JustOneMinute

I Believe It Is Prosperity For Our Time

Brexit? What Brexit? The S&P 500 closed at 2113 on Thursday, June 23, before the votes were counted in the UK. After the returns were in, the S&P 500 closed at 2037 on Friday and 2001 the following Monday, after dipping below 2000.

Yet a mere week later, the S&P 500 stands at 2083, nearly all the way back. I credit Obama's steady leadership as well as the candor and transparency of his likely successor, Ms. Clinton.

And the FTSE 100, meant to track the UK stock market, is above pre-Brexit levels. Of course, that does not adjust for the swoon in the pound, so a dollar-based investor in the UK is still down from last week.

Here is the recent action in S&P 500:

If you scooped up shares on Monday, give yourself a pat on the back. I did not do any buying, but I did view the sell-off as a terrific non-selling opportunity, so I had that going for me.

Gay Lives Matter, Maybe, But Covering For The Orlando PD Matters More

NY Times reporters Richard Perez-Pena and Frances Robles disgrace themselves in their coverage of the Orlando night club shooting. Per the Times, Questions Have Been Raised by the release of the Orlando PD logs, texts and emails:

Gunfire and Panicked Calls on Police Log of Orlando Shooting

It took just 16 minutes.

Emergency calls from inside the Pulse nightclub poured into the Orlando police in the early morning of June 12 from panicked and wounded revelers reporting the bloody scene as it played out. Dispatchers noted that they, too, could hear gunshots in the background, according to a police log that was among hundreds of pages of documents about the massacre released by the city on Tuesday.

The incident log gives a staccato narration, based on entries made in real time and time-stamped down to the minute and the second — the most detailed account yet of what happened after Omar Mateen, 29, armed with an assault rifle and a handgun, walked into a bustling club with a mostly gay and Latino clientele and opened fire.

Oh, the question?

Other documents released on Tuesday raised questions about whether one of Pulse’s exits might have been blocked.

Really? The elephant in the club gets a passing mention:

At the end of a three-hour standoff, for which some have criticized the police’s delayed response, 49 people had been killed and 53 wounded. But nearly all the slaughter took place in just those first 16 minutes.

"Some have criticized" the delayed response. Gee, do all these police logs shed any light on that controversy? Not in this story. Yet back on June 20 these same reporters, joined by Eric Lichtblau, were well aware of questions about the timeliness of the police response.

Let's cut to the WaPo coverage of the newly released logs:

Documents show chilling police calls, internal deliberations after Orlando shooting

Here is paragraph six and following:

The documents show people from all over the world, including many business leaders and public officials, emailed or texted Dyer and Mina to offer their support. Many praised the officials for their handling of the incident, though some questioned why police did not move more quickly to engage Mateen. Officials have said that after two shootouts, Mateen holed up with hostages inside a bathroom at Pulse, and police waited for hours to move in for a final confrontation because the gunfire had stopped. Mateen was ultimately killed in that last confrontation with Orlando police SWAT officers.

Police seemed sensitive about the insinuation that they had not made the right tactical decisions. When one emailer questioned the decision not to move on Mateen more quickly, Mina wrote to his staff director, “Come up with a standard response, thank you for your concern etc, and let me approve, then we can use for anymore of this nonsense.”

A police public affairs representative — addressing requests she had received to interview the officers who engaged Mateen — mused that making any available might subject them to tough lines of inquiry about the wait.

“In some instances, I would say we should try to produce someone, since that seems and feels like a very positive thing,” Michelle Guido, the public affairs representative, wrote. “But there’s so many ways it can go sideways of that officer is asked difficult questions (why did you wait 3 hours before going in, etc etc. …).”

Hmm, the WaPo found a controversy. How about the Wall Street Journal?

Orlando Shooting: Police Dispatch Records Illustrate Hours Before SWAT Team Sent In

Callers inside club reported where they were hiding, gunman’s whereabouts, severity of injuries

By Arian Campo-Flores  June 28, 2016 6:42 p.m. ET

Police dispatch records released Tuesday provided new details about what took place inside an Orlando, Fla., nightclub during the June 12 mass shooting and could fuel additional questions about why it took officials about three hours to send in a SWAT team to rescue hostages trapped in two bathrooms.

The records, among a large batch of documents released by the city of Orlando, appear to corroborate a reconstruction of gunman Omar Mateen’s movements published by The Wall Street Journal.

OK, so the WSJ led with the puzzling police response time. Yet the Times essentially ignored those questions? Wow. For a real blast at the Orlando PD, check out Bob Owens at Bearing Arms.

In evaluating NY Times reporting I frequently remind myself of a variation of an old adage - never ascribe to their political agenda what can be explained by mere incompetence. But in this case, since the Times is all-in for disarming the citizenry, I guess they have decided they need to downplay the reality that when minutes count the police are hours away. Or sometimes right in the next room, talking things over. But either way, the police are likely to put their own safety and protocols ahead of the disarmed victims they are meant to be protecting.

I don't mean to be teeing off on the police officers - they have a thankless job and get second-guessed whatever they do. But the Times still ought to take a chance and present their readership with a dose of reality here.

ERRATA: I love the name "Eric Lichtblau" and think it is terrific to see a Times reporter declare his political affiliation so plainly.

 

 

 

No New News

The NY Times adopts the tried-and-true Hillary line about "old news" in describing the final House report on Benghazi:

House Benghazi Report Finds No New Evidence of Wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton

That's reassuring for libs, who can find reassurance in the notion that they won't need to close their eyes to anything new, and can keep on ignoring the same old same old.

WASHINGTON — Ending one of the longest, costliest and most bitterly partisan congressional investigations in history, the House Select Committee on Benghazi issued its final report on Tuesday, finding no new evidence of culpability or wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton in the 2012 attacks in Libya that left four Americans dead.

The 800-page report, however, included some new details about the night of the attacks, and the context in which it occurred, and it delivered a broad rebuke of government agencies like the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department — and the officials who led them — for failing to grasp the acute security risks in the Libyan city, and especially for maintaining outposts in Benghazi that they could not protect.

The committee, led by Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, also harshly criticized an internal State Department investigation that it said had allowed officials like Mrs. Clinton, then the secretary of state, to effectively choose who would investigate their actions. In addition, it reiterated Republicans’ complaints that the Obama administration had sought to thwart the investigation by withholding witnesses and evidence.

The report, however, did not dispute that United States military forces stationed in Europe could not have reached Benghazi in time to rescue the personnel who died — a central finding of previous inquiries.

Still, it issued stinging criticism of the overall delay in response and the lack of preparedness on the part of the government.

“The assets ultimately deployed by the Defense Department in response to the Benghazi attacks were not positioned to arrive before the final lethal attack,” the committee wrote. “The fact that this is true does not mitigate the question of why the world’s most powerful military was not positioned to respond.”

“What was disturbing from the evidence the Committee found was that at the time of the final lethal attack,” the panel added, “no asset ordered deployed by the Secretary had even left the ground.

Timing is everything. As to how people could have known at the outset of the attack just how long it would go on, obviously Team Obama is staffed with seers and savants.

 

Sunday Morning Post Debacle Open Thread

Oh, brother.

OK, the Brexit question du jour - can London survive as the leading financial center of Europe (not to mention the world) if whatever is left of the UK is out of both the Euro and the EU?

In terms of current rankings, global finance is basically the old British Empire plus Zurich and Tokyo. Having English as the lingua franca is a plus, because bankers, lawyers and operations staff can flit around the globe relatively painlessly.

A logical long-term successor would be Frankfurt, currently placed at 18 on the global list. But would French, Italian and other European leaders - excuse me, "leaders" - be comfortable with Germany as the financial as well as commercial superpower of Europe?

Proponents of the "English spoken here" theory will note that Dublin (currently 39th) and post-independence Edinburgh (56th) are potential European alternatives.

That said, England will remain a major world economy with a very long history as a financial center with widely understood rules. It's decline would probably take decades.

Just A Flesh Wound

After shrugging off a period where Do futures were down over 500 points, the Dow is now down a mere 375. The S&P 500 is down, but only about 2% to 2067, so well off the overnight lows.

Sterling is getting pounded, down about 7% from yesterday's levels. Eurostocks are faring comparably poorly - Vanguard's FTSE Europe ETF is down 9% in dollar terms.

And what does it mean? You tell me.

Brexit Madness

Fiaancial markets are plunging as "Leave" shows unexpected strength.

The GBP is off about 6% to 1.4050; the S&P 500 futures are down 2.5% to 2053.

Time will tell!

UPDATE: Brits out!

On A Watchlist, Buying A Gun, And Then What?

We write of missing numbers: here is Eric Lichtblau of the NY Times on the topic of banning gun sales to people on one of the many (and very different - see BURIED TIDBITS below) terror watch lists:

After Orlando, Questions Over Effectiveness of Terrorism Watch Lists

...

From 2005 to 2015, nearly 2,500 people who appeared on the F.B.I.’s terrorism watch list attempted to buy a firearm, and 91 percent of the sales were approved, a study by the Government Accountability Office found.

That data comes from a GAO letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein and I know what you are not thinking, if you are busy promoting the progressive agenda. But I also know what I am thinking - what in the world was the follow-up to those 2,265 sales? Were there 2,265 incidents of mass shootings, bank robberies, and general terror? 200? 20? 2?

Surely the government sources that compiled this data have a clue - we are watching these people, yes? So why not present the follow-up data? Surely that would be helpful in informing our national debate.

Hmm, I am just guessing here, but... per the GAO letter, the first analysis was performed in 2010, with a follow-up in 2015. In other words, during the Obama Administration. So if more data was sought, it could have been. And I can't shake the feeling that if the actual result had been that 2,000 of these sales eventually led to arrests due to gun-related crimes, the GAO would have unearthed and publicized that factoid. Conversely, if these sales culminated in just 2 gun-related arrests, that factoid would have been have been buried by a Democratic Administration promoting its gun control safety agenda.

Of course, there is a third choice, which would amount to, well, it's complicated, what with all these data bases and all. It is a minor caveat, but the FBI data reflects applications to buy guns but the Feds do not record final sales, so some slippage is possible. Still, does the FBI really want to get on record as saying they don't even know when the people they are ostensibly watching get themselves arrested? Geez, I'll be able to drop my premium cable plan and get all the live comedy I want on C-Span.

Well. I am confident that our hard-charging reality-based data-driven press corps will push hard for an answer to this incredibly obvious question, as will progressive stalwarts such as Sen. Feinstein.

No I'm not.

That said, Republican Senators and Congressman are also free to ask questions of the GAO and the Congressional Research Service. The old attorney's rule about avoiding questions when you don't know the answer may be holding them back, but I would be delighted to see someone on either side of this terror watch list debate nut up or shut up.

ERRATA: I L-U-V FiveThirtyEight for the sports and like it for the political analysis, so I am hoping Andrew Flowers is the data guy who can get this done.

BURIED TIDBITS: This is from the 2010 report (summary) that was updated for the 2015 letter to Sen. Feinstein:

According to FBI officials, several of the 272 background checks resulted in matches to watchlist records that—in addition to being in the FBI’s Known or Suspected Terrorist File—were on the Transportation Security Administration’s “No Fly” list.

"Several"?!? What is that, five or ten? There's no way someone said "several" but meant, for example, "fifty". So why are Obama and other Democrats walking around saying "no fly, no buy" and then citing statistics from the much larger watch lists? Could that be ignorance or willful deception? A real headscratcher.

And just to scale this, let's make some guesses. Suppose "several" means eleven. That is 4% of the 272 matches cited during that one year time period. Boldly Extrapolating that over the 2005-2015 time period suggests that roughly 11%  4% of about 2,500 watch list matches were also people on the No-Fly list [Brain-lock - I shoulda stuck with 4%]. So hypothetically, 100 people would have been blocked during the last decade if we had the No-Fly provision Democrats talk about, rather than the larger watch lists they actually employ in their proposed legislation.

As to whether any of those 100 or so people went on to commit gun-related crimes, well, We the People still don't know, although that data is well within the reach of Team Obama.

The Power Of Positive Wishful Thinking

I'm loving this:

The gay rights movement could take on the NRA — and actually win

The gay rights movement knows how to change the culture, not just the law.

And they go on to explain how gay activists changed the culture without actually mentioning any contribution from, ohh, Hollywood, Broadway and the entertainment industry. I kid you not.

So let's ask ourselves, as the summer season of bigger guns, crazier villains and louder explosions unfolds - is Hollywood really going to lead the charge on changing cultural attitudes towards guns? Studio execs will have to ask themselves one question - do they feel lucky? And the answer will be no.

In fact, I would argue in the opposite direction - I think Hollywood bears some responsibility for the "assault weapon" craze, since "assault weapons" are essentially conventional semi-automatic rifles tricked out to look like a cool prop in a Schwarzenegger film.

But to be fair, the authors do manage passing contact with reality in this passage about the vast cultural success of gay activists:

It won’t be easy. The NRA has a track record of galvanizing a committed block of voters in key states. Meanwhile, the LGBTQ movement has largely focused on changing hearts and courts.

Obviously five Supreme Court liberals will never see a gun ownership restriction that strikes them as unreasonable, and yes, progressive jurists have the intellectual flexibility of Cirque du Soleil performers, but still - progressives are aiming for a world where the courts agree that abortion rights exist in the penumbra of privacy laws, gay marriage is a clear and obvious consequence of equal protection laws meant to end slavery, but, despite that cryptic Second Amendment, gun ownership rights are not now and never could have been imagined as fundamental to the American Experiment.

I'LL BE BACK: The authors also note that disarming in the face of one's enemies may not be the first response of all gays:

It’s also not clear that gay rights groups will take on gun control. Many gun proponents see gay rights as part and parcel of a broader libertarian cause. Meanwhile, some LGBTQ activists have vigorously embraced gun rights as a way to protect gay lives. The Pink Pistols group, under the slogan “pick on someone your own caliber,” explicitly advocates the exercise of Second Amendment rights for self-protection, especially against hate crimes. The LGBTQ community is highly diverse, and attempts to ally gay rights activists with gun-control proponents may undermine the diversity that defines the movement.

Happy Father's Day

I am not looking for quite this level of energy and commitment from my family, but I admire this wife's spirit:

Colorado mother saves son from mountain lion attack

PITKIN COUNTY, Colo. (AP) -- Authorities say a mother fought off a mountain lion that attacked her 5-year-old son in Colorado on Friday night.

The Pitkin County Sheriff's Office told ABC-7 that the 5-year-old boy had been playing outside around 8 p.m. when the mountain lion attacked.

The sheriff's office says the boy's mother ran outside when she heard screaming and removed her son from the animal. The boy's face, head and neck had been injured.

Authorities told the TV station the boy was being transported to a Denver hospital in fair condition.

The mother hurt her hand and legs but has been released from the hospital.

The cat was then sent to its final resting place by LEOs.

For myself, a nice omelette and a stroll in the park will be fine. No mountain lions.

This Week Will End

Why not enjoy a beautiful Saturday afternoon with a gunfight?

First, unexpected common sense (no, real common sense) from Michael Rosenwald of the Washington Post:

Why banning AR-15s and other assault weapons won’t stop mass shootings

Nothing he says will surprise anyone knowledgeable about the topic, which means that plenty of Beltway progressives will find this to be Book of Revelation material:

In the days after Omar Mateen used a Sig Sauer rifle to kill 49 people in Orlando and wound 53 others — the worst mass shooting in American history — the push to ban assault weapons as a way to stop rampages has gained new momentum across the country, from cable news networks to social media to petition-signing sites.

Even horror author Anne Rice weighed in on Facebook, writing: “The one thing we do know for certain about these weapons is that they have figured in one horrific criminal massacre of innocent civilians after another.”

Well, not exactly. Lost in the diatribes about banning assault weapons is this inconvenient fact: the vast majority of mass shooters use handguns, not assault rifles, in their attacks. That includes Seung-Hui Cho, who used two handguns, including a Glock 19, in 2007 to kill 32 people at Virginia Tech University, the previous worst mass shooting in American history.

A study last year by the Congressional Research Service found that from 1999 to 2013 assault rifles were used in 27 percent public mass shootings, which it defines as the killing of four or more people in a relatively public place. Dating back to 1982, the rate is 24 percent, according to research by James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University professor who studies mass murder.

In addition to the public mass shooting database the FBI has compiled an "Active Shooter" database of incidents from 2000 to 2015. On a rainy day I hope to chart the various weapons used, but a quick glance shows lots of handguns and maybe not so many rifles.

And do remember - the problem is generaly the person, not the tool:

[James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University professor who studies mass murder] makes an important point about what probably happened during the ban: Mass shooters can rather “easily” come up with “alternate means of mass casualty if that were necessary.”

In other words, if they can’t get an AR-15, they get a Glock. And that’s the problem, experts say, of hoping that a ban on assault weapons will stop mass shootings. It’s not really about the gun.

Sure, some stats show higher kill counts with assault weapons than with handguns, but as Cho proved, that’s not always the case. (As my Wonkblog colleague Christopher Ingraham points out, high-capacity magazines — for rifles or handguns — might make a better focus for gun control advocates, but the symbolic images of clips aren’t as striking as an AR-15.)

Oh dear - "clips" is not synonymous with "magazines", as I have learned myself. But let's not DQ the author for that.

Left unmentioned - rather than substituting a Glock handgun for a scary looking black rifle, a determined killer could simply buy a semiautomatic rifle that does not terrify Dianne Feinstein. From an old post, I have "scary" and "not scary" rifles below; personally I would not want to be shot by either one but progressives aren't afraid of the latter, which makes them braver than me so go figure.

For ruthless, relentless killing we have this scary Weapon of War (not an AR-15, BTW):

And for running off varmints around the ranch or plinking with the family on a Sunday afternoon we have this utility rifle:

So much better.

Well. The NY Times provides cryptic reporting on a due process compromise wafting about the Senate with respect to banning gun purchases by those on the no-fly list:

Spurred by Orlando Shooting, G.O.P. Senator Offers a Gun Control Compromise

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN   JUNE 17, 2016

The legislation being drafted by Ms. Collins would bar the sale of guns to terrorism suspects who appear on either the government’s no-fly list or the so-called “selectee” list, in which individuals are subjected to additional security screening before being allowed to board an airplane. Those lists are far more narrow than the federal terrorist screening database, which is the focus of a proposal sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, one of the four measures to be voted on Monday.

So when they say "no fly list" it is actually what they mean, unlike the slippery rhetoric we saw last time around this track. As to the due process bit:

But while the gun restrictions proposed by Ms. Collins would target a narrower group of individuals, her measure does not require federal prosecutors to demonstrate “probable cause” of criminal terrorist activity, which is required in an alternative to the Feinstein measure sponsored by Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican.

Democrats say Mr. Cornyn’s measure, which will also be voted on Monday, sets such a high burden of proof that it renders useless the underlying gun restrictions.

Instead, Ms. Collins has proposed an appeals process that would award attorney’s fees to anyone who successfully challenged the government’s effort to prevent the sale of a firearm.

“If you are either on the no-fly list or the selectee list, which is the list where you are subjected to additional screening before you are allowed to board a plane, then you would be prohibited from purchasing a gun,” Ms. Collins said.

She said she agreed that Mr. Cornyn’s measure set a standard too difficult to meet.

“If probable cause is found, then probably law enforcement could arrest you,” she said. “If you have got that, you are going to be arrested, unless they are leaving you out there in order to catch others.”

I have not dug around for a copy of the proposed bill, is I am not sure what the basis for an appeal would be. Something lower than "probable cause", apparently, but what? Or, lacking some standard, how could someone ever win a reversal and attorney's fees, other than in a case of outright error (a mispelled name, for example)?

Puzzling.

 

When You've Lost The State Department...

From the Times:

Dozens of U.S. Diplomats, in Memo, Urge Strikes Against Syria’s Assad

By Mark Landler

WASHINGTON — More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo sharply critical of the Obama administration’s policy in Syria, urging the United States to carry out military strikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad to stop its persistent violations of a cease-fire in the country’s five-year-old civil war.

The memo, a draft of which was provided to The New York Times by a State Department official, says American policy has been “overwhelmed” by the unrelenting violence in Syria. It calls for “a judicious use of stand-off and air weapons, which would undergird and drive a more focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process.”

Such a step would represent a radical shift in the administration’s approach to the civil war in Syria, and there is little evidence that President Obama has plans to change course. Mr. Obama has emphasized the military campaign against the Islamic State over efforts to dislodge Mr. Assad. Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict, led by Secretary of State John Kerry, have all but collapsed.

Feverish Republicans, cranky careerists at State - fortunately Obama (and Ben!) know better than all of them.

I should add that Hillary called for a no-fly zone in Syria last fall, so she is sympatico with the State dissenters.

Putting the Cloud In Cloud Computing

Microsoft has done nothing in every other consumer market it has gone after, so drug warriors should be heartened by this:

As state after state has legalized marijuana in one way or another, big names in corporate America have stayed away entirely. Marijuana, after all, is still illegal, according to the federal government.

But Microsoft is breaking the corporate taboo on pot this week by announcing a partnership to begin offering software that tracks marijuana plants from “seed to sale,” as the pot industry puts it.

The software — a new product in Microsoft’s cloud computing business — is meant to help states that have legalized the medical or recreational use of marijuana keep tabs on sales and commerce, ensuring that they remain in the daylight of legality.

...

Microsoft’s baby step into the business came through an announcement on Thursday that it was teaming up with a Los Angeles start-up, Kind, that built the software the tech giant will begin marketing. Kind — one of many small companies trying to take the marijuana business mainstream — offers a range of products, including A.T.M.-style kiosks that facilitate marijuana sales, working through some of the state-chartered banks that are comfortable with such customers.

Microsoft will not be getting anywhere near these kiosks or the actual plants. Rather, it will be working with Kind’s “government solutions” division, offering software only to state and local governments that are trying to build compliance systems.

 

UnPresidented, or, Timing Being Everything...

As we work towards Peak Crazy, could the timing work such that Hillary drops out after the FBI email investigation overheats and Trump withdraws after, well, excessive blowhardery?

If we're going to make history, let's make some history!

Goldberg On Obama And Radical Islam

This is helpful:

What Obama Actually Thinks About Radical Islam

The president does not suffer illusions about the pathologies afflicting the broader Muslim world.

However, he does suffer from other illusions, as Mr. Goldberg explains. I especially like this:

None of this is meant to be an argument that Obama does enough, or does enough of the right things, in the struggle against ISIS. I could (and will!) write a critique of the administration’s tactical approach, particularly as it relates to Syria. And Obama could bring more emotional intelligence to bear on this problem: He is eloquent in condemning the fearmongers, but he sometimes fails to acknowledge the legitimate fears of non-racist, non-paranoid Americans who would prefer not to be killed by terrorists acting in the name of Islam. The United States is under intermittent attack from an organization called the Islamic State, which, as Graeme Wood has pointed out in this magazine, represents one, extreme, branch of Islam. There is no point in trying to convince Americans that what is happening is not happening. But neither is there a point in encouraging hysteria and division.

Yeah, well, as Mr. Goldberg explained in an earlier piece, the guy with full time Secret Service protection has decided ISIS is not an existential threat so the rest of us ought to just hero up and shut up.

She Who Must Not Be Named

Russian hackers have no trouble climbing all over civilian email systems, as the Democratic National Committee recently discovered.

Of course, the most controversial civilian email system in the news today is not mentioned, but whatever.

D.N.C. Says Russian Hackers Penetrated Its Files, Including Dossier on Donald Trump

By David Sanger and Nick Corasaniti   June 14, 2016

WASHINGTON — Two groups of Russian hackers, working for competing government intelligence agencies, penetrated computer systems of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to emails, chats and a trove of opposition research against Donald J. Trump, according to the party and a cybersecurity firm.

One group placed espionage software on the committee’s computer servers last summer, giving it unimpeded access to communications for about a year. The committee called in CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm, early last month after the Democratic Party began to suspect an intrusion.

...

The committee’s systems appeared to have had standard cyberprotections, which are no challenge for determined state-sponsored hacking groups. The attackers were expelled last weekend with CrowdStrike’s help, the committee said. It did not provide a detailed account of what had been copied from the systems, and it may never know.

And from the WaPo, which broke the story:

The depth of the penetration reflects the skill and determination of the United States’ top cyber-adversary as Russia goes after strategic targets, from the White House and State Department to political campaign organizations.

“It’s the job of every foreign intelligence service to collect intelligence against their adversaries,” said Shawn Henry, president of CrowdStrike, the cyber firm called in to handle the DNC breach and a former head of the FBI’s cyber division. He noted that it is extremely difficult for a civilian organization to protect itself from a skilled and determined state such as Russia.

I think we have to assume the Russians had full access to Hillary's yoga schedule as well as the planning for Chelsea's wedding.

There Is Surely Some News Out There

WTF is it now?

Jihad Comes To Orlando

Awful.

Gunman Claiming Allegiance to ISIS Kills 50 at Orlando Nightclub

ORLANDO, Fla. — A gunman who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State killed 50 people and wounded 53 in a crowded gay nightclub here early Sunday. The gunman, identified as Omar Mateen, had been investigated twice by the F.B.I. for possible connections to terrorism, the bureau said, but no ties could be confirmed.

More coverage:

Orlando Gunman Used Assault Rifle With Military Roots, Police Say

President Obama Expresses Outrage Over Massacre at Nightclub

I should STFU right now but here I go. Obama's remarks included a call for prayer:

In the coming hours and days, we’ll learn about the victims of this tragedy.  Their names.  Their faces.  Who they were.  The joy that they brought to families and to friends, and the difference that they made in this world.  Say a prayer for them and say a prayer for their families -- that God give them the strength to bear the unbearable.  And that He give us all the strength to be there for them, and the strength and courage to change.  We need to demonstrate that we are defined more -- as a country -- by the way they lived their lives than by the hate of the man who took them from us.

First, of course every true Christian will pray for these people.

Second, my guess is that the original draft read something like this:

"I would like all you bigoted haters whose religion does not endorse gay marriage to say a prayer for these victims and their families..."

Cooler heads prevailed.

Sunday Morning Open Thread

Away we go.

Off To The Races!

The traditional Belmont open thread.

Saturday Morning

Here we go again.

Another Voice Of Reason Heard From

Hmm. Although she does not endorse him, and has certainly heard from the NeverTrump side, Megan McAardle runs out a few arguments in favor of The Donald.

Brooks Doesn't Say "NeverTrump", But...

The conservative liberals still read psychoanalyzes Trump and comes out against him. Brooks may be spot-on in his analysis and Kasich fans may feel a thrill of affirmation, but otherwise, this is will have zero impact amongst conservatives.

A snippet:

Ryan’s argument inverts all this. It puts political positions first and character and morality second. Sure Trump’s a scoundrel, but he might agree with our tax proposal. Sure, he is a racist, but he might like our position on the defense budget. Policy agreement can paper over a moral chasm. Nobody calling themselves a conservative can agree to this hierarchy of values.

The classic conservative belief, by contrast, is that character is destiny. Temperament is foundational. Each candidate has to cross some basic threshold of dependability as a human being before it’s even relevant to judge his or her policy agenda. Trump doesn’t cross that threshold.

Second, it just won’t work. The Republican Party can’t unify around Donald Trump for the same reason it can’t unify around a tornado. Trump, by his very essence, undermines cooperation, reciprocity, solidarity, stability or any other component of unity. He is a lone operator, a disloyal diva, who is incapable of horizontal relationships. He has demeaned and humiliated everybody who has tried to be his friend, from Chris Christie to Paul Ryan.

...

The man who just crushed them is in no mood to submit to them. Furthermore, Trump’s personality is pathological. It is driven by deep inner compulsions that defy friendly advice, political interest and common sense.

The psychoanalysis follows, and will probably convince only those who no longer need convincing.

They Shoot Horses Don't They

Can we high-tech our way to mass unemployment? This fear has been with us for decades running into centuries; Eduardo Porter of the Times has an interesting column on it.

Jeffrey D. Sachs of Columbia University has been working with a series of colleagues on an economic model of a world in which robotization both raises economic output and immiserates workers, pushing them out of their jobs. It is not a theoretical impossibility.

“The point for me is that these two scenarios — robots lead to nirvana and hell — can happen side by side,” Professor Sachs told me. “Generally capital wins and all labor can lose. It shows up as a fall in the labor share of national income.”

In that event, preventing a dynastic society of relentlessly growing inequality would require large-scale redistribution. It could even take the form of a universal income paid for with a hefty estate tax — using some of the vast profits accruing to the owners of robots to finance a living for everybody else.

Since most paid human labor would be pointless, the disincentive to work produced by a monthly check would be unimportant. People could devote themselves to unpaid creative affairs.

“Don’t destroy the robots,” Professor Sachs said. But recognize that “not everybody would be better off as a result of market forces. With redistribution everybody could be made better off.”

On the other hand...

A research paper published last month by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development argued that even the occupations most at risk of being replaced by machines contained lots of tasks that were hard to automate, like face-to-face interaction with customers.

It concluded that only 9 percent of American workers faced a high risk of being replaced by an automaton. Austrians, Germans and Spaniards were the most vulnerable, but only 12 percent of them risked losing their jobs to information technology.

We hear from the always-interesting and rarely humble Larry Summers:

Last November, Lawrence H. Summers — a former Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, a top economic adviser in President Obama’s first term and one of the youngest people to earn tenure on the Harvard faculty — strode up to the podium at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington and made an unlikely admission: Perhaps economists were not always the smartest people in the room.

He reminisced about his undergraduate days at M.I.T. in the 1970s, when the debate over the idea of technological unemployment pitted “smart people,” exemplified by the great economist Robert Solow, and “stupid people,” “exemplified by a bunch of sociologists.”

It was stupid to think technological progress would reduce employment. If technology increased productivity — allowing companies and their workers to make more stuff in less time — people would have more money to spend on more things that would have to be made, creating jobs for other people.

But at some point Mr. Summers experienced an epiphany. “It sort of occurred to me,” he said. “Suppose the stupid people were right. What would it look like?” And what it looked like fits pretty well with what the world looks like today.

For large categories of workers, wages are inadequate. Many are withdrawing from the labor force altogether. In the 1960s, one in 20 men between 25 and 54 were not working. Today it’s three in 20. The population is generally healthier than it was in the 1960s; work is almost uniformly less demanding. Still, more workers are on disability.

“Maybe the stupid people weren’t quite as stupid as I thought they were,” Mr. Summers conceded. “This was at least a serious concern that had to be thought about.”

Final Primary Night - The Aftermath

Well, darn it - Hillary wins California, the nomination, and the world.

German Spoken Here

I assume the story clears this up but as a sometime Ugly American Abroad I love this headline:

Merkel: Statements from Turkey's leader "incomprehensible"

I guess Turkish as a second language was under-emphasized in Germany.

And yeah, wait'll she gets a load of Trump.

The Longest Week Begins With The Longest Day

Finally, the primary season will come to an end, but Bernie vows to fight on! I have given up on the Cavs (having already been disappointed by my Thunder) so the only upset I am looking for in California are Wednesday headlines reading "Bernie Wins California!" juxtaposed with "Hillary Clinches Nomination".

And to continue with the Jarring Juxtapositions theme, here is Ronald Reagan commemorating "the boys of Pointe du Hoc". No, those aren't tears. Damn hayfever.

Shootings In Chicago

Interesting to see Bleeding Chicago attract this sort of Times coverage while Obama is still President. Then again, the Times also covers the rousting of the homeless in Obama's other state, so I guess they are Ready For Hillary.

Saturday Morning

Away we go.

The Brownshirts Are Coming. But Whose Side Are They On?

OK, the anti-Trump riots in San Jose are scary enough. But as a bonus, we have one Vox editor calling for more riots [and getting himself suspended] and a second Juice-Voxer rationalizing exactly that. From Dara Lind's piece, which should have been titled "Give Violence A Chance":

Donald Trump rallies are only going to get more dangerous for everyone

Protesters assaulted Trump supporters outside a rally in San Jose. Here's why this keeps happening.

...

As tension around Trump rallies has shifted outside the arenas, and protesters have become more numerous and more aggressive, some of the people protesting are simply provocateurs. Others are longtime, hardcore "direct action" activists like the anarchist Black Bloc.

...

These are the sorts of people who turn up whenever they see an opportunity to disrupt the status quo. They were in Baltimore in 2015 and Ferguson in 2014.

 

But that doesn't make their presence inevitable. They aren't turning up to Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton rallies. Donald Trump's campaign has become a locus for confrontation and instability, and that attracts the sort of people who see violence as an acceptable way to get things done.

And on to the rationalizations:

A lot of political commentators recognize that Donald Trump poses a categorical threat to established norms of American democracy, governance, and society. They believe that he represents (whether intentionally or not) an ideology that is hostile to groups of nonwhite Americans.

In other words, they believe there are Americans to whom Trump poses an existential threat.

I will pause and note that plenty of polling data and mortality statistics suggest that many working class whites believe that Democratic-supported trade deals, immigration policies and Affirmative Action preferences have been hostile and life-threatening) to whites. Are they right? Why ask?!?

You don't have to agree with protesters beating up Trump supporters, or even sympathize with them, to understand this. There are people who feel Trump's rise puts their lives in danger. And many people make decisions about what actions are "appropriate" differently when they feel personally under threat.

Ah, well, if the anti-Trump people believe it their behavior makes sense. But if white people were acting the same way? Haters!

In any case, what else can we do but respond violently in a democracy with a slack media these youngsters don't read anyway?

So if you're a young person who reacts viscerally to the things Donald Trump says about Mexicans or Muslims, what do you see as the available, appropriate response? Furthermore, if you're a young person who personally feels the effects of Trumpist attitudes — if you feel that your life is under threat because you're nonwhite, and you don't feel that anyone appears to care — what do you think needs to be done?

And if violent protests at Trump rallies continue to escalate, and continue to get coverage, what sort of people are likely to show up to the next one?

Wow. First, the notion that banning foreign Muslims or deporting illegal immigrants threatens the lives of "Americans" seems like a stretch. But maybe I am not thinking big enough - opposition to Obamacare or gun control might threaten lives; support for a more aggressive intervention in Syria might threaten lives; opposition to a War on Coal might threaten lives in Bangla Desh in a hundred years. Really, if a protestor can't link their opponent to life and death issues, they aren't trying (Is my local dog-catcher tough enough on rabies???).

Secondly, the probably young and no doubt delightful Dara Lind apparently thought that it goes without saying that this violence is not appropriate in our democracy. But since a different Vox editor, Emmett Rensin, is specifically calling for anti-Trump riots, maybe she ought to say this is wrong.

Otherwise, it looks like Vox is marching to a very strange place.

UPDATE: Ezra Klein suspends Emmett Rensin.

The Brownshirts Are Coming. But Whose Side Are They On?

OK, the anti-Trump riots in San Jose are scary enough. But as a bonus, we have one Vox editor calling for more riots and a second Juice-Voxer rationalizing exactly that. From Dara Lind's piece, which should have been titled "Give Violence A Chance":

Donald Trump rallies are only going to get more dangerous for everyone

Protesters assaulted Trump supporters outside a rally in San Jose. Here's why this keeps happening.

...

As tension around Trump rallies has shifted outside the arenas, and protesters have become more numerous and more aggressive, some of the people protesting are simply provocateurs. Others are longtime, hardcore "direct action" activists like the anarchist Black Bloc.

...

These are the sorts of people who turn up whenever they see an opportunity to disrupt the status quo. They were in Baltimore in 2015 and Ferguson in 2014.

 

But that doesn't make their presence inevitable. They aren't turning up to Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton rallies. Donald Trump's campaign has become a locus for confrontation and instability, and that attracts the sort of people who see violence as an acceptable way to get things done.

And on to the rationalizations:

A lot of political commentators recognize that Donald Trump poses a categorical threat to established norms of American democracy, governance, and society. They believe that he represents (whether intentionally or not) an ideology that is hostile to groups of nonwhite Americans.

In other words, they believe there are Americans to whom Trump poses an existential threat.

I will pause and note that plenty of polling data and mortality statistics suggest that many working class whites believe that Democratic-supported trade deals, immigration policies and Affirmative Action preferences have been hostile and life-threatening) to whites. Are they right? Why ask?!?

You don't have to agree with protesters beating up Trump supporters, or even sympathize with them, to understand this. There are people who feel Trump's rise puts their lives in danger. And many people make decisions about what actions are "appropriate" differently when they feel personally under threat.

Ah, well, if the anti-Trump people believe it their behavior makes sense. But if white people were acting the same way? Haters!

In any case, what else can we do but respond violently in a democracy with a slack media these youngsters don't read anyway?

So if you're a young person who reacts viscerally to the things Donald Trump says about Mexicans or Muslims, what do you see as the available, appropriate response? Furthermore, if you're a young person who personally feels the effects of Trumpist attitudes — if you feel that your life is under threat because you're nonwhite, and you don't feel that anyone appears to care — what do you think needs to be done?

And if violent protests at Trump rallies continue to escalate, and continue to get coverage, what sort of people are likely to show up to the next one?

Wow. First, the notion that banning foreign Muslims or deporting illegal immigrants threatens the lives of "Americans" seems like a stretch. But maybe I am not thinking big enough - opposition to Obamacare or gun control might threaten lives; support for a more aggressive intervention in Syria might threaten lives; opposition to a War on Coal might threaten lives in Bangla Desh in a hundred years. Really, if a protestor can't link their opponent to life and death issues, they aren't trying (Is my local dog-catcher tough enough on rabies???).

Secondly, the probably young and no doubt delightful Dara Lind apparently thought that it goes without saying that this violence is not appropriate in our democracy. But since a different Vox editor, Emmett Rensin, is specifically calling for anti-Trump riots, maybe she ought to say this is wrong.

Otherwise, it looks like Vox is marching to a very strange place.

Now They Tell Us?

Our lapdog/watchdog press barks as danger approaches:

Trump Could Threaten U.S. Rule of Law, Scholars Say

WASHINGTON — Donald J. Trump’s blustery attacks on the press, complaints about the judicial system and bold claims of presidential power collectively sketch out a constitutional worldview that shows contempt for the First Amendment, the separation of powers and the rule of law, legal experts across the political spectrum say.

Even as much of the Republican political establishment lines up behind its presumptive nominee, many conservative and libertarian legal scholars warn that electing Mr. Trump is a recipe for a constitutional crisis.

“Who knows what Donald Trump with a pen and phone would do?” asked Ilya Shapiro, a lawyer with the libertarian Cato Institute.

Finding conservative and libertarian scholars to make this point is easy, because it's true and more importantly, because it is contrary to conservative and libertarian principles.

But I know what you're thinking - hasn't this been exactly how Obama has behaved? And since you ask, is Little Ms. Email going to be a role model for respecting tedious laws such as the Freedom of Information Act that may advantage her many many enemies? And dare we mention the Clinton Global Shakedown?

Good question! So good that the Times actually tackles it in the four hundred seventy-eighth paragraph (Hyperbole Alert! It is really paragraph nineteen.):

Republican officials have criticized Mr. Obama for what they have called his unconstitutional expansion of executive power. But some legal scholars who share that view say the problem under a President Trump would be worse.

Notice that attacks on Obama's possible executive overreach are framed as purely partisan by "Republican officials" - no Republican or Democratic scholars? Well, yes - over to the right:

“I don’t think he cares about separation of powers at all,” said Richard Epstein, a fellow at the Hoover Institution who also teaches at New York University and the University of Chicago.

President George W. Bush “often went beyond what he should have done,” Professor Epstein said. “I think Obama’s been much worse on that issue pretty consistently, and his underlings have been even more so. But I think Trump doesn’t even think there’s an issue to worry about. He just simply says whatever I want to do I will do.”

It is not as if Obama is winning all of these court cases. Yet the Times couldn't find one liberal scholar to question one thing Obama has done? Or are they under the sudden illusion that on Constitutional questions Times readers routinely refer to right-wing scholars for guidance?

It's going to be a long five months.

WHO HAS TIME? Off the top of my head Obama has been pushed back by the courts on EPA regulations and his "I Did It My Way" approach to immigration "laws". Megan McArdle discusses his spending unappropriated funds as part of the Affordable Care Act. There has been the wink and a nod to the IRS for hounding Tea Party groups. The DoJ oversees settlements that include payments to favored left-wing groups without Congressional appropriation. Other outrages welcome.

A Warped Jobs Report?

It seems like only yesterday that Obama was whinging (yet again) about the public's failure to applaud his economy:

Obama: 'VFW Halls All Across America' Have Warped View of Economy

And today we get a gruesome jobs report:

US created 38,000 jobs in May vs. 162,000 expected

Ooops! I saw flickering headlines about downward revisions to the March and April payroll figures as well.

Some possible non-exclusive explanations:

(1) It is not the public that has a warped view of the economy, it is the guy who is a few months away from an eight-figure book deal.

(2) Obama is proving that the President has no advance information about US economic reports - this is one more thing he'll read in the papers.

(3) Obama is cleverly creating the illusion that he has no access to the numbers so that when the fix is in come September/October we will all be fooled.

So which is it? This is one of the many problems we caused for ourselves by electing a time-traveling genius for President.

Hillary: Donald Is Dangerous On Foreign Policy

This ought to be good:

Hillary Clinton to Portray Donald Trump’s Foreign Policy Positions as Dangerous

Little Ms. Libya speaks and anyone with an irony-poor diet ought to listen.

Hillary Clinton plans to deliver a scorching assessment of Donald J. Trump’s foreign policy prescriptions on Thursday, casting her likely Republican rival as a threat to decades of bipartisan tenets of American diplomacy and declaring him unfit for the presidency.

This characterization of Trump, while accurate, will be news to no one. So will it change anyone's mind?

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign aides said the speech, which she will deliver in San Diego, would be the start of a persistent assault to portray a potential Trump presidency as a dangerous proposition that would weaken American alliances and embolden enemies.

He will weaken our alliances and embolden enemies. Yeah, Trump is a loose cannon who so loves the sound of his own voice that he is likely to indulge in riffs that criticize the Brits, mock the French and leave the Saudis feeling abandoned. My goodness, he might even engage in a bit of live improv to invent new policy, to the surprise of his national security advisers.

Yet the Republic has endured.

Jonah Goldberg reprised an interesting argument I have grappled with at social occasions:

During a panel Q&A, a passenger on the cruise made a strong case for voting Trump. He ably argued that we know Hillary will be terrible, while we can only suspect Trump will be. Trump will probably do some things conservatives will like — Supreme Court appointments, etc. — while we know for a fact Hillary will not.

And here’s what I said: I agree. If the election were a perfect tie, and the vote fell to me and me alone, I’d probably vote for none other than Donald Trump for precisely these reasons.

Hmm, "Better the devil you don't know"? I have said (and blogged? Tweeted?) that with the deciding vote I would pick Hillary in a heartbeat. She will be a mediocre President in all the ways we have seen before. Tempermentally she is slightly left-of-center but in order to rally her skeptical base she will need to inflame wars on women, ethnics, gays, and anyone else who might be near a political fault line. Bringing the country together would be an electoral disaster for her, so, as with Obama, it won't happen. But, like Obama and unlike Trump, she will at least pretend that national unity is aspirational.

 

As to policy, anyone who like the crony capitalism of the last few decades will welcome Hillary. Big business has nothing to fear; nor do stock market players and other investors. On foreign policy, her instincts are notably more hawkish than Trump or any normal Democrat acceptable to her party, but Ladyparts!

 

So sure, she will be a debacle of a very conventional and predictable type. Trump, on the other hand, is a deliberately inflammatory demagogue whose actual principles and level of knowledge are scarce. Republican voters respond to his press conference improvisations with a "Donald being Donald" shrug - ISIS is Putin's problem, we are going to bomb the hell out of ISIS, whatever; he will retire the national debt, he won't, whatever. Taxes on the rich will go down, they might go up, whatever. Unless we are confident we can train the world to respond as Republican voters do to his blatherings, electing Trump will be a full-employment act for press spokesman and spinners everywhere.

 

So to Jonah's point - maybe a world in which we all learn to tune out the US President would be a better place, but is running that kind of Bold Experiment an example of conservative prionciples? Trump v. Hillary boils down to a mean/variance exercise. I'll grant that a Trump Presidency has more upside for conservatives and (we might hope) the nation, but it is crystal clear to me that it has a lot more downside as well. So, even if a voter thinks that Trump has a higher expected value (for conservatives, anyway), should that voter maximize (possible) opportunity by betting Trump or minimize (possible) regret (i.e., MiniMax avoidance of a downside disaster) by voting Hillary? Not obvious!

 

Hillary will be a conventional dumpster fire owned by the Democrats. Trump on a good day will easily be better than that. However, Trump on a bad day will be - well, some metaphor worse than dumpster fires, but with Hiroshima fresh in my mind I'm stuck.

 

When Cronies Collide

The music industry battles Silicon Valley and what's a Dem to do?

Music World Bands Together Against YouTube, Seeking Change to Law

By Ben Siasario    May 31 2016

A few years ago, the biggest enemy of the music industry was Pandora Media. Then Spotify became the target.

Now it is YouTube’s turn.

In recent months, the music world has been united to a rare degree in a public fight against YouTube, accusing the service of paying too little in royalties and asking for changes to the law that allows the company to operate the way it does. The battle highlights the need to capture every dollar as listeners’ habits turn to streaming, as well as the industry’s complicated relationship with YouTube.