Last Call For The Obamaconomy

After years of income gains going only to the wealthiest Americans, 2015 finally saw the rest of the economy turn the corner as the country recorded its first middle class gains since 2007 and a sharp drop in the nation's poverty rate.

The Census Bureau released new numbers on Tuesday showing that, after a brutal economic recession and years of stagnation, real median household incomes rose from $53,718 in 2014 to $56,516 last year. That's a 5.2 percent rise — the first statistically significant increase since 2007. 

But, as NPR's Pam Fessler notes, "the median household income was still lower than it was in 2007." 

The official poverty rate decreased to 13.5 percent for last year, a drop of 1.2 percentage points. That represents 3.5 million people who are no longer in poverty and is the largest annual percentage point drop since 1999, the Census Bureau says. 

The supplemental poverty measure — an alternate way of gauging poverty, which takes more factors into account — also dropped significantly, falling by 1 percentage point to 14.3 percent. 

"Poverty dropped for whites, blacks and Hispanics, as well as for children and seniors," Pam reports. 

The number of people with health insurance also rose. More than 90 percent of Americans are covered by health insurance — an increase of 1.3 percentage points since 2014, and growth of 4.3 percentage points since the major provisions of the Affordable Care Act, the Bureau says. 

Last year, 29 million people did not have health insurance, representing 9.1 percent of the population. 

Across the board, the Census Bureau's 2015 numbers show significant signs of progress and reflect a recovering economy. 

The 5.2 percent increase in median household income, in particular, was impressive — "one of the largest year-to-year increases that we've ever had," Trudi Renwick of the Census Bureau said. 

Income rose in every region of the country, for every age group of household head, with statistically significant increases for almost every racial group.

But there was one group that didn't share in the country's growth:

But as The New York Times' Nate Cohn points out, rural America didn't experience the same growth as the rest of the country. The median income for people living outside of metropolitan areas dropped 2 percent, to $44,657.

Economic anxiety in the heartland!

Seriously, America's cities are booming.  Red state farm country, not so much.  But hey, guess what? They get to vote too, and they've put their money on Trump.  The ultimate NYC city slicker.

That makes sense, right?

North Carolina Goes Into The Crapper, Con't

Apparently since losing the NBA All-Star Game wasn't enough to make NC Gov. Pat McCrory and the rest of the NC GOP in the legislature to drop the state's ridiculous and discriminatory HB2 law, it's time to hit the Tarheel State where it hurts: March Madness.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association said on Monday that it would relocate all seven previously awarded championship events from North Carolina during the 2016-17 academic year because of concerns over laws passed by the state that it said violated the civil rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

The N.C.A.A. said the decision by its board of governors was based on “the cumulative actions taken by the state concerning civil rights protections” that conflicted with the organization’s commitment to “fairness and inclusion.”

“Fairness is about more than the opportunity to participate in college sports, or even compete for championships,” Mark Emmert, the N.C.A.A. president, said in a statement. “We believe in providing a safe and respectful environment at our events and are committed to providing the best experience possible for college athletes, fans and everyone taking part in our championships.”

The move by the N.C.A.A. comes less than two months after the National Basketball Association said it would move next February’s All-Star Game from Charlotte as a protest against a North Carolina law that canceled anti-discrimination protections for L.G.B.T. people. Earlier, a number of performers canceled concerts in the state, including Bruce Springsteen, Ringo Starr and Itzhak Perlman.

The N.C.A.A. said on Monday that the legal situation facing L.G.B.T. people in North Carolina was unique because of what it called “four specific factors.”

Among them were laws that barred transgender people from using public restrooms that correspond to their gender identity and laws that allow government officials to refuse to provide services to L.G.B.T. people.

The N.C.A.A. also criticized a North Carolina law that forbids local municipalities from passing their own anti-discrimination laws that included sexual orientation or gender identity. Five states and a number of cities have also passed laws that bar public employees and representatives of public institutions from traveling to North Carolina, which the organization said could be interpreted to include student athletes and university athletics staff members.

In addition to losing the first and second round NCAA men's basketball regionals in Greensboro, the state is also losing soccer, lacrosse, tennis and baseball regional and championship events.  Losing the women's College Cup soccer championship is a blow, but being the Governor that lost March Madness in North Carolina is something that really will get Pat McCrory ejected from office faster than you can say "Demon Deacons".

The Southeast regionals get held in Greensboro pretty much every year, as we take our college basketball pretty damn seriously back home in ACC country, and believe me when I say this is damn well going to get the attention of voters in NC. McCrory is in real trouble because of this.

And I can't wait for him to get the hook.

A Streetcar Named Connector

Cincinnati's streetcar is now in full swing this week, branded the Cincinnati Bell Connector (because everything has naming rights in 2016) and passengers are, for now, lining up to get around downtown.

Lunch in Over-the-Rhine or at The Banks Monday?

Definitely, said streetcar riders. On its first full day of paid rides, lunchtime meant stuffed streetcars.

The Enquirer rode the Cincinnati Bell Connector for several loops during the morning commute and lunchtime to see how popular it was on its first day of paid operation. Crowds had jammed the new streetcar over the weekend - when it was free to ride.

Ty Harris, 30, of Over-the-Rhine hopped on the streetcar at Findlay Market at 7:30 a.m. to get to his job at General Electric at The Banks.

Harris thinks he'll be a heavy user of the streetcar, using it to get to work and lunch in Over-the-Rhine, previously too far from GE's temporary home on Fourth Street.

"This will be incredibly convenient," Harris said.

There was light ridership from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. Roughly a dozen people rode at any given time in one streetcar, using it to get to work.

Lunch was an entirely different story. There were lines for the pay machines and, at times, nowhere to sit.

Mary Cassidy-Anger, a Cincinnati native in town on business from Washington D.C., was at The Banks when she decided to ride up to Over-the-Rhine for lunch and to see how much the neighborhood flourished since she left.

"This is a much better way to get around than driving," she said. "I don't have to worry about parking,"

Tammy Monjaras lives in Landen and works at Franciscan Media in Over-the-Rhine, an hour-long commute. She rode the streetcar at lunchtime Monday to help her gauge a new commute. She'll ride the bus and use the streetcar to get to work. on Liberty Street.

The streetcar opened Friday at noon, a project eight years in the making. The $148 million streetcar runs on a 3.6-mile loop, from The Banks to Over-the-Rhine, making 18 stops.

It costs $1 to ride for two hours, or $2 for a day pass. Ridership is projected at 3,000 people a day.

Two bucks for a day pass definitely beats paying several times that for parking, especially if you can take a TANK or Metro bus into downtown to beat parking completely.  Next time I hit downtown, I definitely want to try this out.  Well, that is if the bomb threats don't keep shutting the service down but of course you have to expect problem during the first week.

Still, the real question is if streetcars will still be full in January, or next spring, or five years from now.  So far at least the streetcar seems to be pretty popular, especially in hipster OTR. 

Now, getting this to the rest of Cincy?  That's the real challenge. And there's always Mayor Cranley, who was elected to scrap the streetcar completely, and will face voters in 2017 after throwing up his hands and saying "Meh, it's probably not so bad."

But for now, the streetcar is on the go.

StupidiNews!

• The White House continues to confirm that President Obama will veto any legislation that allows 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia in court.
• Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte is ordering US special forces advisers to leave the country as relations between Manila and Washington continue to worsen.
• The US is expected to sign a 10-year, $38 billion military aid agreement with Israel later this week, a record package in exchange for "major concessions" from the Netanyahu government.
• LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman is offering $5 million in charity to veterans if Donald Trump publicly releases his tax returns by October 19.
• Chevy will have its new 238-mile range Bolt electric car in dealerships before the end of the year to make the first strike against Tesla's delayed Model 3.

Last Call For The 2016 View From Bevinstan

Since KY GOP Gov. Matt Bevin has been up to his eyeballs in lawsuits lately about him unilaterally firing entire state advisory boards on issues ranging from university boards of trustees to farm advisers, he hasn't really had a whole lot of time lately to open his mouth on the 2016 election.

Until this weekend at the right-wing Values Voter Summit, that is.

“We don’t have multiple options,” he warned. “We’re going one way or we’re going the other way, politically, spiritually, morally, economically, from a liberty standpoint. We’re going one way or we’re going the other way.” 

He continued by telling a story about confronting a professor while he was in college after he claimed the professor mocked Christianity, which he said liberals are known to do frequently. 

“They try to silence us,” Bevin said. “They try to get us to shut our mouths. They try to embarrass us. Don’t be embarrassed. We were not redeemed to have a spirit of timidity.” He tried to inspire young people, “Be bold. There’s enough Neville Chamberlains in the world. Be a Winston Churchill…There are quite enough sheep already. Be a shepherd.”
Bevin believes that America’s freedom has been “purchased at an extraordinary price,” citing the lives of a half million Americans who have died in uniform. “America is worth fighting for. America is worth fighting for, ideologically.” 

He encouraged the audience to fight in every possibly way so that they aren’t forced “to do it physically.” However, he argues that it may come to the shedding of blood. 

“I will tell you this: I do think it would be possible, but at what price?” he said, after being asked if he thought America would survive Clinton. “At what price? The roots of the tree of liberty are watered by what? The blood, of who? The tyrants to be sure, but who else? The patriots.” 

He continued wondering whose blood will be shed in this possible physical confrontation. “It may be that of those in this room. It might be that of our children and grandchildren. I have nine children. It breaks my heart to think that it might be their blood that is needed to redeem something, to reclaim something, that we through our apathy and our indifference have given away.”

What a super guy, my governor.  He's calling for patriots to shed the blood of tyrants if Clinton is elected.  That's not problematic or anything.

Just goes to show you that the basket of deplorables includes several sitting Republicans in state and federal elected offices.

Meanwhile, In President Land

Don't look now, but President Obama's approval ratings have only gotten better over the last few months, as the specter of "President Trump" has finally started to make people hum Joni Mitchell's "Don't Know What You've Got (Til It's Gone)."

The last time that President Obama's approval rating in Washington Post-ABC News polling was as high as it is in ournew survey was six months after he took office. At 58 percent, Obama's approval is 15 points higher than it was on the eve of the 2014 elections, where his party got blown out. Hillary Clinton's hope is that the reversal of opinions on Obama two years later will also lead to a reversal of fortunes for other Democrats — and there's reason to think that it will. 

We'll start by noting that Obama's approval rating in our survey is quite a bit higher than in other recent polls. Earlier this month, CNN-ORC had him at 51 percent. At the end of August, Fox had him at 54. But even in Gallup's weekly averages, Obama has been over 50 percent for most of this year. 

In the past, we've seen a good correlation between final vote share and Post-ABC approval polling — even when the approval rating was tested in August or September of the same year. The line on the graphs below shows that correlation for years that we have data: As presidential approval improves, so does the vote share of the president's party. At the low end are 1992, when Bill Clinton beat George H.W. Bush, and 1980, when Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter. At the high end are the reelections of Lyndon Johnson, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. High approval, high results. Low approval, low results. 

It's a pretty solid correlation.  Nixon, JFK, and Ike got big numbers with big approval ratings, Carter and Poppy Bush did not. Dubya of course ran into the buzzsaw of the financial crisis and his numbers only got worse.

By this measure, Hillary Clinton should be able to win handily.

Healthy Skepticism Of Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton's diagnosis of pneumonia over the weekend, resulting in the cancellation of her latest West Coast swing this week, has Republicans salivating, assured that Trump will now easily win in November because of course it can't possibly be simple pneumonia, because Clinton lies about everything.  If you think that's stupid, it is, but that's exactly what the Clinton-hating press believes.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is coming under fire for failing to disclose that she was diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday, and for saying she simply got “overheated” at the 9/11 memorial service in New York, when video showed her knees buckling as aides helped her into a waiting van.

It wasn’t until shortly after 11:00 a.m. ET Sunday that the campaign put out a terse statement saying that Clinton had “departed to go to her daughter's apartment, and is feeling much better.” There was no explicit acknowledgment that Clinton had left the ceremony earlier than planned, nor any mention of what looked to be a fainting spell.

Clinton herself sought to project that all was well, stepping outside of her Chelsea’s apartment some 45 minutes later. "I'm feeling great, it's a beautiful day in New York," she said, taking a moment to greet a small girl before piling back into the van to head home to Westchester County.

Not until 5:15 p.m. did the campaign revealed that she had in fact been diagnosed with pneumonia and put on antibiotics a day earlier, after what her doctor called a “follow-up evaluation of her prolonged cough.”

OK, she was sick, she's feeling good enough to attend events by teleconference, but of course because our media both despises and wants to destroy Hillary Clinton, this is now a Major Campaign Fumble.

Frustration with the Clinton campaign’s handling of the incident boiled over among political journalists on Twitter.

Jonathan Martin, national correspondent for the New York Times, tweeted, “Hillary camp now reveals that her doctor diagnosed her pneumonia on Friday & put her on antibiotics. Only disclosed after this am's episode.”

“I don't understand why Clinton aides weren't telling reporters at 10:30am: ‘pneumonia,’” CNN media reporter Brian Stelter wrote.

“Of course they should have disclosed this. This isn't a cold,” added Chuck Todd, the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Maybe because this is exactly the reaction she would have gotten if she had said something.  We expect our presidents to be super-human.  Dick Cheney had serious heart problems and nobody seemed to care, never mind that Clinton has been held to a higher standard of proving she's "as strong as a man" in every political aspect.

But Trump supporters are cackling to themselves that Clinton leaving Sunday's 9/11 memorial service in NYC to recover in daughter Chelsea's apartment is the end of the race and her political career, as it's proof of everything from cancer to Parkinson's disease to stroke.

The press seems to think "there's something there."  Or, they want there to be.  After all, they have to keep the race close to sell ads.

Meanwhile, Trump, older and in worse physical shape than Hillary, has been really, really quiet on this so far...

How odd.

StupidiNews!

Vacation's over, and back to the issues at hand.  Thanks for sticking around last week, dear readers.

• Memorial events in NYC, Washington DC, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania marked the 15th anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 attack on the United States.
• The US, Japan, and South Korea are all looking at sanctions against North Korea in the wake of Friday's underground nuclear test by Pyongyang.
• Syrian rebels are cautiously agreeing to a week-long cease fire sponsored by US and Russian agreement, but sporadic battles continue across the country.
• Samsung's market value has dropped by more than $20 billion after US officials cautioned Samsung Galaxy Note 7 users to stop using their smartphones due to battery safety issues.
• After 45 years of controversy, a 900-year-old Mayan astronomy codex has been confirmed by experts and scientists to now be the oldest book found in the Americas.

A Deplorable Basket Case

The right-wing outrage du jour this weekend is Hillary Clinton daring to tell the truth about Trump supporters and the Village media is shocked, shocked to the point of needing multiple fainting couches.

Hillary Clinton told an audience of donors Friday night that half of Donald Trump's supporters fall into "the basket of deplorables," meaning people who are racist, sexist, homophobic or xenophobic. 

In an effort to explain the support behind Trump, Clinton went on to describe the rest of Trump supporters as people who are looking for change in any form because of economic anxiety and urged her supporters to empathize with them. 

"To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables," Clinton said. "Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it." 

She added, "And unfortunately, there are people like that and he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric." 

Clinton then said some of these people were "irredeemable" and "not America." 

Trump and Republicans quickly pounced on the remarks, which drew comparisons to President Barack Obama's comments about clinging to "guns and religion" at a 2008 campaign fundraiser and Mitt Romney's "47 percent" remark in 2012. 

"Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of amazing, hard working people. I think it will cost her at the Polls!" Trump tweeted Saturday morning.

And the false outrage from this will last for some time, I figure.  People still identify as "bitter clingers" after then candidate Obama made that statement eight years ago, even though it was taken way out of context.

But there's no taking this out of context.  Clinton straight up told the truth here about the racism, xenophobia, misogyny and hatred fueling Trump, and his supporters are furious today.  The problem is a lot of Village pundits are furious too, scolding Clinton for "mocking the electorate" which makes you wonder why they're so eager to defend Trump.

This is a guy who has made sweeping generalizations about black folk, Latinos, women, immigrants, Muslims, and has done it time and time again, but we're all mad at Clinton.

I see.

Reaching The Point Of "Now, We Turn"

Earlier this week, commenter Prup predicted that Wednesday night's military issues presidential candidate forum with Matt Lauer may have been a turning point in the campaign.

I don't have a specific reason, but I expect this competing town hall event may be looked back as one of the most important events in the campaign, for any number of reasons.

It's starting to look like Prup was right on the money as now the Washington Post editorial board is weighing in on Lauer's downright silly performance.

JUDGING BY the amount of time NBC’s Matt Lauer spent pressing Hillary Clinton on her emails during Wednesday’s national security presidential forum, one would think that her homebrew server was one of the most important issues facing the country this election. It is not. There are a thousand other substantive issues — from China’s aggressive moves in the South China Sea to National Security Agency intelligence-gathering to military spending — that would have revealed more about what the candidates know and how they would govern. Instead, these did not even get mentioned in the first of 5½ precious prime-time hours the two candidates will share before Election Day, while emails took up a third of Ms. Clinton’s time.

Sadly, Mr. Lauer’s widely panned handling of the candidate forum was not an aberration. Judging by polls showing that voters trust Mr. Trump more than Ms. Clinton, as well as other evidence, it reflects a common shorthand for this election articulated by NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick last week: “You have Donald Trump, who’s openly racist,” he said. Then, of Ms. Clinton: “I mean, we have a presidential candidate who’s deleted emails and done things illegally and is a presidential candidate. That doesn’t make sense to me, because if that was any other person, you’d be in prison.”

In fact, Ms. Clinton’s emails have endured much more scrutiny than an ordinary person’s would have, and the criminal case against her was so thin that charging her would have been to treat her very differently. Ironically, even as the email issue consumed so much precious airtime, several pieces of news reported Wednesday should have taken some steam out of the story. First is a memo FBI Director James B. Comey sent to his staff explaining that the decision not to recommend charging Ms. Clinton was “not a cliff-hanger” and that people “chest-beating” and second-guessing the FBI do not know what they are talking about. Anyone who claims that Ms. Clinton should be in prison accuses, without evidence, the FBI of corruption or flagrant incompetence.

For the Washington Post to come in using an editorial position to say that the coverage of Hillary Clinton's e-mails is too much ado about nothing is what should have been said months ago, but at least the Post is finally making noise about it now.

And yes, that seems like something of a turning point to me.

Last Call For Back To (No) Work

Congress is back in session, and Republicans are immediately back to their usual nonsense, this time holding funding for fighting the Zika virus hostage again and Democrats not falling for it as the measure would have eliminated all federal funding for Planned Parenthood as well as returned the Confederate flag to national monuments and cemeteries.

McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) have both vowed to get money out the door to fight Zika by the end of September. Senate GOP leaders acknowledged for the first time Tuesday that the Zika funding will likely be wrapped into the stopgap spending bill, known as the continuing resolution.

"You know I assume that it would be wrapped in the year-end fiscal negotiations that would lead to some sort of continuing resolution. That's my assumption," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the Senate majority whip, told reporters just before Tuesday’s failed vote.

Some Republicans, including those in Florida facing the most intense pressure on Zika funding, have already hinted that the GOP will have to drop its Planned Parenthood language to get a bill passed in the upper chamber.

“For this to get done, that language just may have to go away,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a leading negotiator on Zika who faces reelection this fall, told McClatchy.

The Senate’s bill would have provided about $1.1 billion, including about $350 million in new money and the rest coming from existing health accounts, such as a fund for fighting the Ebola virus.

Earlier this summer, the Senate approved a different, bipartisan $1.1 billion funding package, though it was ultimately in the House because the funding was not offset.

Both bills are shy of the White House’s total $1.9 billion request, which Republicans from Florida — such as vulnerable incumbents Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Carlos Curbelo — have backed.

Where this goes now, I can't tell you, other than hey, the babies that Republicans care about because they're "pro-life" will continue to die, or continue to be born with preventable birth defects, because 
Republicans want to win points in an election year.

And this is all the House and Senate GOP.  Trump doesn't have to lift a finger to show the world how awful all the non-Trump GOP are.

The Coming Av-Hill-Lanche, Con't

Hillary Clinton is going to win, and the main reason is because Donald Trump will bring unprecedented turnout for voters of color, and college-educated white women...unprecedented turnout, that is, for Hillary Clinton.  The suburbs of Philadelphia, like Blue Bell, PA, are exactly the kind of place where Clinton will make the largest Democratic gains in swing states across the nation, and that will total up to a thrashing come November.

Trump is badly lagging every previous Republican nominee with educated white women. Among white women with a college degree, Romney earned 52 per cent to Obama’s 46 per cent in 2012. Democrat Hillary Clinton, the first female nominee of a major party, is trouncing Trump 58 per cent to 38 per cent, ABC/Washington Post polling suggests.

No Republican has won Pennsylvania since 1988. Trump, behind in more diverse states, needs it desperately. He is trailing by seven percentage points. The four “collar counties” around Philadelphia — Montgomery, Bucks, Chester and Delaware — are a large part of the reason why.

“They’re hugely important. You had 1.2 of 5.5 million votes cast in 2012 cast in four counties,” said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College. “It’s virtually impossible for either party to carry the state if they don’t do well there. In fact, you usually have to win.”

The counties have been trending toward the Democrats for 25 years. Republican voters there, Madonna said, tend to mix fiscal conservatism with liberal positions on issues like gun control, abortion rights and climate change. Trump has staked out right-wing stances on all three.

Blue Bell went narrowly for Obama in the last election. An unscientific sample on Monday was notably lopsided: of 37 women, 22 preferred Clinton versus only eight who said they would vote for Trump or were likely to do so.

Their chief concern about Trump was not policy. They objected most strongly to his behaviour, to his attitudes toward women, and to his disparagement of Muslims, Hispanics and African-Americans.

“I think Trump is disgusting and awful and everything about him makes me sick,” said Stefani Bohm, 43, a psychotherapist.

“Clinton, because Trump’s a lunatic,” said Miranda Sarwer, 44, who works in the pharmaceutical industry. “He’s a bigot, he’s a racist.”

And Republican women can't bring themselves to vote for Trump.  Again, Romney won this group in 2012 and still lost the election.  What happens when Clinton increases her lead with voters of color, and then makes a 26-point turnaround with white women with degrees on top of that? 

We're going to find out.

The Pause That Refreshes

Bit of a vacation for me this week, so I won't be posting quite as much until I'm back on Monday, but I'll be around a bit should anything nifty pop up for you.

Also, ZVTS hit 8 last month and I didn't even notice, so happy blogday to me, and as always thanks to all the folks that read, comment, and cheer the place on.

Carry on.

Last Call For Clinton Derangement Syndrome 2.0

Republicans are getting so desperate with Donald Trump's collapse that they're actually resorting to calling for special prosecutor for Clinton's confirmation hearings as Secretary of State.

Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (Texas) said Hillary Clinton misled lawmakers eight years ago when questions about the Clinton Foundation loomed over her nomination to head the State Department.

Cornyn held up her nomination because of concerns over potential conflicts of interest posed by the foundation’s fundraising activities. He finally relented and voted for her after Clinton promised him that safeguards would be followed.

In the wake of various reports detailing instances where the foundation did not fully comply with transparency requirements, Cornyn now says he would have voted against her had he known what was to come.“When I put a hold on Mrs. Clinton’s nomination as secretary of State, she reassured me that they would take appropriate steps,” he told The Hill in an interview Friday. “As seems to be usual for the Clintons, they crossed the line and all the concerns that she reassured me would not occur did in fact occur.

“She was playing both sides. As she was performing her job of secretary of State, the Clinton Foundation was shaking down donors who were buying access. It’s absolutely deplorable.”

Cornyn said the only way to know whether foreign donors to the foundation gained improper access to Clinton while at the State Department would be for President Obama to appoint a special prosecutor.

For months, Cornyn has called for a special prosecutor to investigate allegations that Clinton mishandled classified information on a private email server while at State.

“Once again the rules don’t apply to them like they apply to everybody else. Can you imagine if anybody else in the United States government had tried to get away with something like this? It wouldn’t have happened,” he said.

And make no mistake, this isn't aimed at Republicans at all, but at nervous Democrats to try to get them to think that Donald Trump would be preferable to four years of daily "Republicans Call For Special Prosecutor As X Looms Over Clinton" stories.

The correct response is "Maybe if Democrats controlled both the White House and the Senate in 2017, this would go away.  Let's make both happen."

Far be it from me to advise.

He's A Rocket Mensch

SpaceX's spectacular and catastrophic test fire failure Friday that resulted in the total destruction of the company's Dragon rocket and its satellite payload cost hundreds of millions of dollars, sure.  But what people haven't been talking about as much is the fact that SpaceX's client was effectively Israel's space program.

A large question mark looms over Israel’s space industry after its prized Amos-6 satellite blew up in last week’s failed SpaceX rocket launch.

Space Communication Ltd., the Israeli company that was to operate the Amos-6, is still picking up the pieces and deciding what to do next. The government will formulate a long-term national space program, and may help develop a communications satellite, the Science Ministry said late Sunday after an emergency meeting with representatives of the country’s space industries.

The Sept. 1 accident in Cape Canaveral, Florida was the biggest blow to Israel’s space program since the death of astronaut Col. Ilan Ramon in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003.

The setback imperils Space Com’s deal with China’s Beijing Xinwei Group for control of the company, but presents an opportunity for Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd., the state-owned weapons manufacturer that built Amos-6. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can allot some of the estimated $300 million to pay IAI to build another satellite for Space Com, its sole client for such products, but first must decide if satellites are an industry of national strategic importance.

“This is a traumatic experience for the industry, but allows us to hold this discussion that should have happened 10-15 years ago,” Yossi Weiss, IAI’s chief executive officer, said Sunday.

Now I find this all intriguing that the end result of a major technical disaster appears to be moving Israel's satellite program away from a joint commercial venture with Beijing and towards a Israeli military takeover in the name of national interest, something that's been discussed for ten or fifteen years.

The government could push to build a new satellite and maintain the independence of Israel’s space industry, according to Tal Inbar, head of the space and UAV research center at the Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, based in Herzliya, Israel.

Keeping the country’s space industry in-house shields it from pro-Palestinian activists who apply political pressure on foreign companies to stop doing business with Israel, Inbar said. Satellites also serve as backup for Israel’s communications infrastructure in the event of war or technical malfunction, he added.

"There’s a synergy in the triangle between Space Com, its biggest client, and its supplier, in that they’re all Israeli companies," Inbar said in an interview. "They understand each other and would be responsive to each other, so that they could amend issues in the satellite, if need be, in no time."

You don't say.  Gosh, that's quite the long-term benefit if you're the Israeli military. 

Just throwing that out there.

The Black Millennial Blame Game

Whenever the polls get close as they have recently with the switch from registered voters to likely voter models, the media starts looking for "answers" other than the obvious like "switch from registered voters to likely voter models".  That doesn't sell copy, so there's been a lot of effort to find instead someone to pin the blame on in case Clinton loses.  Jonathan Martin of the NYT confirms that group is black Millennials in 2016.

When a handful of liberal advocacy organizations convened a series of focus groups with young black voters last month, the assessments of Donald J. Trump were predictably unsparing.

But when the participants were asked about Hillary Clinton, their appraisals were just as blunt and nearly as biting.

“What am I supposed to do if I don’t like him and I don’t trust her?” a millennial black woman in Ohio asked. “Choose between being stabbed and being shot? No way!”

“She was part of the whole problem that started sending blacks to jail,” a young black man, also from Ohio, observed about Mrs. Clinton.

“He’s a racist, and she is a liar, so really what’s the difference in choosing both or choosing neither?” another young black woman from Ohio said.

Young African-Americans, like all voters their age, are typically far harder to drive to the polls than middle-aged and older Americans. Yet with just over two months until Election Day, many Democrats are expressing alarm at the lack of enthusiasm, and in some cases outright resistance, some black millennials feel toward Mrs. Clinton.

Their skepticism is rooted in a deep discomfort with the political establishment that they believe the 68-year-old former first lady and secretary of state represents. They share a lingering mistrust of Mrs. Clinton and her husband over criminal justice issues. They are demanding more from politicians as part of a new, confrontational wave of black activism that has arisen in response to police killings of unarmed African-Americans.

“We’re in the midst of a movement with a real sense of urgency,” explained Brittany Packnett, 31, a St. Louis-based leader in the push for police accountability. Mrs. Clinton is not yet connecting, she said, “because the conversation that younger black voters are having is no longer one about settling on a candidate who is better than the alternative.”

The question of just how many young African-Americans will show up to vote carries profound implications for this election. Mrs. Clinton is sure to dominate Mr. Trump among black voters, but her overwhelming margin could ultimately matter less than the total number of blacks who show up to vote.

To replicate President Obama’s success in crucial states such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, she cannot afford to let the percentage of the electorate that is black slip far below what it was in 2012. And while a modest drop-off of black votes may not imperil Mrs. Clinton’s prospects, given Mr. Trump’s unpopularity among upscale white voters, it could undermine Democrats’ effort to capture control of the Senate and win other down-ballot elections.

Elon James White, in particular, has been taking this approach, that real criminal justice and mass incarceration issues are the main thing for black voters in this election.  That's fine, he lives in California, a state that Clinton is in precisely zero danger of losing, it's good to spread awareness.

But these are black Millennial voters in Ohio, North Carolina, Viginia and Missouri we're talking about here. And the thing is Hillary Clinton has put her plans for addressing these issues right on her website.

"People are crying out for criminal justice reform. Families are being torn apart by excessive incarceration. Young people are being threatened and humiliated by racial profiling. Children are growing up in homes shattered by prison and poverty. They’re trying to tell us. We need to listen." 

Hillary Clinton, July 8, 2016

The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population but almost 25 percent of the total prison population. A significant percentage of the more than 2 million Americans incarcerated today are nonviolent offenders. African American men are far more likely to be stopped and searched by police, charged with crimes, and sentenced to longer prison terms than white men found guilty of the same offenses.

To successfully reform our criminal justice system, we must work to strengthen the bonds of trust between our communities and our police, end the era of mass incarceration, and ensure a successful transition of individuals from prison to home. As president, Hillary will focus on a few key areas.

And then it lists exactly what she plans to do about improving conditions with reforming police, to use the kind of collaborative policing approach that has worked here in Cincinnati, and to end the era of mass incarceration.   That's been there since July, and it's one of the major reasons I'm voting for her, not "against Trump" but for Hillary Clinton.

But nowhere in the article does Jon Martin mention this.

In Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, 70 percent of African-Americans under 35 said they were backing Mrs. Clinton, 8 percent indicated support for Mr. Trump and 18 percent said they were backing another candidate or did not know whom they would support. In 2012, Mr. Obama won 92 percent of black voters under 45 nationally, according to exit polling.

Over 25 percent of African-Americans are between 18 and 34, and 44 percent are older than 35, according to 2013 census data.

“There is no Democratic majority without these voters,” Mr. Belcher said. “The danger is that if you don’t get these voters out, you’ve got the 2004 John Kerry electorate again.”

In Ohio, for example, blacks were 10 percent of the electorate in the 2004 presidential race. But when Mr. Obama ran for re-election in 2012, that number jumped to 15 percent.

What frustrates many blacks under 40 is Mrs. Clinton’s overriding focus on Mr. Trump.

“We already know what the deal is with Trump,” said Nathan Baskerville, a 35-year-old North Carolina state representative. “Tell us what your plan is to make our life better.”

She has.

Nobody apparently has listened, and I'm actually pretty upset with this.

Such talk can be frustrating to Mrs. Clinton’s aides, who point out that her first speech of the campaign was on criminal justice and that she has laid out a series of proposals on the topic.

“It is on us to make sure that that’s known,” said Addisu Demissie, Mrs. Clinton’s voter outreach and mobilization director, adding of young black activists, “We share their goals, we share their values and we want to make sure that’s reflected through our campaign.”

The focus groups and interviews with young black activists suggest many of them are not aware of Mrs. Clinton’s plans regarding police conduct, mass incarceration and structural racism broadly.

Please note that this is being reported in a newspaper.  Perhaps the newspaper could do an article on Mrs. Clinton's plans regarding police conduct, mass incarceration, and structural racism broadly.

Just saying.

Last Call For Off The Menu

As much as I liked eating there as there's one right near my apartment, it may be time to stick a fork in Chipotle, folks.  

Nearly 10,000 workers are suing Chipotle for allegedly cheating them on their pay.
Current and former Chipotle employees claim that the company made them work extra hours "off the clock" without paying them. It's a practice known as wage theft, and Chipotle is allegedly doing it all over the United States. 

"Chipotle routinely requires hourly-paid restaurant employees to punch out, and then continue working until they are given permission to leave," according to the class action lawsuit known as Turner v. Chipotle. It's named after a former Chipotle manager in Colorado, Leah Turner, who claims she had to work without pay and was told to make workers under her do the same in order to meet budget goals. 

Chipotle denies any wrongdoing and says the case has no merit. The company says it has paid all wages it owes employees. 

Briana Alexander is one of the nearly 10,000 workers who have joined the lawsuit. She worked at a Chipotle in Miami, Florida for about a year, starting in the fall of 2013.
"Behind the scenes, [Chipotle] is not always what it seems," Alexander told CNNMoney. "I can say I have worked off the clock." 

Alexander says she was forced to stay late numerous times at her store. If the workers weren't done by midnight or 12:30am, they were clocked out but told to keep working until the job was finished, even though they were no longer getting paid. Alexander also claims she worked 12-hour shifts on some days, but was clocked out after her shift time ended even though she actually continued to work on busy days. 

Chipotle has faced similar lawsuits before, but this is the first time there has been such a large class action case against the company for wage theft. As of Friday, 9,961 current and former workers have sent in consent forms to join the lawsuit. 

They come from about every state that Chipotle operates in, according to lawyer Kent Williams of Williams Law Firm, who is representing the employees in Turner v. Chipotle. 

"Chipotle has argued this is a few rogue managers who aren't following policy. Our view, especially given the number of people opting in, is that it's a systematic problem at Chipotle," says Williams.

And I know what the obvious criticism is from a Glibertarian standpoint: better to be working for stolen wages than to be unemployed and getting $0.  And yes, I'm sure Chipotle's response will be "Well we will have to cut jobs and close underperforming locations now" if they lose this case.

But at some point, cheating workers out of money they are owed is a problem that has to be addressed.  As an IT professional I've been subject to wage theft.  When the state of KY came to me looking for evidence I complied.

That company is still going and they've hired more.  Hopefully, they pay their new workers fairly.

I doubt it, though.

Duterte Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap

Meanwhile in the Philippines, recently elected President Rodrigo Duterte, voted in on a "law and order platform" to apply the death penalty for drug pushers through , you know, illegal military death squads whenever possible, has responded to his first national terrorism crisis with the light, friendly version of outright martial law.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday declared a "state of lawlessness" in the country after 14 people were killed in a bomb blast at a night market in his home city.

Duterte's declaration came as the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group claimed responsibility for the late Friday attack that also injured 71 people, with the extremists warning of more attacks in the coming days.

The Philippine leader stressed that he had not declared martial law, but that the move would allow him to ask the military to conduct operations according to his instructions.

"These are extraordinary times," he told reporters during a visit before dawn at the site of the bomb attack in the southern city of Davao, where he used to be the mayor. "I can order soldiers to search premises."

Placing the country under a state of lawlessness empowers the president to call on the military to help the police in anti-crime operations.

In a statement, the office of the presidential spokesperson pointed out that the declaration has "limitations" as the president can only order the armed forces to quell violence.

Martial law can only be declared in certain situations, the statement continued. "Only if there is an invasion or a rebellion, and when public safety is at risk, can he (the president) suspend the writ of habeas corpus or declare martial law."

The statement called on Philippine citizens to be vigilant against "those who wish to create chaos."

Anyone want to take bets on how long before that declaration of martial law happens?  He's been in office for less than three months and he's running the classic military strongman playbook to an absolute T.

Since Rodrigo Duterte assumed the presidency of the Philippines eight weeks ago, the same scene has unfolded night after night in the slum neighborhoods of Manila: A shot rings out, and a person lies dead on the street with a cardboard sign laid next to him, scrawled with a single word: “Pusher.”

This is how Duterte’s war on drugs is playing out on the ground. It is a punitive campaign spurred by the president’s promises of immunity and even bounties to those who take drug users and traffickers “dead or alive.”Last week, the national police chief testified during a Senate inquiry that more than 1,900 people suspected of being involved in the drug trade or abusing drugs had been shot dead by police or “vigilantes” (that number nowapproaches 2,500). Over 10,000 people have been arrested, and at least 675,000 people have voluntarily surrendered to the authorities.

The numbers are staggering, but what remains unclear is whether those killed and imprisoned are even involved in the drug trade. According to bereaved relatives, Duterte’s take-no-prisoners approach has claimed former addicts, spouses of suspected drug peddlers, and even a 5-year old child as casualties. “Mothers are approaching me every week as their sons are threatened or listed in police precincts,” said Jean Enriquez, a long-time feminist leader who belongs to a coalition of 50 Philippine human rights organizations. “Being listed could mean death.”

The soaring rise in extrajudicial killings has invited scrutiny and condemnation from both international and domestic human rights groups, as well as institutions like the Catholic Church. But Duterte shows no sign of slowing down. Only last Friday, he brushed off criticism from the United Nations in an address to the Philippine military: “What crime against humanity? I’d like to be frank with you, are [drug users] humans?”

And keep in mind this was all before this weekend's declaration of "lawlessness", suddenly making those extrajudicial military death squads of his very, very legal.

Manila has suddenly become a extremely big international problem in the last several weeks, and it's only going to get worse.

Sunday Long Read: The Cure For What Ailes You

This week's Sunday Long Read is Gabriel Sherman's piece in NY Mag about the women who brought down FOX News chairman Roger Ailes, ending his two-decade run as the man who forever changed the cable news landscape for the worse.

And it couldn't have happened to a nicer asshole.

It began, of course, with a lawsuit. Of all the people who might have brought down Ailes, the former Fox & Friends anchor Gretchen Carlson was among the least likely. A 50-year-old former Miss America, she was the archetypal Fox anchor: blonde, right-wing, proudly anti-intellectual. A memorable Daily Show clip showed Carlson saying she needed to Google the words czar and ignoramus. But television is a deceptive medium. Off-camera, Carlson is a Stanford- and Oxford-educated feminist who chafed at the culture of Fox News. When Ailes made harassing comments to her about her legs and suggested she wear tight-fitting outfits after she joined the network in 2005, she tried to ignore him. But eventually he pushed her too far. When Carlson complained to her supervisor in 2009 about her co-host Steve Doocy, who she said condescended to her on and off the air, Ailes responded that she was “a man hater” and a “killer” who “needed to get along with the boys.” After this conversation, Carlson says, her role on the show diminished. In September 2013, Ailes demoted her from the morning show Fox & Friends to the lower-rated 2 p.m. time slot.

Carlson knew her situation was far from unique: It was common knowledge at Fox that Ailes frequently made inappropriate comments to women in private meetings and asked them to twirl around so he could examine their figures; and there were persistent rumors that Ailes propositioned female employees for sexual favors. The culture of fear at Fox was such that no one would dare come forward. Ailes was notoriously paranoid and secretive — he built a multiroom security bunker under his home and kept a gun in his Fox office, according to Vanity Fair — and he demanded absolute loyalty from those who worked for him. He was known for monitoring employee emails and phone conversations and hiring private investigators. “Watch out for the enemy within,” he told Fox’s staff during one companywide meeting.

Taking on Ailes was dangerous, but Carlson was determined to fight back. She settled on a simple strategy: She would turn the tables on his surveillance. Beginning in 2014, according to a person familiar with the lawsuit, Carlson brought her iPhone to meetings in Ailes’s office and secretly recorded him saying the kinds of things he’d been saying to her all along. “I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago, and then you’d be good and better and I’d be good and better. Sometimes problems are easier to solve” that way, he said in one conversation. “I’m sure you can do sweet nothings when you want to,” he said another time.

After more than a year of taping, she had captured numerous incidents of sexual harassment. Carlson’s husband, sports agent Casey Close, put her in touch with his lawyer Martin Hyman, who introduced her to employment attorney Nancy Erika Smith. Smith had won a sexual-harassment settlement in 2008 for a woman who sued former New Jersey acting governor Donald DiFranceso. “I hate bullies,” Smith told me. “I became a lawyer to fight bullies.” But this was riskier than any case she’d tried. Carlson’s Fox contract had a clause that mandated that employment disputes be resolved in private arbitration—which meant Carlson’s case could be thrown out and Smith herself could be sued for millions for filing.

Carlson’s team decided to circumvent the clause by suing Ailes personally rather than Fox News. They hoped that with the element of surprise, they would be able to prevent Fox from launching a preemptive suit that forced them into arbitration. The plan was to file in September 2016 in New Jersey Superior Court (Ailes owns a home in Cresskill, New Jersey). But their timetable was pushed up when, on the afternoon of June 23, Carlson was called into a meeting with Fox general counsel Dianne Brandi and senior executive VP Bill Shine, and fired the day her contract expired.* Smith, bedridden following surgery for a severed hamstring, raced to get the suit ready. Over the Fourth of July weekend, Smith instructed an IT technician to install software on her firm’s network and Carlson’s electronic devices to prevent the use of spyware by Fox. “We didn’t want to be hacked,” Smith said. They filed their lawsuit on July 6.

And the rest is now history.  Ailes was forced out of his position before the end of July after several additional women, mostly employees (and in some cases possible employees) of FOX News came forward to corroborate his slimy behavior.  The Murdochs kicked his ass to the curb following their own investigation into the matter.

The larger issue was of course that Ailes's cartoonish misogyny and sexual harassment, hush money payments and stalking, was one of the worst-kept secrets in the cable news business.  Say what you will about Gretchen Carlson (and many of us have, including myself) and her tenure on FOX and Friends, but standing up to Roger Ailes and ending his reign of frat boy garbage took serious courage, and she deserves respect and even admiration for it.

More power to you, ma'am.

Something Of A Soap Opera

Cincinnati is home to a lot of major corporations, Fifth Third Bank, Macy's, AK Steel and Western & Southern Insurance, but the big two by far are Kroger and Proctor & Gamble (now P&G).  The region makes a lot of money as HQ to two of the largest makers and sellers of consumer cleaning products you buy at the grocery store, so when the Obama administration called out manufacturers and retailers of antibacterial soaps on Friday and is banning the main ingredient in them, it's kind of a big deal around here.

The Food and Drug Administration banned the sale of soaps containing certain antibacterial chemicals on Friday, saying industry had failed to prove they were safe to use over the long term or more effective than using ordinary soap and water.

In all the F.D.A. took action against 19 different chemicals and has given industry a year to take them out of their products. About 40 percent of soaps — including liquid hand soap and bar soap – contain the chemicals. Triclosan, mostly used in liquid soap, and triclocarban, in bar soaps, are by far the most common.

The rule applies only to consumer hand washes and soaps. Other products may still contain the chemicals. At least one toothpaste, Colgate Total, still does, but the F.D.A. says its maker proved that the benefits of using it — reducing plaque and gum disease — outweigh the risks.

The agency is also studying the safety and efficacy of hand sanitizers and wipes, and has asked companies for data on three active ingredients — alcohol (ethanol or ethyl alcohol), isopropyl alcohol and benzalkonium chloride — before issuing a final rule on them.

Public health experts applauded the rule, which came after years of mounting concerns that the antibacterial chemicals that go into everyday products are doing more harm than good. Experts have pushed the agency to regulate antimicrobial chemicals, warning that they risk scrambling hormones in children and promoting drug-resistant infections.

“It has boggled my mind why we were clinging to these compounds, and now that they are gone I feel liberated,” said Rolf Halden, a scientist at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University, who has been tracking the issue for years. “They had absolutely no benefit but we kept them buzzing around us everywhere. They are in breast milk, in urine, in blood, in babies just born, in dust, in water.”

The agency first proposed the rule in 2013, when it told companies that unless they could prove that chemicals like triclosan and triclocarban did more good than harm, they would have to remove the products that contained them from the market. On Friday, the agency said that it was not convinced.

The F.D.A. has given industry more time to prove that an additional three chemicals are safe and effective — benzalkonium chloride,benzethonium chloride and chloroxylenol. Products with those chemicals can stay on the market for now.

And the drug resistance that antibacterial agents like triclosan are causing is not a joke.  We're rapidly running into resistant strains of infectious, treatable diseases like tuberculosis that are no longer treatable by the drugs we have. The age of antibiotics is rapidly coming to a close and the antibiotics we have now will probably be rendered all but useless within my lifetime.

It's probably a smart move by the FDA to keep a tight leash on chemicals like that.  Hand sanitizer, now ubiquitous in American society, is most likely next on the list.

We'll see what the FDA has to say about that soon.