Political Outsiders

September 04, 2015, 07:00 am

The rise of the political outsiders

By Shermichael Singleton

    

It is generally assumed and speculated that politicians say one thing and often do another. This contradictory pattern has become synonymous with politicians, particularly when running for office. Usually, they make promises they do not keep and for the most part, voters have come to expect that. It's reminiscent of the phrase: "That's just what politicians do; they'll say anything to get elected."

The descriptions provided above are only representative of an approach in which these outsiders move from the periphery to the center of the dominant political structure. It is only one approach in which these outside candidates are appealing to the raw emotions and dissatisfaction voters have with typical politicians. They are triggering an emotional response from voters, in part, by speaking to social problems and issues that have mostly been ignored by an elite political class.
These nontraditional candidates represent the real friction between the American people and the political class. The division between the traditional structures of the political establishment versus the nontraditional structure of these assumed outsider candidates has taken the political class by surprise.
Part of electoral politics is about appealing to tradition and establishment. However, both party establishments seem to ignore the current reality, that voters are both tired of broken promises and displeased with their respective parties.
For liberals who support or consider Sanders, they are tired of being told they will get a minimum wage increase and it never ever happening. For conservatives who support or consider Trump or Carson, they are tired of being told they will get a tougher stance on immigration and the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) for something better and it not ever happening.
The populism that we see today is a result of both parties ignoring their traditional constituents. Whether important matters such as trade, tax policy, minimum wage, corporate regulation, abortion, school prayer or super-Pacs, the voter loses nearly every time.
Voters are frankly exhausted of losing to those with more influence and clout. And the rise of the outsiders is a result of that frustration. Ultimately, both parties may very well transition to the presumptive Democratic and Republican candidates for president. The rise of the outsiders should serve as a lesson to both parties of what can happen when they ignore their voters.
But if voters are tired, then we should see a change in whom each party ultimately nominates to be their candidate. It leads to the question: How much more will people continue to endure or have we grown to accept it? Will establishmentism or populism win? We may very well be saluting President Trump or Sanders.

But as the nation focuses on the 2016 election cycle, the political and economic establishments' choice of two dynamistic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, continue not to sway a public that is not a part of its political coffers. The presumptiveness of their campaigns has led to declining numbers.Clinton is the wife of one of the canniest politicians of our time. And Jeb is the political capricious son and brother of two former presidents. Both are establishment choices. Despite those facts, neither candidate is performing as well as many originally thought.
Democrats are becoming frustrated with Clinton's email scandal and Republicans are plotting to take down Donald Trump.
Both party establishments appear oblivious to the populism born out of frustration. Populism, as defined by Peter Wiles, is "based on the premise that virtue resides in the simple people, who are the overwhelming majority." Neither Bush nor Clinton seem to understand these complex structures, whereas Trump, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Ben Carson have tapped into this.
This latter group has used discursive and non-discursive messages, combining the typical distinctions made between elements such as ideas, beliefs and attitudes. Clinton and Bush appear to have failed to comply with the will of their voting population.
For example, Sanders and Trump both appear to speak to the values and beliefs of liberal and conservative voters. They both speak to issues involving income and wealth inequality, with Sanders arguing to increase the minimum wage and Trump arguing for a tougher stance on immigration.

Trump Signs The Pledge

US presidential hopeful Donald Trump has agreed not to run as an independent candidate if he loses the Republican nomination for the 2016 elections.

 

"I will be totally pledging my allegiance to the Republican Party and the conservative principles for which it stands," he said on Thursday.

My  question is this: If he fails  to get the nomination, do you think he will honor his pledge, or will he go maverick and run as an Independent?

Ask a college student

Sorry Trump..............

 Past businessmen did poorly as presidents

Paul Brandus







He’s a sharp-elbowed businessman who gets things done. A tough-as-nails negotiator. A no-BS guy who tells it like it is. But does this mean Donald Trump would be a good—or great—president?
History suggests that there is no link between success in the business world and success in the White House. In fact—and surprisingly—the opposite appears to be true. Presidents with business backgrounds rank poorly among historians and voters, who have turned several of them out of office for poor performance. In fact, since 1900, the only president who is today considered great—Harry Truman—was a failed businessman.
In recent years, two separate, well-respected surveys of historians, political scientists and presidential scholars have ranked the presidents in order of greatness. What did the Siena College Research Institute and American Political Science Association each conclude? That in the aggregate, presidents who first worked in the business world before entering politics, tend to rank in the bottom third of all presidents. Here they are:

President	Business skill	Siena ranking	Apsa
Warren Harding	Newspaper publisher	43	42
Calvin Coolidge	VP, Nonotuck Savings Bank, Northampton, Mass.	31	27
Herbert Hoover	Mining	29	38
Harry Truman	Haberdasher	7	6
Jimmy Carter	Farmer	27	26
George H.W. Bush	Oilman	22	17
George W Bush	Oilman, Major League Baseball team co-owner	34 The average ranking for this group is 27 and median is 28, so out of 43 presidents (yes, only 43 men have been president), the group ranks near the bottom third. Voters agree with the historians: three of the seven businessmen-turned-presidents were kicked out after just one term in office: Hoover, Carter and the first George Bush. Were it not, in fact, for Truman, the average of 27 and median of 28 for this group would have been even worse. This doesn’t necessarily mean that a President Trump would fare as these men did. But it does suggest that business success is not enough. Now let’s look now at the presidents of the modern era who lacked business backgrounds. How do they rate? . President Primary background Siena ranking Apsa Theodore Roosevelt NYC police commissioner, assistant Navy secretary, governor of New York, vice president 5 4 William Howard Taft Federal judge, secretary of war 22 20 Woodrow Wilson President of Princeton, New Jersey governor 6 10 Franklin Roosevelt Assistant Navy secretary, governor of New York 2 3 Dwight Eisenhower U.S. Army general, president of Columbia University 8 7 John Kennedy U.S. congressman and senator 11 14 Lyndon Johnson U.S. congressman, senator and vice president 14 12 Richard Nixon U.S. congressman, senator, vice president 32 34 Gerald Ford U.S. congressman 26 24 Ronald Reagan Actor, union leader, corporate spokesman, governor of California 17 11 Bill Clinton Governor of Arkansas 20 8 Barack Obama Taking the Siena and APSA data together for this group, the average ranking is 14.25 and median is 12.75. In contrast to businessmen-turned presidents who, together, are in the lower third of presidents, the non-businessmen are squarely in the upper third. In fact, just one in seven of the businessman-turned presidents (Truman) appears in either the Siena or APSA top ten, five of the twelve non-businessmen do. Trump has supreme confidence. He’s aggressive. He’s energetic. He’s highly intelligent. He’s not a creature of Washington and he’s in no one’s pocket. All this is an appealing elixir to many. But what makes for ultimate presidential success and greatness? It’s based on much more than that. It’s based on numerous variables that swirl together over many years and over many evolving and often unexpected economic, social and geopolitical circumstances and cycles. Siena’s greatness rankings consider 20 different factors. Among them: the ability to empathize with those less fortunate (think FDR, LBJ and Clinton) and the ability to persuade with eloquence (think FDR, JFK and Reagan). The ability to compromise is also an important factor (Reagan, Clinton). That Trump appears to lack these qualities has been overlooked—but should not be discounted. Some also have mistaken Trump’s steam-rolling, belittling tactics—which play well on the campaign trail—as a predictor of effective governance. It’s not. There are three branches of government here, power is shared, and his my-way-or-the-highway approach is the recipe for more gridlock. An outsider running on an anti-Washington meme (hardly new), President Trump would encounter a Congress that wouldn’t be in the least beholden to him, and he also doesn’t seem to understand that he couldn’t run the government like a CEO. Presidents have little control over the bureaucracy, with hiring and firing power over one-tenth of one percent of all federal employees (this should change, but it requires congressional approval, which won’t happen). History—and his own words—does not suggest that a Trump presidency, in the very unlikely event that it came to that, would be overly successful.   Lawyer, U.S. senator 15 18	35

Good news

Just to show I don't stick my head in the sand, here is a link I imagine a few of you are going to enjoy quite a bit http://news.investors.com/blogs-capital-hill/082715-768522-obamacare-co-op-in-nevada-is-the-third-to-fail.htm   This may actually have an impact on me as my current preceptor, whom I plan to work for, has had a rather large influx of patients to his practice through this co-op. Sadly, a lot of these people who came in through this plan have a lot of issues that are quite manageable with very affordable medications. Prior to coming to his office, however, they went to ERs or urgent care where they received about five minutes of attention and quite often, inappropriate care.

As I compare my experience to that of my classmates, I am finding that the norm in most offices that are ruled by HMOs is to spend literally no more than 15 minutes with a patient, limit them to 1-2 issues at most, and refer them out to "specialists" even though a vast majority of what specialists do can also be done in primary care. In our office, my preceptor will manage quite a bit and take responsibility for managing as much as a patient feels comfortable with him managing. This saves a lot of money for the system and time for the patient. But, it takes an investment of time up front by the doctor that they will not be paid for, or at the least, they will not be paid as well for that one visit versus three, treat em and street em visits.

A lot of patients who have come in have been very grateful and have been very compliant once they received education about their conditions and why they have been taking certain medications.

The Tale

Once upon a time in the town of Crowville, somewhere deep in the heartland of America, the town elders secured the imposition of a poll tax to be paid by everyone in Crowville who votes in any political election in that handsome burgh.  The tax took the form of a flat $100 fee to be paid by every man and woman each time he or she seeks admission to a polling place in Crowville.
The elders further arranged for the proceeds of this tax to be used to subsidize transportation to the polls of low-income Crowvillians.

The elders heartily patted themselves on their backs for their wisdom and charity.  “This tax – er, really, a magnanimous benefit to Crowville’s poor – will increase the political participation of poor Crowvillians.  The poor will now find voting to be less costly as a result of this tax.  The poor will therefore vote in larger numbers than before – and, certainly, not in smaller numbers.  Yeah for us!!”
A small cadre of skeptical Crowvillians frowned.  These skeptics (they thought of themselves as realists, so that is what we will call them from here on in) asked the elders: “How do you figure that imposing a tax on the act of voting will increase people’s willingness to vote?  Aren’t you worried that the monetary value to poor Crowvillians of whatever transportation subsidy you supply will be far less than the direct cost to each of them of the poll tax that they must now pay in order to vote?  Surely a Crowvillian who is too poor to buy a bus ticket to a polling place, or who can’t find a friend to drive him or her, will be very negatively affected by your poll tax.  The final result will be less, not more, voting.”

The elders snarled at the realists.  “Don’t be so simple-minded, you ideologues you.  Yes, in simple textbook theory raising the cost of voting with a poll tax discourages voting, especially of the poorest of our citizens.  But the real-world is much more complicated than your basic theory.  First, we’re recycling the bulk of the proceeds of the tax into our ‘Transportation to the Polls” initiative.  Second, it’s really an empirical question of whether or not a poll tax in fact discourages voting.  One should not prejudge the matter based merely upon theory.  And you do realize, don’t you, that people’s demand to vote is such that they are unlikely to be dissuaded from voting merely by a extra monetary charge to do so?”

The realists’ jaws dropped.  Never mind the obvious logical inconsistency in the elders’ argument for why a poll tax is unlikely to discourage voting.  The realists were flabbergasted that the elders really were confident that conditions affecting real-world voting were such that their poll-tax scheme would not discourage voting.

The realists pointed out to Crowville’s elders that they – the realists – actually have several empirical studies that show that poll taxes do in fact, as common sense suggests, reduce people’s willingness to vote.  The elders snarled even more dismissively, insisting that those empirical studies are naive and flawed.

The elders continued: “On our side are the best politimetricians in the world.  These quant-jocks have done serious empirical research into the effects of poll taxes on voting and they conclude that, when the models are properly specified and all the relevant real-world trends are correctly accounted for, higher poll taxes do not reduce voting.  To deny these results is to deny Science.  To deny these result is to substitute ideology for fact.  We elders have Science on our side!  The poll tax is supported by Science!”

The realists responded with more – and more elaborate – empirical studies of their own.  The realists’ studies found that, when the models are properly specified and all the relevant real-world trends are correctly accounted for, higher poll taxes do indeed reduce voting.

There ensued a duel of quantitative studies.  This duel went on endlessly; indeed, the duel continues down to this very day.  (One of the elders’ most popular studies is the study that found that while in fact voting did decline in jurisdictions in which poll taxes were raised, when controlling for the independent – ‘exogenous’ – trend of a decline in voting in those jurisdictions, the higher poll taxes in fact appear not to discourage voting at all.)  Study after study, each one more elaborate and technical and minutely specified than its predecessor, poured forth.

Astonishingly (for it is, isn’t it, astonishing?) the elders’ studies always found that poll taxes do not discourage voting while the realists’ studies found that poll taxes do indeed discourage voting.
The elders, while they cannot be said to have won the scientific argument, won the public-relations argument.  The elders successfully portrayed the poll tax as a way to help poor voters; the elders’ intentions were oh-so-good and noble.  The people sided overwhelmingly with the elders, and the poll tax was raised (and, indeed, indexed to inflation!).  And all realists were ridiculed as unfeeling knuckle-draggers when they pointed out that the empirical record in favor of the poll tax is far too weak – and the logical argument against it is far too strong – to justify a poll tax.  The elders’ self-professed morality and good intentions gave credence to their dismissal of the realists’ concerns and to their assurances to the people that science is clear that poll taxes do not discourage voting.


Reprinted in its entirety:
HT: Don  Boudreaux
http://cafehayek.com/2015/09/a-tale.html

Obama Administration Declares War on Franchisors and Subcontractors

The NLRB is changing the rules of the labor market   
 
Walter Olson  Wednesday, September 02 2015

In a series of unilateral moves, the Obama administration has been introducing an entirely new regime of labor law without benefit of legislation, upending decades’ worth of precedent so as to herd as many workers into unions as possible.
The newest, yesterday, from the National Labor Relations Board, is also probably the most drastic yet: in a case against waste hauler Browning-Ferris Industries, the Board declared that from now on, franchisors and companies that employ subcontractors and temporary staffing agencies will often be treated as if they were really direct employers of those other firms’ workforces: they will be held liable for alleged labor law violations at the other workplaces, and will be under legal compulsion to bargain with unions deemed to represent their staff.
The new test, one of “industrial realities,” will ask whether the remote company has the power, even the potential power, to significantly influence working conditions or wages at the subcontractor or franchisee; a previous test sought to determine whether the remote company exercised “ ‘direct and immediate impact’ on the worker’s terms and conditions — say, if that second company is involved in hiring and determining pay levels.”
This is a really big deal; as our friend Iain Murray puts it at CEI, it has the potential to “set back the clock 40 years, to an era of corporate giants when few people had the option of being their own bosses while pursuing innovative employment arrangements.”

• A tech start-up currently contracts out for janitorial, cafeteria, and landscaping services. It will now be at legal risk should its hired contractors be later found to have violated labor law in some way, as by improperly resisting unionization. If it wants to avoid this danger of vicarious liability, it may have to fire the outside firms and directly hire workers of its own.
• A national fast-food chain currently employs only headquarters staff, with franchisees employing all the staff at local restaurants. Union organizers can now insist that it bargain centrally with local organizers, at risk for alleged infractions by the franchisees. To escape, it can either try to replace its franchise model with company-owned outlets — so that it can directly control compliance — or at least try to exert more control over franchisees, twisting their arms to recognize unions or requiring that an agent of the franchiser be on site at all times to monitor labor law compliance.

Writes management-side labor lawyer Jon Hyman:

If staffing agencies and franchisors are now equal under the National Labor Relations Act with their customers and franchisees, then we will see the end of staffing agencies and franchises as viable business models.
Moreover, do not think for a second that this expansion of joint-employer liability will stop at the NLRB. The Department of Labor recently announced that it is exploring a similar expansion of liability for OSHA violations. And the EEOC is similarly exploring the issue for discrimination liability.

And Beth Milito, senior legal counsel at the National Federation of Independent Business, quoted at The Hill: “It will make it much harder for self-employed subcontractors to get jobs.”
What will happen to the thriving white-van culture of small skilled contractors that now provides upward mobility to so many tradespeople? Trade it in for a company van, start punching someone’s clock, and just forget about building a business of your own.
What do advocates of these changes intend to accomplish by destroying the economics of business relationships under which millions of Americans are presently employed? For many, the aim is to force much more of the economy into the mold of large-payroll, unionized employers, a system for which the 1950s are often (wrongly) idealized.
One wonders whether many of the smart New Economy people who bought into the Obama administration’s promises really knew what they were buying.

more Trump talk

Republicans are becoming skeptical of Ronald Reagan's No. 1 economic policy

A few thoughts:
1.) Some policies Donald Trump is talking about are clearly contrary to what most Republicans
think of as “supply-side economics.” Raising trade barriers and investment taxes are two that most immediately come to mind. I mean, classic, 1980s-style supply-siders blame the Great Depression on 1930s protectionism, after all. But we’ll see if Trump’s tax plan more or less adheres to the idea that lowering marginal tax rates is the single most powerful economic level at the disposal of policymakers. I am guessing it will be a big tax cut for pretty much everybody. There are three things I am really looking forward to right now: autumn, “The Force Awakens,” and the Trump tax plan. And not necessarily in that order.
2.) As for the popularity of supply-side economics, I’ve written a bit about polls suggesting the public is deeply skeptical of the idea that lower tax rates on business and the wealthy will help everyone else.
3.) As far Republicans go, Tea Party types seem to be more concerned about small government generally than low taxes specifically. At least that’s my impression. And there also seems to be skepticism about wealth created by bankers benefiting from Too Big To Fail. On the hand, entrepreneurs still seem greatly admired, and I would guess most Republicans think low taxes are helpful in encouraging high-impact startups. It is also worth mentioning that politically successful Republican tax plans have typically combined high-end and middle-class tax cuts, rather than being exercises in ideological purity. Tax cuts for everybody. One might argue that the revealed GOP preference on taxes has been broader than what one might read in “The Way the World Works.” If you think about 1980s supply-side economics as low taxes, tight money, and free trade, certainly the first two seem like they are still core GOP issues given hostility to the Fed’s bond buying and the popularity of low-rate tax plans like the flat tax or fair tax. At the same time, there is growing interest in issues such that are not part of the traditional supply-side portfolio, such as higher education and healthcare. Which is great.

Here's what Donald Trump supporters really believe

Donald Trump is still dominating his Republican rivals.
A new Public Policy Polling poll released on Tuesday shows Trump leading his GOP opponents by a familiar wide margin — 29% of likely GOP primary voters nationwide support the real-estate magnate.
Trailing him is the retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, with 15% of the Republican vote. Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida comes in third with 9%.
But the new PPP poll also reveals some of the sentiments behind Trump supporters, including their desire to raise the minimum wage and skepticism of President Barack Obama's religion and birthplace.

Here are the main points from PPP:

• 66% of respondents who support Trump believe that Obama is Muslim, while only 12% believe that Obama is Christian. That's a higher number than the still stunning 54% of Republican respondents overall who believe that Obama is Muslim.

Trump still enjoys support among "birthers" — 61% of supporters believe that Obama was not born in the United States. Just 21% of his supporters believe that Obama was born in the United States. Trump, once the most vocal advocate calling on Obama to release his birth certificate, has said he will no longer comment on the issue. But he has said he doesn't know whether Obama was born in the US.

63% of Trump voters would support changing the Constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship, the policy that automatically grants US citizenship to anyone born in the country. Twenty percent of Trump backers would not.

Trump supporters really like Carson, former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Fifty-four percent said they held a favorable view of Carson, and 49% said they had a favorable opinion of both Cruz and Fiorina. Only 22% of Trump supporters held a favorable opinion of Bush.

Most Trump backers support raising the minimum wage. Fifty-four percent responded that they favored raising the minimum wage, though the vast majority only supported an increase to $10 an hour.

Trump supporters don't like Fox News host Megyn Kelly. Only 20% hold a favorable view of Kelly, though that is somewhat unsurprising considering Trump's ongoing beef with Kelly and her network. Trump supporters also overwhelmingly trust Trump over Fox News in general, while supporters of virtually every other candidate trust the network far more.

Supporters are split over whether they value a conservative candidate or an electable candidate more. Trump backers were split almost straight down the middle on the question of whether it was more important to have a conservative nominee or a nominee who had a shot of winning in the general election.

The polling data backs up what some have observed anecdotally about Trump supporters over the past few months.
Business Insider attended a focus group of Trump supporters conducted by pollster Frank Luntz last week, and respondents overwhelmingly accused Republican leadership in Congress of acting like Democrats. The panel also fixated on media bias.
"The media and the establishment are deathly afraid of Trump," a member of the focus group said. "That's why I particularly love him. Because the media has become de facto the power behind the throne in this country."
Another panelist said: "Every time the media thinks it's got a 'gotcha,' he turns it around on them."

A top GOP pollster tried to find out why people love Donald Trump — and left with his legs 'shaking'

When Donald Trump insulted John McCain and questioned his status as a "war hero," some analysts dubbed it the turning point of the Trump campaign.

But some of his most ardent supporters have proven why, more than a month later, Trump continues to surge in polls. 

"I don’t think he was necessarily trying to insult him," one voter who described herself as being a Trump supporter said Monday night, as part of a focus group conducted by pollster Frank Luntz. 

Luntz presided over the focus group Monday night in Virginia; it featured 29 people who either support Trump or have at some point during the campaign expressed support for him.

Their unfettered support has fueled Trump's rise in Republican primary polls and kept him in the top spot for months. No controversy appears to faze them out of the many Trump has endured — from controversial comments over immigration, to the McCain comments, to a bitter, lingering feud with Fox News and host Megyn Kelly.

The focus group should not be considered representative of the Republican Party as a whole, or of the electorate in early states like Iowa and New Hampshire. But their unwavering support indicates that there may be nothing that can take down Trump.

"This is a different cat. This is a different phenomenon," Luntz told reporters after conducting the focus group. 

"This is real. I'm having trouble processing it. Like, my legs are shaking," he added.
"I want to put the Republican leadership behind this mirror and let them see. They need to wake up. They don't realize how the grassroots have abandoned them. Donald Trump is punishment to a Republican elite that wasn’t listening to their grassroots."

No controversy appeared to dim their level of support for Trump.

On Trump's feud with television personality Rosie O'Donnell, one panelist said she "attacked him first." A majority of respondents reacted negatively to his comments on McCain, but Luntz said Tuesday night that Trump was the only candidate this cycle to score a perfect 100 from respondents when they viewed his comments on veterans.

Even his history of more liberal positions on certain issues didn't appear to faze voters. One panelist asked the others in the room "how many" of them had not changed their positions on anything over the past 15 years.

The group was "prepped to dismiss every negative," Luntz said. "His base cannot be broken."

It certainly won't be broken by controversies that resonate in the press. Panelists appeared particularly disdainful of most mainstream media outlets, claiming that "the media" is collectively seeking to discredit Trump.

Almost everyone in the room agreed when Luntz asked if the media was "more about inciting than informing," and all but one panel member agreed or did not respond when asked about whether they are inclined to automatically support Trump when he is attacked by media outlets.

"The media and the establishment are deathly afraid of Trump," a panel member said.

"That's why I particularly love him. Because the media has become de facto the power behind the throne in this country."

"Every time the media thinks it's got a 'gotcha,' he turns it around on them," another panelist said.

And at the end of the session, when reporters from The Washington Post and The Associated Press came into the room to ask questions, several outspoken panel members made snide comments.

"They need to start reporting again," a panelist said after Washington Post reporter Robert Costa left the room.

Our Communist Chinese friends

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

The Usual Chinese SuspectsBuying shares didn’t work, so Beijing tries mass arrests.

ENLARGE

This screen grab taken from a CCTV footage shows Wang Xiaolu, a financial journalist with the respected business magazine Caijing, confessing on China's main state broadcaster on August 31.PHOTO: CCTV/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Aug. 31, 2015 7:26 p.m. ET

39 COMMENTS

The Chinese government has spent tens of billions of yuan trying to prop up the country’s stock markets, to little or no avail. So it is now resorting to a tactic long favored by authoritarians flummoxed by a free market—shooting the messenger.

Chinese police on the weekend began rounding up the usual suspects, which in this case are journalists, brokers and analysts who have been reporting stock-market news. Naturally, the culprits soon confessed their noncrimes on national television. A reporter for the financial publication Caijing was shown on China Central Television on Monday admitting that he had written an article with “great negative impact on the market.” His offense was reporting that authorities might scale back official share-buying, which is what they soon did. On Sunday China’s Ministry of Public Security announced the arrest of nearly 200 people for spreading rumors about stocks and other incidents.

The hunt for scapegoats to explain bad financial news is a universal political impulse, and sometimes it afflicts Washington too. The difference is that Americans understand that markets have their own psychology and can’t be levitated by artificial infusions of state capital or by raiding newsrooms. Beijing’s failure to comprehend financial markets is directly related to its refusal to give up political control.

Good Golly Denali

For 45 years Alaska has been trying to change the name of Mt. McKinley to Denali. Now that it's happening, Donald Trump has promised that he will change it back when he is elected. My question is, what happened to states rights? Maybe we should change the names of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea to Mt. Obama and Mt. Trump.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-change-denali-back-mount-mckinley/story?id=33452776#disqus_thread