Authored by Savannah Hulsey Pointer via The Epoch Times,

The 2024 presidential election will see the first application of a 2022 amendment to the laws governing the transfer of power between administrations.

There are 77 days between the Nov. 5 election and the Jan. 20, 2025, inauguration of the next president, during which time the president-elect will ready his or her administration to take over from President Joe Biden.

The handoffs between an outgoing administration and a government-in-waiting have been largely drama-free for decades, and they have been governed by the rules enumerated in the Presidential Transition Act of 1963.

The Electoral Count Reform Act will take effect this year, ensuring that five days after the election, the team of the winning candidate (or both candidates if the winner is not yet identified), will begin readying for the White House.

Unless another authority is designated by state law, the act appoints governors as the principal officials responsible for filing certificates of state presidential electors. By providing expedited court review of matters pertaining to electors, it guarantees that Congress can establish a final slate of electors.

The vice president’s involvement in the electoral vote count is defined by the new act as purely ceremonial, and he or she is not given any power to affect the count in any way. It also reduces the possibility of challenges by raising the threshold for congressional objections to one-fifth of each house. Previously, a single member of both chambers was needed to enter an objection to an elector or slate of electors.

Additionally, the General Services Administration (GSA) is now required to provide money to both candidates in the event that a candidate does not withdraw their candidacy within five days following the election. This change affects the presidential transition process. The GSA will cut off financing to the unsuccessful campaign once the results are finalized.

The initial responsibility of the successful candidate is to acquire knowledge of the current agency missions, policies, and ongoing projects, as well as to commence the process of filling political positions in the executive branch, ranging from Cabinet secretaries to press assistants.

The new team is provided guidance by career leaders and appointees from the outgoing administration to assist in the launch of its government. They also provide briefings on significant issues and facilitate inquiries. An orderly transition has long been dependent on the flow of resources.

Delays occurred following the 2020 presidential election as President Donald Trump questioned the validity of the election results as they were being reported. Because Trump was contesting the results in court, there was a delay in the start of the transition from Election Day on Nov. 3, 2020, to Nov. 23.

Emily Murphy, then head of the GSA, reviewed the transition law from 1963 and concluded that she lacked the legal authority to determine a winner and commence funding and collaboration with the transition to a Biden administration.

Weeks after the election, Murphy sent a Letter of Ascertainment to Biden and commenced the transition process after Trump’s efforts to contest the results had collapsed across key states.

According to the GSA’s guidelines on the new rules, the amendment eliminates lengthy delays and states “an affirmative ‘ascertainment’ by GSA is no longer a prerequisite for obtaining transition support services.”

However, the new law also effectively mandates federal support and cooperation for both candidates to initiate a transition. It is stated that such support should persist until “significant legal challenges” that could affect electoral outcomes have been “substantially resolved” or until electors from each state convene in December to formally select an Electoral College winner.

Under this mandate, Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris may find themselves forming rival administrations for weeks.

The Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement amendment to the Presidential Transition Act was passed in December 2022.

During a committee hearing on the Electoral Count Act on Aug. 3 that year, Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) said, “We were all there on Jan. 6 ... We have a duty [and] responsibility to make sure it never happens again.” Manchin was referring to the events on Jan. 6, 2021, when protesters breached the U.S. Capitol while Congress was counting electoral votes.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said in her testimony: “In four out of the past six presidential elections, the Electoral Count Act’s process for counting electoral votes has been abused with frivolous objections being raised by members of both parties. But it took the violent breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6 to really shine a spotlight on how urgent the need for reform was.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) opposed the bill, stating in a press release: “This bill is a bad bill. ... It’s bad policy and it’s bad for democracy. There are serious constitutional questions in the bill. The text of the Constitution, Article Two says, ‘Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors.' This bill is Congress trying to intrude on the authority of the state legislatures to do that.”

While everyone is hyper-focused on the US presidential election, America is testing its nuclear deterrent capabilities. With war raging in Eastern Europe and the risk of broadening conflict between Iran and Israel in the Middle East, the US Space Force will launch an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg Space Force Base later this evening.

"These launches are scheduled years in advance on a quarterly basis, and there is often one in early November. The election had nothing to do with its scheduling," an Air Force Global Strike Command Public Affairs representative told the local newspaper Lompoc Record, located in the town of Lompoc, California, down the street from Vandenberg. 

Vandenberg's Test Range will launch the LGM-30G Minuteman ICBM shortly after 2300 local time, with a launch window open through Wednesday. 

The re-entry vehicle with a dummy warhead will travel across the Pacific Ocean and, 22 minutes later, plunge into the ocean near the Marshall Islands. 

Here's from from Lompoc Record about the launch:

In accordance with standard procedures, the United States has transmitted a prelaunch notification pursuant to the Hague Code of Conduct, notifying the Russian government in advance, as outlined in existing bi-lateral agreements, officials reported.

Test re-entry vehicles related to such missions travel approximately 4,200 miles southwest of California to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

Data collected from the missions are used by the wider ICBM community, consisting of the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and US Strategic Command.

Anti-war group CodePink noted, "This Tuesday, while everyone's attention will be on who our next president will be, the U.S. Air Force will test-launch an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile with a dummy hydrogen bomb on the tip from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California." 

The ICBM test comes one week after Russia test-fired missiles that simulated a "massive" nuclear response to an enemy's first strike. And Iran has threatened Israel with severe retaliation amid further risks of broadening conflict.

Authored by Beige Luciano-Adams via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

By now the statistics are familiar: Fentanyl is killing Americans at an unprecedented rate—around 73,000 annually.

For those aged 18 to 45, it is the leading cause of death.

And it’s everywhere—tainting counterfeit pills, poisoning children and adults, addicts and first-time users, overwhelming any potential response. As a deluge of pills and powder flows across the southern border, authorities regularly seize enough fentanyl to kill everyone on earth, several times over.

Into this carnage, a windfall.

Nationwide, more than $50 billion is expected to flow from legal settlements with opioid manufacturers and distributors over the next two decades—with California in line to receive about $4 billion, divvied up among the state and local governments.

This money will now largely go to abating illicit fentanyl—the third wave in an opioid crisis that began with prescription pain medication in the 1990s.

In the first two years, California state programs have primarily used their share for “harm reduction” efforts—including opioid overdose reversal medication, needle exchange, and public education campaigns aimed at destigmatizing drug use.

Nationally, experts and progressive advocates are keeping a close eye on settlement spending, in an effort to avoid mistakes of Big Tobacco settlements and ensure funds go to actual abatement, rather than plugging municipal budgets.

But some wonder if another obvious lesson from the fight against Big Tobacco—in which stigmatization, graphic warnings about the dangers of cigarettes, and enforcement led to a radical decrease in smoking—is missing from the state’s approach to the fentanyl crisis.

California’s Department of Public Health recently gave a San Francisco-based advertising agency $40 million in opioid settlement funds to produce a youth awareness campaign that aims to “meet people where they are” by reducing stigma around using fentanyl and other drugs and encouraging the use of naloxone.

According to state records, the department has also paid that same advertising company nearly $900 million to produce campaigns that expressly stigmatize tobacco use and encourage abstinence from it.

“In general, there is a strange contradiction between [California] Public Health trying hard to stigmatize tobacco smoking while destigmatizing fentanyl use,” Keith Humphreys, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, told The Epoch Times.

By now, Humphreys said, the lessons from Big Tobacco are clear.

“Disapproving of smoking has been a life-saving thing. And we should not be afraid to say to people that using fentanyl is incredibly dangerous and you shouldn’t do it.”

Harm Reduction Movement

Harm reduction is a social justice movement that seeks to reduce drug harms without judging, punishing, or even interfering in drug use. It is an explicit pendulum swing away from the War on Drugs of past decades, which state leaders continue to criticize as a “failed” approach.

Many who are critical of the harm reduction movement in California, where it is orthodoxy—baked into the law—support harm reduction measures like naloxone distribution, medication-assisted treatment, and needle exchange.

Where people tend to disagree is whether hard drugs should be decriminalized and destigmatized, whether those using and selling them should be penalized when they break the law—and especially, whether treatment can be coerced or, as many harm reduction advocates insist, can only happen when and if the person who uses drugs decides they are ready.

Humphreys supports harm reduction measures as part of a comprehensive, multi-pronged approach to the addiction crisis, and champions naloxone. As chair of the Stanford-Lancet Commission, he helped develop a national model for opioid response that recommends overdose rescue medications as “broadly the most lifesaving action policymakers can take.”

But he recognizes the limitations and has criticized the trend, prominent in blue cities, toward de-stigmatization of hard drugs.

“No one stops using drugs because of Narcan,” Humphreys said, citing recent research showing those successfully treated with naloxone—the overdose reversal medicine sold under the brand Narcan—have a 13-fold increase in mortality compared to the general population.

“Twelve percent of people are likely to be dead from their addiction within 12 months of getting the Narcan,” he said.

Further complicating the equation is the fact that non-opioids such as the “zombie drug” xylazine—which does not respond to naloxone—is showing up in nearly 30 percent of all fentanyl powder seizures, and there is no long term research indicating how effective naloxone is after repeated use, or the impact of increasingly higher doses needed to reverse synthetic opioid overdoses.

Meanwhile, naloxone has a shorter half-life than many powerful synthetic opioids—including nitazenes, an “emerging threat” in the U.S. drug supply—meaning people can re-overdose after revival.

California’s current fentanyl awareness campaigns elide the ugly realities of using fentanyl—or meth, which in Los Angeles County last year killed nearly as many people—in favor of a message that works “in alliance with people who use drugs for safer and managed drug use.”

There are no photos of children who died from a single dose, no acknowledgement of the people suffering what amounts to a living death on the streets, no testimony from people who have recovered from their addiction.

“I don’t see one ad in here that says anything about treatment,” noted Gina McDonald, co-founder of Mothers against Drug Addiction and Deaths (MADAAD), a San Francisco-based nonprofit critical of California’s permissive approach to fentanyl.

“I eradicated my risk of overdose by stopping doing drugs—it’s the only foolproof way to prevent overdose. You would think that would be in at least one ad,” said McDonald, a former addict.

According to 2024 statistics published by Mental Health America, a national nonprofit, nearly 83 percent of Californians with a substance use disorder, around five million people, did not receive needed treatment.

Nationally, only Illinois has a higher rate of untreated substance use disorder than California.

McDonald co-founded MADAAD with other mothers who have lost children to the streets—mothers with children currently addicted to fentanyl in places like the Tenderloin and Skid Row.

Their children are the intended targets of the state’s advertising campaigns—and the presumed beneficiaries of funds from a prescription opioid crisis that seeded subsequent heroin and fentanyl epidemics.

McDonald, like most everyone, wants to see Narcan everywhere—in every school and workplace and store—and knows what the shame of addiction feels like.

“I’m not saying we need to stigmatize drug users,” she said.

“But how many times are people going to be Narcan-ed and go back to die another day? It’s usually what happens,” she said. “I don’t know too many people who’ve been Narcan-ed on the street and went into treatment after being resurrected. ... Narcan isn’t dealing with any root cause of why people are using drugs.”

Representatives from influential policy organizations that advocate harm reduction and opiate decriminalization—including the National Harm Reduction Coalition and OpioidSettlementTracker.com—did not respond to inquiries.

An Empathetic Conversation

Robert Marbut, the former executive director of the U.S. Interagency on Homelessness and producer of the forthcoming documentary, “Fentanyl: Death Incorporated,” says the government is under reacting to an existential and continually evolving threat.

“We absolutely have to get into drug education and prevention at a level that we did with cigarettes,” he told The Epoch Times, pointing to the nearly 75-percent reduction in smoking since 1965, when nearly half of Americans smoked; now around 12 percent do.

“[Those campaigns] said cigarette smoking is not cool—it’s dirty, it’s ugly, it’s awful. If you go look at the PSAs, they didn’t go into a sort of kinder, gentler thing. It was hard. It was direct—it was: ‘This is nasty. It’s horrible.’ And governments backed it up with real fines,” Marbut said.

Generally, harm reduction advocates say a softer, empathetic approach is needed to avoid the stigmatization and punitive tones of the War on Drugs. They argue shaming or scaring people who use drugs will prevent them from seeking help.

Representatives of Duncan Channon, the ad agency behind California’s “Facts Fight Fentanyl” campaign, say they avoided the “fear and tragedy” of traditional PSAs in favor of an “approachable and empowering” way to talk about the fentanyl crisis and get people comfortable using naloxone.

“The last thing we are going to do is wag a finger at anybody or follow the failed tactics of ‘Just Say No,’ which has never really worked,” Duncan Channon’s CEO Andy Berkenfield told AdAge last year.

“The state strongly believes—and we are very much in line with them—that our job is to engage in empathetic conversation and ultimately reduce harm,” he told the industry publication.

Fentanyl de-stigmatization campaigns are common across the United States, and California’s opioid-settlement-funded “Unshame CA” campaign reports “measurable changes” in moving the needle on public perception of substance use disorder as a medical condition and naloxone as an everyday resource.

Read the rest here...

Here we go...

Results from the 2024 election have begun pouring in from around the country. Of course we won't have a final count from several counties, until, well they're 'done' so to speak...

Coverage:

Color:

What we've got so far:

Presidential: Trump Leads

Harris:

• *HARRIS WINS VERMONT: AP

• *HARRIS WINS MASSACHUSETTS: AP

• *HARRIS WINS DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: NETWORKS

• *HARRIS WINS RHODE ISLAND: AP

• *HARRIS WINS CONNECTICUT: AP

• *HARRIS WINS MARYLAND: AP

• *HARRIS WINS MAINE'S FIRST DISTRICT: FOX

Trump:

• *TRUMP WINS KENTUCKY: AP

• *TRUMP WINS INDIANA: AP

• *TRUMP WINS WEST VIRGINIA: AP

• *TRUMP WINS MISSISSIPPI: AP

• *TRUMP WINS ALABAMA: AP

• *TRUMP WINS OKLAHOMA: AP

• *TRUMP WINS FLORIDA: NETWORKS

• *TRUMP WINS SOUTH CAROLINA: AP

• *TRUMP WINS TENNESSEE: AP

States called:

The market is shifting significantly pro-Trump:

DJT (and TSLA) are surging...

The Dollar, Bitcoin, and 10Y Yields are spiking...

Prediction markets shifting pro-Trump:

Swing States:

Trump is leading solidly in Georgia ...

Harris leading North Carolina in very early counting...

Kamala big lead in early PA voting:

Senate: Republicans Lead

House:  Republicans Lead

What to watch for:

It's all about the swing states - most notably Pennsylvania, where Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are virtually tied according to polls - so who actually knows.

1/ Pennsylvania is key for Harris to win.

2/ The best early indications for the presidential race might come from North Carolina and Georgia (key for Trump to win).

3/ Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are likely to be the most important results to the presidential outcome but will take longer.

4/ Arizona and Nevada are likely to take the longest of the swing states.

The earliest results in most states will likely be dominated by early votes and mail-in ballots, with some states reporting these separately at the start of election night reporting, while others will report with partial election-day results, according to Goldman.

• For Harris, most obvious path is to win Michigan (15), Pennsylvania (19), and Wisconsin (10), netting the bare majority 270 electoral votes.

• For Trump, the most obvious path is to win the Sunbelt states of Arizona (11), Georgia (16), and North Carolina (16) and one of the Rust Belt states (any would be worth enough to reach 270).

In 2020 and 2022, early voting resulted in a shift to Democrats, however this year may be different - and might even slightly lean Republican, as early voting trends appear much more even based on party than in the past.

In larger counties, reporting is expected to take days vs. smaller counties.

Here's Goldman Sachs' expectations of how the night goes:

7pm ET  
•    28 electoral votes lean toward Trump: Indiana, Kentucky and South Carolina
•    16 electoral votes lean toward Harris: Virginia and Vermont
•    16 toss-up votes: Georgia (16). In 2020, the AP first reported Georgia results at 7:20 p.m. ET
 
7.30pm ET
•    21 electoral votes lean toward Trump: Ohio and West Virginia
•    16 toss-up votes: North Carolina (16). In 2020, the AP first reported results at 7:42 p.m. ET  
 
8.00pm ET
•    74 electoral votes lean toward Trump: Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Maine’s 2nd Congressional District
•    78 electoral votes lean toward Harris: Illinois, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Washington, DC
•    19 toss-up votes: Pennsylvania (19). In 2020, the AP first reported results at 8:09 p.m. ET
 
8.30pm ET
•    Polls close in Arkansas, which has 6 electoral votes and is likely to support Trump. Polls will now be closed in half the states.
 
9.00pm ET
•    73 electoral votes lean toward Trump, including Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Texas and Louisiana
•    54 electoral votes lean toward Harris, including New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota, New York and Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District
•    36 toss-up votes: Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan (11, 10, 15, respectively)
In 2020, the AP first reported Michigan results at 8:08 p.m. ET (note Michigan runs two time zones; most of the state close at 8pmET, with rest at 9pm ET)
In 2020, the AP first reported Wisconsin results at 9:07 p.m. ET  
In 2020, the AP first reported Arizona results at 10:02 p.m. ET
 
10.00pm ET
•    10 electoral votes lean toward Trump, including Utah and Montana
•    6 toss-up votes: Nevada (6)
In 2020, the AP first reported Nevada results at 11:41 p.m. ET
 
11.00pm ET
•    4 electoral votes lean toward Trump: Idaho
•    74 electoral votes lean toward Harris, including California, Oregon and Washington
 
Midnight to 1am ET
•    3 electoral votes lean toward Trump in Alaska
•    4 electoral votes lean toward Harris votes in Hawaii

Here's when previous presidential election results were called:

According to prediction markets, a Republican sweep is the most likely outcome, followed by a divided Democrat win.

In the House, the generic ballot shows a much tighter race than we had a few weeks ago - an is in line with the notion that the party that wins the White House usually carries the House as well.

Earliest indications will come from Florida (13th District), Virginia (2nd and 7th Districts) and North Carolina (1st District), where according to Goldman, trends could become clear by 9-10pm ET. It may take until 11pm - midnight ET before further House races come into focus.

In the Senate, Republicans continue to maintain an advantage in both polling and prediction markets implying that two Democratic seats will likely flip, and a third (Ohio) has a slight chance of flipping to the Republicans, giving them either 51 or 52 seats.

That Ohio senate tossup should be decided tonight - as the state typically reports fairly quickly. The first vote counts should roll in around 8pm ET, and around half of the vote reported before 9:30pm, according to Goldman. If R's win the seat, it would take the possibility of a Democratic sweep off the table.

Montana Senate results will likely take longer, as polls close around 10pm ET, and the state usually takes longer to count, reporting only 1/4 of its vote by midnight, and 1/2 by 2am ET.

Stay tuned for updates...

Via The Brownstone Institute,

Throughout this election cycle, we have witnessed an incessant assault on our First Amendment.

The regime sent dissidents to prison, destroyed opposition news sites, colluded to control the free flow of information, bankrupted its critics, and boasted that it would criminalize “misinformation.”

The election threatens the death knell for free expression in the United States as Kamala Harris and her lead attorney, Marc Elias, vow to punish anyone who questions their pursuit of power. 

No political actor has been more influential in overturning election integrity efforts than Marc Elias. Recently, he led the crusade to overturn the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Teigen v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, which banned the use of “drop boxes” in the state. 

In deciding whether to hear the case, Republican Justice Rebecca Bradley called the Elias-led litigation a “shameless effort to readjust the balance of political power in Wisconsin.” Elias was successful, and dropboxes are now taking votes in Wisconsin, a state that may be the tipping point in the election.

In 2020, President Biden won Wisconsin by just 20,000 votes. The rejection rate for absentee ballots plummeted from 1.4% to 0.2% as 1.9 million of the state’s 3.3 million voters cast absentee ballots. 

Similarly, Elias led lawsuits to defend dropboxes in Pennsylvania. In 2020, President Biden received 75% of the 2.5 million mail-in ballots and won the state by under 100,000 votes. 

But temporary political victories are insufficient for Elias. Along with Project 65, Elias has called for the disbarment of attorneys who challenge him in court. “I don’t think any lawyer should have a bar license for the privilege of destroying our country’s democratic traditions,” Elias insists, though “democratic traditions” apparently means months of absentee voting without signature verification or photo identification. He demanded an “accountability structure” for those who challenge the Democrats’ mandated standards for a “free and fair election.” 

Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, evidently share this intolerance for dissent. Walz has insisted that the First Amendment does not protect “misinformation or hate speech…especially around our democracy.” The Biden-Harris administration has fiercely championed censorship and the regulation of social media content.

Now, they threaten to jail anyone who criticizes their pursuit of power. Their judges – likely to be in the mold of Ketanji Brown Jackson – will not let the First Amendment “hamstring” their efforts to reshape the American government. And perhaps most tellingly, they’ll censor the critiques that are most obviously true. 

“Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.”

–Jimmy Carter, 2005

We have long known the threat that absentee ballots pose to our elections. Following the controversy of the 2000 Presidential election, the United States formed a bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform. President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican, chaired the group.

After almost five years of research, the group published its final report – “Building Confidence in U.S. Elections.” It offered a series of recommendations to reduce voter fraud, including enacting voter-ID laws and limiting absentee voting. The commission was unequivocal: “Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.” Yet, Elias and Harris would gladly disbar any attorney who uttered such a sentence in court. 

The report continued: “Citizens who vote at home, at nursing homes, at the workplace, or in church are more susceptible to pressure, overt and subtle, or to intimidation. Vote buying schemes are far more difficult to detect when citizens vote by mail.”

Recent history supports this thesis. Just last week, a Chinese national illegally voted in Michigan. He was only caught because he brought it to the attention of authorities, who later revealed that his vote (though admittedly invalid) will still count. 

The 1997 Miami mayoral election resulted in 36 arrests for absentee ballot fraud. A judge voided the results and ordered the city to hold a new election due to “a pattern of fraudulent, intentional, and criminal conduct.” The results were reversed in the subsequent election.

Following Dallas’s 2017 City Council race, authorities sequestered 700 mail-in ballots signed “Jose Rodriguez.” Elderly voters alleged that party activists had forged their signatures on their mail-in ballots. Miguel Hernandez later pled guilty to the crime of forging their signatures after collecting unfilled ballots and using them to support his candidate of choice.

The following year, it appeared that Republican Mark Harris defeated Democrat Dan McCready in a North Carolina Congressional race. Election officials noticed irregularities in the mail-in votes and refused to certify the election, citing evidence and “claims of…concerted fraudulent activities.” The state ordered a special election the following year.

In 2018, the Democratic National Commission challenged an Arizona law that set safeguards around absentee voting, including limiting who could handle mail-in ballots. US District Judge Douglas L. Rayes, an Obama appointee, upheld the law.

“Indeed, mail-in ballots by their very nature are less secure than ballots cast in person at polling locations,” he wrote.

He found that “the prevention of voter fraud and preservation of public confidence in election integrity” were important state interests and cited the Carter-Baker Commission’s finding that “Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.”

In May 2020, New Jersey held municipal elections and required all voting take place via mail due to Covid. The State’s third largest city, Paterson, held its election for City Council. Election officials rejected 19% of the ballots from Paterson, a city with over 150,000 residents. While Paterson’s election was particularly troublesome, mail-in ballots were problematic across the state. Thirty other New Jersey municipalities held vote-by-mail elections that day, and the average disqualification rate was 9.6%.

New Jersey brought voting fraud charges against City Councilman Michael Jackson, Councilman-Elect Alex Mendez, and two other men for their “criminal conduct involving mail-in ballots during the election.” All four were charged with illegally collecting, procuring, and submitting mail-in ballots.

A state judge later ordered a new vote, finding that the May election “was not the fair, free and full expression of the intent of the voters. It was rife with mail in vote procedural violations constituting nonfeasance and malfeasance.”

In Wisconsin, the April 2020 primary election offered further evidence of the challenges and corruption surrounding mail-in voting. Following the primary, a postal center outside Milwaukee discovered three tubs of absentee ballots that never reached their intended recipients. Fox Point, a village outside Milwaukee, has a population of under 7,000 people. 

Beginning in March, Fox Point received between 20 and 50 undelivered absentee ballots per day. In the weeks leading up to the election, the village manager said that increased to between 100 and 150 ballots per day. On Election Day, the town received a plastic mail bin with 175 unmailed ballots. “We’re not sure why this happened,” said the village manager. “Nobody seems to be able to tell me why.”

Democrats admitted the system threatened election integrity. “This has all the makings of a Florida 2000 if we have a close race,” said Gordon Hintz, the Democratic minority leader in the Wisconsin State Assembly. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo went further. “It’s a harder system to administer, and obviously it’s a harder system to police writ large,” he said. Cuomo continued, “People showing up, people actually showing ID, is still the easiest system to assure total integrity.”

The Wisconsin primary also featured special elections for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. A liberal judge upset the incumbent conservative justice, and partisans embraced their overhaul of the electoral system. The New York Times reported: “Wisconsin Democrats are working to export their template for success – intense digital outreach and a well-coordinated vote-by-mail operation – to other states in the hope that it will improve the party’s chances in local and statewide elections and in the quest to unseat President Trump in November.” 

Scores of other reports of election fraud came forward as the Democratic Party used the pretext of Covid to reshape American elections. Despite the corruption, lost ballots, and admitted threats to electoral integrity, the process had been a success in political terms; their candidate had won. The ends had justified the means. Citizens lost faith in their election process, and political leaders readily admitted that their concerns were justified; but the professional politicos and their mouthpiece, the New York Times, characterized the disaster as a “template for success.”

The stakes of the election could not be more stark. We either remain free to criticize those who reign over us, or we surrender this nation to a cabal of censorious thugs who will remain insatiable in their pursuit of ever-more power. 

Tesla's 1950s-inspired drive-in Supercharging station, currently under construction at 7001 Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, recently installed a giant 45-foot LED television in the parking lot. 

The West Hollywood Supercharger station is the next generation of Tesla charging stations, featuring a restaurant, drive-in movie theater, and dozens of charging bays. Tesla seems eager to spice up the currently dull charging experience by blending the 1950/60s Americana style with cutting-edge new technology. 

Teslarati's Zachary Visconti first reported on the new construction development: 

Tesla has been hard at work on its Southern California diner, Supercharger, and drive-in movie theater location over the past year or so, and a recent update shows that the site has finally gotten its first full movie screen.

...

The screens, one of which still needs the final LED display, will run from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., while the diner and charging stations will be open 24 hours a day, according 247Tesla. The screens will also reportedly be visible from both the diner building and the Supercharging stations.

Here's the full video:

From EVs to catching giant rockets with 'chopsticks' ...

Mechazilla has caught the Super Heavy booster! pic.twitter.com/6R5YatSVJX

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 13, 2024

... to space age vehicles ...

Did you expect the Tesla Robovan? pic.twitter.com/uIZz8GFAHv

— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 31, 2024

And robots. 

This is how Tesla Bot can generate $1 trillion in profit per year for $TSLA:

1/ Ratio of humanoid robots to humans will be 2 to 1

2/ Equates to ~10 billion humanoid robots on earth

3/ Build rate of humanoid robots on earth will be 1 billion per year

4/ If Tesla makes 10% of… https://t.co/tbyxMOddct pic.twitter.com/2Cfjdb6XW4

— Teslaconomics (@Teslaconomics) October 29, 2024

Musk appears to have a deep love for 'Americana' and wants to inspire the next generation to look toward the stars to spark a new wave of innovation and power the nation forward. It all begins with freedom and healthy youngsters.

Authored by Thomas Neuburger via "God's Spies' Substack,

What does the country look like, four years down the road, after a Trump or Harris victory?

Many people have made election predictions (some in abundance), but few have looked at the post-electoral state.

What happens if Harris wins? What does a Trump II world look like?

I offer below what Ryan Grim sees post-November. I think in the main he’s right. His virtue is that he avoids conventional thinking and looks at what’s real.

The whole piece went out to his Drop Site News subscribers and is also available there. But I’d like to offer it here; I know our readers are thoughtful and decidedly unconstrained by conventional ways. No one wants to fall prey to “what everyone knows to be true” without close examination.

Grim’s analysis, with his permission, is printed in full below. Some comments first.

A Pyrrhic victory

Grim holds that if Harris wins, it will work like a loss. First, she’d likely rule without House and/or Senate support.

Without the Senate, Harris will have a hard time confirming a dog catcher, let along [sic] a judge or a cabinet nominee. With the Senate but without the House, she won’t be able to get any of her agenda through. Worse, the debt ceiling will be hit in January, before she’s even inaugurated. 

Would Democrats, especially decidedly unpopulist ones, be willing to take advantage of the advantages that populism-by-executive order confers? They haven’t yet. Grim is doubtful they will — to do so, Harris would have to find “populist Jesus” — and I would agree. Democrats are self-defined as the party of status quo Jesus. “Nothing will fundamentally change,” we’re regularly told, a contrast to the change their electoral opponents would bring.

For that plan to work, people have to like what they see. Playing it safe in a land this dissatisfied won’t produce lasting wins.

Grim also thinks a Harris win now tees up a Republican win in 2028.

A status quo powerless Democrat with no personal base of support (“support for Kamala is more accurately described as opposition to Trump and support for Democratic policies generally”), ruling a party reduced to “an upper-middle-class center,” is not a winning combination, especially if it follows a term where little gets done.

What kind of dictatorship?

After a Trump win, many predict a dictatorship. Grim disagrees:

Even with two new justices, the Supreme Court is not willing to turn power over to him. Trump is their tool to wield power, and they will be content to see him retire from the field. Trump also lacks the support of the military leadership. Without the court or the military, he has no path to hold on to power illegally.

“Without the court or the military” — sounds pretty third-world to me. That’s how Egypt is ruled. Just wanted to point that out.

The Realignment

This will take much more thought, but the start point is here:

[T]he class realignment already underway … leaves a coalition of the working class and the super rich in the Republican party. That’s an extremely dangerous coalition, and while it will be hampered by Trump’s defeat, it would be structurally strengthened longterm by a Harris victory[.]

What it looks like when all the ripe apples have dropped is anyone’s guess. Grim thinks its possible that Republicans, if Democrats keep shedding their base, could “lock in generational power” in 2028.

We’ll see if that’s true: it’s a “dangerous coalition” indeed. What happens with working class Sanders populists — yes, there are many; Sanders might have wiped the floor with 2016 Trump — is clearly up in the air. Rich material for a novelist.

The NatSec state

Here Grim is silent, but we don’t have to be. At this point, no president can oppose the cemented-in apparatus, our heroes who “maintain security.” (Trump on Joe Rogan talked about how he was convinced not to release the JFK files as he first intended. Listen between the lines and you hear, “Sir, you don’t want to do that.”)

To the extent there’s real rebellion in the U.S., there will be real repression, more than what’s already here. What elites do abroad, they will do at home, given a sufficiently media-marginalized target. (The military calls this “preparing the battlefield.”)

There are only two end points historically for this kind of collision — a state in chaos (think ‘60s and ‘70s rebellion) or a locked-down, Stasi society, surveilled and policed. Ask yourself, how would today’s guardians of security handle the 1960s? Gloves on or gloves off?

Now for Grim’s analysis. If you want just his bottom line, skip down to “What It Means”. Enjoy.

*  *  *

Ryan Grim's election predictions

What will realistically happen if Harris or Trump wins

Just like Jeff Bezos, I would never tell you who to vote for. You don’t need that from me anyway. What I can do though is offer a few thoughts on what might happen if either candidate is elected, which I haven’t seen anybody try to do with any seriousness.

According to Elon Musk, if Kamala Harris wins, there’ll never be another election, and according to lots of Democrats, if Trump wins, he’ll turn into a dictator. Both are wrong. The truth is more complicated but not necessarily less frightening. In tonight’s newsletter, I’ll game out what that might look like…

If Kamala wins:

Congress goes

If Harris wins, the chance she also takes Congress relies on a number of miraculous upsets. Joe Manchin is leaving the Senate, and his Senate seat is leaving the Democratic caucus for the rest of all of our lives. That takes Dems from 51 down to 50 seats. Jon Tester won extremely narrow races in Montana in 2006, 2012, and 2018, and he’s about as good a rural politician as you’re going to find, but Montana’s rightward drift might be too much for him to overcome. Polls have him down. If they’re right, he’s toast, and that brings Democrats down to 49 seats. 

To get back to 50 – which would let Tim Walz break ties – they’d need to hold on to Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin (all doable, even likely) but also win in either Florida or Texas – or Nebraska. 

If you’ve been following our coverage of the Nebraska Senate race, you know independent populist Dan Osborn has a genuine shot at upsetting the incumbent Republican. Internal polls I’ve heard about from both sides, however, suggest Trump’s ads tagging him as a “Democrat in disguise” may have done enough damage to blunt his momentum. If he wins though, I’m confident he’d caucus with Democrats, and that would make a majority. But he’s still a longshot.

Colin Allred, the former NFL linebacker and member of Congress, has a credible chance of beating Ted Cruz. The question will be whether pollsters missed an influx of Democratic donors to the Lone Star state. If they did and the polls are slightly off, he could win. But he’s also a longshot.

Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell could theoretically pull off an upset in Florida, but man is that hard to see. So Democrats would need one of those four longshots—Montana, Nebraska, Texas, or Florida—to come through.

And then they’d have to win the House, too. 

Without the Senate, Harris will have a hard time confirming a dog catcher, let along a judge or a cabinet nominee. With the Senate but without the House, she won’t be able to get any of her agenda through. Worse, the debt ceiling will be hit in January, before she’s even inaugurated. 

Bankruptcy?

With control of Congress, Republicans will play economic-armageddon brinksmanship, take a chunk out of the global economy, get our credit-ratings downgraded, and probably extract a chunk of fiscal flesh in exchange for simply agreeing to pay the bills that are due. The other possibility, that we actually go over the cliff and get a mini or major financial crisis can’t be ruled out. 

Antitrust

Harris will then be left to govern strictly from the executive branch. She’d probably have to keep Lina Khan, whether she wants her as chair of the FTC or not, since Republicans wouldn’t confirm a replacement anyway. Her victory would be meaningful for climate action, as she’d continue to disperse and execute the clean energy policy and subsidies from the Inflation Reduction Act, while Trump would smother it (or send it all to Elon Musk?).

Taxes

Trump’s tax cuts also expire during Harris’s first two years in office, meaning she’ll negotiate their extension. There, she has the advantage, because if she does nothing, the old tax policy snaps back into place. Her ability to do anything at all her first two years would be limited to this tax realm and, potentially, immigration. She’s likely to sign a tough border and immigration bill into law. 

It’s hard to see how she emerges from this two years with anything higher than an approval rating in the low-30s. Given she has no organic base of support—support for Kamala is more accurately described as opposition to Trump and support for Democratic policies generally—it’s impossible to say how low her floor is. We might find out. 

Ukraine

Russia is making major advances in Ukraine and the U.S. public is no longer interested in the war. Harris will probably have to end it with some sort of ceasefire/non-deal that leaves Ukraine in a wildly worse off position than they’d have been in if they’d made a deal in early 2022—a deal the U.S. scuttled at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. Or she could prove she’s a tough commander-in-chief—leader of the “most lethal military” ever, as she puts it—by escalating the conflict and striking deeper inside Russia, risking nuclear war. Let’s hope it’s not that. The same dynamic could be at play with China, with much of her party leadership egging on confrontation.

The Mideast

I interviewed Israeli journalist Amir Tibon recently, who said that Netanyahu made a bet sometime around December that Trump would be elected president and therefore he was willing to take whatever minor grief he suffered from Biden for ignoring all the U.S. entreaties to protect civilians, allow in humanitarian aid, and negotiate in good faith toward a ceasefire. There was little grief. But, said Tibon, if Harris wins, Netanyahu will be exposed politically, and he predicted his government would collapse “within months.” A Harris win would signal to Netanyahu’s coalition partners that two of their big dreams will be at least put on hold for four years. Those two major ambitions, Tibon said, are reform of the Israeli courts in order to subsume them to the judiciary, and the Israeli settlement of Gaza. With those ambitions stymied, Netanyahu’s coalition becomes untenable.

Foiling Netanyahu’s bet on Trump is the most persuasive case I’ve heard for a vote for Harris. The problem, though, is what comes next. Tibon is confident a candidate from a coalition that does not includes the ultra-orthodox or settler movements would triumph and that any new government that replaced Netanyahu would be similarly supportive of the various Israeli war efforts, but more willing to cut a ceasefire-for-hostages deal. But I checked Tibon’s theory with people in Israel to the right of Tibon, and they agreed that the Netanyahu government would indeed fall and new elections would be called—but that Netanyahu would win those new elections. 

Abortion Rights

Harris wouldn’t be able to get anything through Congress, but having Democrats control the Justice Department and Health and Human Services would put some of the brakes on right-wing states pushing ahead with increasingly aggressive abortion restrictions, including laws that make it a crime to “traffick” a minor across state lines to get an abortion. Such laws are plainly unconstitutional, but Trump’s DoJ would do nothing to stop them, whereas a Harris administration would.

Midterms

Every president faces brutal headwinds in their first midterm, and Republican gains are the most likely result of the 2026 midterms. The only pickup opportunities in the Senate would be in Maine and North Carolina, and both would be unwinnable in a Republican reaction year. The good news for Dems is they don’t have to defend many seats – Georgia and Michigan – but they’d still fall that much further behind in the House. 

2028

Republicans would be the heavy favorites in 2028. Democrats seem to hate primaries, so maybe Harris doesn’t face one even if she’s in the low 30s, with Democratic rivals holding their fire for 2032. The most likely outcome, then, of a Harris victory in 2024 is a Republican sweep in 2029, giving them a trifecta and the opportunity to lock in Supreme Court control for several generations. That court could issue abortion-related rulings that would make Dobbs look downright liberal.

If Trump wins:

Let’s take seriously what Trump will actually do, versus what his opponents claim he’ll do. Some of the more lurid warnings, I think, are wildly overblown. But not all of them. It’s extremely likely he will assign significant resources toward a roundup of immigrants, and will do so in a flamboyant fashion, deploying the military if he can get away with it. If he’s extra lucky, there’ll be mass resignations of military brass as a result, allowing him to elevate loyalists. 

Stephen Miller, a deeply dangerous and strategic man, will have immense power. Trans rights will be in the crosshairs and so will abortion rights. 

I’m less worried about his promise to add a 20 percent tariff to everything. He continues to speak highly of Robert Lighthizer as his top trade adviser, and Lighthizer is very good at what he does. Lighthizer was Trump’s United States Trade Representative and lefty trade hands and unions were generally supportive of his approach, even as they had some disagreements. If Lighthizer guides trade policy, it won’t be reckless. 

Trump’s tax cuts from his first term will also come up for renewal, and I’d expect he’ll successfully extend and deepen them, particularly for the rich and corporations. 

He will fire an enormous number of federal employees. Whether he can hire enough to replace them is a different question, but at minimum he’ll be able to break a lot of federal agencies. 

He’ll go after the American university system with a vengeance. Look at what Chris Rufo has managed to do in Florida under Ron DeSantis for a flavor of what Trump could do nationally. 

He will rescind or simply not deploy much of the climate spending included in the Inflation Reduction Act. He hates eclectic vehicles, though his alliance with Elon Musk may protect some of that. 

Supreme Court

Sam Alito and Clarence Thomas will retire, allowing Trump to appoint at least two more justices. 

Trump, however, will not have the capacity to become a dictator. Even with two new justices, the Supreme Court is not willing to turn power over to him. Trump is their tool to wield power, and they will be content to see him retire from the field. Trump also lacks the support of the military leadership. Without the court or the military, he has no path to hold on to power illegally. 

Voters will reject his displays of extremism at the polls in the 2026 midterms, likely delivering the House and Senate both to Democrats. They’ll impeach him immediately, just as Republicans will impeach Harris, but neither effort will have enough support in the Senate to go anywhere. In 2028, Republican voters will choose between J.D. Vance and opponents like Ted Cruz (unless he loses his Senate race, of course). 

The economy will probably take a cyclical downturn toward the end of Trump’s term, and he’ll be deeply unpopular. Democrats would be favored to win in 2028 and likely hold Congress, too. 

Mideast

It’s impossible to predict what Trump will do here. On the one hand, he calls himself “the candidate of peace”—on the other, he has said Biden’s biggest problem has been that he’s been too tough on Netanyahu and he should let him take the gloves off. Trump has been mad at Netanyahu for congratulating Biden on his win, but he knows Bibi has been rooting for him and doing what he can to help him win, and in Trump’s world alone, that means a lot to him. You know Trump as well as I do, I’ll let you guess on this one.

Ukraine

The conventional wisdom is that Putin will strike a deal to end the war if Trump wins, on favorable terms to Russia, given how much ground they’ve gained. On Ukraine, the CW is probably right.

China

Trump will do way more jawboning of China than Harris would, but he seems to have no appetite for a war. Let’s hope that prevails.

What It Means

So far, we’ve talked about the near-term future relying on historical precedent. That only gets us so far. We also have to look at the coalitional trends underway and ask how a victory by each candidate influences each. If Harris wins, Democrats will be rewarded for having skipped the nominating process and overseeing a genocide in Gaza. They will have done so while embracing the Cheneys and other neocons expelled from the MAGA coalition. They will now have to be understood as a faction of the Democratic coalition. With Democrats already becoming increasingly militaristic, that only pushes the party further toward a confrontational imperial foreign policy. 

Harris also ran detectably to Biden’s right when it came to labor, antitrust, and the economy. Winning on that message could convince Democrats that their dalliance with economic populism was unnecessary, which would speed up the class realignment already underway, with more working class voters of all races and genders feeling unrepresented by Democrats, who come to fully stand in for coastal elites. With Democrats representing an upper-middle-class center, that leaves a coalition of the working class and the super rich in the Republican party. That’s an extremely dangerous coalition, and while it will be hampered by Trump’s defeat, it would be structurally strengthened longterm by a Harris victory - unless Harris somehow finds populist Jesus like Biden did. There is still a strong faction of populist-progressives in the Democratic coalition, and Harris’s victory would not be the final word. But a Democrat who comes after Harris could be facing nearly insurmountable odds if Republicans are able to lock in generational power in 2028. 

The short version is that there’s reason to be optimistic that Harris may win. There’s reason to be scared if she does. Or doesn’t. Hope that helps.

Oil prices closed higher for a fifth straight day as traders were sensitive to geopolitical headlines (from Israel) and the domestic election situation.

The tension in the oil market is "palpable" as headlines around the U.S. election, turmoil in the Middle East, economic woes in China and a potential hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico "swirl," Rebecca Babin, senior energy trader and managing director at CIBC Private Wealth US, told MarketWatch.

"The reality of very short-term volatility has traders cutting risk and taking the shoot first, ask questions later approach the moment trades stop working."

Additionally, a tropical storm threatens production from the Gulf of Mexico.

API

• Crude +3.13mm (0.00mm exp)

• Cushing +1.72mm

• Gasoline -928k (-900k exp)

• Distillates -852k (-300k exp)

US crude inventories continued their noisy run of the last few weeks with a bigger than expected crude build. Products saw inventory draws and stocks at the Cushing hub rose by the most since May...

Source: Bloomberg

WTI dipped very modestly on the API-reported crude draw, but is holding above $72 for now...

Oil prices maintained an upward trend Tuesday as "risk taking remains limited with many headlines expected in the next few days, coming from the Federal Reserve's Policy meeting, China's congressional meeting that will determine governmental stimulus, and the U.S. election," Alex Hodes, director of energy market strategy at StoneX, wrote in Tuesday's energy newsletter.

Finally, pump prices remain very low relative to crude and wholesale gasoline prices...

...with the election now behind us, how long before prices snap up higher?

Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute,

This presidential campaign season may be one of those turning points in history for reasons good and bad. Anyone watching the one debate between the Republican and Democratic Party candidates would not have come away with the view that this was a great battle of competing principles and visions for the future. It was a campaign of name-calling and bullets, where one candidate avoided discussing ideas at all costs – and even avoided the media at all costs. Where the other candidate dodged two attempted assassinations while throwing red meat rhetoric to an understandably angry population.

It was a campaign where, more than ever, the mainstream media completely abandoned any idea of being a neutral source of information and instead jumped into the ring on the side of one candidate. In the one debate between presidential candidates, the mainstream media went so far as to “fact check” one candidate while giving the other a “pass.” The “fact check” turned out to be misinformation – something the mainstream media excels in – but they have long figured out that by the time the actual facts are in, people have already absorbed the falsehood.

According to the conservative Media Research Center, mainstream media coverage of the Trump campaign was 85 percent negative while its coverage of the Harris campaign was 78 percent positive. If accurate, it explains why the public holds the media in such contempt.

What felt missing in the campaign was a discussion of the real issues we are facing.

The destruction caused by interventionism in our economy, in our lives, and in the rest of the world.

There was no talk about the Federal Reserve and how it hurts the middle class, helps the wealthy, and greases the war machine.

Then, at the tail end, things got interesting.

Republican candidate for Vice President, JD Vance, mentioned last week that he had come to the view that the Federal Reserve was not the benevolent force for good that its supporters claim.

He didn’t say it in those exact words, but that was his point.

Then Trump surrogate campaigner Elon Musk made an announcement that no-doubt terrified the DC swamp: were he to get the government efficiency job Trump suggested, he’d start with a bang, cutting two trillion dollars from the Federal budget!

We even had a little fun with it.

After I posted some encouragement on Musk’s Twitter/X, he responded that he would be happy to have me join him looking for places to cut!

While the last thing I am looking for is another job, I am encouraged by the outpouring of support and happy to help any effort to correct the wrong path we have been going down – a path toward total bankruptcy.

Perhaps the most encouraging development this election cycle is the well-earned decline in the influence of the corrupt mainstream media.

When Elon posted a funny meme of the two of us cutting government on his Twitter/X platform, it garnered some 50 million views! Compare that to the steady decline of mainstream media viewership.

An alternative way of reporting and analyzing the events of our time is emerging on the ruins of the legacy media and it’s driving them insane.

Good.

The censorship and manipulation of political information by Big Tech companies led by "woke" white-collar activists, corporate media, fact-checkers funded by far-left billionaires, a web of leftist-controlled non-profits, and the censorship blob in Washington, DC - all working in unison to combat free speech and control public narratives is at its worst: election interference. 

One of the best examples is Facebook and Twitter's suppression of Hunter Biden's laptop story ahead of the 2020 presidential election... 

The censorship blob has been at it again, waging an all-out blitzkrieg against the American people. Democrats have been obsessed with uploading far-left propaganda into the minds of not just children but adults, telling them how to vote, think, and, in some cases, what gender they should be.

Anyone challenging the Deep State-approved narratives, like Biden's mental acuity, was labeled as "misinformation" and "disinformation" in this election cycle, despite Democrats pushing the president aside for Harris-Walz. 

Data from media bias rating company AllSides shows how Google tweaked search results on voters, with a majority of the search results leaning hardcore to the left this election cycle. 

Where's the outrage? 

AllSides analyzed the search engines Microsoft Bing, Yahoo!, and Google and found that Google displayed the most far-left-leaning news stories in search results for voters. 

Search engine bias on Google was obvious for "election news," with 80% of the content leaning towards leftist organizations while only 5% leaning towards right-leaning organizations.

Even searching for "Trump News," Google pushed out content that leaned mostly toward leftist organizations:

Google Search displayed 64% outlets rated Lean Left, 4% rated Left, 16% rated Center, 11% rated Lean Right, and just 9% rated Right.

The 2024 Google Search bias analysis examined 545 articles over a two-week period in August. It looked at the featured articles based on 10 search terms: Election News, Abortion News, Economy News, Harris News, Climate Change News, Trump News, Crime News, Voter Fraud News, Immigration News, Gun Control News. The results were similar to what AllSides found in separate analyses of Google News (Lean Left).

For nearly every subject searched on Google, the big tech firm directed left-leaning sources to populate for users.

"Out of the 545 articles analyzed, outlets that were featured the most in Google Search results for selected search terms were The New York Times (Lean Left), Fox News (Right), CNN (Lean Left), The Guardian (Lean Left), ABC News (Lean Left), NBC News (Lean Left), Washington Post (Lean Left), Politico (Lean Left), Associated Press (Lean Left), and NPR (Lean Left). All of the top 10 featured outlets were rated Lean Left, except for Fox News," AllSides said. 

Separately, the non-profit Media Research Center showed that election coverage this cycle was the worst in history for a Republican candidate, with only 15% positive stories, while the Democratic candidate received 78% positive stories. This means Democrats had a huge vantage point on spewing misinformation and disinformation on legacy media outlets, such as ABC, CBS, and NBC. 

Meanwhile, polling data has been distorted statistically three weeks before the election, usually towards Democrats. 

But for the first time in any election cycle, the Democratic machine's matrix glitched and Deep State-approved narratives were instantly shattered by Elon Musk's X and citizen journalist who waged a 'meme-war' against the censorship blob.

The biggest takeaway from this election cycle is that an increasing number of Americans have broken free from the MSM's matrix. 

Jeff Bezos penned an op-ed in his Washington Post paper, in which he explained last week the reason why he did not endorse Harris-Walz: 

"Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working."

In other words, Musk glitched the Deep State's matrix over the American people. The Overton Window shifted back towards the center after being artificially held to the far left for years.

Also, the Davos elites are livid with Musk and the US Constitution. They said the quiet part out loud during this election cycle. 

Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“If voting could ever really change anything, it’d be illegal.”

- Thorne, Land of the Blind (2006)

After months of handwringing and mud-slinging and fear-mongering, the votes have finally been cast and the outcome has been decided: the Deep State has won.

Despite the billions spent to create the illusion of choice culminating in the reassurance ritual of voting for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, when it comes to most of the big issues that keep us in bondage to authoritarian overlords, not much will change.

Despite all of the work that has been done to persuade us to buy into the fantasy that things will change if we just elect the “right” political savior, the day after a new president is sworn in, it will be business as usual for the unelected bureaucracy that actually runs the government.

War will continue. Drone killings will continue. Surveillance will continue. Censorship of anyone who criticizes the government will continue. The government’s efforts to label dissidents as extremists and terrorists will continue. Police shootings will continue. SWAT team raids will continue. Highway robbery meted out by government officials will continue. Corrupt government will continue. Profit-driven prisons will continue. And the militarization of the police will continue.

These problems have persisted - and in many cases flourished - under both Republican and Democratic administrations in recent years.

The outcome of this year’s election changes none of that.

Indeed, take a look at the programs and policies that will not be affected by the 2024 presidential election, and you’ll get a clearer sense of the government’s priorities, which have little to do with representing the taxpayers and everything to do with amassing money, power and control.

• The undermining of the Constitution will continue unabated. America’s so-called war on terror, which it has relentlessly pursued since 9/11, has chipped away at our freedoms, unraveled our Constitution and transformed our nation into a battlefield, thanks in large part to such subversive legislation as the USA Patriot Act and National Defense Authorization Act. These laws—which completely circumvent the rule of law and the constitutional rights of American citizens, re-orienting our legal landscape in such a way as to ensure that martial law, rather than the rule of law, our U.S. Constitution, becomes the map by which we navigate life in the United States—will continue to be enforced.

• The government’s war on the American people will continue unabated.  “We the people” are no longer shielded by the rule of law. While the First Amendment—which gives us a voice—is being muzzled, the Fourth Amendment—which protects us from being bullied, badgered, beaten, broken and spied on by government agents—is being disemboweled. Consequently, you no longer have to be poor, black or guilty to be treated like a criminal in America. All that is required is that you belong to the suspect class—that is, the citizenry—of the American police state. As a de facto member of this so-called criminal class, every U.S. citizen is now guilty until proven innocent. The oppression and injustice—be it in the form of shootings, surveillance, fines, asset forfeiture, prison terms, roadside searches, and so on—will come to all of us eventually unless we do something to stop it now.

• The shadow government— a.k.a. the Deep State, a.k.a. the police state, a.k.a. the military industrial complex, a.k.a. the surveillance state complex—will continue unabated. The corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials will continue to call the shots in Washington DC, no matter who sits in the White House or controls Congress. By “government,” I’m not referring to the highly partisan, two-party bureaucracy of the Republicans and Democrats. Rather, I’m referring to “government” with a capital “G,” the entrenched Deep State that is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach of the law.

• The government’s manipulation of national crises in order to expand its powers will continue unabated. “We the people” have been subjected to an “emergency state” that justifies all manner of government tyranny and power grabs in the so-called name of national security. Whatever the so-called threat to the nation, the government has a tendency to capitalize on the nation’s heightened emotions, confusion and fear as a means of extending the reach of the police state. Indeed, the government’s answer to every problem continues to be more government—at taxpayer expense—and less individual liberty.

• Endless wars that enrich the military industrial complex will continue unabated. America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $93 million an hour (that adds up to $920 billion annually). Incredibly, although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world's population, America boasts almost 40% of the world's total military expenditure, spending more on the military than the next 9 biggest spending nations combined.

• Government corruption will continue unabated.  The government is not our friend. Nor does it work for “we the people.” Americans instinctively understand this. When asked to name the greatest problem facing the nation, Americans of all political stripes ranked the government as the number one concern. In fact, almost three-quarters of Americans surveyed believe the government is corrupt. Our so-called government representatives do not actually represent us, the citizenry. We are now ruled by an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate interests whose main interest is in perpetuating power and control.

• Government tyranny under the reign of an Imperial President will continue unabated. The Constitution invests the President with very specific, limited powers. In recent years, however, American presidents have anointed themselves with the power to wage war, unilaterally kill Americans, torture prisoners, strip citizens of their rights, arrest and detain citizens indefinitely, carry out warrantless spying on Americans, and erect their own secretive, shadow government. The powers amassed by each past president and inherited by each successive president—powers which add up to a toolbox of terror for an imperial ruler—empower whoever occupies the Oval Office to act as a dictator, above the law and beyond any real accountability.

The grim reality we must come to terms with is the fact that the U.S. government has become a greater menace to the life, liberty and property of its citizens than any of the so-called dangers from which the government claims to protect us.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this state of affairs has become the status quo, no matter which party is in power.

Stocks up, Bonds (prices) up, Gold up, Bitcoin up, Crude up... VIX & Dollar down... as ISM Services soars on Election Day.

All the majors were green on the day with a squeeze in Small Caps leading the way...

Traders should not be surprised - we haven't had a down-day on election day for the S&P 500 since 2000:

11/3/2020 +1.78% ELECTION DAY
11/4/2020 +2.20%

11/8/2016 +0.37% ELECTION DAY
11/9/2016 +1.11%

11/6/2012 +0.79% ELECTION DAY
11/7/2012 -2.37%

11/4/2008 +4.08% ELECTION DAY
11/5/2008 -5.27%

11/2/2004 +0.01% ELECTION DAY
11/3/2004 +1.12%

11/7/2000 -0.02% ELECTION DAY
11/8/2000 -1.58%

11/5/1996 +1.05% ELECTION DAY
11/6/1996 +1.46%

11/3/1992 -0.67% ELECTION DAY
11/4/1992 -0.67%

The Trump Trade saw another very small profit-taking day today as PolyMarket odds increased...

Source: Bloomberg

NVDA overtook AAPL once again to become the world's largest market cap company...

Source: Bloomberg

VIX was slammed lower as the inverted curve starts to unwind into 'less uncertainty' (don't forget FOMC Thursday)...

But the vol term structure has a long way to fall from its extreme inversion as we await Thursday...

Source: Bloomberg

"Most Shorted" stocks were a one-way street of squeeze today...

Source: Bloomberg

BUT there was one stock that was wild today: DJT

Treasury yields were all over the place, hurt early on by knock-on effects from a terrible auction in Gilts, then strong ISM Services pushed yields higher still only to see a strong 10Y auction slam yields back lower (and when DJT started to crack, so did bond yields)...

Source: Bloomberg

Only the 2Y yield remains higher post-payrolls...

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin, bond yields, and DJT all dumped at the same time (around 1430ET)...

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar dived once again, back to three-week lows...

Source: Bloomberg

Despite the intraday volatility elsewhere, gold continued to tread water around $2740...

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin was a bit chaotic today, ripping back above $70,000 only to get slammed lower as DJT and bond yields slipped...

Source: Bloomberg

Crude traded wild today. Strong open was hit by Israeli HLs (Gallant fired), but then the machines realized that Gallant was the less war-hawky one...

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, with the election almost over, traders wil turn to Thursday's shenanigans with The Fed...

Source: Bloomberg

Today saw rate cut expectations slump again (50-50 chance of 1 or 2 cuts in 2024 and 50-50 chance of 2 or 3 cuts more in 2025).

As Pennsylvania's polls near closing, an unexpected twist has emerged: a massive mobilization of Amish voters. Known for their separation from mainstream society and reliance on traditional values, such as horse-and-buggy transportation (arguably more 'green' than EVs), these folks, traditionally not big participators in US politics, have been out in force at PA polling stations, voting for former President Trump after Biden-Harris' big gov't waged war on the community.

Let's begin with the context. Earlier this year, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and big government Democrats targeted a small Amish farmer in Lancaster over compliance issues. This apparently infuriated the Amish community that many of them registered to vote and voted red in the last several days.

Big Gov't Raids Small Amish Farmer Who Refuses To Participate In The Industrial Meat/Milk Complex https://t.co/3W8ItfuWd8

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 6, 2024

Real America's Voice's Tera Dahl was speaking at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania on Monday, and she explained that the Amish community is not a traditional group of voters in US elections.

"But they're voting this year - and I think a big reason is the overreach of government - and one example that could've had a big impact was back in January. An Amish farmer was selling his milk - and the gov't raided his home and stopped his business," she said. 

AMISH FOR TRUMP! Tera Dahl reporting that the Amish are tired of the government overreach on their lives and are showing up for Trump in Pennsylvania. pic.twitter.com/ftNJWTRZLC

— Real America's Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) November 4, 2024

An Amish person was asked outside one PA polling station: "Who are you voting for?"

He responded, "Donald Trump." He explained that the Amish had "more freedoms under Trump," while government overreach drastically increased under Biden-Harris. 

The Amish coming out to vote in 2024 reminds me of the trees going to battle in the Lord of the Rings. pic.twitter.com/420b6Rc1Xh

— Laura Powell (@LauraPowellEsq) November 5, 2024

US Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., whose district includes Lancaster County, at the epicenter of America's Amish population, told PBS News last week, "They just want government to stay not only out of their businesses but out of their religion." 

With family roots deep in the Amish community, Smucker forecasted a dramatic increase in the Amish vote, "basing that on the enthusiasm we see."

The Amish are out in full force voting for Trump in PA pic.twitter.com/ugfaczuLOz

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) November 5, 2024

Amish are out voting for Trump in Pennsylvania and North Carolina!!!

Amish for Trump! 🇺🇸 LFG🔥🔥🔥 Go Vote!!!#ElectionDay #Election2024 #Trump2024 #RedWave2024 #RedWave #Vote2024 pic.twitter.com/BBW3jMXUVS

— AJ Huber (@Huberton) November 5, 2024

You know it’s serious when the Amish get involved.❤️🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/5PBTD6s4dF

— azure 🇺🇸 (@azury1455181) November 5, 2024

Elon, we’ve been courting the Amish the vote in Pennsylvania.

Every Tuesday, we registered voters at Root’s Country Market in Lancaster.

Every Friday, we were at the Green Dragon Farmers Market.

I even spoke about the Amish during my speech on stage at Butler.

Let’s go. pic.twitter.com/2pJMcsDbdI

— ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) November 4, 2024

Even the Amish know pic.twitter.com/t6gxdtHEUc

— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) October 31, 2024

WHY DO AMISH♥️TRUMP?
ANYTHING YOU DON’T LIKE ABOUT KAMALA?
“Yeah, they’re involved with the deep state”.

YOU’RE FAN OF TRUMP?
“Yes we are”.

WHY?
“Because he’s a business person. We are too”.

ANYTHING ELSE?
“There’s a lot… we need better border. We need less regulations, less… pic.twitter.com/qWFfxm8Guc

— AmericanGreatness (@NONbiasedly) November 4, 2024

🇺🇸 The Pennsylvania Amish Community… pic.twitter.com/qwrUmDV7Fs

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) November 4, 2024

They must know something pic.twitter.com/j905cPBHV1

— Meme Wars (@_MemeWars) November 4, 2024

There are currently 92,000 Amish in PA. It's going to be a tight race, and these votes could make all the difference.

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

A US Army soldier who was injured earlier this year while working on the US-constructed temporary pier off Gaza has died due to his wounds, CNN reported on Monday.

Sgt. Quandarius Davon Stanley, 23, was one of three US soldiers injured while working on the pier in May. At the time, the Pentagon said two suffered very minor injuries while the other was hurt severely enough to be evacuated for medical care.

The Pentagon insisted the injuries were "non-combat" related but didn’t share any details about the incident. It’s unclear what kind of injury Stanley suffered, but he was medically retired from the Army since he could no longer perform his job.

The US Army told CNN that Stanley died on October 31. "Stanley was injured while supporting the mission that delivered humanitarian aid to Gaza in May 2024 and was receiving treatment in long-term care medical center," an Army spokesman said.

The Gaza pier failed to bring any relief to the Palestinians and only operated for about 20 days. It was repeatedly knocked out by weather since it was unable to handle the conditions in the Eastern Mediterranean.

When President Biden ordered the construction of the pier during his State of the Union address back in March, aid groups dismissed it as a public relations stunt since it would have been far more efficient to send more aid trucks through land crossings. But Biden refused to pressure Israel to allow more aid into the Strip.

According to a report from the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Inspector General, Biden ordered the construction of the pier despite warnings from USAID that it would undermine efforts to pressure Israel to allow more aid into Gaza via land crossings.

The report also said that the Pentagon was aware that operating the pier in the Eastern Mediterranean would be difficult since the sea conditions were often heavier than what it could handle.

Even it’s the final days of Biden’s presidency his poor leadership is still costing American Troops their lives. “We won’t set a foot in Gaza” then makes a shitty pier that failed over and over again only to be shut down as a total failure and now cost a soldier his life. https://t.co/dBQrb5b7JT

— Angry Cops (@AngryCops) November 5, 2024

The pier cost US taxpayers at least $230 million. At one point, it was broken apart by waves and had to be repaired for $22 million.

Update(1504ET): Israeli hardline minister Ben Gvir has hailed Netanyahu's firing of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, saying the prime minister "did well to remove" him. But protests have exploded in Tel Aviv and elsewhere, including a growing demonstration outside Netanyahu's house in Caesarea. This could lead to a bigger revolt among oppositionists to Netanyahu's coalition, and gridlock. Israel's just installed new Defense Minister Katz has vowed to defeat "enemies, achieve war goals."

A FOX correspondent on the ground has shown they are already huge in the late nighttime hours, and growing...

Tel Aviv right now. pic.twitter.com/TzgnwSydvm

— Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) November 5, 2024

A White House statement issued very quickly on the heels of the news, which pushed oil down, said: 

GALLANT HAS BEEN IMPORTANT PARTNER ON ISRAEL’S DEFENSE, U.S. WILL CONTINUE WORKING COLLABORATIVELY WITH ISRAEL’S NEXT DEFENSE MINISTER

"A White House National Security Council spokesperson hails outgoing Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and says the Biden administration will continue to collaborate with his successor but avoids directly criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to fire him in the first White House reaction to the move," Times of Israel writes.

"Minister Gallant has been an important partner on all matters related to the defense of Israel. As close partners, we will continue to work collaboratively with Israel’s next minister of defense," the NSC spokesperson said.

The timing is curious, considering the US election, per TOI:

Moments ago, another US official told The Times of Israel that Netanyahu’s decision to fire Gallant on the day of the US presidential election indicated that the premier sought to avoid pushback from Washington over the controversial decision to ax his defense minister in the middle of a war.

⚡️ISRAELIS PROTEST DEFENSE MINISTER GALLANT'S DISMISSAL

Demonstrators have blocked Tel Aviv's central highway and set bonfires following Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu's dismissal of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, media report.

Protesters also reached Netanyahu's residence in… https://t.co/09uCyKHgFp pic.twitter.com/7pahQw0EDd

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) November 5, 2024

* * *

After hitting a session high just around noon, oil has since quite paradoxically tumbled to session lows following news that Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, at a time when the country continues to fight wars in Gaza and Lebanon, and is increasingly in direct confrontation with Iran. And yes, for those saying oil should be surging on the news, you are not wrong, but today little makes sense.

“In the past months, trust has been cracked between myself and the defense minister,” Netanyahu said Tuesday in a statement released by his office.

The termination came after months of public disagreement between the two over the course of the war. Netanyahu said he was firing Gallant due to a breakdown in trust and gaps in positions between them. Gallant had publicly challenged Netanyahu’s failure to decide on a plan for Gaza’s long-term governance and for not prioritizing a deal to release Israeli and other hostages held in Gaza.

Netanyahu said longstanding disagreements between them over the conduct of the conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah had become impossible to bridge. The clashes “were accompanied by statements and actions that contradicted the decisions of the government and the security cabinet,” Netanyahu said, according to a statement from his office late Tuesday.

In his own statement, Gallant said “the security of the State of Israel always was, and will always remain my life’s mission.”

Foreign Minister Israel Katz was named as the new defense minister.

Gallant and Netanyahu are both members of Israel’s conservative Likud party but relations between them have been poor for months, with the men barely on speaking terms. Gallant has been pushing for a hostage release in exchange for a cease-fire in Gaza, while the prime minister has argued that Israel must remain in the Palestinian territory to fully defeat Hamas.  Additionally, Gallant has criticized the prime minister in meetings, parliamentary appearances and even news conferences.

Netanyahu’s political allies publicly made the case for firing Gallant in September, but the defense minister survived as Israel embarked on an aggressive new campaign in Lebanon that wiped out militant group Hezbollah’s top leadership and much of its armaments.

Ousting Gallant could have wide-ranging impacts on Israel’s multifront war and U.S. efforts to end it. He has been the anchor of the relationship with the U.S. and the most vocal advocate of the Biden administration’s efforts to reach a cease-fire in Gaza. Tension between the U.S. administration and Netanyahu has grown in recent months over the prime minister’s hard-line position in the talks and for a series of provocative military actions undertaken without much notice to the U.S.

Gallant has been a shock absorber in the relationship, speaking more than 70 times with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin by phone and several more times in person over the duration of the war, Pentagon announcements show.

In light of the above, it is strange to see oil tumbling as Gallant had always pushed for a more peaceful resolution while Bibi was the warhawk. Yet just because some oil algos decided to dump oil at the highs, and others immediately jumped on the momentum, Gallant's termination is somehow viewed as an outcome favorable for oil prices when in reality it's just the opposite.

Furthermore, the already fragile situation in Israel is on the verge of snapping with protests observed around Tel Aviv following news of the sacking.

Protests into the firing of Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant have begun in Tel Aviv, with Demonstrators currently blocking the Shalom Interchange. pic.twitter.com/l9Zl0izPlq

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) November 5, 2024

That said, today's is the last day when the Biden Department of Oil Selling will have to slam oil; one the results of today's election are in, oil will finally be allowed to trade higher once more. 

With just hours left until the close of polls (and today's cash market), we share some observations from DB looking at how markets have reacted to the six previous elections and what was going on at the time. As DB's Henry Allen notes, the reactions vary considerably: of the six elections since 2000, the S&P 500 was up in three cases by the end of November, and down in the other three. 10yr Treasury yields were down in four and up in two.

It’s worth bearing in mind that markets already account for expectations. So in 2008, there was little direct reaction, as Obama’s victory was widely expected. By contrast in 2016, Trump’s surprise victory was a big shock that led to a major rise in Treasury yields.

In addition, other events are happening at the same time. Markets were buoyant after 2020, but that was supported by Pfizer’s vaccine announcement the following week. In 2012, markets struggled as fears grew about the US fiscal cliff and Greece’s situation during the sovereign crisis. And back in 2008, markets plummeted amidst the Global Financial Crisis. So the election isn’t the only variable, and this week there’ll be a lot of focus on Thursday’s Fed decision as well,

2020 (Biden vs Trump)

Markets rally after election, initially on prospect of divided government with the Georgia Senate races pending, whilst vaccine news provides a further boost.

In 2020, the outcome was initially uncertain on the night, as President Trump outperformed the polls and his margins with Biden were tighter than expected. But it soon became apparent that Biden would win, even before his victory was formally declared by the networks on the Saturday.

At first markets rallied, as it looked as though there’d be a divided government scenario where Biden won the Presidency whilst Republicans kept the Senate. The Senate control would depend on two run-off elections in Georgia in early January, and even though the Democrats went on to win those and control the Senate, that wasn’t the expectation straight after November’s election. Indeed, the narrative behind the market rally at the time was that divided government might be positive, as a Republican Senate would prevent tax rises and higher regulation. And even though a Republican Senate would likely mean less fiscal stimulus, it meant markets priced in more action from the Fed, which gave the liquidity trade a boost.

On the Monday after the election, markets then got a further boost from the Pfizer vaccine announcement, which was then followed up by other vaccine candidates. The efficacy numbers were at the upper end of expectations, and it alleviated fears that society might have to live with the Covid-19 pandemic on a more permanent basis, offering a path back to normality. So risk assets did well after the election, but there were pandemic-related events happening too, which was the most important variable for the global economy that year.

2016 (Trump vs Clinton)

Surprise Trump victory leads to rapid rise in Treasury yields.

Of the 21st century elections, 2016 was the most surprising by far from a market and political perspective, as the polls had widely pointed to a Hillary Clinton victory, as had prediction and betting markets. Moreover, the outcome was a Republican sweep in Congress too, not just a Trump presidency.

With the Republicans back in control, that opened the door to fiscal stimulus, which later happened with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) that was signed in 2017. This included both income and corporate tax cuts, and Treasury yields rose substantially after the result, as they hadn’t priced in such an outcome beforehand.

This saw the 10yr Treasury yield rise by +20bps on the Wednesday, then another +9bps on Thursday, Friday was a holiday, and on Monday it was up +11bps. It continued to rise into year-end as well, moving from 1.85% on election night to 2.44% by year-end.

2012 (Obama vs Romney)

Concerns about fiscal cliff and Euro sovereign crisis lead to risk-off move.

The 2012 election result was broadly in line with expectations, as a second term for Obama had been generally expected, and the result became clear that evening.

However, markets then saw a risk-off move afterwards, with the S&P 500 down -2.4% the day after, and then another -1.2% the day after that.

In part, that was driven by concerns about the so-called “fiscal cliff”. These were automatic tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to occur, which risked causing a major growth slowdown. Moreover, the Republicans kept control of the House in this election, meaning that divided government was set to continue, and Obama would still need to compromise with Republicans to pass legislation. So there was concern about whether a compromise could be reached in time.

Alongside the fiscal cliff, the Greek situation was also in focus. That week, markets were looking for when the EU would decide to release the latest bailout funds. Given the uncertainty, sovereign bond spreads widened across the continent in response, and the gap of Italian 10yr yields over bunds widened +7bps the day after the election, and another +13bps the day after that. So the moves in Europe were also dampening global sentiment after the election too.

2008 (Obama vs McCain)

Sharp market selloff driven by Global Financial Crisis and very weak data, not the election.

In political terms, this was the least surprising result of the 21st century presidential elections. Obama had consistently led in the opinion polls, and the result wasn’t close either, with a 365-173 margin in the electoral college, along with a popular vote lead for Obama of 7 points. From a market perspective, there wasn’t much of a direct election reaction, as an Obama victory was widely priced in.

However, markets did sell off substantially, as the election happened against the backdrop of the Global Financial Crisis, with the economy still getting worse at this point. Indeed, the S&P 500 was down -5.3% on the Wednesday straight after the election, as the ADP’s report showed jobs contracted by -157k in October (vs. -102k expected), whilst the ISM services index came in at 44.4 (vs. 47.0 expected). Then on the Thursday, the index fell another -5.0%.

At this point, the broader context was utterly dire. Less than two months before the election, Lehman Brothers had collapsed, and on October 15 the S&P 500 saw its biggest one-day decline (-9.03%) since Black Monday 1987. Less than a week before election day on October 29, the Fed then delivered another 50bp rate cut, taking rates down to 1%.

2004 (Bush vs Kerry)

Markets rally amidst policy continuity with a second term for George W. Bush.

In political terms, the 2004 election was fairly close, with incumbent President George W. Bush winning just 286 electoral college votes, making it the last time neither candidate received more than 300 electoral college votes. But the outcome was broadly as expected, because the polls had put Bush ahead over the couple of months beforehand, and he was also polling ahead in the key battleground states such as Ohio. The result meant that Bush won a second term as President, and the Republicans kept control of both the House and the Senate too.

Markets rallied strongly after the election result, with the S&P 500 up +1.1% on Wednesday, and then +1.6% on Thursday. The narrative was that this meant there would be policy continuity, and taxes were less likely to go up under a Bush presidency. That was helped by strong data after the election, as the Wednesday saw the ISM non-manufacturing report come in at 59.8 (vs. 58.0 expected). Then on the Thursday, the initial jobless claims were at 332k (vs. 340k expected).

2000 (Bush vs Gore)

Markets see a clear risk-off move as election uncertainty drags on for a full month.

This was an incredibly close result, and the most contentious of recent times. The outcome hinged on the state of Florida, which was required by both candidates to win an Electoral College majority. On election night, the Florida result swung back and forth between Gore and Bush. With the election hinging on a margin of less than 0.5%, a mandatory machine recount in the state was triggered anyway. Gore’s team also requested a manual recount of ballots in four Florida counties, all of which were in Democratic areas.

Extended legal wrangling took place over the ensuing month, as the Bush team sought to stop the ongoing recounts. Although the Florida votes were then certified on November 26 with Bush having a 537-vote lead, Gore then sued as some recounts hadn’t been completed. Eventually, the case went to the Florida Supreme Court, which sided with Gore in ordering manual recounts of undervotes, which is where a vote had been cast but a machine had not recorded a vote.

The US Supreme Court suspended this manual recount on December 9 while it heard arguments, eventually ruling that the manual recount violated the 14th amendment ensuring the equal protection of law, and that it would not be possible for a recount to meet the “safe harbor” deadline of December 12 under federal law, which is a deadline where states have to decide their electors to the Electoral College six days before they meet.

With the Supreme Court’s decision, Gore formally conceded the race to Bush on December 13, five weeks after Election Day.

Amidst the uncertainty over the election outcome, the S&P 500 fell 1.6% the following day (November 8th), before seeing a further 0.7% and 2.4% decline on the Thursday and Friday respectively. In fact, November 2000 was the S&P 500’s worst monthly performance of that year, with an 8% decline from start to finish. With US equities losing ground, investors moved into US Treasuries, as 10yr yields fell from 5.86% at the close on Election Day to 5.26% on December 13 when Gore conceded.

The US and South Korea now say many thousands of North Korean troops are on the front lines, potentially engaging Ukrainian forces, with most of them located in Russia's Kursk oblast, which has been under Ukrainian troop presence since the August cross-border offensive.

"More than 10,000 North Korean soldiers are currently in Russia, and we assess that a significant portion of them are deployed to front-line areas, including Kursk," spokesman for South Korea's defense ministry, Jeon Ha-kyou, told a briefing.

The Pentagon has said the same with spokesman Pat Ryder having stated Monday, "All indications are that they will provide some type of combat or combat support capability." He added: "We would fully expect that the Ukrainians would do what they need to do to defend themselves and their personnel."

The US administration has continued to warn that these foreign troops are "legitimate military targets" if they are found inside Ukraine and enter the fight.

Kiev has taken the allegations a step further, saying that already there's been an exchange of fire between Ukrainian and North Korean troops. But it reportedly happened inside Russia.

"Ukrainian officials said on Monday that their forces had fired at North Korean soldiers in combat for the first time since their deployment by Russia to its western Kursk region," FT writes of the new development.

The publication is calling the alleged instance "the first direct intervention by a foreign army since Russia’s full-scale invasion" as well as constituting an expansion of "what was already the largest land war in Europe since the second world war."

"The first military units of the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] have already come under fire in Kursk," Andriy Kovalenko, Ukraine’s high-ranking 'counter-disinformation' official, announced on Telegram. Another top intelligence official said the same but did not provide or confirm any details of the alleged clash.

Ukraine's foreign minister Andrii Sybiha has urged his visiting German counterpart Annalena Baerbock on the "need for decisive action" in response to North Korea's presence in the conflict.

"We urge Europe to realize that the DPRK troops are now carrying [out] an aggressive war in Europe against a sovereign European state," Sybiha told a press conference.

The Pentagon estimates that North Korea has deployed 10 to 12 thousand troops in Russia's Kursk region and warns that the troops would become legitimate military targets, if they "engage in combat support operations against Ukraine." pic.twitter.com/QtEnpKyCOF

— The Associated Press (@AP) November 5, 2024

The Russian and North Korean governments have still not overtly or definitively confirmed the large deployment - especially not inside Ukraine - but have have strongly hinted at it, pointing to the defense pact inked between Presidents Putin and Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang this past summer.

President Zelensky has meanwhile been using the issue to demand that the US and NATO lift all restrictions on use of Western supplied long-range missiles against Russian territory. But the Western allies have not been responsive to the issue.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

During his final rally in Michigan, president Trump gave a succinct description of exactly who his supporters are pitted against.

During the two hour speech that started just after midnight, Trump referred to former speaker and Democrat kingpin Nancy Pelosi, noting “She’s a crooked person, she’s a bad person. Evil.”

“She’s an evil, sick, crazy b—-” he said, stopping short of saying the word “bitch.”

“It starts with a B, but I won’t say it. I wanna say it,” Trump boomed.

“I don’t use much [profanity], you know, every once in a while, and it’s never a real bad word, it’s never bad … but it is a little better when you use foul language,” he continued, adding “These are bad people.”

Watch:

Trump reminds supporters exactly who their opponents are. Cites Nancy Pelosi: “She’s a crooked person. She’s an evil, sick, crazy, B—, oh no. It starts with a B but I won’t say it. I want to say it.” Full report here: https://t.co/sjHK6UmsW6 pic.twitter.com/yeG6YOKrWR

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) November 5, 2024

Trump reiterated that his real opponent is not Kamala Harris but an “evil Democrat system”.

“We will defeat the corrupt system in Washington. Because I’m not running against Kamala, I’m running against an evil Democrat system. These are evil people,” he asserted.

“I wasn’t running against Biden either,” Trump further noted, adding “He was stuck in a basement. I didn’t even run against him. Now running against a very evil system, and we have to defeat that system, and America’s future will be an absolutely incredible one.”

Watch:

Trump reminds supporters what they are standing up against: "I’m not running against Kamala, I’m running against an evil Democrat system. These are evil people." Full report here: https://t.co/sjHK6UmsW6 pic.twitter.com/m0ZcviSLEX

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) November 5, 2024

*  *  *

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

On a normal day, the 10Y auction tends to be one of the biggest market events of the week especially when it is the once-in-a-quarter refunding auction. Not today however, because everyone's attention is far more focused on today's election result and the sheer collapse in market liquidity. Still, in a day when yields blew out  as high as 4.36% after the red hot Service ISM - and a Trump victory - traders were certainly casting nervous stares at the results of today's auction. So with today's $42 billion refunding auction of 10Y paper in the books, this is how it did.

Stopping at a high yield of 4.347%, the auction yielded 28bps higher than last month, and was the highest yielding auction since June. But notably after tailing 0.4bps last month, today's auction stopped through the When Issued by 0.3bps.

The bid to cover rose to 2.58 from 2.48 last month, and was just above the 2.53 six-auction average.

The internals were less impressive, and far weaker than last month: Indirects took down 61.7%, down from 77.6% in October and below the 71.3 six-auction average; and with Directs soaring to 23.6% from 8.4%, the highest since March 2014, Dealers were left with just 14.7%, just above the recent average of 13.5%

Overall, this was a solid, if not stellar, 10Y auction and the fact that it didn't tail was seemingly enough to send yields about 3bps lower, from 4.345% before the auction to 4.31%, before reversing some of the drop. Of course, should Trump be declared winner, watch as this kneejerk move lower is kneejerk sharply higher once again.