Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 102

#MeToo isn’t changing low salaries or lousy working conditions for cheerleaders

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Is there any other field in which the idea of treating women as second class citizens is as transparent as it is in professional sports and its cheerleaders? It's not just that athletes rake in millions while the cheerleaders who root for them can earn as little as $5 hour. It's also that the women are held to an absurd moral code of conduct, all while being exposed to routine harassment. What a trifecta of nonsense they endure. But now, they're speaking out about it.

In January, the New Orleans Saints fired 22 year-old cheerleader Bailey Davis for violating its code that prohibits cheerleaders from "appearing nude, seminude or in lingerie" after she posted a photo of herself in a lace bodysuit on her Instagram. For contrast, please note that New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman, Philadelphia Eagles tight end Zach Ertz and Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott meanwhile, all proudly appeared naked last year in ESPN magazine's famed "Body Issue."

Davis, on the other hand, had already had to make her Instagram private after receiving messages from players — messages that she says she never responded to — the team asked all its cheerleaders to switch their social media to private. She was also in the midst of an investigation for violating another rule against attending parties where players are present. When she was fired, she says the HR person told her that "It was a distasteful photo and it made me seem guilty of the rumors going around about me." Because a woman who posts a photo of herself in lingerie is guilty of whatever rumors people spread about her.

But Davis decided to fire back. In March, she filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission asserting that the team holds its female cheerleaders and male players to entirely different standards of behavior. Her attorney Sara Blackwell told the BBC last month that "The Saintsations should be treated as athletes, which is what they are. This is a clear discrimination based on gender."

In a recent New York Times report, the paper confirmed it had reviewed the team's handbook for cheerleaders and affirmed that it "requires cheerleaders to avoid contact with players, in person or online, even though players are not penalized for pursuing such engagement with cheerleaders. The cheerleaders must block players from following them on social media and cannot post photos of themselves in Saints gear. The players are not required to do any of these things." And here's where it gets really insane — the guidelines also stipulate that "Cheerleaders are told not to dine in the same restaurant as players, or speak to them in any detail. If a Saints cheerleader enters a restaurant and a player is already there, she must leave. If a cheerleader is in a restaurant and a player arrives afterward, she must leave."

Imagine having a job where one of the conditions is that during your non-work hours, you are expected to flee a steakhouse in the middle of your appetizers if Drew Brees suddenly shows up. Enragingly, the Times says that "The team says its rules are designed to protect cheerleaders from players preying on them." PS it's 2018.

The garbage that cheerleaders face has been a recurring news story for the past few years. In 2014, cheerleaders made national news when a group of current and former Oakland Raiders Raiderettes filed a lawsuit claiming that the team "withholds all pay from the Raiderettes until after the season is completed, does not pay for all hours worked and forces the cheerleaders to pay many of their own business expenses." Their attorney claimed members of the squad earned roughly $1,250 a year, and were responsible for their own "hair, makeup, travel, and photo" costs. Speaking with Salon at the time, one of the plaintiffs explained, "Now that the season’s all said and done, and it’s clear that they knowingly broke the law, I do feel offended and used."

It was soon revealed that other teams offered similarly nauseating arrangements. As the Atlantic reported at the time, "San Diego Chargers cheerleaders get $75 for each home game, along with two game tickets and one parking pass. The Baltimore Ravens Cheerleaders make $100 for each of 10 (mandatory) performances at home games." Meanwhile, teams like the Buffalo Bills were subjecting their cheerleaders to "jiggle tests," advising them how to groom their "intimate areas" and warning them "Do not overeat bread at a formal setting."

The waves of disclosures provoked some temporary public outrage, and in some cases, action. The Raiders swiftly tripled their cheerleaders' pay (granting them a whopping $9 an hour) and eventually settled with the lawsuit plaintiffs for $1.25 million. Several other teams came to similar agreements with their cheerleaders. And after their cheerleaders sued, the Bills stopped using cheerleaders and now features a drumline.

Yet four years later, it's clear that the needle has barely moved. In January, Time reported that "It is unusual for professional cheerleaders to earn more than a few thousand dollars per season, and a typical NFL cheerleader probably averages around $10 or less per hour over the course of a season. Meanwhile, the average NFL player’s annual salary is over $2 million." Many teams also charge potential cheerleaders for the privilege of auditioning.

Since Davis' case was made public, cheerleaders have been coming forward — or as forward as their non-disclosure agreements will permit them to do so without fear of punitive repercussions — about the culture of their profession, one in which women are expected to be simultaneously sexually alluring and available and unrealistically off-limits. Women are still routinely sent out into tailgate parties and private events where, as a former Cowboys cheerleader told the New York Times in April, “We were taught, if someone’s getting handsy on you, how to navigate that. . . . Never be mean. Never. Always courteous. Because if it’s not for the fans, we wouldn’t be here — that’s how we were supposed to think of this.” A Cavs cheerleader recalled, "I remember getting my butt grabbed by a 12-year-old who should’ve been kicked out of the game. For whatever reason, fans think they own you."

It'd be great if now, in our super enlightened #MeToo and #TimesUp era, expecting a woman to vacate a restaurant when a higher ranking male is present would be seen as unreasonable. It'd be nice if an industry that promotes bikini-clad female workers as "hotties" on its own social media would not be appalled at the same women for posting images of themselves similarly attired. And yet the contempt our culture holds for its women runs bone deep — deepest of all for those women whose jobs entail being professionally pleasant and attractive. Cheerleaders are required to be enticing, and then punished for it.

Bailey Davis, whose mother was a choreographer for the Saintsations for 18 years, just wanted to be a part of a team she loved, and to launch her career as a dancer. Now she knows the price of her ambition. "We’re told so many times, ‘There’s a hundred other girls that would do your job for free,'" she told NPR recently. "You’re just taught to keep your mouth shut or they’d replace you. So I think when you’re in the organization, you don’t realize that there’s nothing okay about this.”

Israel’s “melting pot” turns 70: This is why I call myself an Arab Jew

AP

"Meranenet!” grandmother repeated the word, astonished. She tried to keep calm. “What can I say to you, Mishmish. I have no idea.”

But because of the way she reacted, it was clear to me that she knew that word well.

My grandmother Subhiya was born in Damascus. She is over 80 years old and has lived alone in a suburb of Tel Aviv since the death of my grandfather. They both came to this country in the evening of the first Independence Day, in 1949, after spending one year in Beirut.

Meranenet was used in Harat Al-Yahud (the Jewish Quarter) in the latter days of the Ottoman Empire to describe young Jewish women who were singers, musicians and courtesans; a geisha of sorts. They performed in Damascus and conducted relationships with eminent Arab men.

These women were despised by the Jewish community, yet the community leaders — somewhat hypocritically — sought their help in times of need. The glory days of Damascus were over by then. The city was in decay after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the bankruptcy of the Ottoman Empire in 1875. Many wealthy families became very poor. These courtesans donated Torah books to the Jewish synagogues; thanks to their connections, they helped community members who got in trouble with the authorities and helped free Zionist activists from imprisonment.

I’ve read about such a Jewish meranenet — an intelligent, talented woman who can afford to live alone in a big elegant house in Damascus. This meranenet speaks freely and subversively about the miserable condition of married women, as well as with great skepticism about the idea of Zionism.

In my novel "The Diamond Setter," I tell the story of Gracia, a Jewish meranenet who performs for the Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamid II. The Sultan gives her a famous blue diamond. When Gracia follows her family to Israel in 1949, she leaves her beloved Damascus behind. Afterwards, she refuses to sing and stays shut in for the rest of her life in an apartment in Tel Aviv, by the Mediterranean, gazing towards ash-Sham — as Damascus is referred to in Arabic. Gracia, the famous singer, becomes almost mute.

I know too well this state of mutism; it runs in the family. My grandparents, just like many other immigrants, never discussed the life they left behind, although they have sweet memories from Damascus. My grandfather, Moshe Sakal, who had written fiction in Arabic, completely stopped writing; in Israel, his mother tongue was considered to be the language of the enemy.

My grandparents raised their children to be good Israelis. Following the Zionist need of creating a New Man, being Israeli in the 1950s (and also nowadays, one may say) meant not being Polish, nor Yemenite, nor Syrian, nor Romanian. Being Israeli meant the sum of all negations; most of all not being an Arab, God forbid, nor some Yiddish-speaking Holocaust survivor. A real Israeli had to be robust, he would not be a polyglot, he’d never leave his new country and he would despise the diasporic Jews.

My parents’ generation is the Silent Generation. But I hope for my grandparents’ generation to finally open its mouth. When I came to Subhiya and said to her in Hebrew: “Grandma, please tell me how you and grandpa Moshe met in Damascus,” she replied, in a mixture of Arabic and Hebrew: “Ya ibni, lama lecha?”

“My son,” – in Arabic – “but what for?” – in Hebrew.

“Because,” I replied, “I’ll never know who I am, if I don’t know who you are.”

Her suspicion turned into content. She finally told me everything: about Grandpa Moise who taught French at Alliance school in Damascus, about years of dating that started when she was fourteen and he was nineteen, about his blind mother, about the roses they used to burn once a year to made rosewater and how they washed the house’s floors with what was left of last year’s rosewater, and the smell of roses for days on end, about her family’s slaughterhouse and the poor young men who had to inflate sheep carcasses with their lips so as to help prepare the carcasses for skinning (no surprise, she never ate meat).

After a short break, grandmother mentioned the day they illegally crossed the border from Lebanon to northern Israel with the help of two Arab border smugglers. “It was dark. And suddenly we heard shooting. Everyone was scared.” The smugglers changed their route. When they finally reached the Israeli side, they found out that the shooting was fireworks to celebrate the first Day of Independence.

And for the rest of their lives, they lived in Tel Aviv in a sort of exile.

Seventy years after the foundation of Israel, the Israeli melting pot may be considered both a success and a failure. My generation, unlike our parents’ Silent Generation, has the privilege to go back to these diasporic stories, to speak other languages. Books are published; documentaries are displayed on TV in prime time.

But this profusion does not necessarily mean diversity. The Mizrahi discourse is often done with sentimental nostalgia and is manipulated by the right wing to intensify the bitterness towards the old Ashkenazi Establishment and get more votes for the right. Thus, the Mizrahim ("Easterns," Oriental Jews) turn their backs on their original countries, and — just like one despises those similar to him — many of them are outrageously racist against Arabs. That is why, as an opposition, some of my colleagues and I refer to ourselves, rather than Mizrahim, as Arab Jews.

As we approach the 70th anniversary of the State of Israel, nationalism has taken place in every dimension; Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, according to Ha'aretz, refused to allow 110 Palestinians to enter Israel for an Israeli-Palestinian Alternative Memorial Day Ceremony for bereaved families and combatants on both sides of the conflict. No end of the Occupation is in sight, and no one even mentions the Peace Process anymore.

All the people who came here from the four wings of the world had a story, and this story was often forgotten, evaporated. If there is a task, it is out of our comfort as the third generation to tell the story. Not in order to divide or create more hate, but to allow this place to be a real diversity of personalities, languages and cultures: not a single block, but a multitude; not a multiplicity of division, but a multiplicity of cultural and linguistic abundance; not “a villa in the jungle” (as former Prime Minister Ehud Barak once described Israel), but rather a real part of the Middle East.

That is what I wish for the country I grew up in and in which I live.

Trump’s Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke calls himself a geologist, but he has never held a job as one

AP/Jacquelyn Martin

Department of the Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is quite selective with what he feels should be known about him – and what he feels should not be known about him.

One thing Zinke never forgets to mention is that he is a self-proclaimed geologist, a title he has used "40 times in public settings, including many under oath before Congress." But, as it turns out, he has never once held a job as a one, according to CNN.

But something Zinke did not feel the need to mention was that, when he gave a speech last year to a professional hockey team, the Las Vegas Golden Knights, its owner was one of his largest campaign donors. The speech he delivered was entirely unrelated to his department, the Interior's inspector general concluded, but taxpayers were still on the hook for his $12,000 charter flight, according to Politico.

"If ethics officials had known Zinke’s speech would have no nexus to the DOI, they likely would not have approved this as an official event, thus eliminating the need for a chartered flight," the IG report stated on Monday. "Moreover, had ethics officials been made aware that the Golden Knights' owner had been a donor to Zinke's congressional campaign, it might have prompted further review and discussion."

The report found that Zinke did not exactly do anything illegal "but that Zinke’s failure to disclose his relationship with Golden Knights owner Bill Foley and the content of his speech prevented a closer look by ethics officials," Politico reported.

As for his self-proclaimed geological expertise, Zinke only holds a B.S. in geology, a major he chose at complete random when he attended the University of Oregon on a football scholarship, CNN reported. But he has used it to act as if it has given him some sort of authority to make certain decisions within his department.

Last month, Zinke told the House Natural Resources Committee, "I can tell you, from a geologist, offshore mining of sand is enormously destructive environmentally, as in comparison to seismic," CNN reported.

"Florida is different in the currents — I'm a geologist — it's different in geology," he once told Breitbart News.

"I think the assessments of the USGS [U.S. Geological Survey] has done previous, I think they fall short, from a geologist's point of view," he also said during a press conference.

But while he has been quick to use his bachelor's degree as a voice of authority on the subject, actual geologists have expressed skepticism about Zinke's knowledge.

"He seems not to be familiar with modern geologic knowledge," Seth Stein, a professor at the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University told CNN. "In particular, geologists now know that the climate is warming rapidly because of human activities. This is is causing many serious problems including rising sea level, which is a major threat to coastal communities."

Zinke has used his so-called geological expertise to form several decisions he has made at the Interior, such as fracking. "I'm a former geologist. I say 'former,' because when I went to school, I was taught that we are going to be out of oil in 2003; that there was peak oil. That's not possible with fracking."

As if he was not already becoming a shady character in President Donald Trump's administration, a little-known conservative political nonprofit connected to Vice President Mike Pence recently ran a campaign-style advertisement for Zinke that touted his work as the head of the Interior, according to the Huffington Post.

"From sea to shining sea, they're America’s national treasures," a narrator for the ad said as the camera highlighted several national parks. "But for too long, Washington has neglected our national parks. Now, Donald Trump’s Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke wants to change that."

The conservative nonprofit, American Economic Freedom Alliance, has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads on behalf of GOP lawmakers who have fought to end tax credits for undocumented immigrants and to repeal Obamacare, HuffPost noted.

The ad has fueled speculation that Zinke has ambitious political aspirations in his sights.

"I think he wants to be governor of Montana, then president of the United States," Land Tawney, president and chief executive of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, told HuffPost.

The news comes as Zinke has taken actions as interior secretary that have led some to believe that he has treated public lands differently outside of Montana, his home state.

A report from the New York Times elaborated:

In the last year, Mr. Zinke has torn up Obama-era rules related to oil, gas and mineral extraction and overseen the largest reduction of federal land protection in the nation’s history, including an effort to slash the size of Bears Ears National Monument.

But here in Montana, where support for drilling in certain beloved areas can be a career killer, Mr. Zinke has struck a different note. And as he faces allegations that he has violated travel and ethics rules, an examination of his Interior Department record shows that his pro-development bent has not always applied to his home state, where he is viewed as a fiercely ambitious candidate for future office.

Zinke appears to be a man of multiple dimensions. Dimensions, of course, that he has sought to use to justify his decisions at the Interior, please his hefty donors and potentially further his political career. In more ways than one, Zinke has quickly — but quietly — become one of the most controversial figures in the Trump administration.

Is Fox News star Sean Hannity getting legal advice from TV’s “Breaking Bad”?

Getty/Saul Loeb/AMC/Frank Ockenfels 3

The hit TV series "Breaking Bad" came to a close in September 2013, but Fox News star Sean Hannity may just make it great again.

That's because several Twitter users suggested yesterday that Hannity has been getting legal advice from old episodes of the Emmy Award-winning show. The speculation first began after Michael Cohen, the personal attorney to President Donald Trump who is currently at the center of a federal investigation, failed to protect the identity of a “mystery” client.

That client turned out to be none other than Hannity. After the news broke, the Fox News host claimed he had never given a retainer to Cohen.

“Never paid any fees. I may have handed him $10 once," Hannity said on his own radio show. "I requested attorney-client privilege with him, and assumed our conversations would be confidential. But they have never involved any matter with him and any third party.”

Hannity's line about how he “may have” given Cohen $10 to gain “attorney-client privilege” was what provoked the internet's suspicions. While money is generally not required to secure attorney-client privilege, the notion dominates in popular culture and has been used as a plot device on many TV series, including “Breaking Bad.”

In the second season episode titled “Better Call Saul,” attorney Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) ― who would later move on to star in his own spin-off of the same name ― urged Walt (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse (Aaron Paul) to “put a dollar in my pocket” to guarantee attorney-client privilege. This lead Twitter users to wonder if this plot line was the basis for Hannity’s legal leanings.

"Hannity handing Cohen $10 and asking for attorney-client privilege is LITERALLY an episode of 'Breaking Bad,'" one user wrote.

Another said, "'Might have paid him $10.00 for privilege' is taken right out of 'Breaking Bad'."

Eleven seconds from my favorite series basically sum up this whole Hannity situation.https://t.co/hYHrYRUZSE

— Michi (@cbn2) April 17, 2018

Holy shit, Jake tapper just said that he heard on Hannity's show that he would give Cohen $10 so have attorney client privilege. That's literally a Saul Goodman scene from Breaking Bad

— Live, Laugh, Lose (@demeatloaf) April 16, 2018

Please somebody tell @seanhannity that Breaking Bad was not a documentary on legal practices. https://t.co/ckWBytZLNM pic.twitter.com/s911a2wMLL

— Seamus Mahoney (@seamusobmahoney) April 16, 2018

Sean Hannity clearly a Breaking Bad fan, as this is exactly what happened in one of this first episodes Saul was introduced https://t.co/3VRko5Xku5

— Iowa Starting Line (@IAStartingLine) April 16, 2018

That's from "Breaking Bad"...Saul and the "Put a buck in my pocket" pic.twitter.com/BinTbX3kxi

— #TheResistance (@KSerino) April 17, 2018

Sean Hannity’s “might have paid him $10.00 for privilege “ is taken right out of Breaking Bad.

— Joe Freni (@JoeFreni) April 16, 2018

I prefer Saul #BREAKINGBAD And now Hannity shares a lawyer with Trump? #WTF pic.twitter.com/Ykt2C8xlI9

— IffyTiffy (@overvacationer) April 17, 2018

Wait. Does Sean Hannity think Breaking Bad was a documentary?

— A. Zem... see, it's a Hamilton reference. Get it? (@anjyrulz) April 16, 2018

Pretty sure Hannity swiped that "I gave him ten bucks so we have attorney client privilege" from the Breaking Bad episode "Better Call Saul" - the only difference is Saul asked for $1 not $10. #itdoesntworkthatway

— scary lawyerguy (@scarylawyerguy) April 17, 2018

Early in the day yesterday, Hannity confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that he had received legal advice from Cohen. “We have been friends a long time. I have sought legal advice from Michael,” Hannity said.

The Fox News host later clarified those remarks on his personal Twitter account and denied having received legal advice from Cohen.

"Michael Cohen has never represented me in any matter. I never retained him, received an invoice or paid legal fees," Hannity tweeted. "I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective."

"I assumed those conversations were confidential, but to be absolutely clear they never involved any matter between me and a third-party," he continued.

Michael Cohen has never represented me in any matter. I never retained him, received an invoice, or paid legal fees. I have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective.

— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) April 16, 2018

I assumed those conversations were confidential, but to be absolutely clear they never involved any matter between me and a third-party.

— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) April 16, 2018

Gabriel Sherman, a special correspondent at Vanity Fair, reports that Sean Hannity hired Cohen to defend him last year around the time Media Matters for America called for advertiser boycotts against him.

"Sean Hannity hired Michael Cohen to help defend him against left-wing groups that were calling for boycotts in the wake of Bill O'Reilly's ouster from Fox News under pressure from advertisers and left-wing groups," Sherman said on MSNBC.

Hannity has been an ardent backer of Trump, both on-air and off, and has repeatedly attacked special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The Fox News personality has also frequently defended Cohen in the days since the FBI raided Cohen's home and office — although he failed to mention that Cohen had represented him.

Judge rules Joe Arpaio’s guilty verdict could stay on the books — despite Trump pardon

AP/Angie Wang/Susan Walsh

Disgraced former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio may still face serious legal jeopardy — despite being one of Donald Trump's first political pardons as president.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled it would appoint a special prosecutor to argue that Arpaio's guilty verdict should remain on the books. Since the Justice Department under Jeff Sessions has refused to defend Arpaio's conviction for contempt of court, the new a special prosecutor will.

Arpaio has called the court's ruling "totally improper" and said it the court would be put in an "accusatory role." In July 2017, Arpaio was convicted of criminal contempt after he refused to obey an order from a judge to stop violating the fourth amendment rights of Latinos. Arpaio's attorney told Buzzfeed that the decision "raises a lot of disturbing questions about the neutrality of the court."

The former sheriff, who is now running for Senate, was pardoned last August by Trump. By that point, Arpaio had not even been sentenced, with his hearing still due in October. "Arpaio asked US District Judge Susan Bolton in Arizona to vacate the verdict, arguing that because he hadn't been sentenced and there was no final judgment in the case, he had lost the opportunity to appeal and challenge the guilty verdict," Buzzfeed reported.

Arpaio's request was ultimately denied by Bolton on Oct. 19, who wrote that Trump's pardon "does not erase a judgment of conviction, or its underlying legal and factual finding." The DOJ told the 9th Circuit in December that it would only "represent the government's interests" on appeal, but that Arpaio's motion to vacate should have been allowed, and it wouldn't defend the Bolton's order.

The 9th Circuit ruled 2-1, and dissenting Judge Richard Tallman wrote "that it is unwise for this Court to use its authority to appoint a private attorney at this late stage to “prosecute” the appeal of a case the Government already won, in the face of the Government’s continued willingness to participate, and to countenance a surreptitious use of the vacatur appeal to pursue an untimely attack on the President’s constitutional authority to pardon," according to the ruling.

"But the constitutionality of the President’s pardon is not at issue in Arpaio’s current appeal; the denial of Arpaio’s motion for vacatur of his conviction is. The request is inappropriate. My colleagues’ decision to appoint separate counsel now is therefore ill-advised and unnecessary. I respectfully dissent," he added.

Sandy Hook families sue Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for defamation

Getty/Oli Scarff

Alex Jones has spent years attempting to discredit the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in which a gunman fatally shot 20 school children and six adult staff members.

The Infowars host has repeatedly pushed the false narrative that the parents of the deceased children are “crisis actors.” Now, those real-life parents are suing him.

In a pair of lawsuits filed late Monday, the parents of two children killed in the December 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, allege that Jones’ conspiracy theories have resulted in death threats, attorney Mark Bankston tells Salon.

Neil Heslin, the father of a 6-year-old boy killed in the shooting, and Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, who also lost a son, filed separate defamation suits against Jones in Austin, Texas, where Infowars is filmed. Both of the claims list Jones, Infowars and Free Speech Systems, LLC as defendants, and the plaintiffs are seeking more than $1 in damages, according to a review of the lawsuit by Salon. Infowars reporter Owen Shroyer is also named in one of the lawsuits.

“Even after these folks had to experience this trauma, for the next five years they were tormented by Alex Jones with vicious lies about them,” Bankston, who is handling the pair of cases, told HuffPost. “And these lies were meant to convince his audience that the Sandy Hook parents are frauds and have perpetrated a sinister lie on the American people.”

Bankston told Salon that he is also involved in an additional defamation suit against Jones. He is suing Jones on behalf of the 24-year-old man who Jones falsely identified as the Parkland, Florida, high school shooter. In that tragedy, a former student opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, killing 17 people.

These lawsuits could have damaging consequences for Jones and Infowars ― especially because they are not the only legal claims that Jones faces.

In March, the man who recorded the deadly car attack at last year's white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, sued Jones for calling him a “deep state shill” and a "CIA asset" who helped organize the attack. The man in question is not working for the CIA, and he did no such thing.

As survivors of the Parkland tragedy spoke out against gun violence in the aftermath of the shooting, Jones compared the student survivors to Nazis, suggesting that they intended to kill gun owners. "Alt-right" sites followed Jones’ lead in spreading fake images of the kids and conspiracy theories, including claims that they were actors paid by the left to advocate for gun reform.

The conspiracy theories eventually found there way onto Fox News outlets. Radio commentator Todd Starnes called the kids "cultural jihadists." While most Fox-affiliated commentators would not openly call the Parkland students "crisis actors," several have hinted at the possibility by suggesting that the teens could not think for themselves and were under the control of outside forces.

There are many more examples, but a trend is clear: Many conservatives have decided to discredit the messengers, often through blatant and vicious direct attacks, rather than engage in a debate.

Meghan McCain accuses adult star Stormy Daniels of “publicity stunt” on “The View”

ABC/Heidi Gutman

After showing up at a federal court hearing for Michael Cohen, the disgraced personal attorney for President Donald Trump who recently found himself the subject of a raid by federal prosecutors at the behest of special counsel Robert Mueller, Stormy Daniels unveiled a sketch of the man who she claims threatened her against revealing her alleged affair with Trump back in 2011.

While recounting the alleged threat to Anderson Cooper on "60 Minutes" last month, Daniels claimed that a man walked up to her and said, "Leave Trump alone. Forget the story." Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, said the man then looked at her daughter and said, "That's a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom."

Joined by her lawyer Michael Avenatti, Daniels sat down with moderator Whoopi Goldberg and the full panel of ABC's "The View" for her first and only live interview. Goldberg introduced Daniels to the program, which is hosted exclusively by women, by saying that the performer was "on a mission to be heard about the alleged affair with the guy in the White House." But her co-panelist Meghan McCain seemed intent on preventing Daniels from accomplishing that mission.

McCain began her questioning by casting doubt on the legitimacy of Daniel's desire to be heard in spite of her allegations of being silenced by powerful men. "It seems like a publicity stunt on some level," McCain said, as she also questioned Daniels' motive for showing up at Cohen's court hearing, where camera crews were waiting.

"I understand that you’re being sued by our president, but it does seem like you’re benefiting a lot," McCain said before appearing to pass judgment on Daniels' career choice by taking issue with her current project being called the "Make America Horny Again" tour.

"No disrespect, I hadn’t heard your name until all of this had happened," McCain continued. "And now you are literally live on 'The View' giving an entire interview with us. So it has been beneficial for your career."

Stormy Daniels' response to those who say she is profiting from the scandal: "There's a lot of publicity, but I didn't do it for that because this is not what I want to be known for." https://t.co/f8u2wc159S pic.twitter.com/RVksH2A9SE

— The View (@TheView) April 17, 2018

After pointing out her own perceived role as an adorner of fame in America, McCain made a point to clarify that Daniels was not the first adult star she had interviewed before ultimately dismissing her own argument. "I have respect for any woman who does well in any industry, it’s whatever," she clarified.

Yet McCain's thinly-veiled victim blaming did not stop there. "Have you thought about all of the implications of this on the Trump family?" McCain asked Daniels.

Daniels made it clear that deciding to tell her story to the nation was not a decision that she took lightly, and that with a track record of success in her industry where she eventually rose to director, she had no desire to be famous merely for an alleged  sexual relationship with a man who went on to become president. "It's overwhelming, and intimidating and downright scary sometimes," she admitted. While acknowledging that she is making more money, Daniels added context: She is also spending more money due to new needs that include bodyguards, drivers and legal bills.

The adult film star had a two-folded message for the American public: This is not a publicity stunt, and I am sick and tired of being bullied.

"What I do for a living should not matter," Daniels told the women of "The View." "What I do for a job doesn't impact my ability to know right from wrong – or my ability to tell the truth."

NEW: On @TheView, Stormy Daniels and lawyer release composite sketch of person she says threatened her to keep quiet about her alleged affair with Donald Trump. https://t.co/lEpff3uN2l pic.twitter.com/PbvtI7eRso

— ABC News (@ABC) April 17, 2018

The sketch of the man who allegedly threatened Daniels and her daughter was drawn by Lois Gibson, who has been given the title of "The World's Most Successful Forensic Artist" by The Guinness Book of World Records. According to her website, Gibson's work has aided investigators in correctly identifying more than 750 criminals.

Written on the sketch is Daniel's description of the perpetrator, whom she described as being in his 30's to early 40's at the time, ranging in height from 5'9" to 6'0" and being lean but fit. The unveiling quickly became one of the top trends on Twitter, as Avenatti stated, "We're offering a 100,000 award for information leading to the capture of this man." Avenatti also set up a Gmail account with a memorable username: "ID the thug."

"We think we know who sent him," Avenatti claimed before adding, "We know that someone knows something."

Daniels' attorney also offered his blunt predictions of Michael Cohen's legal fate. Of the president's lawyer, who reportedly arranged multiple hush payments for Republican politicians, including one valued at $130,000 in exchange for Daniels' silence in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election, Avenatti said there was "no question" in his mind that Cohen would be indicted by prosecutors and eventually turn on the president in exchange for leniency. "He hasn't done him any favors," Avenatti said of Trump, who publicly denied knowing about the payment to White House reporters.

"Michael Cohen is my attorney, and you'll have to ask Michael," Trump said at the time.

Stormy Daniels, her attorney @MichaelAvenatti discuss attending a court hearing on FBI's raid of Michael Cohen home and offices, whether Daniels is benefiting from the scandal, and Trump's denial of knowing about a $130K payment to the adult film actress. https://t.co/f8u2wc159S pic.twitter.com/AxkaVO42QH

— The View (@TheView) April 17, 2018

Charlie Dent’s rush resignation angers Pennsylvania Republicans

Getty/Salon

The announcement that Rep. Charlie Dent, R-PA., is going to retire in May has thrown Pennsylvania politics into chaos. With Dent gone, the race will be on to see who replaces him for the few months before the regular election in November.

The reason for this chaos can be best summed up in the statement released by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf shortly after Dent's announcement. After praising the Republican congressman for being "approachable" and for having "always put his constituents above partisan politics," Wolf suggested that there would be a special election to replace Dent — meaning that the 15th district, which after the November contest will be redrawn into the 7th district, will have a new congressman for a period of only a few months.

"Once Governor Wolf receives an official resignation notice with an exact date, he will make a formal decision regarding scheduling the date of a special election," the statement explained. It added that the state's election code "requires the governor to issue a writ when the vacancy occurs during a session of Congress or if the vacancy occurs at a time when Congress shall be required to meet any time prior to the next general election. The governor must issue the writ within 10 days of the vacancy to set the special election date. The date of the election must not be sooner than 60 days after the governor issues the writ."

Local Republicans are not pleased about a potentially costly and competitive special election, even if it runs concurrently with this fall's midterm election.

"I had called on him [Charlie Dent] to tell the truth months ago," Tom Carroll, the chairman of the Bethlehem Republican City Committee and vice chair of the Lehigh Valley Tea Party, told Salon. "I had heard that he was going to be resigning to set up a special election so that he could manipulate who would win because the party rules in special elections are different than just in a normal primary. He was confronted [by] numerous sources and said he wasn't going to resign. So, once again, he has not told the truth. I find him quite honestly reprehensible at this point. I say, 'Good riddance.'"

He added, "I think it's disgusting that he's done this in a way that now we're forced to have a special election prior to a general election coming up. He's costing taxpayers money, if that's the way it goes."

Matthew Munsey, the chairman of the Northampton County Democratic Party, speculated that the special election may simply wind up containing the same candidates who are currently running to replace Dent in the soon-to-be-formed 7th district in November.

"We're four weeks away from the primary election, and I don't see either party picking a candidate before the primary. I don't think that would happen. I don't know what the timeline would be, but it just seems unlikely," Munsey told Salon.

He added, "At this point, we would let the primary play out and whoever wins the primary. It makes sense to run in the special election, because it really doesn't make much sense to run a lame duck for a seat that they would at best hold for six months."

Rick Daugherty, former chairman of the Lehigh County Democratic Party and Dent's opponent in both the 2012 and 2016 elections, told Salon that he has no plans to run for the newly opened seat. "I would not be a candidate for the special election. Well, I would have to give up my job for a job that is a six or seven-month assignment, so I'd rather focus my efforts on the general election so I could serve a full term."

Dean Browning, one of the Republicans seeking the party's nomination to run when the 15th district soon becomes the 7th district, had similar thoughts.

"That has yet to be determined," Browning told Salon, when asked about whether he would want to run in the special election to replace Dent. "It depends on the date of the special election. I'm not quite sure I understand the reason or the rationale for Rep. Dent stepping down now. It seems to be adding further to the confusion that voters will have to deal with when sorting out who they want to vote for Congress."

That said, Browning was unsure if Dent's motive for stepping down was to force the party to choose a replacement to his liking.

"At this point, I think it is pointless to speculate on his reasons or rationale for doing what he did. I'm at a loss to explain it myself," Browning told Salon, adding that it "could be something completely different that none of us are thinking about or even aware of."

In explaining why he was stepping down, Dent emphasized a desire to spend more time with his family.

"After discussions with my family and careful reflection, I have decided to leave Congress in the coming weeks. Serving the people of the 15th Congressional district has been a tremendous responsibility and the privilege of a lifetime, and I am honored by the trust that so many of my constituents placed in me to represent them in Washington," Dent explained in a statement.

He added, "I am especially proud of the work I have done to give voice to the sensible center in our country that is often overlooked or ignored. It is my intention to continue to aggressively advocate for responsible governance and pragmatic solutions in the coming years."

The final section of Dent's statement — wherein he discusses "the sensible center in our country" and calls for "responsible governance and pragmatic solutions" to America's problems — echoes the reasons he gave for announcing that he would retire from his seat back in September.

"Accomplishing the most basic fundamental tasks of governance is becoming far too difficult. It shouldn’t be, but that’s reality," Dent told The Washington Post at the time.

Dent would later point the finger at President Donald Trump, telling CNN in December that "I would say the President was a factor, but not the factor for me deciding to leave." He later added that while "the party of the President typically loses 32 seats in a situation like this," the situation was different with Trump "because he's a very polarizing figure, and so I suspect our challenges will be even greater just because of that."

If nothing else, Dent's unexpected retirement and the subsequent special election will guarantee that Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley — a swing district in a swing state that has already received considerable attention in the 2018 midterm elections — is bound to find itself in the spotlight again.

Just a lot sooner than anyone — except for Dent and his confidantes — expected.

Revisiting Sam Brownback’s tax cut disaster: How does Kansas feel about his “experiment”?

AP/Charlie Riedel

"It's like shooting adrenaline into the heart of growing the economy." That's how Sam Brownback, then governor of Kansas, described his radical tax cut plan in 2012. He was evangelical about it. Slashing corporate and personal income tax rates and completely eliminating taxes on limited liability companies, he promised, would create tens of thousands of jobs and bring prosperity to the state.

It did not work out that way.

At first, there were many believers, including the Kansas State Legislature, which passed the governor's revolutionary tax package in 2012. Some 330,000 independent business owners took advantage of their new tax exemption. Corporations and individuals enjoyed their income tax cuts and refunds. The result was a $700 million loss in revenue for the state the first year the tax plan went into effect.

For the next five years, as revenue continued to tank, the state found itself mired in fiscal crisis, and job growth was anemic compared to the national recovery. Last year, a bi-partisan majority in the legislature essentially repealed the entire Brownback tax package.

Brownback had won a landslide victory in the 2010 gubernatorial race and was re-elected in 2014, though by a thin margin. Early this year, the Trump administration nominated him as U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom and pushed his confirmation through the Senate. But by the time Brownback resigned as governor at the end of January 2018, his "Kansas experiment" had been shelved.

Filmmakers Melinda Shopsin, Paul Lovelace and Jessica Wolfson were curious about what Brownback had left behind. Crisscrossing the heartland state (population just under three million), the crew wanted to hear what ordinary Kansans thought about their state's experiment in tax policy.

"Our focus was to talk to regular people and get away from the divisive political rhetoric that has been so prevalent in this debate over taxes," says Shopsin, who directed the video, which you can watch here:

Where better to start then than the Fraternal Order of Eagles Lodge in Manhattan, Kansas, on bingo night?

"The [tax] policies, in my mind, they were the same old trickle-down theories," one bingo player opines. "Cut them at the top and it will trickle down to the bottom, and in the past four years that has not worked."

But what surprised the filmmakers most was how many Kansans they spoke with were unfamiliar with the details of Brownback's tax plan. "Taxes don't bother me, unless they raise taxes," was a common refrain. A lot of people they encountered just hadn't been paying much attention until state budget cuts delayed highway repairs, threatened hospitals with closure and compelled some schools to close on Fridays.

On the other hand, the filmmakers found that people who did follow the news and were knowledgeable about state tax policies had developed a deep appreciation for the importance of tax revenue.

"When the funding disappeared for things people really cared about, especially public education and medical care, they told me they really began to think about the importance of where their tax dollars went," Shopsin recalls.

"Yikes!" was fifth grade teacher Sherry Owen's response to the discovery that the state was drastically reducing funding to the schools in her small town of Caney, Kansas. There were staff cuts, fewer supplies and finally no classes at all on Fridays.

"Our school is our center in our town," Owen declares. "What are we thinking pulling those resources?"

There are, of course, citizens who benefited from and still believe in the corporate and individual income tax cuts. One company, Wenger Manufacturing, says they saved $18 million from the tax cuts and have re-invested the money in new technology and jobs. But these days, Shopsin reports, it's not easy to find people willing to defend the cuts. "What we mainly heard from people, even from those who benefited from the cuts personally, was that the overall policy was a failure and how unfair these cuts were in practice."

For example, says Shopsin, "Many doctors and lawyers were exempted from income tax because of their pass-through businesses, while their secretaries and nurses still had to pay."

The most poignant segment of the short video is a visit to Stormont Vail Health, a hospital in Topeka, Kansas. On top of his tax cuts, Gov. Brownback had also pushed to privatize the state's Medicaid program. Budget cuts compounded the problem of providing medical care for low-income residents. Hospitals, especially in rural areas, feared they would have to close. "The healthcare system only works when people have access to it," says Stormont Vail CEO Randy Peterson. "It's part of our social responsibility."

While Brownback pitched his tax cuts as a job-creation strategy, Melissa Hildebrand, a fourth generation dairy farmer who welcomed the tax cuts, offers one reason why lowering business taxes doesn't necessarily lead to more employment. She tells Shopsin that on her farm, any increased cash flow from the tax cuts will likely go to the installation of more cost-efficient robotic milkers "which would actually eliminate some labor."

As the Kansas legislature continues to work to stabilize state funding and improve the state's credit rating, people like hospital CEO Randy Peterson say, "Quite frankly, I think the experiment failed." What worries him now is that Congress has enacted similar tax cuts. "I'm a little concerned that we have the same concept at the national level now."

At a Heritage Foundation panel last month, veteran tax cut advocate Grover Norquist acknowledged that the bad publicity generated by the "Kansas experiment" had been "unhelpful" to the tax reform movement. He recommended that supporters pay more attention to tax cutting efforts in North Carolina and Florida.

But the impact of the tax-slashing experiment in Kansas is still being felt by people in all walks of life across that conservative state, and as the video shows, they remain concerned, even if it's expressed in a very polite, restrained Midwestern voice.

Caney Valley School District Superintendent Blake Vargas says he's seen what can happen at the state and local level as a result of severe tax cuts, and he has a word of advice: "If it's not worth it, if it's not paying off, don't be afraid to pull the plug."

Trade war or not, China risks a “Minsky moment”

AP Photo/Andy Wong

The transformation of China’s economy, both in terms of GDP growth rate and poverty reduction since it started its transition to the market system in the late 1970s, has arguably been the biggest macroeconomic event of the past half-century. The model that has characterized the country’s high output growth rates has followed in the footsteps of the Asian “tigers": first, its high growth rates of capital accumulation, driven by high investment-output ratios; second, a marked outward orientation through export-led growth policies; and third, the pursuit of industrialization (in particular the production and export of manufacturing goods), a key ingredient for fast growth and development. By almost every metric, China has advanced from economic backwater to the world’s second-largest GDP (and by some measures, is now the largest economy).

But in spite of signs of renewed economic activity in March, the country’s debt build-up has provoked increasing concern amongst Beijing’s policy makers, as it points to an underlying long-term financial fragility, particularly if trade war pressures intensify. Just last October during the Communist Party Plenary, Zhou Xiaochuan, then head of the country’s central bank, warned of a “Minsky moment":

 “When there are too many pro-cyclical factors in an economy, cyclical fluctuations will be amplified. If we are too optimistic when things go smoothly, tensions build up, which could lead to a sharp correction, what we call a ‘Minsky Moment’. That’s what we should particularly defend against.”

To elaborate on Zhou’s statement, the economist Hyman Minsky described how once the debt “disease” goes metastatic, there will come a “Minsky moment” (a term originally coined by economist Paul McCulley) when euphoria gives way to concern and then to panic liquidation and credit revulsion. When that dynamic is in full flower, policy makers are powerless to avert it, no matter how much they want to bring the punchbowl back. Governor Zhou’s public warning was no doubt in response to recent rapid increase of debt which, according to Professor L. Randall Wray, “increased from 162 percent to 260 percent of GDP between 2008 and 2016,” and remains “a topic of discussion, if not deep concern.”

It may seem odd to warn of a Chinese slowdown, given the recent renewed surge in exports and the corresponding rise in both the manufacturing and non-manufacturing purchasing managing indices (both the manufacturing and service gauges remain above 50, and therefore indicative of robust economic activity). But these gains ought to be viewed against the backdrop of a more hostile external environment for Chinese manufactured goods. Discussing the recently imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum, the New York Times reported that Trump has already provided brief exemptions to “Canada, Mexico, the European Union, Australia, Argentina, Brazil and South Korea” (countries that “account for more than half of the $29 billion in steel sold to the United States in 2017”), which reinforces the idea that it is largely China that remains the major target of Trump’s economic nationalists.

In that context, China’s ramped-up production in March could well be interpreted as an effort to evade the tariffs by exporting products into the U.S. under the wire, suggested economist Raymond Yeung of the ANZ group. If so, that could provoke further aggressive responses from Trump’s trade hawks, especially if it results in an expansion of the bilateral trade surplus with the U.S. Adding to the pressures, Reuters reports that “Top Trump administration officials are asking China to cut tariffs on imported cars, allow foreign majority ownership of financial services firms and buy more U.S.-made semiconductors in negotiations to avoid plans to slap tariffs on a host of Chinese goods and a potential trade war.”

But how serious are these threats? Are they simply a case of “smoke and mirrors,” as the economist Dani Rodrik has suggested? China itself appears to be taking the risk of a trade war seriously, imposing retaliatory tariffs of up to 25 percent on 128 food imports from the U.S., an understandable negotiating posture given its position as a major creditor nation. But the very fact of its creditor status might presage problems for Beijing. If anything, history has shown that it is trade surplus nations, not debtors, that tend to be the biggest casualties of trade wars, as this account of America’s ill-fated Smoot-Hawley tariff imposition illustrates:

“World War I… made America the world’s creditor. The center of the financial world moved from London to New York, and billions of dollars were owed to large U.S. banks. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff threw inter-allied war-debt repayment relations into limbo by shutting down world trade. An international moratorium on debtor repayments to the United States froze billions in foreign assets, thus weakening the financial solvency of the American banks. Specifically, over $2 billion worth of German loans were obstructed by Germany’s inability to acquire dollars through trade to repay its debts. This same scenario played out in many other countries as well.”

China today occupies a creditor position comparable to the U.S. in the 1930s. Trump was certainly exaggerating when he suggested that “trade wars are good and easy to win.” But the U.S. is a largely self-sufficient economy; China is not — which is what Trump was implicitly highlighting when he made his comments (albeit, typically oversimplified and ignoring the fact that the U.S. itself still has quasi-bubbleized assets and very high levels of indebtedness).

Even if the trade war threat turns out to be more talk than action, there are other ways in which Beijing might risk a Minsky-style deflation. There is a very old idea from business cycle theory prior to the Second World War that private sector over-investment can become so unsustainably high that even without a fiscal/monetary shock, there could be a fall in autonomous investment. Once that begins, accelerator multiplier dynamics can lead to a cumulative economic contraction even if interest rates plummet and monetary conditions ease.

There are grounds for thinking this is an idea whose time has come again. Though fixed investment is very low in the U.S., it is not so globally, especially in China, which has a condition of over-investment that is historically unprecedented. A decline in global autonomous investment that threatens accelerator and multiplier dynamics should follow.

Some would argue that the global capex overinvestment problem is purely a product of low interest rates, but in China’s case, it is also a product of their economic model. Although the reforms undertaken over the past few decades have given China the appearance of a market economy, it is not in many important aspects, notably in regards to the allocation of capital, which is not market-determined.

In essence, China’s economy is a historical blending of three distinct strands: First is the old Communist, command-style economy, which, on the most conservative measure, accounts for at least one-third of China’s GDP (and possibly higher, according to some studies). This sector is comprised largely of the old “white elephants,” the state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

Second is the East Asian model, whereby the government directs investment into particular areas via the aegis of private companies, but with considerable state backing. This “dirigisme” is a variant of the old Japanese “MITI administrative model,” wherein the government essentially targets priority sectors (such as agricultural products, high-speed rail, aerospace, semiconductors, robotics, AI, and civil aviation). You can see evidence of this “state-directed capitalism” in the country’s recently published "Made in China 2025" document, an explicit policy of import substitution designed to make the country largely self-sufficient in a broad range of industries by 2025. (Import substitution is a red flag for trade hawks, especially as many of Beijing’s newly designated priority sectors are areas currently dominated by the U.S., and seeking to expand exports into China.)

Essentially, here the Chinese state often acts as “loss leader” as it tries to develop national champions, mobilizing the financial resources of large oligopolistic conglomerates to enable them to make long-term investments in research. (As an aside, this used to be a model embraced by the U.S. until the anti-government attitudes of recent decades took hold; the private sector was thought to be unable to make sufficient large-scale R&D investments because no single company on its own would have the resources/longevity to exploit the potential financial returns.) China has already done this in areas such as solar power, and it is one of the reasons why global solar costs have fallen so precipitously over the past decade (as well as contributing to the bankruptcy of Solyndra here in the U.S. back in 2011).

Third, and finally, is China’s “wild west capitalism,” which has been manifested in areas such as property speculation, “wealth management products,” the shadow banking system, and the country’s comparatively young capital markets (including a newly established oil futures market). Odd that despite the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997/98 and the global meltdown of 2008 (both products of global financial liberalization), China persists in expanding this “third leg,” given the challenges the country has experienced attempting to curb its speculative excesses, while simultaneously seeking to restructure the state sector.

In any case, the challenge for China is clear: If policy makers move too aggressively in countering any one of these vulnerabilities, they risk setting in motion a huge debt deflation dynamic. This is especially dangerous, given that overall capital expenditure in China is still in excess of 40 percent of GDP. By way of comparison during Japan’s bubble years, capex as a percentage of GDP got as high as 32 percent, and that was considered bubble-like territory, while U.S. capital expenditure as a percentage of GDP has typically stood around 15-17 percent.

So China’s policy makers have a fine line to tread. In essence, they have been using the old command economy to arrest any incipient debt deflation dynamics in the free market segment. The problem is that the command economy is home to all of the white elephants, notably construction, heavy machinery, bulk chemicals, steel, coal, and shipbuilding, all of which contribute significantly to global overcapacity. As Jianguang Shen, chief Asia economist at Mizuho Securities Asia, notes:

“SOE reform, debt, overcapacity and ‘zombie companies’ are all deeply connected issues. For private companies in overcapacity industries, after several years of losses there’s no way to continue. The owner will shut them down or sell them off, but at SOEs they can keep getting bank loans or government support.”

Shutting down these companies would create mass unemployment. So the government keeps them going, via subsidies, bailouts, and low interest rate loans. Excess capacity, therefore, gets dumped on China’s trading partners, thereby imparting an ongoing deflationary bias to the global economy, while China builds up global champions at home, which will ultimately squeeze out foreign competition.

This is in effect what Trump is seeking to counter right now via his latest salvo against China. But will the threat of more tariffs prove effective against Beijing? Bear in mind that China’s political imperatives are considerably different than those of the U.S. In the U.S. (as well as most other western democracies), if a governing party screws up, it can be voted out of office. In China, the entire political legitimacy of the Communist Party is tied up with the country’s economic prosperity. They miscalculate, and the party risks losing its monopoly on power, party members get arrested, and probably a few are shot as well. There are limits to political liberalization.

Shutting down excess capacity in the state-owned enterprises in response to tariff threats, then, would likely risk a severe economic downturn in China. It would create the prospect of mass layoffs, heightening domestic turmoil, while simultaneously undermining the political standing of the ruling party. To avert this outcome, we should therefore expect that China’s policy makers will respond as they always have: continuing to guide financing to all of these white elephants, effectively exporting deflation to the rest of the world and risking a trade backlash. Hardly ideal, but understandable, given the competing domestic political imperatives. For all of today’s market chatter about “creeping inflation” in the U.S., then, this will likely prove ephemeral if China continues to dump much of its excess capacity on the rest of the world to offset the political fallout from tackling its own domestic bubbles. The resultant pressures China’s competitors will face could engender a tougher response in line with that of Trump, which is what appears to be happening right now. So while today’s political machinations may well appear to be nothing more than a high-stakes game of poker bluffs, the longer-term dynamics suggest that it could well herald the start of a dangerous dynamic in which China and the rest of the world are fated “to live in interesting times,” as the apocryphal Chinese curse exhorts.