• The Trouble at DoubleLine Was Predictable  By E.J. Smith
• Want a Third Party?  By Richard C. Young
• Why Donald Trump?  By Richard C. Young
• The Iranian Hostage Coincidence  By Debbie Young
• Dick Young’s Red & Blue  By Richard C. Young
• Fixing the Election Train Wreck  By Debbie Young
• Johnson/Weld Graded by Cato  By E.J. Smith
• Money, Think Tanks, and Who’s Working for Whom?  By Justin Logan
• Gary Johnson: Open Minded Good Guy  By Richard C. Young

Fortune breaks the bad news to readers that Jeffrey Gundlach’s DoubLine Total Return Bond Fund is having its worst year ever. Jeff Wieczner writes:

DoubleLine CEO Jeffrey Gundlach’s flagship DoubleLine Total Return Bond Fund (DBLTX) is having its longest streak of underperformance on record, lagging most of its peers as well as the Barclays Aggregate Bond Index. After ranking second among comparable funds in 2015, the $61 billion fund now ranks in the bottom 7% so far in 2016, according to fund research firm Morningstar.

The poor returns come after years of stellar returns for Gundlach, especially after the financial crisis. Those returns had unofficially allowed Gundlach to rise to the title of “Bond King”—especially after the previous longtime “Bond King” Bill Gross of Pimco stumbled, and quit that firm for Janus Capital, taking only a small percentage of the assets he used to manage with him.

The trouble is, the collapse was predictable, and even predicted. I wrote back in 2014:

DoubleLine Total Return bond fund has loaded its portfolio with 28% of its assets junk rated. You may recall this beauty of a quote from its manager. He said that investors “want exposure to these high-yield and distressed securities and they’ve become comfortable with what we’re doing.” Again, as I wrote to you yesterday, in my close to 20 years working with investors, no one is comfortable losing money. And that’s exactly what this fund is set up to do in a major way when credits turn.

Everyone is fine with risk until it comes calling. Then investors realize they’re a lot less comfortable risking their money than they thought.

Most Americans say yes. That’s because most Americans know that the Republican and Democrat elites (fundamentally no difference) who conspire to control our Federal Republic are themselves the underlings of the American military/industrial complex. You know, the Bush and Obama administrations that have foisted on Americans the senseless Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria debacles. Not in one instance has America’s national security been at risk. America’s military lives should not have been put at risk for any of these foreign adventures.

It is time for America to adopt a nationalist as opposed to a globalist foreign policy approach aimed at defending our shores and our Christian/Jewish heritage.

There is no question that Americans badly need to reclaim a voice in how we manage our constitutional-based affairs as originated by Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Sam Adams.

Getting a third-party voice into the fall presidential debates is a goal for all Americans to get behind. Forget about parties. Think rather about your family’s rights under the Constitution. Neither Republicans nor Democrats are representing you.

As such our goal is simple and targeted. We all must work together to get the Johnson/Weld ticket into the fall presidential debates.

Here, reason.com explains for you, your family, friends, neighbors and business associates exactly what needs to be done to achieve victory in the vital mission of reclaiming our country for our citizens. It is up to all of us to pass the word.

The most straightforward way for a third party presidential candidate to challenge the two-party system is to get into the presidential debates held in the month prior to the general election. But for candidates working outside that system, that’s no easy task.

Since 2000, gaining entrance to those debates has required reaching 15 percent in the polls by an unspecified date that’s generally around Labor Day. That means that an outsider candidacy has just a few months to appear on the same political horse-race polls which the major party candidates have been included on for more than a year.

This is the challenge faced by the Libertarian Party ticket of Gary Johnson and William Weld.

The American voting public has clamored for a viable third party option for years.

It is an open and shut case. Hillary Clinton is a far worse presidential choice than is Donald Trump.

Here is the reality surrounding two deeply flawed candidates.

To win the White House, Donald Trump is going to have to concentrate more on the many issues where he certainly owns the high ground. Mr. Trump badly needs to remove himself from the theatrical stage and move on to the stage of “Realism and Restraint,” where he can easily control the message.

Given the menu of facts outlined so expertly by Pat Buchanan below, how can any American voter possibly even consider voting for a candidate with the disgraceful track record Hillary Rodham Clinton?

At stake in 2016 is the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate and, possibly, control of the House of Representatives.

As secretary of state, Clinton made a compelling case for her being ranked as about the worst in American history.

She began her tenure by breaking State Department rules and setting up a private email server in her home. She compromised U.S. national security.

She is a compulsive fabricator, telling a harrowing story about running under sniper fire across the tarmac of some Balkan airfield, until TV footage showed her accepting a bouquet from a little girl.

Her “reset” with Russia was brushed aside by Vladimir Putin. Spurned, she now compares him to Hitler. Is this the temperament America wants in the First Diplomat, in dealing with nuclear powers?

She was a cheerleader for a war in Libya that left that nation a hellhole of terrorism.

Trump will secure the Southern border and halt the invasion of illegal immigrants.

He will throw out the Obama tax and trade policies that have betrayed American workers and bled us of our manufacturing power. In all future trade deals, Americanism will replace globalism as our guiding light.

Where Clinton regards Ruth Bader Ginsburg as her model Supreme Court justice, Trump’s nominees will be in the tradition of Justice Antonin Scalia.

“America First” will be the polestar in foreign policy. Cold War commitments dating to the 1950s, to fight wars for freeloader nations, will all be reviewed. Allies will start standing on their own feet and paying their fair share.

As for the defense of the United States, Peace through Strength, the Eisenhower policy, will be the Trump policy.

Remember back in January the prisoner swap between the U.S. and Iran? When we traded seven Iranian criminals and removed 14 more from an Interpol “most wanted” list for four Americans being held illegally by the Iranian regime? Coincidently, the U.S. loaded $400 million in cash in an unmarked cargo plane for delivery to Iran—a state that sponsors terrorism.

The explanation from the White House is that the money was not ransom payment, but actually belonged to Iran.  According to Mr. Obama, “We do not pay ransom for hostages. We didn’t here, and we won’t in the future, precisely because if we did we’d start encouraging Americans to be targeted.” How then does Mr. Obama explain the taking of three more American hostages by Iran since those January payments? Is this, as the WSJ asks, just an unhappy coincidence?

Especially, why was the delivery in cash in an unmarked cargo plane? If the U.S. had simply transferred the $400 million through conventional banking transmission to Tehran, it would have allowed the U.S. to keep track to some extent of how the money was spent, explains Michael B. Mukasey, former U.S. attorney general, in the WSJ.

The apparent explanation isn’t pretty. There is principally one entity within the Iranian government that has need of untraceable funds. That entity is the Quds Force—the branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps focused particularly on furthering the regime’s goals world-wide by supporting and conducting terrorism. This is the entity, for example, that was tied to the foiled plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C., in 2011, as well as to the successful plot to blow up a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994.

The Obama administration insists that the U.S. was not paying ransom money to the Iran—that, instead, it was smart diplomacy that saved taxpayers “potentially billions” more if the arbitration over the matter hadn’t gone the right way. But as Jonah Goldberg wonders in NRO, why, if it was such an innocent money-saving maneuver, was it kept secret from the American people? “… not only have we given the Iranians untraceable walking-around money to give to its terrorist proxies, we’ve also given them every incentive to kidnap more Americans — which is exactly what they’ve been doing.”

What we have here, continues Mr. Mukasey, is “the spectacle of the state engaging in conduct that would expose a private citizen to the risk of jail.”

Considering that the government exists both to serve and to teach us, perhaps it would not be asking too much to demand an explanation: Precisely what legitimate interest of the U.S. was furthered by loading $400 million in cash in an unmarked cargo plane and delivering it to a state sponsor of terrorism?

America needs a third party and, no doubt, more parties.  A system similar to that which is in place in Europe would better serve all Americans.

Neither the current Democrat nor Republican Party elites are in sync with the American voter. Today’s two-party system comprises two groups of self-serving elites pandering to–and philosophically controlled by–a disturbing cabal including military/industrial complex neocons, public sector unions, convicted felons, the welfare horde, and East and West coast loft-dwelling pseudo-intellectuals.

A third-party discourse must be launched with this fall’s presidential debates and carried on through the presidential election.

The first order of business is to get the Johnson/Weld ticket into the debates. To achieve this goal, all Americans–sans the above noted cabal of course–must work individually as well as in local teams and nationally organized groups to develop a swell of vocal support for Johnson/Weld. A broad-based attack would provide the base for achieving the poll numbers required to get the Johnson/Weld ticket into the debates. Reason.com lays out the details for you here.

The second order of business is to ensure that the Johnson/Weld ticket gains enough votes in November to most likely end the two party system. This requires 5%. Five percent is the the milestone set by the Federal Election Commission to be eligible for the Presidential Election Campaign Fund’s grant.

So this is where Young’s Red & Blue strategy comes in. Use my Liberty and Freedom map as a guide. Clinton must be defeated this fall. To achieve my twin goals of defeating Clinton and wracking up the Johnson/Weld votes, while not killing off the chance to beat Clinton, here is what Americans must do.

If you reside in a state projected to be a landslide state for Trump, vote Johnson/Weld, as Trump most likely will survive your non-support. If you live in a state projected as an undoubted Clinton win (i.e. Massachusetts, California. Vermont), do the same. If you live in a state projected to be a toss up (Florida, Ohio, Penn, North Carolina and Virginia), vote Trump.

This Red & Blue strategy should go a long way to ensure that Johnson/Weld gain the votes required to move forward in the future (gain federal funding) while, at the same time, defeating Clinton.

The latest poll coming from CNN says a majority of voters view Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump unfavorably. Clinton’s negative number is 55%; Trump’s is 70%. What can change for voters? The Chicago Tribune makes the case that Gary Johnson should be able to debate Clinton and Trump.

By July 19 when Johnson, the leading third-party candidate, met with the Tribune Editorial Board, his CNN poll numbers had climbed to 13 percent. That visit, again, led to a bump in web traffic, social media “shares” and reader feedback. Voters want to know more.

Johnson … is caught in an election cycle Catch-22: To get acknowledged by pollsters, he needs higher numbers, but he won’t get higher numbers until the pollsters acknowledge him. Something needs to give, and we think it should be the pollsters, who can see better than anyone the dissatisfaction with the major party candidates.

You’d think this race couldn’t get any more, um, interesting. It can if voters hear directly from Johnson on the debate stage. To make that happen, pollsters should recognize reality: 2016 is a year like no other for presidential politics.

Gary Johnson and Bill Weld received good grades from Cato when they were governors.

Cato report cards are here. The best governors get an “A” and the worst get an “F.” The reports covering Johnson and Weld were written by Steve Moore and various coauthors.

Here are Johnson’s grades, with a few notes from the reports:

• 1996, “B.” Johnson is “aggressively trying to make the state more taxpayer friendly. To control spending, Johnson has vetoed 200 bills passed by a liberal legislature.”
• 1998, “B.” Johnson is “a true citizen-lawmaker who calls himself a libertarian … In a big-government state like New Mexico … Johnson’s staunch fiscal conservatism has been much needed, but also much resisted.” Johnson “reduced the number of state employees by nearly 10 percent, and he has set a state record for legislative vetoes.”
• 2000, “B.” Johnson “has gained a well deserved reputation as a maverick governor. More so than just about any prominent politician in America today, Johnson has a libertarian attitude when it comes to government.” In “battling the legislators at every turn, Johnson has succeeded in cutting the state income tax, the gasoline tax, the state capital gains tax, and the unemployment tax. In 1999 he vetoed a 12-cent-a pack cigarette tax hike—not because he likes smoking, he says, but because he opposes all tax hikes.”
• 2002, “B.” Johnson “has done much to create private-sector jobs and to erode the culture of dependence on government in New Mexico.”

Why didn’t Johnson get some “A” grades from Cato? In most of the reports, he scored rather middling on spending. Also, the 2002 report suggests that the legislature blocked many of his reforms.

Here are Weld’s grades:

• 1992, “A.” Weld cut the budget and pushed to reduce income and capital gains taxes.
• 1994, “B.” Weld cut spending, balanced the budget, improved the state’s bond rating, and cut numerous taxes. Even with a Democratic legislature, “Weld has a stunningly successful fiscal record.”
• 1996, “B.” Weld “began to engage in a whirlwind of government downsizing. In his first two years in office, the state budget actually declined in nominal terms—an astonishing achievement given the pro-spending inclinations of the legislature. Weld privatized state services, slashed the public payroll, and cut general welfare assistance for employable adults. Weld has also been a supply-side tax cutter.”

Based on the reception to another New York Times piece about how money and power pass through Washington think tanks, everybody wants to believe that he’s losing the argument because of the other guy’s Evil, Nefarious Money. That might be true, but any particular big contribution or purported pay-for-play scheme doesn’t prove it.

First of all, consider: Congressmen, senior officials in any administration, and high-ranking bureaucrats at cabinet agencies almost never read think tank papers. Back in my think tank days I used to take masochistic glee in reports like this one, indicating that almost a third of World Bank reports were not even downloaded once, and only 13 percent were downloaded 250 times or more. It’s sad and telling that the vaunted Ideas Industry in Washington seems uninterested in its own product.

Much of the story regarding think tanks gets the causal arrow backward. There’s a lot of bleating about “pay-for-play” work: that is, work that is produced for the purpose of substantiating a predetermined conclusion. A Brookings official in the Times piece defended Brookings’ work by waxing philosophic:

“Wouldn’t it be nice to go back to the greatest generation, in the post-World War II era of philanthropy, where they said, gosh, ‘Here is $1 million; spend it how you wish.’”

It might be nice, in the same sense that it might be nice to go back to the greatest generation and shoot hoops with Wally Cleaver and Eddie Haskell, except that was a fictional TV show and history is complicated.

There was never a time where there was a plurality of the research money simply floating in a chamber, waiting to be taken by scholars with the brightest minds and the soundest methods. People with money tend to give it to causes they believe in or causes that benefit them.

This gets more complicated because most wealthy people believe that causes that benefit them are also socially valuable. One of the examples in the Times piece centers on Bryan McGrath and the Hudson Institute’s Center for American Seapower. Bryan is a nice guy who happens to have dangerous policy views that hold the prospect of squandering hundreds of billions of dollars in pursuit of policies that might start World War III. But he’s sincere in those beliefs.

He also, I believe, has a family and a mortgage and would like to be well compensated for his research. Accordingly, it would be negligent of him not to seek out top dollar to fund research that will advance his views. And his views tend to overlap with the interests of certain defense contractors.

For people who think that ideas matter more than I do, the better question is which ideas are being heard, and how much? The answer involves dealing with the subject of what research gets produced. To ask what research gets produced begs the question who would pay to produce a particular sort of research. Ideas that can’t find support die.

So where there’s a constellation of wealthy and powerful interests on one side of a policy issue and no interests on the other side, there’s an imbalance. For example, as my former colleague Ben Friedman once wrote in an underappreciated article,

In current national security politics, there is debate, but all the interests are on one side. Both parties see political reward in preaching danger. The massive U.S. national security establishment relies on a sense of threat to stay in business. On the other side, as former defense secretary Les Aspin once wrote, there is no other side.

And where there is no other side, one shouldn’t be surprised to see the one team on the field win. In a 2004 article about Iraq War dissenters, Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul Gigot dismissed the foreign policy department at Cato as “four or five people in a phone booth.” Those odds make the little guys tougher and smarter–and maybe even right sometimes–but they also make it tough for the little guys to win.

Instead of fretting about this scholar or that think tank getting a grant for a project, the bigger question to think about is the broader constellation of interests funding research on a particular issue. Imagine: If Koch Industries existed but not the broad array of environmental groups–or vice versa–environmental policy would look a lot different than it does now.

Many Americans will find a lot to like in the refreshing approach of a really good man who indeed cares about the fortunes of all Americans.

Newsweek.com provides a candid look about what a proven conservative governor in a liberal state has to offer America. The Johnson approach is indeed a refreshing and invigorating approach for those of us who are now worn down by a criminal candidate and a theatrical candidate. (And I will take theatrical over criminal.)

With Donald Trump plummeting in the polls and Hillary Clinton registering high negatives, the Libertarian Party nominee has a rare opportunity to be the first person outside the two party system to participate in the presidential debates since Ross Perot did so in 1992—a potentially groundbreaking moment that could alter the presidential race.

One thing that Johnson takes into the game is a refreshingly self-effacing style. CNN’s Anderson Cooper noted that Johnson repeatedly used phrases like “I might be wrong” and was willing to acknowledge past error. For instance, when asked about Black Lives Matter, Johnson didn’t offer a cocksure answer, instead saying the police shootings that led to its eruption on the American political scene had been a rude awakening not just for the country but for him personally. “What it has done for me is, is that my head’s been in the sand on this,” he said. “That’s what it’s done for me. And that I think we’ve all had our head’s in the sand and let’s wake up. This discrimination does exist, it has existed and for me personally, you know, slap, slap, wake up.”

Johnson, who has Celiac disease and so keeps gluten-free, vowed that his “partner-fiancée” Kate Prusack, who he met during a bike race in Sante Fe, will keep up Michelle Obama’s garden. If all of this bipartisanship worries hard-core libertarians, they can take note that on Johnson and Prusack’s first date, he gave her a copy of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

Gary Johnson: Why you should vote Libertarian