Category: zerohedge

Liberals are furious at  the ‘never-Trump’ super PAC, the Lincoln Project, which essentially bait-n-switched Democrats into giving them money to defeat Republicans, who then watched their party lose several House seats and fail to wrestle back control of the Senate.

The Lincoln Project, co-founded by former McCain 2008 campaign manager Steve Schmidt, promised to win over “independent-leaning men, those college-educated Republicans, the suburban Republican women.” They went on to raise at least $67 million, much of that from liberals. Yet, Trump went on to win more GOP votes in 2020 than he did in 2016.

As former Bernie Sanders speechwriter and Jacobin editor-at-large David Sirota and Andrew Perez write in the Daily Poster:

A group of longtime Republican operatives depicting themselves as anti-Trump stalwarts convinced liberals to give them more money for ineffective television ads and stunts than was raised by the Democratic Party’s national campaign to win state legislatures. 

The result: Donald Trump won more Republican votes than he did in 2016 as Democrats again lost state legislatures in advance of redistricting that could determine control of Congress for the next decade. 

Meanwhile, the GOP operatives are reportedly positioned to go from lighting liberals’ money on fire during the 2020 election to now using liberals’ money to launch a media empire that could push a new Biden administration to the right.

Sirota told The Hill‘s “Rising” that the Lincoln Project was actually trying to secure a Biden presidency with a GOP-controlled Senate – as opposed to shifting GOP voters towards Democrats.

“In a sense, they went to liberals and said ‘give us money to help us defeat Republicans, that’s our job,” Sirota said. “So, when Donald Trump actually increases his share of the Republican vote in 2020 versus 2016 when there wasn’t the Lincoln Project, that’s just statistically an epic failure.”

“So imagine if that $67 million had gone into winning state legislatures, it could be a totally different ball game for the next ten years,” Sirota added. “But, instead it went to Republican operatives at the Lincoln Project, to produce YouTube videos that made MSNBC-watching liberals feel smug, but didn’t actually move any voters.”

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Whether you are a Republican, a Democrat or an Independent, everyone should be able to agree that this election has exposed some very serious flaws in the way that we are currently doing things.  Over the past 24 hours, I have been posting example after example of voting irregularities on The Most Important News, and this is probably the number one topic on social media right now.  When this election is finally over, there are going to be tens of millions of voters that feel like this election has been stolen from them and that will have completely lost faith in the system. 

As much as some of the talking heads on television would like to believe that everything will be okay if they simply ignore the irregularities that are happening, the truth is that the vast majority of Americans can clearly see what is taking place.  It has never been more obvious that our system is deeply broken and desperately in need of major reform.

For this election, problems with our elections will need to be resolved in court, and that is extremely unfortunate.

But we definitely do not want to find ourselves in the same situation four years from now, if there is actually an election four years from now.

So with that in mind, I would like to submit my humble plan to fix our elections…

#1 In order to register to vote, citizens must be required to show up in person and show identification proving that they are who they say they are to a duly appointed government official.

#2 Citizens should be required to show up in person to vote to the greatest degree possible.  And when they show up in person to vote, they must be required to show identification proving that they are who they say they are.

#3 All political parties must be allowed to have numerous poll watchers in all polling locations.

#4 Once you have voted, citizens should be given a receipt that shows that their votes were recorded and that shows exactly who they voted for.

#5 All political parties must be allowed to have numerous observers in all locations where ballots are counted, and they must be allowed to be close enough to be able to clearly see what is happening.

#6 All votes should be made public.  I know that many would mourn the loss of the “secret ballot”, but I believe the need for transparency should take priority.  Every vote from every citizen should be posted publicly, along with verification that each of those citizens was officially registered to vote.

#7 For national elections, results for each state should only be made public once the counting is entirely completed.  I know that having the vote totals come in a little at a time is a lot more dramatic, but it also opens up opportunities for malfeasance.  In the 2020 election, there have been allegations that some counties have delayed reporting their results until they could see how other areas have voted.  It is very important that we eliminate that.

As it stands, our elections are more broken than ever.  Ballot harvesting is rampant all over the country, lots of dead people are voting, in some areas the number of people that are voting greatly exceeds the number of registered voters, and having tens of millions of ballots go through the mail has caused all sorts of problems.

Of course I don’t anticipate that the recommendations that I have made will ever be instituted.  In particular, Democrats would fight tooth and nail against many of my proposals, and that is because the flaws in the current system tend to benefit their party greatly.

But if we don’t fix our system, an increasing number of Americans will lose faith in it with each passing election, and it will be just a matter of time until it completely collapses.

In addition to everything else, I believe that paper ballots should be required everywhere in the whole country.  I would like to see the U.S. go to a system of 100 percent paper ballots and 100 percent manual counting, but that will never happen either.

If we can’t have faith in the integrity of our elections, what options do we have left?

We have reached such a critical time in our history, and our nation is now more divided than it has ever been in my entire lifetime.

I honestly do now know how the U.S. is ever going to recover from this chaotic election.  There is no way that any politician is going to be able to bring the country together when close to half the population believes that the election was stolen.

Whoever becomes president, nearly half the nation is not going to accept that individual as legitimate, and at this point the U.S. is getting dangerously close to being ungovernable.

As I have discussed previously, for the losing side this election is going to be the greatest emotional blow in decades.  Everything has changed, and the days ahead are likely to be very dark for the United States of America.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

As of the 1000 ET advisory from the National Hurricane Center (NHC), Tropical Storm Eta “regained strength” as it traverses the northwestern Caribbean Sea and will pass over or near Cuba, the Bahamas, and South Florida this weekend into early next week, bringing torrential rains, high winds, and potentially dangerous storm surge. 

Tropical Storm #Eta Advisory 28: Eta Regains Tropical Storm Strength as the Center Reforms To The Northeast. Tropical Storm Warning Issued For South Florida and the Florida Keys. https://t.co/VqHn0u1vgc

— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) November 7, 2020

Eta has 40 mph maximum sustained winds and is moving northeast at 17 mph. The storm’s location is about 45 miles west-northwest of Grand Cayman.

Tropical storm warnings have been issued for Cayman Islands, Cuba, and the northwestern Bahamas islands, including Abacos, Grand Bahama Island, and Nassau. NHC expects tropical storm conditions in those areas this weekend. 

After Cuba, the storm is expected to curve towards the Gulf of Mexico, potentially passing over or near South Florida. Tropical storm warnings have been issued for much of South Florida. 

“Gradual strengthening is expected over the Caribbean Sea before Tropical Storm Eta reaches Cuba, but some vertical wind shear and dry air may limit its intensification,” said The Weather Channel. 

The Miami office of the National Weather Service forecasts rainfall totals for South Florida could range between 10 to 15 inches through Wednesday. 

South Florida will start to experience Eta’s tropical-storm-force winds as early as Sunday evening.  

As readers may recall, Eta has ravaged Central America, triggering deadly flooding and landslides. Here’s our past coverage on Eta over the last week: 

• “Devastating” Hurricane Eta To Strike Nicaragua Early Tuesday
• Nicaragua Braces For Arrival Of Powerful Hurricane Eta
• South Florida Prepares For Eta As It Could Reenergize Into Hurricane

Authored by Bryce Coward via Knowledge Leaders Capital blog,

As election results continue to trickle in suggesting Joe Biden will be the next president, there still remains a bit of uncertainty with respect the final electoral vote tally as well as any legal challenges that will emerge in the coming days.

Even still, the tail risk scenarios of a constitutional crisis or the US Supreme Court casting the deciding vote seem to have been significantly mitigated… at least that is what the market is pricing.

We know this because expected volatility across asset classes is plunging as demand for tail risk hedges is dissipating.

In the charts below we show stock market volatility…

…stock market volatility of volatility…

…bond market volatility…

…and foreign exchange volatility…

In each case, the market’s pricing of volatility has plunged from pre-election levels back into the lower-middle part of the range over the last six months.

This has implications for positioning moving into year end. As expected volatility comes down, value at risk (VaR) – the projected loss of a portfolio – is reduced, which allows institutional investors to add to risky positions. This somewhat technical feature of the market is one significant reason for the melt-up we’ve seen over the last few days.

Should election results become more clear, we’d expect volatility to come down even further, potentially somewhat counterbalancing other significant risks like COVID lockdowns, lack of fiscal stimulus, etc.

Just a few short years ago, Warren Buffett would not even think of repurchasing Berskhire stock, instead building up a cash war chest which he would deploy to purchase “cheap” companies (although he certainly was a fan of others buying back their stock, such as Apple and – for a while – IBM). However, all that changed in July 2018 when Berkshire’s board announced a policy change that allowed Buffett to buy back stock whenever the price is below whatever they consider Berkshire’s intrinsic value. Previously, they couldn’t make repurchases if the price was more than 20% above current book value.

Since then two things happened: i) the stock market soared so high even Buffett admitted he couldn’t find attractive deals any more, and ii) other investors showed a fond desire to reward companies that repurchased their stock. Which is why, starting about two years ago, Buffett started repurchasing Berkshire stock.

Yet what at first was a slow, methodical process, has since escalated into a full blown sprint to the point where Buffett has become one of the world’s biggest repurchasers of his own stock.

In Q3, Berkshire Hathaway spent a record $9 billion of its own stock according to the company’s just filed earnings release, which as the Bloomberg chart below shows, is more than it had repurchased in any full year in its history.

The record buyback meant that Berkshire’s massive cash pile declined slightly in the third quarter, from $146.6 billion to $145.7 billion. The funds, as Bloomberg notes, “have recently been accumulating faster than Buffett can put them to work in higher-returning assets”; they leave Buffett with plenty of capital to deploy into acquisitions, stock purchases or buybacks, if and when there is a market correction. 

Lacking external investments, the acceleration in buybacks confirm Buffett’s faith in the conglomerate’s prospects, just months after telling Berkshire shareholders at the annual meeting in May that repurchasing shares wasn’t more compelling than when the stock was much higher before the pandemic.

With the help of the buybacks, Berkshire stock soared 20% in the third quarter, surpassing the 8.5% gain in the S&P 500 Index during the same period.

Looking at the rest of the company’s Q3 results, we find that the conglomerate’s businesses bounced back modestly from the depths of the slump in the second quarter. Profit at the railroad was higher than the three months ended June 30 if still down from a year ago, while Berkshire’s utilities posted its highest quarterly profit in more than a decade. Still, operating profit dropped by 32% to $5.5BN from $16.5BN a year ago, hurt by the insurance unit’s first underwriting loss since the end of 2019.

And in another stark reversal, after selling the most stocks on a net basis in more than a decade during the second quarter, Berkshire reversed course in the following months, purchasing $4.79 billion of stocks on a net basis during the third quarter, as he gobbled up shares, not just his own. As shown in the chart above, the company’s investments delivered almost $25 billion in investment gains amid the market rally, helping net income almost double despite the drop in operating profit.

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

I want to discuss a recent WallStreet Journal article by Ruchir Sharma entitled “The Rescues Ruining Capitalism.”

We talk much about the bailouts and stimulus programs related to the economic shutdown and pandemic. However, the bailouts began back in 2008 when the Federal Reserve intervened with the insolvency of Bear Stearns.

To date, the Federal Reserve, and the Government, have pumped more than $36 Trillion into the economy to keep it “afloat.”

I say “afloat” rather than “growing” because, during the last decade, economic “growth” was a function of population growth. Monetary interventions were successful in creating inflation in financial assets. However, during the same period, the economy grew by only $2.92 Trillion.

In other words, for each dollar of economic growth since 2008, it required $12.67 of monetary stimulus. Such sounds okay until you realize it came solely from debt issuance.

Bailouts Ruining Capitalism

We need that bit of history to understand why “bailouts are ruining capitalism.” 

“Modern society looks increasingly to government for protection from major crises. Whether recessions, public-health disasters or, as today, a painful combination of both. Such rescues have their place. Few would deny that the Covid-19 pandemic called for dramatic intervention. But there is a downside to this reflex to intervene, which has become more automatic over the past four decades. Our growing intolerance for economic risk and loss is undermining the natural resilience of capitalism and now threatens its very survival.” – Sharma

Sharma is correct.

Such was a point I recently discussed in “Recessions Are A Good Thing.” To wit:

“Just as poor forest management leads to more wildfires, not allowing ‘creative destruction’ to occur in the economy leads to a financial system that is more prone to crises.

Given the structural fragility of the global economic and financial system, policymakers remain trapped in the process of trying to prevent recessions from occurring due to the extreme debt levels. Unfortunately, such one-sided thinking ultimately leads to skewed preferences and policymaking.

As such, the “boom and bust” cycles will continue to occur more frequently at the cost of increasing debt, more money printing, and increasing financial market instability.”

The Fed’s foray into “policy flexibility” did extend the business cycle longer than normal. However, those extensions led to higher structural budget deficits. The byproduct was increased private and public debt, artificially low interest rates, negative real yields, and inflated financial asset valuations.

Specifically to Sharma’s point:

“However, these policies have all but failed to this point. From ‘cash for clunkers’  to  ‘Quantitative Easing,’ economic prosperity worsened. Pulling forward future consumption, or inflating asset markets, exacerbated an artificial wealth effect. Such led to decreased savings rather than productive investments.”

The Fed’s “Moral Hazard”

“This is a dangerous form of denial. A growing body of research shows that constant government stimulus has been a major contributor to many of modern capitalism’s most glaring ills. Easy money fuels the rise of giant firms and, along with crisis bailouts, keeps alive heavily indebted “zombie” firms at the expense of startups, which typically drive innovation. All of this leads to low productivity—the prime contributor to the slowdown in economic growth and a shrinking of the pie for everyone.” – Sharma

By not allowing “recessions” to perform their natural “Darwinian” function of “weeding out the weak,” to Sharma’s point:

“Zombies’ are firms whose debt servicing costs are higher than their profits but are kept alive by relentless borrowing. 

Such is a macroeconomic problem. Zombie firms are less productive, and their existence lowers investment in, and employment at, more productive firms. In short, a side effect of central banks keeping rates low for a long time is it keeps unproductive firms alive. Ultimately, that lowers the long-run growth rate of the economy.” – Axios

If capitalism were allowed to function, the weak players would fail. Stronger market players would acquire failed company assets. Bond-holders would receive some compensation for their debt holdings. Shareholders, the ones who accepted the most risk, would get wiped out.

Furthermore, assuming capitalism was allowed to function, investors would require appropriate compensation for the risk when loaning money to companies. Such would provide higher returns to credit-related investors rather than the current state of abnormally low yields for junk-rated debt.

Why is this currently the case? It is the direct result of the Fed’s creation of “moral hazard.” The definition of which is:

“A lack of incentive to guard against risk as investors believe the Fed is protecting them from the consequences of it.”

The Stock Market Is Not The Economy

“At the same time, easy money has juiced up the value of stocks, bonds and other financial assets, which benefits mainly the rich, inflaming social resentment over growing inequalities in income and wealth. It should not be surprising that millennials and Gen Z are growing disillusioned with this distorted form of capitalism and say that they prefer socialism. The irony is that the rising culture of government dependence is, in fact, a form of socialism—for the rich and powerful.” – Sharma

Sharma’s statement is incredibly important. If you are a Millenial or Gen Z’er and are voting for more socialistic policies, you are doing economic harm to yourself. A commonality of all socialistic countries is a very significant division between the top 10% and the bottom 90%. Under socialism, wealth and opportunity get concentrated at the top, with little remaining for everyone else.

In America, if you make $30,000/year, you are in the lower-income levels of the economy and barely above poverty levels. However, compared to the rest of the world, you are in the top 1% of income earners. 

Capitalism creates opportunities. Socialism destroys it by removing the incentives to innovate and produce. Throughout history, the correlation between the economy, earnings, and asset prices over time are high.

Since 1947, earnings per share have grown at 6.21% annually, while the economy expanded by 6.47% annually. That close relationship in growth rates should be logical, particularly given the significant role consumer spending has in the GDP equation. 

The current “negative correlation” is quite an anomaly given that corporate earnings are the result of economic activity. However, that relationship broke due to the massive amount of Federal Reserve interventions in the financial markets. That distortion masks the economy’s underlying weakness and the “moral hazard” created by the Fed.

Bigger Debts Aren’t The Solution.

“The rest of the world followed the Fed. As interest rates fell toward zero, the world’s debts—including households, governments and nonfinancial companies—more than tripled between 1980 and 2007 to more than three times the size of the global economy.

It was taking more debt to fuel the same amount of growth, because more debt was going to unproductive borrowers. Capitalism was bogging down.” – Sharma

The statement of unproductive debt is critical to understanding why policies fail to achieve their economic growth goals and inflation.

Unproductive debt retards economic growth over time as it diverts revenue into debt service rather than productive investments. While the Federal Reserve fails to recognize the impact of their policies, we have a decade of experience showing that surging debt and deficits inhibit organic growth.

Keeping the economy on perpetual life support shows too clearly that the economy will fail unless fiscal and monetary stimulus continues.

However, by bailing out failed enterprises to avoid short-term economic pain, the consequence of not allowing the system to “clear itself” creates further distortions in the economy.

As President Kennedy once said:

“The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.” 

Instead, we seem to have just removed the roof altogether. 

The fact that debt and deficits rose under full employment conditions suggests a more profound underlying fiscal problem previously existed and has now worsened.

We Need A Better Solution

“What capitalism urgently needs is a new, more focused approach to government intervention—one that will ease the pain of disasters but leave economies free to grow on their own after the crises pass.” – Sharma

He is correct. The CBO’s budget projections are a harsh reminder of the consequences of debt and deficits.

“The longer policymakers wait to fix the debt, the harder and costlier it will get. Delaying action means the necessary changes will be spread among fewer people. Policymakers will have less ability to carefully target adjustments. And ultimately, it will be harder to phase in new policies or give families and businesses time to prepare and adjust for them.” –  CFRB

There is no “pain-free” escape from the “debt hole” into which we have dug ourselves. Sharma is correct in his statement:

“When the pandemic passes, authorities need to shift out of rescue mode and start weaning capitalism off easy money and bailouts.”

However, even the “weaning process” will be painful. Stock markets will decline, the economy will weaken, and bankruptcies will rise. But such are the choices policymakers will have to make.

The continuous bailouts continue to distort the market’s price signals, which makes the markets less efficient in allocating capital. Such has led to the rising number of “zombies” and monopolies, the widening of wealth inequality, and lower productivity and growth.

The deformation of capitalism will be an economic plague the continues to lead to further dysfunction alienating younger generations. Social unrest and revolt will be the eventual result.

We can make choices today, which will be unpopular. Individuals will have to endure the short-term “pain.” However, it will be well worth the more robust economy tomorrow.

Or, you can wait until our creditors make those choices for us all at once.

Paper-thin margins and still a considerable number of outstanding votes to count are what is making the Pennsylvania race between President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden too early to call, even on Saturday morning, four days after the Nov. 03 election. 

AP notes Biden holds a small lead over Trump of around 28,800 votes at 0930 ET Saturday, out of more than 6.5 million counted, a margin of about .43%, which is less than .5%, and under state law, this would indicate a mandatory recount must be held. 

Pennsylvania is one of the battleground states Trump and Biden are neck and neck in as each seeks to reach 270 electoral votes to win. 

Days ago, Trump prematurely declared victory in the state, saying: 

“We’re winning Pennsylvania by a tremendous amount. We’re up 690,000 votes in Pennsylvania. These aren’t even close. It’s not like, ‘Oh, it’s close.” 

On Friday, the Pennsylvania secretary of state’s website said tens of thousands of mail-in votes still needed to be counted, many from Democratic stronghold areas such as Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

And this morning President Trump made it clear how he feels…

Maybe this is what has triggered the Trump campaign to announce a news conference in Philadelphia at 1130 ET.

Big press conference today in Philadelphia at Four Seasons Total Landscaping — 11:30am!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2020

Not quite the “Four Seasons” some were expecting…

And for those who think this could be leading to a concession speech, you haven’t been paying attention the last few years…

pic.twitter.com/hbSaIbRt5y

— Michael Berry (@MichaelBerrySho) November 6, 2020

Watch Live:

The official who oversees the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile has unexpectedly resigned, or as Bloomberg White House correspondent Jenifer Jacobs reports, it appears she was pushed out. 

Lisa Gordon-Hagerty has been head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) since 2018, the first woman to ever serve in that position, which is a semi-autonomous arm of Department of Energy (DOE) charged with overseeing the safety and security of America’s nuclear weapons.

DOE made the announcement late in the day Friday, noting that “Ms. Gordon-Hagerty oversaw the modernization of NNSA’s infrastructure and the strengthening of its world-class workforce” in its statement.

Few details were confirmed by DOE as to the reasons behind the sudden resignation, though as Bloomberg’s Jacobs noted it remains that “some admin officials are unhappy politics are being played with semi-autonomous arm of Energy Dept.”

And The Hill reports further:

While the press release did not provide any details on the reason behind Gordon-Hagerty’s resignation, two senior NNSA officials told Defense News that she had sent her letter of resignation to the White House on Friday following nearly a year of tensions between Gordon-Hagerty’s office and Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette. 

The sources told Defense News that Gordon-Hagerty submitted her letter directly to the White House, rather than to Brouillette, to signal her stark disagreement with the energy secretary over recent budget and oversight conflicts. 

Brouillette had earlier in the year attempted to drastically cut funding from NNSA, amid significant disagreements over the role of various arms of the DOE.

In the wake of Gordon-Hagerty’s shock departure Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) issued a scathing letter in her defense.

“A short while ago, I spoke with Administrator Gordon-Hagerty, who is an exemplary public servant and remarkable leader of the National Nuclear Security Administration,” Inhofe said.

“That the Secretary of Energy effectively demanded her resignation during this time of uncertainty demonstrates he doesn’t know what he’s doing in national security matters and shows a complete lack of respect for the semi-autonomous nature of NNSA,” he added.

Authored by Andrea Widburg via AmericanThinker.com,

When Kyle Becker heard about the “glitchy” computer program in Antrim County, Michigan, the one that tried to give 6,000 Trump votes to Biden, he starting doing research into the system. He ended up finding an amazing amount of highly disturbing information. The Dominion system has been known for some time to be defective, yet 28 states use it. This post is a compilation of Becker’s information, both in his own tweets and in one other person’s tweet, about what’s going on with that system:

MASSIVE.

“Ballots were counted for Democrats that were meant for Republicans… tabulating software ‘glitched’… We have now discovered that 47 counties used this same software.”

MI GOP Chair reveals corrupt software flipped thousands of votes from Trump to Biden. Watch!👇 pic.twitter.com/ORXa77vkHU

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) November 6, 2020

This next tweet is censored because, even though Becker states only facts, Twitter wants you to know the facts don’t matter. Be sure to click through to read his tweet. Twitter is evil, but it effectively owns the public square:

The election software system in Michigan that switched 6,000 votes from Trump to Biden is called “Dominion.”

It is used in 30 states including:

☑️Nevada
☑️Arizona
☑️Minnesota
☑️Michigan
☑️Wisconsin
☑️Georgia
☑️Pennsylvania

Every single major swing state. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. pic.twitter.com/R6s2RnVmEF

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) November 7, 2020

Just pause for a moment and consider that a widespread election software system that was used in virtually every swing state in the 2020 election is called “Dominion.”

“DOMINION.”

If that doesn’t send *chills* up your spine, nothing will. pic.twitter.com/oFmJTr9zMo

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) November 7, 2020

Look up who might be connected to this software. Her last name rhymes with Duh-low-see.

— The 🐰FOO (@PolitiBunny) November 7, 2020

How does an election software company literally named “Dominion” get used in:

☑️Almost 30 states
☑️4 of the Top 10 Counties
☑️9 of the Top 20 Counties

Dominion is used in MI where votes were switched from Trump to Biden. A free country does not give one company this much power. pic.twitter.com/42r4AuBVtO

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) November 7, 2020

NBC raised the alarms on Dominion Voting Systems in early 2000. It is the voting system used in 30 states, every majority swing state, and many of the biggest counties. Dominion was used in Michigan where Trump votes switched to Biden. Unbelievable.https://t.co/YZaZS0b4U5 pic.twitter.com/gyEhZEf218

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) November 7, 2020

DOMINION. VOTING. SYSTEMS.https://t.co/hxnxqZF2Fr

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) November 7, 2020

In Texas, Dominion Voting Systems was turned down THREE TIMES for certification in state elections. It listed numerous reasons why the system had major security issues.

Dominion is now linked to voting irregularities in both MI & GA.

TEXAS KNEW 🚨🗳️👇https://t.co/WiT3i704th pic.twitter.com/fGdw5IwGoS

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) November 7, 2020

“Securing our elections should not be a partisan issue.”

Early in 2020, Dems held a hearing with 3 major private election vendors, including DOMINION VOTING SYSTEMS.

The Dem. Chair revealed voting components from China, widespread Internet & hacking vulnerability & WORSE.🚨👇 pic.twitter.com/m69dHoxM33

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) November 7, 2020

I generally recommend Becker’s Twitter feed. He has some interesting observations about the weird anomalies in the election. Here are just two examples:

Swing state voting irregularities:

☑️Biden outperforms Senators in swing states, underperforms in VA, NH, RI
☑️Biden underperforms Hillary/Obama in cities, except in MI, PA, GA, WI
☑️Biden mail-in dumps with 100% margins
☑️GOP lose ZERO House races

Something is definitely off.

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) November 6, 2020

The 2020 election errors are all going in one direction. This is the exact opposite of “random.”

If they were just anomalies in various races nationwide that were going some Trump’s way and some Biden’s way, there would be FAR fewer questions.

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) November 7, 2020

What I find most disturbing is the impunity with which Democrats are gaming the system. They’re not even trying to cover their tracks. They are 100% certain that there will be no consequences for their actions. They know that the media, which should be a watchdog on behalf of American citizens, is actually an arm of the Democrat party that will do everything necessary to cover for Democrat election crimes.

After leaving a crowd of fervent supporters out in the cold for hours, former Vice President Joe Biden finally stepped up to the podium at around 2300ET, to deliver what sounded more like a routine press corp update than a victory speech.

“It’s as slow as it goes,” Mr. Biden said, describing watching the numbers dribble in on television. “As slow as it goes it can be numbing.”

As the NYT reminds us, it has now been four days since Election Day. As long as that might seem, it’s nowhere near the 36 days it took in 2000 before the Supreme Court ended the counting and effectively declared George W. Bush the winner over Al Gore.

At this point, four states will determine the outcome of the presidency, and unfortunately for the president, despite a showing that surpassed even the most optimistic expectations of pollsters like Nate Silver, Biden has crept ahead in Pennsylvania and Nebraska, and even Georgia and Arizona.

This is how big the Philly suburbs were for Biden: He is +283,061 votes in Bucks, Delaware, Chester, Montgomery Counties That’s +94,708 (and counting) vs Clinton. A 50% increase over her margin.

At last check, Joe Biden was leading with 264 electoral votes, while Trump was trailing with 214.

Source: Bloomberg

Source: Fox

President Trump and his team will hold a press conference to 11:30. Already, Twitter is censoring all of Trump’s tweets this morning as the president rages about skulduggery on the other side, including tens of thousands of illegal late votes.

According to Trump, tens of thousands of votes were illegally received by the other side after polls closed on Tuesday.

Big press conference today in Philadelphia at Four Seasons Total Landscaping — 11:30am!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2020

People were screaming STOP THE COUNT & WE DEMAND TRANSPARENCY (As Legal Observers were refused admittance to count rooms)! https://t.co/CW1tivI45c

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2020

Tens of thousands of votes were illegally received after 8 P.M. on Tuesday, Election Day, totally and easily changing the results in Pennsylvania and certain other razor thin states. As a separate matter, hundreds of thousands of Votes were illegally not allowed to be OBSERVED…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2020

….This would ALSO change the Election result in numerous States, including Pennsylvania, which everyone thought was easily won on Election Night, only to see a massive lead disappear, without anyone being allowed to OBSERVE, for long intervals of time, what the happened…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2020

….Bad things took place during those hours where LEGAL TRANSPARENCY was viciously & crudely not allowed. Tractors blocked doors & windows were covered with thick cardboard so that observers could not see into the count rooms. BAD THINGS HAPPENED INSIDE. BIG CHANGES TOOK PLACE!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2020

Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said Saturday morning on CNN that there were about 20,000 mail-in ballots left to count there and that the county planned to release updated vote tallies around midday.

Biden maintained his lead as elections officials in four key states plowed through ballots Friday, but enough ballots remained outstanding that it was too soon to definitively call a win in any of the states.

Biden’s lead in Arizona, which has shrunk somewhat as ballots were counted, was 29,861 as of early Saturday.

A new law that sent ballots to all registered voters because of the coronavirus pandemic has contributed to the slow pace of election results in Nevada, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state said Friday.

Biden maintained his lead as elections officials in four key states plowed through ballots Friday, but enough ballots remained outstanding that it was too soon to definitively call a win in any of the states.

The tightest lead for Biden is in Georgia, where he was separated from Trump by just 4,020 votes early Saturday, close enough that the race will likely be headed for a recount.

In Pennsylvania, his erstwhile home state, Biden’s lead was at 28,877 early Saturday, bolstered by results from Philadelphia that came in during the day. He also led in Nevada, where he was ahead of Trump by 22,657 votes early Saturday.

In Arizona, Biden’s lead has shrunk somewhat as ballots were counted overnight dropped it to 29,861 as of early Saturday.

Trump made no public remarks but made vague accusations regarding military ballots and other voting procedures on Twitter.
“Joe Biden should not wrongfully claim the office of the president,” Trump tweeted, pointing out the irony in all the social media companies warnings. “I could make that claim also.”

On another note, in Georgia, Sen. David Perdue, Republican of Georgia, has failed to secure enough votes to prevent his race going to a runoff, meaning Democrats will get another chance in January to flip the Senate back to their control, as two GOP senators will now face runoffs in January, which could flip up to 2 GOP seats back to the Dems, swinging the balance of power back into Democratic control across the board. Sen. Perdue still has a razor-thin margin over Jon Ossoff, his Democratic challenger. A rematch will be required if neither candidate takes a majority of votes. The second election will be held on Jan 5. A special runoff between the Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock and GOP Sen Kelly Loeffler will take place on the same day, leaving Georgia the center of the American political universe.