohl hasn't left finance behind entirely. Ahead of the 2020 presidential race, Wohl solicited potential investors on a plan to profit from political betting markets by manipulating them with fake scandals and other fraudulent news stories. It's not clear what happened to that plan.Sari Fordham contributed reporting.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| India's $145 million lunar mission is set to make it just the 4th nation to make a soft landing on the moon, only months after NASA called its actions in space 'unacceptable' Posted: 05 Sep 2019 06:22 AM PDT  If the mission is successful, India will follow in the footsteps of China, Russia, and the US, in making a soft moon landing.
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| Pope says attacks by US Catholic critics an 'honour' Posted: 04 Sep 2019 10:29 AM PDT  Pope Francis described attacks on him by ultra-conservative US Catholics Wednesday as an "honour", minimising efforts by rebels to besmirch his papacy. The ultra-conservative wing of the church in the United States frequently takes aim at Francis, saying he is not outspoken enough on abortion, too compassionate towards homosexuals and divorcees, and too accommodating towards Muslims. "The American attacks on me are an honour," the Argentine -- elected in 2010 as the world's first Latin American pope -- said in reference to critics who accuse him of softening the Church's stance.
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| Pence says he hopes for orderly Brexit amid showdown Posted: 04 Sep 2019 07:41 AM PDT  U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on Wednesday he hoped Great Britain and the European Union would reach a deal for an orderly UK exit from the bloc, commenting on the issue that has convulsed British politics for months and reached a crescendo this week. Pence, who is due to meet UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday, told reporters during a visit to Iceland that the United States stands with the UK in its decision to leave the EU.
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| See Photos of the Zenvo TSR-S Hypercar Posted: 04 Sep 2019 11:12 AM PDT |
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