| Romney speculates Turkey called Trump's bluff: 'Are we so weak and inept?' Posted: 17 Oct 2019 03:20 PM PDT  The Utah senator delivers an impassioned speech on the Senate floor that accuses the president of betraying American values.
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| UPDATE 3-Cartel gunmen terrorize Mexican city, free El Chapo's son Posted: 17 Oct 2019 05:38 PM PDT ![UPDATE 3-Cartel gunmen terrorize Mexican city, free El Chapo's son]( "UPDATE 3-Cartel gunmen terrorize Mexican city, free El Chapo's son") Heavily armed fighters surrounded security forces in a Mexican city on Thursday and made them free one of drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's sons, after his capture triggered gunbattles and a prison break that sent civilians scurrying for cover. Security Minister Alfonso Durazo said a patrol by National Guard militarized police first came under attack from within a house in the city of Culiacan, 1,235 km (770 miles) northwest of Mexico City. After entering the house, they found four men, including Ovidio Guzman, who is accused of drug trafficking in the United States.
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| Murderer who triggered Hong Kong protests will go to Taiwan: pastor Posted: 18 Oct 2019 12:05 PM PDT  A man who inadvertently triggered Hong Kong's huge protests after he murdered his girlfriend in Taiwan has agreed to return to the island to face justice, a clergyman who has visited him in prison said on Friday. Chan Tong-kai, 20, is wanted in Taiwan for the murder of his pregnant girlfriend during a holiday the two Hong Kongers took there in February last year. The case triggered an ill-fated proposal by Hong Kong's pro-Beijing government to ram through a sweeping extradition bill which would have allowed the city to extradite suspects to any territory, including the authoritarian mainland.
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| Marines correct ID of second man who raised flag at Iwo Jima Posted: 17 Oct 2019 11:40 AM PDT  The Marine Corps on Thursday corrected the identity of a second man in the iconic photograph of U.S. forces raising an American flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima. Rene Gagnon, as had long been believed, but Cpl. Harold P. Keller, the Marines said in a statement, noting that Gagnon did help obtain the flag.
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| Rep. Nunes tries to use Steele dossier to defend Trump during closed-door hearing Posted: 18 Oct 2019 12:18 PM PDT  During a closed-door impeachment meeting on Capitol Hill, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) brought up a topic that surprised some attendees: the Steele dossier. The context, according to three sources familiar with the episode, was his effort to explain why President Trump might be "upset" about Ukraine.
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| Scientists: Movement Detected Along California Fault That Could Cause an 8-Magnitude Earthquake Posted: 18 Oct 2019 03:29 PM PDT  Scientists say a part of the Garlock fault slipped after being triggered by the series of earthquakes in July
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| New ICE Program Exposes Hundreds of Fraudulent ‘Family Units’ Trying to Cross The Border Posted: 18 Oct 2019 05:41 AM PDT  U.S. immigration authorities have discovered hundreds of instances at the border of "family unit fraud," or unrelated individuals posing as families, over the last six months thanks to a new investigative initiative.Authorities exposed 238 fraudulent families presenting 329 false documents, according to the results of an investigation run by Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations unit in El Paso, Texas, the results of which were announced Thursday.More than 350 of those individuals are facing federal prosecution for crimes including human smuggling, making false statements, conspiracy, and illegal re-entry after removal. Authorities have referred 19 children to U.S. Health and Human Services as a result of this investigation. Another 50 migrants fraudulently claimed to be unaccompanied minors."Some of the most disturbing cases identified involve transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and individuals who are increasingly exploiting innocent children to further their criminal activity," ICE said in a statement.In some cases, criminal organizations made deals with the children's biological parents to transfer children as young as 4 months old to the U.S. and pose as a family unit either for human smuggling purposes or to fraudulently obtain immigration benefits, ICE said."These are examples of the dark side of this humanitarian crisis that our Border Patrol and HSI agents are working tirelessly to identify," said El Paso Sector Interim Chief Gloria Chavez. "We will pursue the highest of judicial consequences for those who commit fraud and exploit innocent children."The Trump administration has attempted to end the "catch and release" policy for migrant family units, which provides migrant families an expedited release into the U.S. as their asylum cases are being processed.Then–acting Homeland Security secretary Kevin McAleenan said last month that the vast majority of migrant families who enter the country illegally will no longer be eligible for "catch and release" due to the implementation of stricter policies. One such policy, the Migrant Protection Protocols, requires that migrants wait in Mexico while their asylum claims are being adjudicated.
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| House GOP Leader Praises Mark Zuckerberg for Political Ads Policy Posted: 18 Oct 2019 09:26 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. chief executive Mark Zuckerberg's decision not to ban political ads that Democrats say are inaccurate drew praise from the top Republican in the House of Representatives Friday.Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, said he appreciated Zuckerberg's comments on Thursday that policing political speech would be undemocratic."The idea of banning speech you might not like is nonsense, but sadly the mindset is creeping into places like college campuses and our presidential campaign platforms," McCarthy told reporters. "Yesterday was a heartwarming reminder that free expression is the best business model in the world."In recent weeks, the presidential campaigns of Democrats Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren have called on Facebook to remove ads from President Donald Trump's campaign that include claims with no evidence. Facebook has declined to do so, raising the larger question of whether such ads on social media should be regulated."I don't think most people want to live in a world where you can only post things that tech companies judge to be 100% true," Zuckerberg said Thursday at Georgetown University in Washington. "People should be able to see for themselves what politicians are saying.""In a democracy, I believe people should decide what's credible, not tech companies," Zuckerberg said.\--With assistance from Emily Wilkins.To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Anna Edgerton, Laurie AsséoFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Polls show Americans have come to support Trump's impeachment much faster than Nixon's or Clinton’s Posted: 17 Oct 2019 08:54 AM PDT  President Trump hasn't just crossed the 50 percent threshold on impeachment, peaking at 50.3 percent earlier this week. He's gotten there faster than Richard Nixon — and, for that matter, Bill Clinton, who never got there at all.
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| Atatiana Jefferson's death highlights a long history of police violence in Fort Worth, and the community says it's time for a 'reckoning' Posted: 18 Oct 2019 08:07 AM PDT  Atatiana Jefferson was shot and killed by Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean. Her death was the sixth fatal police shooting in the city since June.
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| Clever-Approved Travel Gear That Looks Good and Works Even Better Posted: 18 Oct 2019 12:34 PM PDT |
| Prince William and wife Kate leave Pakistan, day after aborted flight Posted: 18 Oct 2019 12:39 AM PDT |
| Plans pushed back to explode 2 cranes in New Orleans Posted: 18 Oct 2019 01:15 PM PDT  Plans have been pushed back a day to bring down two giant, unstable construction cranes in a series of controlled explosions before they can topple onto historic New Orleans buildings, the city's fire chief said Friday, noting the risky work involved in placing explosive on the towers. Making it happen, putting people back in danger," McConnell said. Light, intermittent rain and winds were complicating efforts Friday as workers in buckets suspended from another crane worked to prepare the site, McConnell said.
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| Moms Demand Action founder says advocacy group is not anti-gun Posted: 17 Oct 2019 07:08 PM PDT  Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts spoke with CBS News' Major Garrett for this week's episode of "The Takeout"
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| Volvo launches very first fully electric vehicle: the XC40 Recharge Posted: 17 Oct 2019 08:13 AM PDT  Volvo has officially launched its very first EV line and its very first EV: The XC40 small SUV is the first member of the Recharge family. To add to the firsts surrounding this launch, the XC40 small SUV is also the first of the brand equipped with an Android-powered infotainment system -- it's better late than never. This premiere has been coupled with an announcement by the company about their plans to launch a fully electric car every year "with the rest hybrids." Recharge will be the name encapsulating all the brand's electrified vehicles.
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| Macron Says U.K. Shouldn’t Get New Delay If Johnson Loses Vote Posted: 18 Oct 2019 07:59 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- French President Emmanuel Macron heaped pressure on the British Parliament to back Boris Johnson's Brexit deal, saying the U.K.'s departure from the European Union shouldn't be delayed a moment longer.With Parliament due to vote on the revised agreement on Saturday, Macron's remarks echoed the message Johnson himself has been sending to reticent MPs: it's now or never. "I don't think a new extension should be granted," Macron told reporters after a summit of EU leaders in Brussels, where the deal had been rubber stamped. "The Oct. 31 deadline must be met."Macron's stance increases the risk that the U.K. will crash out of the EU without a deal on Oct. 31. But the reality is more nuanced, according to EU diplomats who doubt the bloc will ever throw the U.K. off a cliff without a safety net. The pound dipped on the comments, and then recovered.Selling the DealAfter sealing a revised deal with the EU on Thursday, Johnson is spending Friday frantically talking to politicians from his own and other parties as he tries to rustle up a majority. The prime minister needs to add 61 votes to the tally his predecessor Theresa May managed when her version of the Brexit deal was defeated for a third and final time in March.The new agreement differs from May's agreement because only Northern Ireland rather than the whole U.K. will continue to apply the EU's customs rules. That's upset the province's Democratic Unionist Party whose MPs say they won't back Johnson's deal on Saturday.If Johnson loses the vote, he's obliged by law to request from the EU another extension by the end of the day. But any postponement must be approved unanimously by the EU's 27 leaders so Macron would have a veto.EU officials were expecting such an intervention by Macron, who made similar noises before approving a Brexit delay in April, but they said that it's very unlikely that he or any other leader would prevent another one, particularly if the U.K. was headed for a general election. While the bloc is just as keen to get Britain's departure over the line as Johnson, it considers a no-deal exit in two weeks a far worse prospect than another postponement.Envoys from the 27 remaining countries and the European Commission are due to meet on Sunday to discuss next steps should Johnson's deal fall.The French have consistently taken a hard line in Brexit negotiations and Macron argues that the tight deadline he insisted on the last time the process was extended helped force Johnson into concessions. Several EU governments privately now regret delaying Brexit from April until October, acknowledging that it took the pressure of the U.K. to pass a deal."I was alone and I don't think I was wrong," Macron said, referring to the decision six months ago.Other leaders were more circumspect on the issue, with Leo Varadkar, the prime minister of Ireland, which stands to be affected most by a no-deal Brexit, saying a delay isn't guaranteed and Luxembourg premier Xavier Bettel insisting the ball was now in the U.K. Parliament's court."We have done our job," he said. "There's a plan A, but there's no plan B."(Updates with context throughout.)\--With assistance from Stephanie Bodoni.To contact the reporters on this story: Helene Fouquet in Paris at hfouquet1@bloomberg.net;Ian Wishart in Brussels at iwishart@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Trump's former personal lawyer says Rudy Giuliani has 'gone off the rails,' has a secret Ukraine ledger Posted: 17 Oct 2019 10:50 PM PDT ![Trump's former personal lawyer says Rudy Giuliani has 'gone off the rails,' has a secret Ukraine ledger]( "Trump's former personal lawyer says Rudy Giuliani has 'gone off the rails,' has a secret Ukraine ledger") Jay Goldberg, President Trump's personal lawyer for 15 years, told MSNBC's Ari Melber on Thursday night that he warned Trump not to hire his current personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani."I think he's gone off the rails," Goldberg said of Giuliani, now being scrutinized by federal prosecutors in Manhattan for his work in Ukraine. "I think he will have legal liability." When Trump asked him last March if he should retain Giuliani's legal services, "I said despite his background, which as extraordinarily good, Giuliani would not make a good defense-type lawyer," Goldberg said, because "he had spent too much time as a prosecutor; prosecutors can generally go outside the line and there's nobody to correct them." He added that he thinks "Giuliani has been seduced by Mar-a-Lago, the lifestyle.""Does Rudy Giuliani have any evidence or records that could resolve what he was doing with Ukraine?" Melber asked, and Goldberg dropped a potential bombshell: "Yes, there's a book that he kept of all the contacts that he made while in the Ukraine. It hasn't been subpoenaed thus far, it hasn't come to light, and I tell you that if the subpoena is issued for that book that he prepared, it will redound to the detriment of Donald under an agency kind of concept, that Donald will be responsible for all the things that he did. And Giuliani did a lot of the things that he's used to doing while he was a prosecutor.""Rudy Giuliani prepared this book, you say?" Melber asked. "Yes," Goldberg replied. "I've seen the book." Melber pointed out that now he has disclosed its existence on national TV, it is likely to be subpoenaed. "Let the chips fall where they may," Goldberg said. "Giuliani likes to keep a log of the things that he's doing because he wants to show it to the client.""This is crazy," journalist Marcy Wheeler said of Goldberg's revelation. "In what capacity did he see the book? And why does 'cybersecurity' expert Rudy G have a book of his mob ties?" There's also a question of whether the likely subpoena will arrive in time. > Rudy Giuliani right now thanks to Jay Goldberg on the @TheBeatWithAri pic.twitter.com/slNaxSg7NC> > -- Mickey (@Mickey115207446) October 17, 2019
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| Hundreds of police officers have been labeled liars. Some still help send people to prison. Posted: 17 Oct 2019 12:26 PM PDT  Across the USA, prosecutors aren't tracking officer misconduct, skirting Supreme Court "Brady" rules and sometimes leading to wrongful convictions.
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| UPDATE 2-Global watchdog keeps Pakistan on terrorism financing "grey list" Posted: 18 Oct 2019 04:07 AM PDT ![UPDATE 2-Global watchdog keeps Pakistan on terrorism financing "grey list"]( "UPDATE 2-Global watchdog keeps Pakistan on terrorism financing \"grey list\"") A global finance watchdog kept Pakistan off its terrorism financing blacklist on Friday but warned Islamabad it only had until February to improve or face international action. The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force, which tackles money laundering, said it was concerned that Pakistan had failed to complete the action plan first by a January deadline, then a May deadline and now October. "The FATF strongly urges Pakistan to swiftly complete its full action plan by February 2020," it said in a statement.
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| Anti-Trump businesswomen are nervous about Warren, and the Democratic debate didn't help Posted: 17 Oct 2019 08:00 AM PDT  In her fight against corporate America, Warren is turning off a key group of voters who want to oust Donald Trump: the liberal women who work there.
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| Meet the Nanchang Q-5: China's Nuclear Bomber Posted: 18 Oct 2019 07:36 AM PDT  Beijing's got deterrence.
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| Tropical storm likely to hit northern Gulf Coast Posted: 17 Oct 2019 11:06 AM PDT  A disturbance in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico is likely to become a tropical storm that will hit the northern U.S. Gulf Coast with wind and rain, forecasters said Thursday.
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| The most shocking part of the 'meltdown' photo Trump tweeted isn't who's in it — it's who isn't Posted: 17 Oct 2019 02:17 PM PDT  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was one of two women at the table at a Wednesday meeting, joined only by Rep. Liz Cheney.
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| Atatiana Jefferson's neighbor thought he asked police to do a wellness check, but the police didn’t investigate it that way Posted: 17 Oct 2019 08:01 AM PDT  Atatiana Jefferson, 28, was killed in her home on Saturday by Aaron Dean, a Fort Worth police officer who has resigned and been charged with murder.
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| Suspect in Case Behind Unrest to Surrender: Hong Kong Update Posted: 18 Oct 2019 09:10 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong protesters flooded the city's streets again on Friday and police banned a large pro-democracy march planned for Sunday, as the Asian financial hub prepared for yet another weekend of unrest. Meanwhile, the suspect in a Taiwan murder case that sparked Hong Kong's crisis agreed to surrender himself.Protesters are seeking to keep the pressure on Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam with a 20th-straight weekend of demonstrations. Earlier this week, Lam was twice shouted down in the city's legislature by opposition lawmakers as she discussed her annual policy address.The protests began in opposition to Lam's since-scrapped bill allowing extraditions to mainland China and have since expanded to include calls for greater democracy and an independent inquiry. The unrest has turned increasingly violent, with frequent clashes between protesters and police, including an attack Wednesday on the organizer of Sunday's march by several men wielding hammers.Here's the latest (all times local):Homicide suspect to surrender himself to Taiwan (11:28 p.m.)Hong Kong's Chief Executive received a letter Friday from Chan Tong-kai, a Hong Kong man who's been accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend during a Valentine's Day trip to Taiwan, saying that he'd decided to surrender himself to Taiwan, according to a statement on the website of Hong Kong's government.Chan, who's currently serving a prison sentence for money laundering in a Hong Kong jail, "requested the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government to assist him in making the relevant arrangement," according to the statement.Hong Kong newspaper Sing Tao Daily reported earlier on Friday, citing a person it didn't identify, that Chan made the decision after consulting with a pastor.Protesters march across city (1 p.m.)Demonstrators marched in the Central financial district on Hong Kong Island, temporarily blocking traffic, as well as in the Tsim Sha Tsui and Mong Kok neighborhoods of Kowloon. Some carried a banner calling on the Hong Kong government to agree to their five demands, which include an independent inquiry into police violence, an amnesty for arrested protesters and greater democratic freedoms.Police deny weekend permit (12:30 p.m.)Hong Kong police denied a protest permit for the Civil Human Rights Front's planned march in Kowloon on Sunday. The group -- whose organizer Jimmy Sham was hospitalized this week -- has been behind some of the largest protests during the last five months, including a few that have drawn over one million people. In many cases, protesters have continued to show up at events that lack police permits, with some devolving into violent clashes with police.Suspect may surrender (11:50 a.m.)The Hong Kong suspect in a Taiwan murder case that sparked Hong Kong's biggest political crisis in decades was willing to turn himself in to Taiwanese authorities, the Sing Tao Daily reported on Friday. Chan Tong-kai, who has been accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend during a Valentine's Day trip to Taiwan, is ready to return to the island and surrender after his release from a Hong Kong jail on a related money-laundering charge, the newspaper said.\--With assistance from Dominic Lau.To contact the reporter on this story: Iain Marlow in Hong Kong at imarlow1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Colin Keatinge, Ros KrasnyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| US slaps new sanctions on Cuba over human rights, Venezuela Posted: 18 Oct 2019 05:03 PM PDT  The United States on Friday imposed new sanctions on Cuba over its support for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and its human rights record at home. The Department of Commerce said in a statement it is revoking existing licenses for aircraft leases to Cuban state-owned airlines and will deny future applications for aircraft leases. It will also expand the sanctions on Cuba to include more foreign goods containing U.S. contents.
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| View 2020 Chevrolet Corvette vs. Porsche 718 Cayman Cargo Comparison Photos Posted: 17 Oct 2019 07:26 AM PDT |
| U.S. Air Force F-35s Are Knocking on Russia’s Back Door Posted: 17 Oct 2019 10:30 PM PDT  The U.S. Air Force has stood up a fighter squadron to operate F-35A Lightning II stealth fighters in Alaska. It might not be long before F-35s join Alaska-based F-22s in intercepting Russian bombers and other warplanes that frequently probe American defenses.
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| Return of Argentine Peronism throws shadow over Falklands Posted: 18 Oct 2019 12:15 AM PDT  Argentina is going to the polls on October 27 with a Peronist politician backed by former president Cristina Kirchner expected to win an outright majority, something that has got Falkland Islanders worried. The Falklands have been in British hands since 1833 but Argentina has waged a diplomatic battle -- that spilled into economic and then actual warfare -- since the 1960s to try to gain control of the archipelago. Argentine troops invaded the windswept islands for 74 days in 1982, before Britain swiftly defeated them.
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| Mystery traders 'made $1.8bn from stock bet' placed hours before Trump tweeted talks with China were ‘back on track’ Posted: 18 Oct 2019 12:13 PM PDT  */Unknown actors may have made billions from the turmoil Donald Trump has created in the markets through erratic tweets, shoot-from-the-hip foreign policy, and the trade war with China, according to a new report.
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| The Latest: Woman denies link to Alabama child abduction Posted: 18 Oct 2019 10:23 AM PDT  A woman described as a person of interest in the abduction of a 3-year-old Alabama girl is denying any involvement. Attorneys for 29-year-old Derick Irisha Brown of Birmingham released a statement Friday saying she had no role in the kidnapping and hopes for the safe return of Kamille "Cupcake" McKinney. Brown and a man were arrested earlier this week after being described as persons of interest in the child's abduction from a birthday party last weekend.
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| Netanyahu's Latest Call for Unity Government Is Quickly Rejected Posted: 17 Oct 2019 07:37 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Benjamin Netanyahu's main rival turned down the Israeli prime minister's renewed call to set aside political differences and join a national unity governmentNetanyahu has until late next week to form a ruling coalition or risk the country's president handing the mandate to former military chief Benny Gantz. Short of a majority in parliament, the premier's efforts to coax Gantz's Blue and White bloc, the largest in the legislature, into a power-sharing agreement have so far failed."All of Israel's citizens look around and see how the Middle East is changing for the worse in front of our eyes," Netanyahu said Thursday in a tweet. "Those who need to know, know that the security challenges are growing, and they are not waiting for us."The prime minister didn't specify the threats facing Israel. But his statement follows the decision by President Donald Trump to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria as he seeks to end America's presence in long-running Middle Eastern conflicts.The U-turn has boosted Israel's main regional foe, Iran, which is a key supporter of the government in Damascus, and stoked speculation in Israel over the future reliability of the country's superpower patron.Gantz quickly rejected Netanyahu's offer."I received a proposal today that one must refuse,'' Gantz said in a tweet. "We will wait for the President's mandate and begin serious negotiations for the establishment of a liberal unity government that will lead to change and restore hope to the citizens of Israel."\--With assistance from Ivan Levingston.To contact the reporter on this story: Yaacov Benmeleh in Tel Aviv at ybenmeleh@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaa Shahine at asalha@bloomberg.net, Mark Williams, Paul AbelskyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| China stocks have worst day in a month after bleak GDP data Posted: 18 Oct 2019 12:18 AM PDT ![China stocks have worst day in a month after bleak GDP data]( "China stocks have worst day in a month after bleak GDP data") China stocks fell on Friday, posting their steepest daily drop in a month to end the week lower, as weaker-than-expected GDP growth deepened worries over the health of the world's second largest economy amid a trade war that is more than a year old. ** China's third-quarter economic growth slowed more than expected and to its weakest pace in almost three decades as the bruising U.S. trade war hit factory production, boosting the case for Beijing to roll out fresh support. ** "Given exports are unlikely to stage a comeback and a possible slowdown in the property sector, the downward pressure on China's economy is likely to continue, with fourth-quarter economic growth expected to slip to 5.9%," Hwabao Trust economist Nie Wen said.
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| Income Inequality Has Soared While Taxes Have Become Dramatically Less Progressive . . . or Not Posted: 18 Oct 2019 11:00 AM PDT  The truth gets its boots on pretty quickly in the Internet age. On October 6, the New York Times ran a piece broadcasting the striking claims made by the economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman in the new book The Triumph of Injustice. Just a couple of weeks later, it's clear that these claims are built atop a foundation of often questionable and sometimes indefensible assumptions.Per Saez and Zucman, while the rich have been pulling in more and more of the nation's income — grabbing about a fifth of it now, double what they got a few decades back — they're paying lower and lower tax rates. Indeed, in 2018, the richest 400 Americans paid the lowest overall tax rate (including state, local, and federal taxes) of any income group. While the very richest Americans in 1950 paid two-thirds of their income in taxes, in 2018 it was down below a quarter; even the full top 0.1 percent barely pay more than the bottom 90 percent these days. It's not that much of an exaggeration to say we have a flat tax system, not a progressive one.The debunkings came from everywhere: a Twitter thread by Journal of Public Economics editor Wojtek Kopczuk, an article by the economic historian Phil Magness, an academic response from the economist David Splinter, a report from the Republican side of the Senate's Joint Economic Committee (JEC), a traditional book review in Le Grand Continent, and more.Let's take the two claims, rising inequality and rich people paying low tax rates, in turn. Both of these problems are probably overstated, in the latter case quite dramatically, in Saez and Zucman's numbers. And I say "probably" only because no one writing about these trends should pretend that even the best estimates are much more than guesswork, and necessarily so, because the data here are spotty and there are legitimate disagreements over what should even count as income and tax payments.The alleged rise of income inequality was recently the focus of some congressional hearings about the government's plan to start reporting more data on the topic, as well as an extensive but readable summary of the academic literature from the JEC Republicans. You might think this would be an easy question to answer, whether the rich are pulling away from the rest of us, because the IRS can tell you how much income people report to the government. But — I hope you're sitting down — not all income is reported to the government. And that's only the first big obstacle to measuring inequality accurately.We know from the "national accounts," the data we use to monitor overall economic activity, approximately how much money goes unreported overall. But to account for the missing money while measuring inequality, we need to know how much unreported income goes specifically to the rich versus the poor, and that is hard to do. Splinter, for example, argues that Saez and Zucman use a method that gives too much of this income to the rich; Splinter's own approach relies on data from IRS audits and gives more of it to folks down the income scale.If your eyes are glazing over, I have bad news: As the JEC report details, this is only the first of many technical decisions researchers must make that affect the results. Should we worry about income inequality before or after taxes are taken out? Should we include governmental transfers as income? Should we analyze married couples together or separately, bearing in mind the decline of marriage in recent decades, especially among the poor? How to handle corporate profits that are retained rather than given out to shareholders? How to handle stocks that have grown in value but have not been sold?The JEC report provides a remarkable buffet of options to anyone wanting to find a study to cite in favor of a preferred narrative, with the general pattern being that Saez and Zucman's work is on the high end. By all accounts, pre-tax income has become more concentrated at the top, though this trend is more dramatic in some estimates than others. But the share of post-tax income going to the top 1 percent may have risen only from 7.2 to 8.5 percent from 1979 to 2015.If it's hard to tell how much money people make, it's even harder to calculate their total tax rates, which requires you to know not only their income but also their payments to several levels of government. Once again the IRS is very helpful when it comes to what's reported to the federal government, but then you also have to estimate how much money people across the income spectrum spend on state income taxes, sales and property taxes, etc. It's no easy task.And here too, beyond problems with the basic data, there are arguments over what to include. A big one — a way that The Triumph of Injustice departs even from its authors' own previous work — has to do with the tax on corporate profits. Since corporations are just legal entities, they don't really pay these taxes; people do. And there's a lot of debate over how much of this tax burden falls on corporate shareholders, as opposed to other folks, including workers and customers, who tend to be less wealthy and might benefit if the government didn't take this money. Faced with this conundrum, the right-leaning Tax Foundation will point to studies showing "that labor bears between 50 and 100 percent of the burden of the corporate income tax," while the left-leaning Tax Policy Center assigns 60 percent of the burden to shareholders, 20 percent to capital in general (because the corporate tax has spillover effects for other forms of capital), and 20 percent to labor.Saez and Zucman's approach? To assume the entire corporate tax falls on shareholders, and to make this clear only after their number-crunching has been reported as fact in the national media. As the economist Tyler Cowen put it in a scathing post, "no Western fiscal authority I have heard of thinks of tax incidence in these terms." And as this animation from Kopczuk shows, this new assumption largely explains a big change in the trend for rich people's taxes even relative to Saez and Zucman's own approach in a recent paper with Thomas Piketty:> So why is sky falling in the S-Z book? Recall this animation. There are just two changes of relevance here. One is corporate tax incidence. This is what turns very mild decline in progressivity into rapid drop. The other somewhat important one is treatment of capital gains pic.twitter.com/vOQchHMGAY> > -- Wojtek Kopczuk (@wwwojtekk) October 15, 2019There are other points too at which anyone making a chart like this needs to make decisions about what to include as taxes, and for whom. For instance, what are we to make of "refundable" income-tax credits that are paid even to people with no income-tax liability to offset? Should we treat those as offsetting the other taxes that people pay, which after all is one of their purposes? Or should we just classify them as outright transfers, not part of the tax system at all? Unsurprisingly, Saez and Zucman do not include them, because they would boost income and thereby reduce taxes as a percentage of income for the poor.As with inequality, we can point to other sources of data on tax progressivity to show that Saez and Zucman are an outlier. Splinter's response illustrates this, and so does this from Jason Furman, who headed the Obama administration's Council of Economic Advisers:> The standard data shows that the tax system is overall progressive. This chart combines CBO estimates for federal taxes with ITEP estimates for state & local taxes. Federal income taxes highly progressive, when you add in payroll/state/local/etc. is still progressive but less so. pic.twitter.com/WTOgm58Fyo> > -- Jason Furman (@jasonfurman) October 7, 2019At every step of the way, Saez and Zucman made decisions that skewed the income distribution toward the top and the tax burden away from it. You can have a reasonable debate about the best way to analyze these data and what they say about our tax policies. But it does no one any favors to treat these estimates as established fact, the way the New York Times did.
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| See This Plane? It Was Suppose to Turn Aircraft Carriers into Scrap Metal Posted: 18 Oct 2019 01:23 AM PDT  As in make them obsolete--but the carrier remains. Here is what happened.
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| Trump is getting worse Posted: 17 Oct 2019 03:17 AM PDT ![Trump is getting worse]( "Trump is getting worse") President Trump's behavior is getting worse.We already knew Trump was vain and vulgar, a thin-skinned narcissist, the Dunning-Kruger effect made flesh. He may be the first president we've ever had with no discernible redeeming qualities, either as a politician or a human being. But impeachment is here, and Trump is finding new ways to demonstrate his sheer unfitness for office every few hours. The president's reaction to the impeachment process is proving once more why he should be removed from office -- and fast.Wednesday opened with the president's attempt to shoehorn the (unsuspecting) grieving parents of a British teenager into a reality show reconciliation with the woman who killed their son. It was the act of a man who can perceive the world -- and human emotions -- only through a show business lens. It was cruel. But 12 hours later, it was only the third or fourth most outrageous thing we'd learned about the president since sunrise.There were two other contenders for the No. 1 spot on the list. The first was Trump's reported White House meltdown with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), whom he insulted and called a "third-grade politician" during a quickly abandoned meeting. That was probably superseded, though, by the unveiling of a bonkers October 9 letter in which he cajoled and threatened Turkey's president in an unsuccessful attempt to halt that country's invasion of Syria.> White House confirms authenticity of Trump letter to Erdogan, dated 10/9: "History... will look upon you forever as the devil if good things don't happen. Don't be a tough guy. Don't be a fool! I will call you later." > First reported by Fox Business. pic.twitter.com/lImxfhb2j1> > -- Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) October 16, 2019Meanwhile, in Syria, U.S. troops were leaving so quickly -- thanks to the president's hasty withdrawal announcements -- that they were bombing their own ammunition depot so that American ordnance wouldn't fall into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, a similar option isn't available to dispose of the 50 or so U.S. nuclear weapons still stored in Turkey.That was the news from just one day. Trump was already a bad president and now his performance is in quick, observable decline. Can you imagine how much more quickly the misjudgments and lashings-out will pile up as impeachment draws ever nearer? The crisis is going to grow only more intense.There is a kind of hostage-holding quality to Trump's behavior. He seems to be saying: You think things are bad now? I can make them much worse … if you make me. Which means the best approach to impeachment, now that the inquiry is under way, is to proceed with all deliberate haste. Let's get this thing over with, at long last.Democrats -- as is often the case -- do not seem sure how to proceed. Politico reported Wednesday that party leaders are still trying to settle on a calendar for the impeachment process -- an admittedly tough task, given that new evidence of the president's bad conduct seems to emerge every day."At some point you realize to get additional tranche of information that's going to take quite awhile, and then you make a decision: Do you wait that much longer or do you go with what we have?" said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), a member of the Judiciary Committee.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), at least, favors the fast approach. He is reportedly expecting the impeachment trial to begin around Thanksgiving -- this should be a great holiday season for families already prone to political bickering! -- and finish up by the end of the year.That schedule, however, gives House Democrats just five weeks to finish the inquiry and vote on impeachment. That sounds very fast, given that the inquiry itself was announced just a couple of weeks ago.Then again, Trump's deteriorating behavior suggests a need for speed. And as Lieu told Politico, "My view is the most damning evidence basically already came out." It's going to hurt when we rip the Band-Aid off, one way or the other, so we might as well rip it off hard and fast. It won't be fun -- and there is a chance an angry, vengeance-minded Trump will still be in office at the end of the process. But the fast approach might offer the best route to ending this awful era, and letting the national healing begin.Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.
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| Judges grapple with misconduct claims in Jodi Arias case Posted: 17 Oct 2019 03:03 PM PDT  Appellate judges who will decide whether to reverse Jodi Arias' murder conviction in the gruesome 2008 killing of her former boyfriend grappled Thursday with who was responsible for whipping up publicity during the salacious trial and whether alleged misconduct by a prosecutor should cause the verdict to be tossed. A lawyer for Arias told the Arizona Court of Appeals that prosecutor Juan Martinez improperly questioned witnesses, ignored rulings on evidence, courted publicity and made an unfounded accusation that an expert on her defense team had an inappropriate relationship with Arias. Terry Crist, a lawyer for the Arizona attorney general's office, told the judges that he believes Martinez may have occasionally violated court rules, but none of his actions should lead to a reversal of the conviction.
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| Perry on Ukraine efforts: ‘There was no quid pro quo’ Posted: 18 Oct 2019 08:05 AM PDT  Energy Secretary Rick Perry emphatically denied anything improper occurred as part of the Trump administration's efforts in Ukraine and said he was comfortable consulting with the president's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani in those pursuits. In a pair of interviews broadcast Friday, Perry defended the administration's efforts in Ukraine — he was known as one of the administration's "three amigos" on Ukrainian policy — as a genuine effort to fight general corruption in the country and said he never heard any effort to seek political ammunition against former Vice President Joe Biden now at the center of an impeachment inquiry in the House.
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| Amazon fish wears nature's 'bullet-proof vest' to thwart piranhas Posted: 17 Oct 2019 08:08 AM PDT  One of the world's largest freshwater fish is protected by the natural equivalent of a "bullet-proof vest," helping it thrive in the dangerous waters of the Amazon River basin with flexible armor-like scales able to withstand ferocious piranha attacks. Researchers from the University of California, San Diego and University of California, Berkeley on Wednesday described the unique structure and impressive properties of the dermal armor of the fish, called Arapaima gigas.
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| Plane collides with pickup truck while landing, pilot killed Posted: 18 Oct 2019 04:07 PM PDT  Witnesses reported the airplane was at an altitude of just 5 feet as it crossed a county road near the airstrip and struck a pickup truck.
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