US stocks plummeted Wednesday morning after an inverted yield curve, one of the most reliable indicators of a recession, sparked a new wave of investor fears. For the first time since 2007, the yields on short-term US bonds eclipsed those of long-term bonds. This phenomenon, which suggests investors’ faith in the economy is faltering, has preceded every recession in the past 50 years. What does this mean going forward , and is this a data point that we need to pay attention to going into the 2020 US elections?
Two media giants are planning to reunite, more than a decade after splitting. CBS and Viacom announced Wednesday an agreement to come together in an all-stock merger that will create a company with more than $28 billion in revenue. The merger puts some of the biggest entertainment brands under one corporate roof, including CBS' broadcast network and All Access streaming service, Paramount movie studio and cable networks like Showtime, MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central. Is this continued consolidation of media sources threatening democracy?
In an online forum, he praised the Oklahoma City bombing, mass shootings and attacks on Planned Parenthood, the FBI says. When the deadly 1993 siege in Waco, Texas, came up, he allegedly offered one lesson: “Shoot every federal agent on sight.” The comments were all written by an Ohio teenager named Justin Olsen, the FBI says in federal court documents. And when agents raided a home where the 18-year-old lived earlier this month, they found about 10,000 rounds of ammunition and a vault full of assault-type weapons and shotguns. Federal agencies face mounting pressure to root out homegrown terrorists in the wake of two mass shootings earlier this month and amid a national upswing in violent right-wing extremism. Is the rise of social media sites and the dialogue that is transmitted through them putting pressure on the First Amendment?
Some eight states are on course to use paperless voting machines, which provide no paper records of votes, as polling place equipment during the 2020 US elections, according to a Tuesday a report published by New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. That would mean some 12% of Americans, or about 16 million people, will cast ballots using paperless machines in 2020 and will have no paper record of how they voted. With all of the hand-wringing and so-called concern about the validity of our elections, this tells me that we have made a modicum of progress but are still moving in the wrong direction.
GUESTS:
Dr. Jack Rasmus — Professor of economics at Saint Mary's College of California and author of "Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression."
Kim Keenan — Executive vice president of marketing and research at Odyssey Media, co-chair of the Internet Innovation Alliance and senior adjunct professor at George Washington University Law School.
Michael Meltsner — Former dean of Northeastern University School of Law, Matthews Distinguished University Professor of Law and author of "With Passion: An Activist Lawyer's Life."
Barbara Arnwine — President and founder of Transformative Justice Coalition, internationally renowned for contributions on critical justice issues including the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1991 and the 2006 reauthorization of provisions of the Voting Rights Act.
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