| The problem isn't Joe Biden's centrism. It's that he's the wrong kind of centrist Posted: 17 Sep 2019 11:00 PM PDT  Americans could embrace a moderate liberal. But Biden comes across as the tepid version of his more leftwing competitors 'Biden has become the target for progressives who are disappointed with the Obama-Biden administration.' Photograph: John Bazemore/APOne of the clearest takeaways from the Democratic presidential debate in Houston last week is that the party has a Joe Biden problem. As the frontrunner, Biden has blocked other moderate candidates from making a credible case for the nomination, while his amorphous and uninspiring centrism makes it more likely that the eventual Democratic nominee may end up going too far left to defeat Donald Trump in 2020.In Houston, Biden was more focused and forceful than he had been in previous debates – although that was a low bar to clear. He was at his most effective when critiquing the Medicare for All plan, chiding Bernie Sanders for the astronomically high cost of the proposal and Elizabeth Warren for her unwillingness to admit it would impose any financial burdens on middle-class taxpayers.Biden missed numerous examples to play up his deep experience in lawmaking and foreign policy, which his supporters tout as the antidote to Trump's chaotic and disruptive governing approach. But he did call attention to the fact that he was the only candidate to have defeated the NRA in the legislative arena, when he secured passage of the 1993 Brady bill requiring background checks for firearms purchases.To the extent that Biden made an affirmative case for his candidacy during the debate, it was that he's running to restore the status quo that prevailed during the eight years that he was Barack Obama's vice-president. Democrats still revere the former president, who in 2018 registered a 97% favorable rating from party members. At the Houston debates, some of the most progressive candidates went out of their way to praise Obama – a significant shift from the previous debates, when they treated his legacy with something approaching disdain."I'm for Barack," Biden proclaimed at the debate, and his partnership with Obama is one of his greatest advantages with Democratic voters.But Trump's presidency has accelerated the radicalization of most Democratic activists, if not the majority of Democratic voters. Obama himself may be off-limits for criticism, but Biden has become the target for progressives who are disappointed with the Obama-Biden administration, which they consider to have been insufficiently "woke" on race and immigration, excessively accommodating toward corporate interests on trade and taxation, and naive in believing Republicans would cooperate with them on matters like healthcare and climate change.Biden struggles to respond to such charges because, in typical centrist fashion, he wants everyone to like him. He will not make a robust defense of his centrism because he's unwilling to denounce progressive excesses, other than to say that this or that policy is too expensive or won't pass Congress. There haven't been any Sister Souljah moments in Biden's campaign, and there probably won't be.During the debate, he had no good answer to an accusatory question about the high number of deportations during the Obama presidency. That's because, at a time when many progressives appear to think there should be no restrictions on immigration whatsoever, he couldn't openly defend the border enforcement policies he once supported. Rather than restating the Obama administration's argument that the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal would have significantly improved global labor and environmental standards, he meekly agreed that unions and environmental activists should be included in future trade negotiations. Confronted with his 40-year-old quote rejecting reparations for African Americans, he couldn't reply that reparations are still a widely unpopular and unworkable idea, so instead he served up an indigestible word stew larded with random thoughts about social workers, record players and the dictator of Venezuela.Biden's centrist program, at least as he presented it during the debate, boils down to little more than a more incremental and cost-conscious version of the progressives' plans. The moderate wing of the Democratic party may be relieved that Biden so far hasn't been sucked into endorsing the progressives' identity politics, but his articulation of what he wants to accomplish has so far been anything but inspiring.If Biden continues in the same dispiriting vein for the next several months, he will continue to overshadow more interesting proponents of Democratic moderation such as Amy Klobuchar and Michael Bennet (who failed to make the debate). Eventually, in the view of many Washington political observers, he will lose much of his popular support and fade from contention. In that case, many Democratic strategists worry that the remaining Democratic candidates will continue to try to outflank each other on the left, to the extent that the eventual candidate turns off the moderate majority of Americans and Trump wins re-election.If Biden is to avoid that fate, he might reflect on the difference between centrism and moderation captured in the idea of "trimming", a nautical concept turned to political metaphor by the 17th-century English statesman George Savile, the Earl of Halifax. When the boat you're sailing is being blown off course, sitting in the dead center of the boat isn't going to get you where you want to go; you may have to lean hard to one side of the boat or another to counteract the force of the wind and waves and keep you moving in the right direction. Moderation, unlike centrism, can be dynamic and innovative rather than inert and imitative.If Biden wants to invigorate his campaign, he should try to reorient the Democratic conversation around bold moderate ideas that aren't just cautious versions of the progressives' plans. When defending free trade and the free market, he should think harder than he did as vice-president about how to more equitably distribute their benefits. (And if Sanders persists in calling countries like Denmark socialist, Biden should point out that their robust social safety net enables more unfettered capitalist competition than we have here.)Biden should sound the alarm about the opioid epidemic that led to nearly 140,000 Americans dying of overdoses during the past two years – a horrifying fact that went completely unmentioned in the Houston debate. He could call for a tax on the bloated financial sector, which could be used to address the disproportionate loss of home equity wealth suffered by minorities in the financial crisis.While no Republican legislator will ever endorse the Green New Deal, Biden could emphasize his ability to persuade many of them of the need for a carbon tax to offset climate change – an idea that's slowly gaining acceptance among Republicans. He could champion the carbon-capture technologies that most of the progressive candidates instinctively resist. And he might point out that ideologically moderate Democrats performed much better than progressives in the 2018 elections.In the interest of full disclosure, I should add that as a registered Republican, I won't be able to vote for any of the candidates in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries. But as a political historian, I believe that few significant and enduring legislative achievements – from the New Deal to the civil rights legislation of the 1960s to Ronald Reagan's pro-business reforms – have been passed without appealing to a critical mass of moderates in both parties.And as an American citizen, I hope that the next president, whoever he or she is, will be bold enough to make the far-reaching reforms our society and economy and environment need, but also moderate enough to restore the social unity and functional government that we currently lack. * Geoffrey Kabaservice is the director of political studies at the Niskanen Center in Washington DC as well as the author of Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party
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| Michelle Malkin Smears Cokie Roberts on the Day of Her Death: ‘One of the First Guilty Culprits of Fake News’ Posted: 18 Sep 2019 12:44 AM PDT  Charley Gallay/Getty for International Innovators of Justice/American Justice AllianceHours after the world learned that journalist Cokie Roberts had passed away following complications from breast cancer, right-wing provocateur Michelle Malkin took a swipe at the reporter's legacy by calling her "one of the first guilty culprits of fake news."Taking part in a panel at the Paley Center on Tuesday, Malkin joined an array of liberal and conservative commentators and media figures to discuss whether the media is biased.At one point in the discussion, Malkin—who has recently been making the media rounds hawking her latest anti-immigrant book—took aim at Roberts."Cokie Roberts, of course, passed away today and God bless her for an incredible career that she had but I distinctly remember that she was one of the first guilty culprits of fake news," she declared."We're doing this today?" CNN chief media correspondent Brian Stelter, who was also on the panel, interjected."Yes, yes we are," Malkin confirmed."You're attacking her today," Stelter continued. "I just want to be clear: The body isn't even cold yet."Malkin, meanwhile, said her remark was "pertinent" to the issue of "fake news," bringing up an instance in 1994 when Roberts stood in front of a projection of the Capitol to do an ABC News report from the State of the Union address."This was a deliberate attempt to deceive the viewing public into thinking she was actually there live covering it," Malkin added. "Fake news has existed far longer than before President Trump even had the idea of running for office."Malkin's remarks, predictably, were not well received by the attendees, with many in the audience shouting at her to leave and go home. Tuesday was far from the first time that Malkin has kicked dirt on a prominent figure after he or she has passed away. During this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, Malkin slammed the "ghost of John McCain" for what she described as his weak immigration policies.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Did U.S. Missile Defenses Fail During Saudi Oil Attack? Posted: 16 Sep 2019 11:53 PM PDT  One thing is clear: The attack revealed the limits of Saudi Arabia's seemingly sophisticated air-defense system. Riyadh in recent years has spent billions of dollars building up six battalions of U.S.-made Patriot surface-to-air missiles and associated radars. The Patriots didn't stop the recent attack.
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| 2019 and 2020 Full-Size Pickup Truck Rankings Posted: 17 Sep 2019 02:08 PM PDT |
| A 22-year-old from Minneapolis who is jailed in Syria says ISIS recruited him on Twitter Posted: 18 Sep 2019 08:10 AM PDT  Abdelhamid Al-Madioum, a naturalized US citizen, told CBS News his story from a prison in Syria, run by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.
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| Three hunters mauled in grizzly bear attacks at Yellowstone: 'He was in their face before they even had chance to grab a gun' Posted: 18 Sep 2019 02:37 PM PDT  Three hunters were badly hurt in two separate grizzly bear attacks in Montana on the same day, state officials have said.All three suffered "moderate to severe" injuries after being mauled by a lone bear in the Gravelley Mountains on Monday, according to the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks agency.
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| Philippines Arrests Hundreds of Chinese For Alleged Cybercrimes Posted: 17 Sep 2019 03:33 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- About 600 allegedly illegal Chinese workers have been arrested in the Philippines in less than a week after Beijing's call for a crackdown on online gambling.Some 324 undocumented Chinese nationals will be deported after being apprehended on Monday in the western Palawan province for alleged cybercrimes, the Philippines' immigration bureau said in a statement Tuesday.The agency also said in an earlier statement it had arrested 277 Chinese nationals last Wednesday for allegedly conducting illegal online operations in Pasig City in the Philippine capital, Manila. Those arrested are wanted for fraud and investments scams in China, the immigration bureau added, citing information from Chinese authorities.Last month, China urged the Philippines to crack down on online casino operations catering mostly to Chinese nationals. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has said he will not ban the billion-peso industry despite Beijing's opposition, as it benefits the Southeast Asian nation.To contact the reporter on this story: Andreo Calonzo in Manila at acalonzo1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Cecilia Yap at cyap19@bloomberg.net, Ruth Pollard, Ditas LopezFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| 2020 Vision Wednesday: Trump raised $15 million in California in one day. That should worry Democrats. Posted: 18 Sep 2019 06:10 AM PDT  When President Trump arrived in California Tuesday, Democrats saw his arrival as a platform for protest, but there's another reason his visit should concern them.
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| Israel's Lieberman: from nightclub bouncer to potential kingmaker Posted: 18 Sep 2019 04:54 AM PDT  Avigdor Lieberman, whose campaign against Israel's religious political parties may make him a kingmaker, has turned from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's closest ally to his biggest headache. Reported results of Israel's general election on Tuesday show both Netanyahu's right-wing Likud and former military chief Benny Gantz's centrist Blue and White without an obvious path to a majority coalition.
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| The Absurd Campaign against Vaping Posted: 17 Sep 2019 03:27 PM PDT  There has been a burst of panicked news, competing claims, and unfounded fear related to "vaping," the use of electronic devices to produce an inhaled vapor, usually containing nicotine, which has emerged as a common alternative to smoking.As is commonly the case, the controversy surrounding vaping consists of a rat's nest of discrete issues that need not necessarily be tangled up together. The mess currently includes: the Trump administration's decision to prohibit certain flavors of vaping cartridges on the theory that they will attract underage users; a Wisconsin-based drug ring discovered illegally producing vaping cartridges containing THC, the principal psychoactive substance in marijuana; a rash of hospitalizations and a half-dozen deaths around the country linked to vaping, the great majority of which involved the illegal misuse of vaping devices. A final issue, constantly underappreciated amid the din, is that vaping does indeed provide a beneficial alternative to cigarettes and other combustible tobacco.These issues are best addressed one at a time rather than lumped together into a single, unitary response to the current mass hysteria about vaping.The Trump administration is wrong to prohibit particular flavors of vaping product as a means of preventing children from taking up the habit. The obvious parallel case is flavored tobacco; in spite of the great national panic over flavored "bidis," hand-rolled cigarettes, a decade ago, U.S. smokers, including underage smokers, overwhelmingly used cigarettes and other conventional tobacco products; a 2006 study found that less than 3 percent of U.S. high-school students smoked bidis, and just over 1 percent of those 18 to 24 did. Overall cigarette smoking among young people has been tanking since the mid 1990s, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, which found daily cigarette use rates of 3.6 percent for high-school seniors and half that or less for those younger. In 1996, one in ten eighth-graders reported daily cigarette smoking; today, that number is less than 1 percent.The states and the federal government are perfectly capable of policing the sale of vaping products to underage consumers in exactly the same way they police the sales of tobacco and alcohol. ("E-cigarette" is a misnomer for products such as those sold by Juul, which — this is important to remember — contain no tobacco.) Shut down offending vape shops, yank business licenses, and put a couple of chain-store managers in jail if necessary. There is no good reason to prohibit products that are perfectly appropriate to adults simply because a few retailers mishandle them. Punish the guilty — leave everyone else alone.The same goes for investigating and prosecuting those who manufacture and sell black-market vaping products. If these are indeed a significant public-health menace, then law enforcement and prosecutors have work to do — prohibiting or restricting the legal sale of sanctioned products is not an appropriate response to the illegal sale of illegal products. We don't take Advil off the shelves because cocaine exists and is sold.It is worth emphasizing that the current episode seems to be related almost exclusively to the use of illegal THC-based vaping cartridges. Used as intended, vaping is a literal lifesaver.In the United Kingdom, medical authorities advise smokers to switch to vaping, because practically all of the available scientific evidence suggests that vaping is much, much safer. Nicotine consumption does come with health consequences, roughly comparable to those associated with caffeine. What makes smoking so bad for your health isn't the nicotine — it's all the other stuff in tobacco smoke, the products of combustion. The nicotine solution used in Juul products and others like them is water-based and requires no combustion at all — the vapor is nicotine-laced steam. The Royal College of Physicians found that vaping is no more than 5 percent as harmful to health as smoking; a 95-percent improvement would be, in any other major public-health issue, cause for celebration. But vaping looks too much like smoking for our professional busybodies.("Why don't we do things like they do it in England?" the progressives are always saying when it comes to health-care — and here's a chance.)A couple of conclusions: One is that as a matter of tradeoffs, vaping is a clear winner over smoking. Another is that not all national policy needs to be organized around miscreant children. A third is that people enjoy a lot of things that have negative health consequences: nicotine, alcohol, sugar, salt, motorcycles, scuba diving, etc. — and, absent some much more compelling case than this, the nannies should mind their own business.
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| What Were the Mach 10 UFOs That Iran's Jets Encountered? Posted: 17 Sep 2019 07:00 PM PDT  Does the U.S. have a super-secret spy plane?
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| Cash-starved Air India putting crews on low-fat diet Posted: 18 Sep 2019 04:57 AM PDT  Cash-starved Air India is putting its crew on a diet, changing their inflight menu to special low-fat meals. Dhananjay Kumar, the state-run airline's spokesman, said Wednesday that the objective is to provide healthy and cost-effective meals to crews on domestic and international flights. Kumar declined comment on media reports that the cost per meal, mostly vegetarian, will fall to one-third of the current 500-800 rupees (up to $11) per meal.
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| Drone delivers shark warning to surfer Posted: 17 Sep 2019 04:29 PM PDT 
A surfer enjoying the pristine waters off Australia's east coast Sunday didn't see the large shark beneath the surface, but a nearby drone operator did. UPSOUND: SHARK, SHARK, SHARK... Using a search and rescue drone equipped with infra-red thermal imaging and a warning speaker system, amateur drone pilot Christopher Joye captured the moment the shark approached. Joye says he blasted the alert, causing the surfer to quickly turn toward shore. That's when the shark headed to deeper waters. Joye, who is also a fund manager, has previously run shark patrols on Australian beaches as part of a campaign to keep swimmers safe using drones, which he believes work better than shark nets.
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| Navy SEAL who oversaw the bin Laden raid says China's massive military buildup is a 'holy s---' moment Posted: 18 Sep 2019 12:51 PM PDT  Speaking at an event in Washington, William McRaven, a SEAL who oversaw the bin Laden raid, said the US was approaching a "Sputnik moment" with China.
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| Lone 737 MAX criss-crossed Canada for pilot checks during grounding Posted: 18 Sep 2019 04:00 AM PDT ![Lone 737 MAX criss-crossed Canada for pilot checks during grounding]( "Lone 737 MAX criss-crossed Canada for pilot checks during grounding") MONTREAL/PARIS Sept 18 (Reuters) - While the world's Boeing 737 MAX fleet remains grounded after two fatal crashes, a solitary Air Canada plane has been spotted in the skies, shuttling between Quebec and Ontario. In a rare exemption, approved by Canadian aviation regulator Transport Canada, the 11 flights in August and September were partly to maintain the qualifications of senior training pilots, Air Canada told Reuters in response to a query about flight tracking data. A spokesman for Air Canada said the airline was not able to use similar 737s within its fleet "to maintain check pilot authority in alignment with (Canadian aviation regulations)".
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| Ed Buck: Man suspected of preying on gay black men arrested after years of accusations Posted: 18 Sep 2019 04:40 AM PDT  A US businessman has been described as a "violent, dangerous sexual predator" after a man nearly died in his West Hollywood home, following two identical deaths.Ed Buck, a prominent Democratic donor, was arrested on Tuesday and charged with battery causing serious injury, after years of accusations that he preys on homosexual black men.
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| Judge resigns after sharing noose image with 'Make America Great Again' slogan on Facebook Posted: 18 Sep 2019 08:09 AM PDT  A New York town judge was forced off the bench after a written complaint said his post appeared 'to convey racial and/or political bias.'
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| Dan Rather: Corey Lewandowski Won Car-Crash CNN Interview, ‘The Press and Best Interests of the Country Lost’ Posted: 18 Sep 2019 02:01 PM PDT  Steven Ferdman/GettyWednesday's CNN appearance by former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, the morning after he acknowledged to the House Judiciary Committee that he feels no obligation to be honest with the news media, re-ignited an ongoing debate among staffers at the cable network over who should and not be accorded airtime if they are simply using it as a forum to mislead.CNN Brings on Corey Lewandowski, a Known Liar, for Totally Batshit InterviewThe controversial booking of Lewandowski also provoked a barrage of criticism from journalists who argued that he's a confirmed liar who can't be trusted by viewers to be a credible source of information.Lewandowski is himself a former paid CNN commentator whose 2016 hiring, after being dismissed by Trump, embarrassed the network when it was disclosed that he was continuing on the Trump campaign payroll at $20,000 a month while working for CNN.Among CNN's critics is former CBS News anchor Dan Rather, who told The Daily Beast that he agrees with concerns that Lewandowski's appearance didn't serve the public, and that a fiery televised confrontation of the kind that occurred Wednesday potentially helps the Senate Republican primary campaign Lewandowski is widely expected to launch soon in his native New Hampshire."Unfortunately, the Congress, the press and the best interests of the country—in my opinion—lost that round," Rather, who runs the News and Guts Media production company and anchors shows on AXS TV and The Young Turks YouTube channel, said in an email. CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker declined to respond to the criticism on the record, as did several staffers reached by The Daily Beast. A quick spot survey of CNN employees, however, suggested that some CNN employees agree with Rather while other staffers believe that it's not the news media's job to censor government officials or prominent political figures such as Lewandowski, but instead to bring them on, interrogate them, and hold them accountable. During a 16-minute-long exchange that shed far more heat than light, Lewandowski regularly dodged, talked over and shouted over New Day anchor Alisyn Camerota's questions and repeatedly insulted the network that once wrote him handsome checks.Lewandowski accused CNN of "hypocrisy" for employing fired FBI acting director Andrew McCabe as an on-air analyst, even as McCabe is being targeted by the Trump Justice Department for a criminal referral for allegedly making false statements to the DOJ inspector general.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Artists refusing to make gay wedding invitations win US legal battle Posted: 16 Sep 2019 07:03 PM PDT  Two Arizona artists who refused to create invitations to same-sex weddings due to their Christian beliefs were within their legal rights, the US state's top court ruled Monday. The state Supreme Court's decision invalidates previous judgments against the two women for violating a "human relations ordinance" introduced by the southwestern city of Phoenix to safeguard LGBTQ rights. According to their lawyers, the two artists could have faced up to six months in prison and a $2,500 fine each time they refused to make invitations to gay weddings.
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| Republicans Slam Democrats Uninterested in Spying Investigation Posted: 18 Sep 2019 10:38 AM PDT  Why don't they want to know?
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| FAA closes Area 51 airspace ahead of Alienstock for 'special security reasons' Posted: 18 Sep 2019 08:28 AM PDT  Federal agencies are prepping for the alien-themed music festival Alienstock in the Nevada desert near the U.S. Air Force Base Area 51 this weekend. The event was spawned by the viral Facebook event "Storm Area 51," and while you can Naruto-run there, you sure can't fly there now.The Federal Aviation Administration announced two "temporary flight restrictions for special security reasons," effectively banning air traffic ahead of the festival from early Wednesday to late Sunday, CNET reports. The airspace will be closed to news helicopters, drones, private pilots, and any other aircrafts above Rachel, Nevada, U.S. Air Force's Nevada Test and Training Range, and Area 51 itself.SEE ALSO: People are already getting arrested at Area 51, and of course they're YouTubersWhile the original meme event "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All Of Us" was meant in jest, it garnered 2 million RSVPs worldwide and a pretty sick music video for one of Lil Nas X's many "Old Town Road" remixes. Eventually the Air Force had to step in to squash the tin foil hat dreams. Amidst reports that even the neighboring town couldn't hold the influx of tourists, a music festival was planned to either deter or distract alien-lovers from actually trespassing on government property. But Matty Roberts, the original poster of the page, has since severed his ties with Alienstock, calling it "a possible humanitarian disaster" and "FYREFEST 2.0." He cited the "lack of infrastructure, poor planning, risk management and blatant disregard for the safety of the expected 10,000+ AlienStock attendees."Due to this risk, the original organizers moved away from the festival in Rachel and now encourages planned attendees to head to an alternative free Area 51 Celebration in the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center. News outlets reported that Alienstock was dead. But, as you can probably guess by now, that's not stopping some folks from "seeing them aliens." Various organizers are claiming the festival in Rachel is still going ahead, with 2,600 camping spots booked. Additionally, YouTubers are already getting arrested for jumping the fence into the Area 51 base. So even if thousands of people do end up attending the event from the sheer force of meme power alone, the heavens above will be clear of any aircrafts, both unidentified and otherwise.
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| Moldova Turns to FBI for Help in Investigating $1 Billion Fraud Posted: 18 Sep 2019 08:37 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Moldova requested assistance from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to bring to justice participants in a $1 billion fraud that led to a bailout of three of the nation's banks.Interior Minister Andrei Nastase said he met with senior FBI officials and handed over a letter seeking assistance.The letter "put on the FBI's agenda the theft of the billion, the laundromat of the international mafia and all the other schemes that have ruined the financial and banking system and have deprived our country of much needed resources," he said Wednesday in a post on Facebook. The FBI gave assurances they would help, he said.The former Soviet republic of 3.5 million people was rocked by the 2014 theft that forced the government to seek assistance from the International Monetary Fund. A new government led by Prime Minister Maia Sandu took power in June, and the banking sector has been overhauled and sold to foreign investors.\--With assistance from Olga Tanas.To contact the reporter on this story: Aaron Eglitis in Riga at aeglitis@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrea Dudik at adudik@bloomberg.net, Michael Winfrey, Andrew LangleyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| View Photos of Porsche's 911 RSR in Coke Livery Posted: 18 Sep 2019 11:39 AM PDT |
| Blaming shelters and street sleeping, Donald Trump blasts California for homeless crisis Posted: 17 Sep 2019 05:38 PM PDT  Donald Trump hands out a conservative prescription to remedy homelessness, blaming shelters and calling for cities to ban sleeping on streets.
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| Gamble pays off for Lieberman, who becomes Israeli kingmaker Posted: 17 Sep 2019 03:56 PM PDT  The veteran Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman took the political gamble of his life when he spurned his mentor, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and forced an unprecedented repeat election. With neither Netanyahu's Likud nor former military chief Benny Gantz's centrist Blue and White party forecast to secure a majority in the 120-seat parliament without his support, Lieberman has emerged as the election's true winner — the one most likely to dictate the makeup of the next government. Lieberman passed up the post of defense minister in Netanyahu's government following April's election and refused to join the new coalition because of what he said was the excessive influence it granted to ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties.
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| Off-duty Chicago police officer Paul Escamilla dies in apparent suicide on NW Side Posted: 17 Sep 2019 04:36 PM PDT  An off-duty Chicago police officer died Monday evening in an apparent suicide in a forest preserve on the Northwest Side.
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| How Vietnamese Commandos Sank A U.S. 'Aircraft Carrier' Posted: 18 Sep 2019 07:43 AM PDT  The sinking of the Card was a stunning victory for the Viet Cong, yet little remembered today. It illustrated how vulnerable naval vessels can be even when faced with a low-tech enemy … and how difficult maintaining port security can be in a war with no real front.
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| Filipino coastguards convicted of killing Taiwanese fisherman Posted: 17 Sep 2019 11:36 PM PDT  Coastguard sailors who opened fire on a Taiwanese fisherman in Philippine waters were convicted Wednesday of his 2013 killing, which strained ties between the historically friendly neighbours. The eight Filipino crewmen said they had shot in self-defence after the fisherman's vessel sailed directly at them in the seas just north of the main Philippine island of Luzon. "We are filing a notice of appeal so that what we perceived as errors of the trial court will be thrashed out," Paul Jomar Alcudia, one of the lawyers of the officers, told AFP.
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| Andrew Yang’s Dumb Gimmick Stepped on His Own Important Message Posted: 17 Sep 2019 02:25 AM PDT  Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Photo by Jayme Gershen/GettyAndrew Yang has been my favorite Democrat to watch this election cycle, partly because he's the candidate I would most like to be friends with. That's why I was so disappointed to see him resort to a cheap stunt during last week's debate. I assumed that having earned his way into the first debate where all the candidates would share the same stage at the same time, Yang would seize this moment to explain the core issue that has propelled his candidacy. In case you missed it (and you wouldn't have seen it during the debate!), Yang's fundamental message is that a lot of working-class Americans have been left behind, and the culprit is automation. This problem, Yang insists, is going to get much more pervasive. Like the Industrial Revolution, it will lead to tremendous dislocation and disruption. To manage this inevitable transformation, Yang proposes a universal basic income (UBI) of $1,000 a month, an amount specifically chosen to be big enough to mitigate the harm without being so big as to disincentivize work. Indeed, Yang argues that his "freedom dividend" could actually liberate us to pursue our inventions, passions, and dreams. The brilliance here is that Yang frames what might otherwise be seen as a radical progressive idea in language that sounds good to conservative ears. Democrats, Beware of Andrew Yang's Insane Vision for AmericaBut instead of telling this (admittedly longer) story, Yang chose to turn his opening debate statement into a raffle where 10 families will win a "freedom dividend" of $1,000 a month for a year. By turning his big idea into a sort of game, Yang doesn't just skip over the seriousness of a looming automation dystopia—he actually trivializes it. What is more, the idea of giving away money based on luck or need (it's not actually clear how winners will be determined) actually steps on Yang's own messaging. That's because Yang carefully avoids framing UBI as a giveaway (indeed, to qualify for the check, you'd have to opt out of welfare payments). Instead, he sells it as something you've earned—like Social Security—by virtue of being a "citizen of the richest, most advanced country in the world." So why would an obviously smart entrepreneur squander the best chance he might ever have to make his substantive argument to a large TV audience? According to Politico, the idea helped Yang "raise $1 million in the 72 hours since the debate and collect more than 450,000 email addresses from people who entered the online raffle…" Once you view the idea through the prism of list acquisition, rather than traditional message delivery, you begin to see the method to the madness. This, of course, raises legal questions. FEC experts seem to see this as problematic and dubious, though there is a general sense that nothing will be done to stop it. We live in a world where a foreign government providing opposition research to a candidate doesn't necessarily qualify as "a thing of value," and where using campaign funds to ostensibly pay voters can be seen as mere campaign advertising. It also raises a practical question: Where does this end?In recent years, we have seen the proliferation of cloying candidates begging us to "visit my website" or to text such-and-such message to such-and-such number. As far as I can tell, though, this is the first time audiences have been invited to participate by virtue of being given the chance to win cash. And since it has apparently worked, I'm worried that everyone else will get in on the act. That means we can expect to see more elites exploiting their positions of influence and undermining their credibility—all in the service of shameless self-promotion. I, for one, have had enough of that. Want to win a copy of my latest eBook? Sign up for my email newsletter at www.mattklewis.com. Terms and conditions may apply!Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| The EU accuses Boris Johnson of only 'pretending' to negotiate a Brexit deal Posted: 18 Sep 2019 02:30 AM PDT  Johnson's negotiators have so far only presented the EU with a draft of the withdrawal agreement with the backstop scrubbed out.
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| Investors Urge South Africa to Leave Their $163 Billion Savings Posted: 18 Sep 2019 05:08 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- South Africa's 2.4 trillion rand ($163 billion) savings industry has a request for the ruling party: stop threatening to dictate where funds must invest and get going on projects that pensions can help finance."You can prescribe, but nothing will happen unless you have proper projects," Leon Campher, the chief executive officer of the Association for Savings and Investment South Africa, an industry body of fund managers and insurers, said in an interview in Johannesburg. "The savings industry would gladly invest in infrastructure or developmental projects provided they are properly done."President Cyril Ramaphosa last month echoed the election manifesto of the African National Congress saying a discussion was required to investigate the use of prescribed assets as a tool for fostering economic growth. A lack of detail on how retirement funds could be forced into investing in state-owned companies or government projects has stoked concerns it could leave pensioners poorer if these don't make inflation-beating returns.There has been very little visible progress since Ramaphosa last year announced that the government would create a multi-billion rand infrastructure fund. Banks and even Ramaphosa's envoys appointed to lure investment into the country have complained over a dearth of projects that has led to the near demise of South Africa's construction industry."If it's funding for developmental projects South Africa is after, government would be better off ensuring that the infrastructure initiative proposed by the president in his fiscal stimulus plan a year ago gets going," Campher said.Managers WorriedThe association and banking industry are working with the Development Bank of Southern Africa to flesh out details of an infrastructure initiative, Campher said, adding that DBSA has indicated it could be up and running by the end of this year."The concept is that you have the government pot, the DBSA pot and you have got the savings pot so you can create what is called a blended-finance model," he said. "Recruiting retired and semi-retired technical experts, people with the appropriate skills, to prepare projects will be important for attracting funding."Money managers are worried that "sooner or later" prescribed assets will be implemented, according to the 2019 BEE.conomics survey done for 27four Investment Managers and published on Wednesday. At least 83% of participants from the industry said they consider prescribed assets as threat."Prescription is a clear violation of property rights, because it impairs choice," said Andrew Canter, chief investment officer at Futuregrowth Asset Management in Cape Town, South Africa's biggest specialist fixed-income money manager. "There is ample global evidence that where prescription has been tried it has reduced returns," he added, citing Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa during racial-segration rule as examples."If you tell people how to invest their funds, you are undermining the savings culture and effective asset allocation," Canter said. "It will go to court, no matter what the government proposes. If you let the wolf into the hen house, the wolf will eventually eat the chickens."(Updates with comment from BEE.conomics survey, Futuregrowth starting from third-to-last paragraph.)To contact the reporters on this story: Roxanne Henderson in Johannesburg at rhenderson56@bloomberg.net;Mike Cohen in Cape Town at mcohen21@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Stefania Bianchi at sbianchi10@bloomberg.net, Vernon Wessels, Alastair ReedFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Afghan president sees his chance after collapse of U.S.-Taliban talks Posted: 17 Sep 2019 06:33 PM PDT  Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had no more than 20 minutes to study a draft accord between the United States and the Taliban on pulling thousands of U.S. troops out of his country, but upcoming elections could put him back at the heart of talks to end decades of war. What he read in the draft outlining the now collapsed deal left Ghani and his officials - who were shut out of the talks by the Taliban refusal to negotiate with what they considered an illegitimate "puppet" regime - badly shaken and resentful, said a senior Kabul official close to the Afghan leader. "Doesn't this look like surrender to the Taliban?" Ghani asked Zalmay Khalilzad, the veteran Afghan-born diplomat who led negotiations for Washington, at a meeting the two held immediately afterwards, according to the source who was present.
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| 5-year-old girl was abducted from playground, NJ police say Posted: 18 Sep 2019 02:49 PM PDT  The FBI is now involved in a search for a man who may have taken the girl to a van and driven away from the park in Bridgeton, New Jersey.
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| No truce: Trump keeps up feud with California during visit Posted: 18 Sep 2019 05:25 PM PDT  Trump's primary mission during his two-day visit to the state was to raise millions from wealthy Republicans. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, in turn, publicly called out the Trump White House for a lack of "moral authority" and lamented the state's "unfortunate relationship" with the president. The president and many Republicans see little downside to him making the nation's most populous state a ready villain.
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| Charges Pending After Teen with Special Needs is Punched at School Posted: 17 Sep 2019 08:32 PM PDT  An Iowa mom is looking to press charges after her son with special needs was beaten up while walking to class at Muscatine High School.
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| Here Are the 5 Biggest Nuclear Weapons Tests Ever Conducted Posted: 18 Sep 2019 03:42 AM PDT  We've got them ranked.
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| 29 bodies found in plastic bags in Mexico mass grave Posted: 17 Sep 2019 12:05 PM PDT  Mexican forensics experts have found at least 29 bodies stuffed in 119 plastic bags that were dumped in the bottom of a well outside the western city of Guadalajara, officials said Tuesday. Experts have been working to establish how many victims are in the mass grave since it was discovered earlier this month in a remote area known as La Primavera, about a 45-minute drive outside Guadalajara, Mexico's second city. "We have 13 complete corpses and 16 incomplete, for a total of 29 bodies," said Gerardo Solis, chief prosecutor for the state of Jalisco, which has been hit by a wave of violence in recent years driven by drug cartel turf wars.
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| Frivolous Lawsuits Once Again Threaten the Gun Industry Posted: 18 Sep 2019 03:30 AM PDT  In 2005, a wave of lawsuits threatened to bankrupt the gun industry. These suits were based on — pick your adjective — "creative," "novel," "inventive," and "imaginative" legal theories that rarely held up in court, and they did their damage primarily by forcing gun companies to incur the costs of defending against them. Congress, seeing the problem, stepped in to put a stop to it — or at least tried to — by passing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).A decade and a half later, anti-gun activists have responded with yet more new legal theories, and the Connecticut courts have bought one of them. Some families victimized by the Newtown massacre are being allowed to pursue a wrongful-death claim against Remington, which owns Bushmaster, the company that made the rifle used in the attack.The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to take the case and reverse the Connecticut supreme court's decision. It should, as numerous briefs from gun-rights supporters have argued this month.The problem here traces back to a flurry of legal activity in the 1980s and 1990s. Anti-gun activists faced a conundrum: It's easy enough to file a wrongful-death suit against someone who committed murder with a gun, or to sue a company that sold a defective gun, or to go after a gun store that knowingly sold a gun to a criminal. But the activists didn't just want to punish those who broke the existing rules; they thought the rules were too lax, and they'd had little success getting legislatures to change them.So they sued gun companies for following the rules, spinning elaborate theories about why different, stricter rules should apply instead. Those companies were creating a "public nuisance." They were "oversupplying" guns to high-crime neighborhoods, or continuing to send guns to stores that had had too many crimes traced back to them, or making products that appealed to the wrong sorts of people. Never mind how bizarre it is to hold a company liable for the criminal misuse of its legal products; never mind that state and federal governments had already written detailed laws about which guns were legal to sell and how gun sales were to take place; never mind that the targeted companies were following the prescribed process of dealer licenses and background checks; never mind that the alleged "bad apple" gun stores were licensed by the federal government to continue selling guns. If legislatures wouldn't draw the lines the way the activists wanted, maybe judges and juries would instead.Practically speaking, the problem with these suits was not that they had much chance of succeeding on the merits. The plaintiffs almost never won. Rather, the suits threatened to drown the industry in a sea of legal costs. Late in the Clinton administration, Andrew Cuomo, who was organizing lawsuits by federally funded housing authorities as the secretary of housing and urban development, told gunmakers they'd suffer "death by a thousand cuts" if they didn't give in to the gun-control lobby's demands. Some gunmakers did in fact go bankrupt.So Congress decided to nip these suits in the bud. Under the PLCAA, there would be no more lengthy court proceedings: Whenever a court was asked to find a gun company liable simply because someone else had misused its products, the lawsuit would be unceremoniously tossed out. Contrary to some of the lies about the law spread in the media, it didn't touch legitimate lawsuits. You can still sue gun companies if they sell defective products or break the law. Indeed, gun-rights supporters often cheer such lawsuits.Eventually, though, activists came up with creative theories as to why the law against creative theories didn't apply.The case against Remington alleges that the marketing of the gun used in the Newtown massacre violated the Connecticut Uniform Trade Protection Act, which prohibits "unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce." This is relevant because the PLCAA allows lawsuits when a gun company "knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing of the product" and the violation was a "proximate cause" of the harm at issue.There are several layers of problems here.For one thing, it's not clear that a generic law like Connecticut's is "applicable" to guns in the relevant sense. (The word can mean "capable of being applied" or "specifically applied.") As 22 members of the House note in their brief, two different appeals courts have interpreted the word narrowly, and Congress clearly meant to bar lawsuits based on "remote theories" tying marketing to criminal acts.Nor is it easy to see how Bushmaster violated the statute at all, much less knowingly violated it. Some of Bushmaster's ads were cringeworthy; the "CONSIDER YOUR MAN CARD REISSUED" one is the most famous example. But it's a hell of a stretch to say that to run such an ad is to knowingly engage in an "unfair or deceptive act or practice." And as a group of Second Amendment scholars explain in another brief, the advertising themes decried in the lawsuit — military imagery, defense against adversaries — "have necessarily been common in American arms culture."Yet as the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) notes, the Connecticut supreme court found that "the plaintiffs could survive a motion to dismiss by simply alleging that the defendant[s] . . . had marketed their products in a manner that encouraged their use for offensive assault missions."The idea that the gun's marketing directly contributed to the massacre is absurd as well. There is no evidence the shooter ever saw any Bushmaster ads, and he did not even buy the gun himself; he stole it from his mother. This, too, should protect Remington under the PLCAA.Put simply, if a dubious allegation that a company violated a generic statute is enough to punch through the protections of the PLCAA, the PLCAA won't mean much at all. As the NSSF argues, an attorney "can easily craft an allegation of 'unfair' conduct sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss under modern pleading standards. And nearly all states have statutes that prohibit 'unfair' trade practices in language as broad and as vague as the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act."If the PLCAA doesn't mean much, the Second Amendment itself won't mean much, either. Just as they did last time around, anti-gun activists will be free to flood the courts with lawsuits that have little chance of success but are guaranteed to rack up massive legal fees capable of bankrupting gun companies. And the people can't keep and bear arms if businesses can't make and sell them.The Supreme Court needs to take this case — and then nuke it into oblivion.
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| How 3 guys and 3 dogs caught this 411-pound feral hog that infiltrated a San Antonio golf course Posted: 16 Sep 2019 06:25 PM PDT  A 411-pound feral hog was spotted near a golf course in San Antonio. One of the men who humanely captured and removed it told Insider how they did it.
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| Dozens of people charged for illegally distributing millions of opioid pills Posted: 18 Sep 2019 01:38 PM PDT  Dozens of people - including six doctors and seven pharmacists - have been charged with fraud for illegally distributing more than 6 million opioid pills.Some of the pills were obtained using counterfeit prescription pads, and the stolen identities of legitimate doctors, prosecutors say.
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| UPDATE 2-Iran warns of crushing response, blames U.S. for regional tension Posted: 18 Sep 2019 01:08 AM PDT ![UPDATE 2-Iran warns of crushing response, blames U.S. for regional tension]( "UPDATE 2-Iran warns of crushing response, blames U.S. for regional tension") Iran on Wednesday threatened a crushing response to any military strike after attacks on Saudi oil sites blamed by Washington on Tehran, though it said the Islamic Republic had no desire for conflict in the Gulf region. In a letter sent on Monday to the United States via the Swiss embassy, which represents U.S. interests in Iran, Tehran said it "denies and condemns claims" by U.S. officials that "Tehran was behind the attacks".
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| Triple threat: Tropical Storm Imelda swamps Texas, Humberto nears Bermuda and TD 10 forms in Atlantic Posted: 17 Sep 2019 08:24 PM PDT  While Hurricane Humberto nears Bermuda, there's flooding in Texas due to Tropical Storm Imelda, and Tropical Depression 10 is spinning up in the Atlantic
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| Police: Pirates' Vázquez attempted to have sex with minor Posted: 18 Sep 2019 01:09 PM PDT  Pittsburgh Pirates closer Felipe Vázquez was being held Wednesday in a Pennsylvania jail on multiple felony charges after allegedly telling investigators he attempted to have sex with an underage girl during a meeting at her house in 2017. Vázquez is charged with statutory sexual assault, unlawful contact with a minor and corruption of minors, all felonies, and a misdemeanor count of indecent assault of a person under 16 years old. The charges are related to Vázquez's alleged encounters with a girl starting in 2017, when she was 13 and living about an hour east of downtown Pittsburgh.
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| View Every Angle of the 2020 Zero SR/F Electric Motorcycle Posted: 18 Sep 2019 10:59 AM PDT |
