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Monthly Archives: March 2020

Putin Dumps MBS to Start a War on America’s Shale Oil Industry


Keep in mind that all global actions affect us all and Russia is still trying to out influence the United States. This is an important economic development.MA

 

Putin Dumps MBS to Start a War on America’s Shale Oil Industry
Putin Dumps MBS to Start a War on America’s Shale Oil Industry

(Bloomberg) — At 10:16 a.m. on a wet and dreary Friday morning, Russia’s energy minister walked into OPEC’s headquarters in central Vienna knowing his boss was ready to turn the global oil market upside down.Alexander Novak told his Saudi Arabian counterpart Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman that Russia was unwilling to cut oil production further. The Kremlin had decided that propping up prices as the coronavirus ravaged energy demand would be a gift to the U.S. shale industry. The frackers had added millions of barrels of oil to the global market while Russian companies kept wells idle. Now it was time to squeeze the Americans.After five hours of polite but fruitless negotiation, in which Russia clearly laid out its strategy, the talks broke down. Oil prices fell more than 10%. It wasn’t just traders who were caught out: Ministers were so shocked, they didn’t know what to say, according to a person in the room. The gathering suddenly had the atmosphere of a wake, said another.

For over three years, President Vladimir Putin had kept Russia inside the OPEC+ coalition, allying with Saudi Arabia and the other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to curb oil production and support prices. On top of helping Russia’s treasury – energy exports are the largest source of state revenue – the alliance brought foreign policy gains, creating a bond with Saudi Arabia’s new leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

But the OPEC+ deal also aided America’s shale industry and Russia was increasingly angry with the Trump administration’s willingness to employ energy as a political and economic tool. It was especially irked by the U.S.’s use of sanctions to prevent the completion of a pipeline linking Siberia’s gas fields with Germany, known as Nord Stream 2. The White House has also targeted the Venezuelan business of Russia’s state-oil producer Rosneft.“The Kremlin has decided to sacrifice OPEC+ to stop U.S. shale producers and punish the U.S. for messing with Nord Stream 2,” said Alexander Dynkin, president of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Moscow, a state-run think tank. “Of course, to upset Saudi Arabia could be a risky thing, but this is Russia’s strategy at the moment – flexible geometry of interests.”

The First No

The OPEC+ deal had never been popular with many in the Russian oil industry, who resented having to hold back investments in new and potentially profitable projects. In particular, Igor Sechin, the powerful boss of Rosneft and a long-time Putin ally, lobbied against the curbs, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private conversations.The Kremlin was also disappointed the alliance with Riyadh hadn’t yielded major Saudi investments in Russia.For several months, Novak and his team had been telling Saudi officials they liked being in the OPEC+ alliance but were reluctant to deepen production cuts, according to people familiar with the relationship. At the last OPEC meeting in December, Russia negotiated a position that allowed it to keep production fairly steady while Saudi Arabia shouldered big reductions.

When the coronavirus started devastating Chinese economic activity in early February – cutting oil demand in Saudi Arabia’s biggest customer by 20% — Prince Abdulaziz tried to convince Novak that they should call an early OPEC+ meeting in response to cutback supply. Novak said no. The Saudi king and Putin spoke by phone ­­– it didn’t help.As the virus spread and analysts forecast the worst year for oil demand since the global financial crisis, the Saudi camp was hopeful Moscow could be won round at the next scheduled OPEC meeting in early March. The Russians didn’t rule out deepening cuts, but kept making the point that shale producers should be made to share the pain. Putin, who has been the final arbiter of Russia’s OPEC+ policy since the alliance started in 2016, met oil Russian producers and key ministers last Sunday.

Bad Chemistry

As ministers gathered in Vienna this week, Saudi Arabia made a final effort to force Russia’s hand. They persuaded the core OPEC group to support a deep production cut of 1.5 million barrels a day, but made it contingent on Russia and the other OPEC+ countries joining in. Novak turned up last at the Vienna headquarters where his nervous counterparts were waiting for him, and refused to budge.

The crown prince even considered calling Putin on Friday, according to a person familiar with the situation. But Putin’s spokesman made clear to reporters he had no plans to get involved. As for the two countries’ oil ministers, there was no personal chemistry between them, according to a person in the room. They didn’t exchange a single smile, said another.

With every leak from the meeting the price of oil twitched, as traders slowly came to realize a deal was going to be impossible.

Priming the Pump

Rosneft is delighted with the breakup. It can now move to boost its market share, said spokesman Mikhail Leontiev.

“If you always give in to partners, you are no longer partners. It’s called something else,” he told Bloomberg. “Let’s see how American shale exploration feels under these conditions.”

But the decision to take on shale could backfire. While many drillers in Texas and other shale regions look vulnerable, as they’re overly indebted and already battered by rock-bottom natural gas prices, significant declines in U.S. production may take time. The largest American oil companies, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., now control many shale wells and have the balance sheets to withstand lower prices. Some smaller drillers may go out of business, but many will have bought financial hedges against the drop in crude.In the short run, Russia is in a good position to withstand an oil price slump. The budget breaks even at a price of $42 a barrel and the finance ministry has squirreled away billions in a rainy-day fund. Nonetheless, the coronavirus’s impact on the global economy is still unclear and with millions more barrels poised to flood the market, Wall Street analysts are warning oil could test recent lows of $26 a barrel.

In Saudi Arabia, where the government is almost entirely dependent on oil to fund government spending, the economic impact will be immediate. Prince Abdulaziz and his half-brother Crown Prince Mohammed will have every incentive to boost production to maximize revenue as prices fall.

“Prices will fall until either Moscow or Riyadh call off the endurance contest” or North American production is massively curtailed, said Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Advisors and a former National Security Council staffer.Relations between the two energy ministries remain cordial and the diplomatic mechanisms of the OPEC+ group are still in place, keeping the door open in case the two sides do decide to reunite. Novak told his peers on Friday that OPEC+ isn’t over.

But a photo of the conference room after the delegates had left hinted at a different story: The small Russian flag by Novak’s seat had been knocked over. And Prince Abdulaziz left his counterparts with a grave warning: Trust me, he told them, according to a person in the room. This will be a regrettable day for us all.

–With assistance from Dina Khrennikova, Henry Meyer, Irina Reznik and Javier Blas.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ilya Arkhipov in Moscow at iarkhipov@bloomberg.net;Will Kennedy in London at wkennedy3@bloomberg.net;Olga Tanas in Moscow at otanas@bloomberg.net;Grant Smith in London at gsmith52@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Emma Ross-Thomas at erossthomas@bloomberg.net

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Keep in mind that all global actions affect us all and Russia is still trying to out influence the United States. This is an important economic development.MA

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Trump Tells Colombia: Spray Coca Fields With Alleged Carcinogen—or Else


Politics

Agent Orange -anyone? MA

Jeremy Kryt
The Daily Beast
AFP
AFP

CALI, Colombia—During a meeting with Colombian President Iván Duque at the White House early last week, Donald Trump more or less ordered Colombia to wipe out coca plants—the main ingredient in cocaine—by spraying the controversial herbicide glyphosate from the air.

No, it’s not the infamous chemical Agent Orange used in Vietnam, but it’s bad enough, and likely to poison the people and the land beneath the toxic clouds.

The Last Battle of the Vietnam War: Agent Orange and Its ‘Presumed Diseases’

“You’re going to have to spray,” Trump said in front of reporters. “If you don’t spray you’re not going to get rid of [the coca plants]. So you have to spray with regard to the drugs in Colombia.”

Duque, long under pressure from the Trump administration, has now agreed to an ambitious “bilateral” plan to eradicate half of Colombia’s 212,000 hectares (523,863 acres) of coca by 2023. But Colombia remains the world’s leading exporter of processed cocaine, with about 90 percent of the finished product flowing north to the United State.

That doesn’t sit well with Trump, who has vacillated passive-aggressively between insulting Duque and threatening ominous repercussions for Colombia if cocaine production isn’t curbed.

In 2017, Trump threatened to decertify Colombia as a good-faith partner in the U.S. ”drug war”—a move that would lead to a cutoff of most foreign assistance to the nation. At the time, other leaders in Washington rushed to assure Duque that his country remained one of Washington’s most valued allies in the region. But Trump doubled down on his coercive threat again in 2018, and this time he made it personal:

“He [Duque] said how he was going to stop drugs. More drugs are coming out of Colombia right now than before he was president—so he has done nothing for us,” Trump said.

This cocaine quid pro quo—eradication at all costs or risk losing humanitarian and military aid—has led directly to Bogotá’s decision to resume aerial spraying with glyphosate. Colombia had curtailed the practice back in 2015 due to health risks, including cancer.

“The president’s attempts at bullying Colombia go way beyond the context of the larger drug war,” said Robert Bunker, an international security analyst at the University of Southern California.

But other critics point out that Colombian politicians—who have a long history of cozying up to Washington at the expense of their constituents—are also to blame.

A memo issued by the State Department after Trump’s meeting with Duque stated that “U.S. counternarcotics assistance to Colombia is one of our most effective investments. [Eradication] efforts have already demonstrated results as coca cultivation and cocaine production levels finally stabilized in 2018 and 2019 for the first time since 2012.”

Which begs the question: If new coca plantings had already been reduced and production “stabilized” without the use of glyphosate, why return to it now? Apparently because Trump wants it, and Duque can’t or won’t stand up to him.

“Our government is a puppet that has sold us out,” said Leyder Valencia, the spokesman for Colombia’s National Coordination for Cultivators of Coca, Poppies, and Marijuana [COCCAM], in an interview with The Daily Beast.

“Our leaders care nothing for what happens to us,” Valencia said. “They have put U.S. interests ahead of their own people.”

‘A CURSE UPON THE LAND’

Glyphosate was developed by the chemical giant Monsanto, a former U.S. company acquired in 2018 by Bayer—which acquired massive legal liabilities as part of the deal. The chemical is widely used in products like the weed killer Roundup. One recent meta study determined that exposure to the herbicide increases the risk of cancer—specifically non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma—by a factor of 41 percent. The World Health Organization also has stuck by its decision to label it a carcinogen, despite pressure from U.S. officials to change that ruling.

Over the last two years, a landmark series of court cases in California also have found glyphosate to be highly carcinogenic, with juries awarding a total of about $2.16 billion in damages to the plaintiffs. More than 13,000 claims have been leveled against Monsanto/Bayer. But the Trump administration likes glyphosate. Its Environmental Protection Agency and the Justice Department under Attorney General William Barr said in December that a federal appeals court should reverse a lower court ruling that Bayer was liable in the case of a man in California who claimed his cancer was caused by Roundup.

Colombia’s Drug-Funded Rebels Are Back in Action Big-Time

Bayer insists that its product is safe “when used as directed,” and isn’t likely to cause cancer if its residue is on the food you eat.

But in Colombia, remember, we are not talking about focused use of the chemical at ground level, we are talking about spraying anything and anyone caught in the toxic fog released by an airplane or helicopter.

The United Nations has criticized the use of aerial spraying in Colombia due to the chemical’s toxicity, as have ranking members of the Catholic Church in impacted areas.

“It is like a curse upon the land, destroying everything it touches” said COCCAM spokesman Valencia. “I have seen it with my own eyes. It kills all the farmer’s crops, not just coca, so that they have nothing to eat. It gets into the water and even kills their livestock.”

Valencia also insisted lymphoma isn’t the only disease caused by high levels of exposure.

“It also causes cancer of the skin,” he says. “The mothers miscarry, or their babies are born with terrible deformities. Our public officials know this, but they don’t care.”

Clinical proof for such claims is lacking, but their political and social impact is considerable. USC’s Bunker called aerial spraying an “indefensible ethical position… We are essentially strong-arming a U.S. ally to engage in its own environmental degradation.”

According to Valencia, most farmers would choose not to grow coca at all if there were other viable crops that would allow them to support their families. Armed groups often compete over coca plots for the sake of producing cocaine, meaning that coca growers “always live in a war zone.” And at any time Colombian government soldiers can come along and wipe out the crops, leaving growers with nothing to harvest, he said.

“We’ve been begging for crop substitution programs since the 1980s. The government makes promises to help us, but nothing ever comes of it.”

‘PEOPLE NEED BASIC SECURITY’

Deadly mutative properties aside, there’s another good reason not to return to aerial eradication with glyphosate. Namely that in the long run it doesn’t work, according to Adam Isacson, defense director for the Washington Office on Latin America.

“Fumigation can bring a short-term reduction in coca cultivation, but coca recovers pretty quickly in areas that are totally ungoverned,” Isacson told The Daily Beast. “In Colombia we saw that after a few years of spraying, heavily sprayed regions had modestly less coca and a population seething with anger toward their government.”

Coca farmers respond to aerial eradication by moving their plots, disguising the coca plants among other vegetation, and quickly cutting the plant after it’s been sprayed to avoid poisoning of the roots. Isacson, who recently authored a paper on the logistics of spraying coca, said that lack of state presence and economic infrastructure are the prime factors that force farmers to grow illicit crops because they “have no other option.”

“A government that sprays people from overhead is a government that doesn’t intend to be physically present on the ground,” he said. “Some of these areas are so ungoverned that people can’t even get their hands on the local currency easily; it’s easier to buy things by weighing coca paste on store-counter scales.”

Another new report by Brookings also calls forced eradication efforts in Colombia “ineffective” and labels results “short-lived and ephemeral.” Vanda Falbab-Brown, the author of “Detoxifying Colombia’s Drug Policy,” argues for “rural development centering on alternative livelihoods for coca growers and supported by well-designed interdiction efforts” as the best means for cutting back drug production.

Citing successful efforts in Thailand, she argues that “eradication should be delayed until these alternative livelihoods are generating sustainable income.”

But Trump, even as he demands a return to aerial spraying, has authorized a $36 million cut in aid to Colombia as part of his 2021 budget—denying funds that would have gone toward the kind of rural assistance programs Falbab-Brown advocates.

The 2016 peace treaty between Bogotá and the country’s largest guerrilla faction, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), also called for a development-first approach to eventual eradication. The armistice was engineered by former Colombian president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Juan Manuel Santos, but the far-right Duque regime has walked back on his predecessor’s promises to provide support for rural regions.

“The accords include a step by step process [for eradication] that also comes with social investments,” said Valencia, of COCCAM. “That treaty was signed almost four years ago. How much longer will we have to wait?”

If Trump has his way, the wait is over, and so are the accords. Let the sprays begin.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Lawsuit alleges college textbook publishers conspired to monopolize the market


o Finance

Lawsuit alleges college textbook publishers conspired to ‘monopolize the market’

Aarthi SwaminathanReporter
Yahoo Finance

A new antitrust class action lawsuit alleges that textbook publishers and on-campus college chain bookstores conspired to monopolize the textbook market, forcing students to pay higher-than-market prices for course materials.

Plaintiffs argue that publishers built the “Inclusive Access” model — a digital textbook market in collaboration with top publishers ostensibly aimed at reducing the cost of course materials — “to monopolize the market for textbooks in Inclusive Access classes and thereby raise prices, are actionable violations of the federal antitrust laws.”

Singling out the big three publishers — Cengage, Pearson and McGraw-Hill, as well as on-campus bookstore chains — the lawsuit filed in a New Jersey federal court argues that the practice is illegal under the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act.

A University of Colorado sophomore watches as employees carry away his textbooks after selling them back to the CU bookstore inside. (Photo: Jeremy Papasso/Digital First Media/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images)
A University of Colorado sophomore watches as employees carry away his textbooks after selling them back to the CU bookstore inside. (Photo: Jeremy Papasso/Digital First Media/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images)

“This suit by a student standing up for all of her peers against the the potential harms of Inclusive Access … and ultimately, like these, this suit could affect every student in America,” Kaitlyn Vitez, higher education campaign director for the progressive non-profit U.S. PIRG Education Fund, told Yahoo Finance. “We’re talking about a really huge segment of America’s college population.”

The textbook market — which Vitez previously called a “broken marketplace” — has been dominated for decades by a few dominant publishers that leverage deep expertise in educational materials and relationships with universities. Vitez said that the lawsuit “has the potential to really shake up the publishers’ plans to eliminate the used textbook market.”

‘Pearson stands by the Inclusive Access model’

While the amount of money an average college student spends on textbooks has declined slightly in recent years, the lawsuit contends that the publishers’ introduction of an online model has resulted in the loss of choice.

“Inclusive Access increases students’ costs and eliminates their choices in order to increase the profits of textbook publishers and on-campus college bookstore retail chains,” the lawsuit asserts.

In response to this story, textbook publishers defended the model.

“We believe Inclusive Access benefits students by making our first-class instructional materials available to them at below competitive rates, and we believe the lawsuit has no factual or legal merit,” a McGraw-Hill spokesperson said in a statement.

A Pearson spokesperson said: “Pearson is aware of this lawsuit and is reviewing the complaint. Pearson stands by the Inclusive Access model, which offers real benefits to students, instructors and institutions.”

“Cengage is prepared to defend vigorously against these allegations,” a spokesperson from the company stated. “Cengage has been and remains a forceful advocate for student and textbook affordability.”

A student stands in from of books in a campus bookstore. (Photo by: Jeff Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
A student stands in from of books in a campus bookstore. (Photo by: Jeff Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

‘That’s gas money’

Online textbooks in the “Inclusive Access” model sometimes come with access codes to quizzes, homework assignments, and even exams. Some of the prices of the textbooks can run pretty steep, and in many cases, students can’t rely on a used textbook at cheaper rates.

Publishers emphasize that there’s always an “opt-out” option. But schools sometimes sign up for these textbooks in advance to secure discounted rates from the publishers and, in some cases, tacking that cost on to their students’ tuition and fees.

20-year-old University of North Carolina at Pembroke student Jorge Castillo told Yahoo Finance that as part of his school’s pilot program to increase students’ access to education materials, “one of the classes …  had automatically charged me for a book. And this book — I already had bought it before.”

Castillo added that “the book that I had bought before was 50% cheaper than the book that was automatically charged to my fees. They charged me $45 on tuition and fees. Doesn’t sound like a tremendous amount, but in reality, if I can get a book for $20 on Amazon, that’s gas money and money I can use for other [things].”

Follett, the company running the program, insisted that an “opt out” feature allowed students like Castillo were free to do so and buy alternative course materials at a cheaper rate.

But Castillo said it wasn’t that simple.

“It’s not easy to opt out,” he said. “So for instance, I have my school email and they sent it to another email that I normally don’t use… that I had in high school.”

—

Aarthi is a writer for Yahoo Finance. She can be reached at aarthi@yahoofinance.com. Follow her on Twitter @aarthiswami. 

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Trump says he’ll cut entitlements like Social Security and Medicare if reelected to shrink trillions in national debt


 

Joseph Zeballos-Roig

 Mar. 6, 2020, 10:09 AM

 

  • Trump said at a Fox News town hall forum that he was intending to reduce funding for Social Security and Medicare, two of the largest federal entitlement programs.
  • “Oh, we’ll be cutting,” he said. “We’re also going to have growth like you’ve never seen before.”
  • The move would be a reversal from Trump’s pledge to leave those programs untouched in a second term.
  • He previously expressed a willingness to reduce funding for Social Security and Medicare in a second term.
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

President Trump said at a Fox News town hall forum that he intended to cut entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.

Trump was asked during the interview about the $23 trillion national debt, which has continued surging under his watch. He campaigned on 2016 on wiping it out but instead passed laws like the 2017 tax cuts, which piled more onto it.

At the town hall, Fox News host Martha MacCallum told the president that if “you don’t cut something in entitlements, you will never really deal with the debt,” and Trump immediately responded.

 

“Oh, we’ll be cutting,” he said to the Scranton, Pennsylvania, audience. “We’re also going to have growth like you’ve never seen before.”

The comments appear to be a reversal from Trump’s promise to leave the two largest federal government programs untouched in a second term. In a CNBC interview last month, Trump expressed a willingness to cut funding for both programs.

“At the right time, we will take a look at that. You know, that’s actually the easiest of all things, if you look,” he told CNBC’s Joe Kernen.

He rowed back on those remarks and did the same after the Fox News town hall.

Trump tweeted on Friday morning: “I will protect your Social Security and Medicare, just as I have for the past 3 years. Sleepy Joe Biden will destroy both in very short order, and he won’t even know he’s doing it!”

 

White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham also defended the president on Twitter, saying that Trump was speaking “about cutting deficits, NOT entitlements.”

Social Security and Medicare represent a major chunk of government spending, and they constituted almost 40% of the federal budget in 2018. Social Security alone makes up nearly a quarter of all federal spending.

The Congressional Budget Office has projected that both programs will cost $30 trillion over the next decade. But any efforts at reform would likely encounter resistance from Democrats pledging to shield Social Security and Medicare from future cuts.

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What If the Court Saw Other Rights as Generously as Gun Rights?


An illustration of target practice for a shooting range with an apple design over it.
ARSH RAZIUDDIN / THE ATLANTIC
This is an essay about two words no one wants to see in the same story: guns and schools. But this isn’t about school shootings. This is instead about two starkly different social-activist groups: gun-rights proponents and educational-equity advocates. It’s about their steadfast pursuit of wildly divergent civil rights. It’s about a surprising similarity in their legal strategies. And more than anything, it’s a story about law and ideology, and the difficulty of deciding the former without the influence of the latter.

Both groups have long courted the Supreme Court’s intervention. Spearheaded by new leadership at the NRA in the late 1970s, gun-rights activists engaged for decades in an effort to persuade the Supreme Court to recognize an individual Second Amendment right to bear arms for self-defense at home. The Court ultimately enshrined that right 12 years ago in D.C. v. Heller, displacing a long-standing consensus to the contrary. In the years after Heller, however, conservatives such as Justice Clarence Thomas frequently complained that the Court had ignored this fledgling right by refusing to expand its reach beyond the facts of Heller itself, effectively resigning the right to “second-class” status.

Second-class no more. In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. New York, a major case argued in December, the Court appears poised to expand the Second Amendment to protect gun possession outside the home as well. Just how far is an open question, though gun-rights groups have focused for now on enshrining a right to transport guns to shooting ranges and second homes.

For educational-equity advocates, the Court’s involvement has not been as helpful. The Court declared in 1973 that the Constitution guarantees no right to an education. That ruling paved the way for today’s radically unequal public-school spending patterns—patterns that reinforce and exacerbate existing socioeconomic and racial inequalities.

Like the gun activists, educational-equality proponents have not given up their vision of a constitutional solution. Equity advocates’ present litigation strategy is exemplified by a case known as Gary B v. Whitmer, which is currently pending in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The complaint in the case is painful to read: Many classes in Detroit public schools are taught by unqualified substitutes, and many classrooms use textbooks that are decades old, or lack them altogether. School buildings are in complete disrepair; the temperature had risen to 110 degrees in one building because of the lack of air conditioning, and students have to wear jackets and hats inside a number of schools during the winter months because of the lack of heat.

These schools, the plaintiffs argue, have deprived Detroit schoolchildren of their basic right to literacy, in violation of the equal-protection and due-process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. A district judge rejected the plaintiffs’ theory in 2018, but a panel of judges on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals seemed more receptive during oral argument in October. And regardless of the outcome of the case in the Sixth Circuit, the Supreme Court will likely have the final say, perhaps as early as in 2021.

At first glance, the gun-rights movement and the pursuit of educational equity seem to have little in common. But they in fact share an approach: Both promote arguments that rely on what are called “implied” or “unenumerated” constitutional rights.

Start with the gun activists’ position in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association. One of their primary objectives is to vindicate a constitutional right to transport their firearms to any shooting range of their choosing. (New York City forbade certain gun owners with premises licenses from bringing their guns to shooting ranges outside city limits—at least, that is, before the city and state both amended the law to permit such travel. The gun-owning plaintiffs wanted to shoot at ranges in New Jersey.)

The argument for a constitutional right to train at any shooting range is far from obvious. The Second Amendment speaks of a right to “keep” and “bear” arms, but says nothing about a right to train or practice. And indeed, cities and states at the founding often restricted gun owners to practicing only at prescribed locations.

So what do the gun activists argue? It’s worth reproducing this argument from their brief verbatim, with emphasis added to a single word: “The right to possess firearms for protection implies a corresponding right to acquire and maintain proficiency in their use … after all, the core right to keep and bear arms for self-defense wouldn’t mean much without the training and practice that make it effective.” The Second Amendment may say nothing about the right to practice at a shooting range of one’s choosing, in other words, but that right ought to be recognized implicitly because it is important for an express constitutional right to have full meaning.

Now consider the argument advanced by advocates of a constitutional right to basic literacy. Like gun activists and their right to firearms training, educational-equity advocates recognize that the Constitution says nothing explicit about education. But surely a guarantee of basic literacy skills must be implicit in the document in order for its express rights to have meaning. As the Gary B. complaint puts it, “without access to basic literacy skills, citizens cannot engage in knowledgeable and informed voting,” cannot exercise “their right to engage in political speech” under the First Amendment, and cannot enjoy their “constitutionally protected access to the judicial system … including the retention of an attorney and the receipt of notice sufficient to satisfy due process.”

The identical logical structure that underpins these otherwise distinctive arguments presents a puzzle for the Supreme Court. How can it in good faith accept a theory of implied constitutional rights for gun owners only to reject the same argument for schoolchildren? Yet the consensus among close followers is that this is the most likely outcome: Gun-rights activists believe the Court is primed to deliver them a victory in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, while educational-equity advocates recognize that the Court’s conservative majority is unlikely to rule in their favor.

Should it come to pass, a pro-gun, anti-schoolchildren result would reveal some bleak lessons about the Supreme Court and the influence of political ideology on its justices. When logic cannot support the Court’s divergent decisions, the public is left with the impression that the Court is just engaged in politics by another name—that the “Supreme Court is not a court and its justices are not judges.” This has happened before: The Rehnquist Court famously took a cramped view of Congress’s power to regulate violence against women and (ironically enough) gun possession in school zones under the commerce clause. But when faced with a similar attack against Congress’s power to criminalize homegrown-marijuana production and use, the Court did a sudden about-face, broadly defending congressional authority.

Perhaps, then, a neutral theory of implied rights—one founded on first principles instead of politics—ought to shape constitutional law. Under such a theory, starting with shared values seems fitting. To that end, consider Chief Justice John Marshall’s famous declaration two centuries ago that “we must never forget that it is a Constitution we are expounding.” A constitution’s very “nature,” Chief Justice Marshall explained, “requires that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves.”

Put another way, implied rights are a necessary consequence of the shared effort to live in a democracy bound by a timeless and embracing constitutional document. The Constitution is short for a reason: It lets people work out their problems over time, as they develop. Thus, many of America’s proudest judicial moments champion implied rights: the right to vote in state elections, the right to appeal a criminal conviction, and even the right to procreate. Like the right to vote, in particular, the right to education is “preservative of other basic civil and political rights,” and should be recognized for the same reason. And if one agrees with Heller’s individual, self-defense interpretation of the Second Amendment right—an assumption that, to be sure, is subject to powerful counterarguments—then an individual right to train with firearms would be entitled to the same logical underpinning.

This story is part of the project “The Battle for the Constitution,” in partnership with the National Constitution Center.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

AARON TANG is a professor of law at the University of California, Davis, focusing on constitutional law, education law, and federal courts.

Be Careful What You DO And Say


It would be prudent for TOTUS’s handlers(?) to advise him against mentioning Ukraine given the mire he has personally created and the ensuing impeachment inquiry regardless of the outcome (thanks Botch). MA
Tim Pearce
President Trump plans to use former Vice President Joe Biden’s history with Ukraine against him in the general election should Biden win the Democratic nomination for president.

Donald Trump wearing a suit and tie© Provided by Washington ExaminerTrump spoke with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Friday night about the president’s campaign strategy after Biden took the lead in the Democratic primary with 566 delegates following Super Tuesday. Trump said that he plans to bring up allegations of corruption against Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, “all the time.”

“It’s not a campaign issue for the Democrats. They don’t want to bring it up. They were obviously told, ‘You can’t bring that up,'” Trump said. “That wouldn’t happen with the Republicans, I can tell you. I’m not saying good, bad, or indifferent.”

Biden oversaw the U.S. foreign policy to Ukraine under the Obama administration at the same time that his son sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, a position that critics say Hunter Biden was given in 2014 in exchange for access to the vice president.

In 2016, Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees from Ukraine if the government did not fire its prosecutor general Viktor Shokin, widely believed to be corrupt. At the time, Shokin was weighing launching an investigation into Burisma.

“That will be a major issue in the campaign. I will bring that up all the time,” Trump said.

Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani traveled to Ukraine last year to attempt to uncover evidence of corruption against the Bidens in Ukraine. Giuliani’s investigation helped launch a push by Democrats to impeach Trump after Trump froze U.S. military aid to Ukraine. Democrats alleged that Trump froze the aid to secure a Ukrainian government investigation into Biden and his son.

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Janelle Griffith
A customer at an Olive Garden restaurant in Indiana on Saturday loudly demanded a server who was not black, an employee and an observer said. A manager acquiesced, and is no longer employed by the company.

a group of clouds in the sky: An Olive Garden restaurant.© Callaghan O’Hare An Olive Garden restaurant.Amira Donahue, a hostess at the restaurant in Evansville in southwestern Indiana, said the customer, a white woman, complained to a manager about her and the other black hostess working during Saturday’s dinner rush.

“She made comments about me to my coworkers concerning my race and saying that I should work at a strip club instead,” Donahue told NBC News on Wednesday. “She asked if I’m even black and if I am from here.”

Donahue, 16, said the woman — who was with a handful of other people, including two children — was seated at a table that had a black server, at which point she became particularly irate.

The customer then screamed her demand for a non-black server to a manager. That manager complied, Donahue said.

Maxwell Robbins, 22, a customer who witnessed the entire ordeal, told NBC News he was so disturbed by what transpired that he documented it in a Facebook post and submitted multiple complaints to Olive Garden by phone. The Facebook post had been shared more than 1,500 times as of Wednesday afternoon.

a garden in front of a building: The Olive Garden on Green River Road, in Evansville, Ind.© Google Maps The Olive Garden on Green River Road, in Evansville, Ind.Robbins, who was dining with his wife and one of their friends, said the manager complied with the customer’s demand without hesitation.

Both Donahue and Robbins condemned the manager’s handling of the incident.

Robbins wrote in his Facebook post that the customer should’ve been refused service for even making such a request and that it is “disgusting” that the manager would honor it, especially considering the restaurant’s diverse staff.

Donahue says she was so upset by the incident that she began crying, which Robbins witnessed.

“The young lady was in tears and had no one to support her,” Robbins said Wednesday. “So I felt if I didn’t write this post, nothing would have happened and she would continue to go to work for a place that she feels uncomfortable at and unwanted at.”

Donahue said the manager made a decision that the customer was more important than two of his employees.

Meagan Bernstein, a spokeswoman for Olive Garden, said Wednesday the restaurant chain has zero tolerance for discrimination of any kind. Bernstein said the company completed an investigation on Monday.

“As a result of our investigation, we made the decision to separate with the manager involved,” she said.

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Report: Texas Rapidly Reduced Number Of Polling Sites In Black and Latino Communities


POLITICS 03/03/2020 02:57 pm ET Updated 2 hours ago

Data shows Texas officials have quickly closed polling places in some of the most diverse, rapidly growing regions of the state.

By Ja’han Jones

 

Former Vice President Joe Biden visited Dallas on Monday to collect a few major campaign endorsements from some of his former Democratic primary competitors.

Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke all suggested Biden would propel down-ballot Democrats to victory in politically moderate regions of the country. O’Rourke specifically said Biden would help Texas Democrats win the nine seats they need to reclaim the state legislature for the first time in decades.

“You, Mr. President, as the top of the ticket, can help us do that,” he said.

Because growing Black and Latino communities in Texas mark a demographic shift in the state, many pollsters believe Texas is a toss-up to swing either Republican or Democrat in the 2020 elections and for years to come. For the former candidates, a Biden endorsement is key for a new blue wave.

But recently compiled data and analysis show Texas Democrats face structural obstacles to victory that Biden alone cannot fix, including the closures of hundreds of polling places in counties with large or growing Black and Latino populations.

A 2019 report from The Leadership Conference Education Fund (LCEF), a civil rights organization, reveals Texas officials began rapidly decreasing the number of polling places in these counties with significant communities of color around the time the Supreme Court overturned a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013. The provision, Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, required certain states with histories of racist voting practices to get clearance from the federal government before closing polling places or changing their voting laws.

Furthermore, analysis reported by The Guardian found that the 50 Texas counties that gained the most Black and Latino residents between 2012 and 2018 closed 542 polling sites over that span, while the 50 counties that gained the fewest Black and Latino residents during that time only closed 34 sites.

 

“This is despite the fact that the population in the former group of counties has risen by 2.5 million people,” The Guardian reports, “whereas in the latter category the total population has fallen by over 13,000.”

Two Texas counties ― Somervell County and Jackson County ― rank in the top 10 in the nation in percentage of polling places closed since the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act ruling. And when looking at the total number of polling places closed nationwide, six of the 10 counties with the most closures are in Texas, according to the LCEF report. The organization found Texas closed 750 polling places statewide following the Supreme Court decision.

Texas is one of several states that allows the use of “vote centers” in place of regular polling sites. One major difference between a vote center and typical polling places is any voter can cast votes at a vote center, regardless where they live, whereas voters are assigned polling places by the county. For that reason, vote centers are sometimes seen as a convenient alternative to typical polling places. But in Texas, counties can close several polling places and erect only few vote centers in their place.

“While generally intended to enhance access to voting locations, this model often leads to massive reductions in polling places,” the report says, adding that contrary to the period when the Voting Rights Act was in full effect, Texas officials are now not required to determine whether the changes impose disparate impacts on Black and brown voters.

A spokesperson for the Texas Democratic Party said the raft of polling place closures in diverse communities are attempts by conservative election officials to shrink and restrict the electorate.

“People have died to fight for the sanctity of the vote,” the spokesperson, Abhi Rahman, told HuffPost.

“Republicans’ only way to retain power is to basically curb the vote, and we’re fighting back against all of those attempts,” he added.

Rahman said the Texas Democratic Party is conducting the “most expansive voter protection program in Texas Democratic Party history” in partnership with the organization Fair Fight, a voting rights group founded by former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacy Abrams.

“We have an around-the-clock voter protection team working to fight back and make sure voting is more convenient than it ever has been in the past,” Rahman said.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article said that three Texas counties were among the top 10 in percentage of polling places closed. The study apparently labeled a county as being in Texas that was in fact in Georgia.

 

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Tell Me A Lie and More


Apparently the the truth is less glamorous or acceptable than a lie as we have been inundated by a daily stream of falsehoods from the administration and it’s associated allies (Congress). The lie is really about the perception of reality , much like many Television shows aka reality shows. It seems that many of us are more interested in being entertained instead of informed, ignoring the fact that Government is not an entertainment venue. Ignoring the actions of the top star in this Governmental play would open the door to the real activities behind the curtain. The neer do well Congress is busily changing laws, installing “their” judges and being backed by a miscreant Legal department (our aka The voters Justice department). This election is our opportunity to make a u turn back to reality and sanity (as it were). Looking at this week alone, there are 2 events that merit changing the the leaders in the Congress and White House. The first: The so called great trade deals which have depressed our economy, second lack of serious pro action on the Corona virus threat. Last count was about 16000 lies from the administration on everything government and non government when the truth would have sufficed ( we are adults-right?). It has become dangerous to listen to the output of this administration as fervent followers act on these lies to their detriment and to the detriment of us ALL. The true “bosses” of the nation are the voters and we owe it ourselves and our younger relatives to elect and re elect better representatives to serve. It will take a minute to correct the course of this government ship and we must all assist in turning the wheel for our own benefit.

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