Hello everyone,
I have an odd or different question for everyone here.
I have an online friend that I believe is struggling with a gambling addiction, and I am at my wits end attempting to help him, because I don't feel there's much I can do for him other than pray fervently. He is a Christian - claims Jesus as savior, is kind to others, and in most ways that I am aware of, leads a Godly life.
Kind of.
He comes from a very wealthy family, and has seemingly squandered his inheritance, or a great sum of it on investments and now outright gambling. Recently, he has spent roughly between $20,000 and $40,000 USD (He's not American) on betting on the 2020 US Presidential Election. He believes that Donald Trump is God's Chosen Man, and that no matter what, its certain that he will win (he uses Christian "Prophets" such as Kat Kerr to justify his assurance he will win). He is now trying to make bets with anyone he knows on the election because of how certain he is.
In full disclosure, I used some of my own money/income to help him with the final wager, as I did take investment monies from him 4 years ago, paying him back piece by piece until he offered a final, one-time payment (to his gambling parlor of choice) to absolve my final debt payment to him.
He consistently uses scripture to justify gambling such as 1 Kings 18 (Elijah's wager with Ahab). He believes some gambling is justified and uses this scripture, but its also apparent he recognizes the level of gambling he does as sin, but then uses grace and freedom in God to justify it.
I have told him that he's committing willful sin and is legitimately not in repentance because the act of repentance requires turning away from the sin, fully, which he is avoiding wholesale. He believes he always listens to God through the Holy Spirit, and that since no conviction has really taken place, he's totally OK with what he's doing.
He also believes that since I entered into paying my debt off in the way I have, that I have no legitimate right to correct him, even though I've told him I felt horrible for paying him off in that way, and have repented of it, and shown contrition for it and plan to never attempt dealing in such a thing ever again (I truly hate gambling, and in my mind, felt it was entirely done to pay off a debt, not enter into any sort of gamble myself).
So I am coming to /Christianity for advice on this matter. I am very fearful for his spiritual and mental health. I live in another country than him. I feel like what he is doing is borderline blasphemy in the way he's using scripture (and does so very often, if he read this he will come up with 10 scriptures for justification for any action he's taken). He's going as far as to saying I am in error because I am "Touching the Lord's anointed" and even recently posted the scripture in Acts about Ananias and Sapphira being deceitful, causing them to die (as in, saying that since I am trying to debate him, I may die or have bad health).
​
So my questions are 2 fold:
Is his argument correct? He believes that the Christians here will say he's totally valid.
What in the world can I do, given the position I am in? All of these conversations are virtual. I've prayed for him, and all I can feel is grief in my spirit. Greif that he's beyond deceived by his actions. But could I be in the wrong? I am trying to post and explain this situation as best I can, and I am open to correction and discipline just as much as anyone.
Thank you guys so much.

Orginal post: https://minedigital.exchange/the-byzantine-times/mine-digital-q3-report/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=new_visitors&utm_term=quarterly

Data

There has been a lot of talk recently over deflation vs inflation and which phenomenon is going to emerge.
The traditional path of inflation is that it first shows up in soft commodities then energy.
Indeed, the data for Q3 shows inflation, with soft commodities up from mid single digits all the way to 40% higher of the quarter (with the exception of Orange Juice and Oats which were marginally lower).
Although energy is yet to show signs of that inflation, with significant overcapacity in oil suppressing prices (especially with the lack of air travel with the coronavirus), natural gas is higher by almost 46% over the quarter — obviously a significant amount.
While this is a result of the initial response to coronavirus stimulus from March onwards, there is now a threat of deflation emerging — however further policy response is expected imminently.

US Election

With the US election underway we saw the first presidential debate recently. The event was slow with Joe Biden performing better than expected — by not being a disaster — and President Trumps strategy of freestyle, interruption and flow being handled well with superior tactics.
Those tactics include the promise of a return of technocratic stability to the governance of the country — an approach complementary to unofficial policy supporting the corporate funded, professionally organised riots of 2020.
There was a swing towards Biden in gambling books, with about an 8% improvement in odds given to a Democrat win.
If Democrats do win, we expect that the policy mechanism of the US Government will include the expansion of fiscal and monetary policy to include an infrastructure spend and a continuation of the trend in monetary policy
However if Republicans win, we expect that the policy mechanism of the US Government will include the expansion of fiscal and monetary policy to include an infrastructure spend and a continuation of the trend in monetary policy.
This delusion of choice in the United States creates an image similar to China with both countries now having essentially a centrally planned economy at the highest level, both developed a mass surveillance program, have media synchronised to political objectives controlling the window of discourse, and with heavy politically influence from what amounts to an aristocracy.
One major difference is that while China has been taking on debt at a record pace in 2020, the American fiscal stimulus has been held up in the democratic process. Between the fake trade-deal (China never having any intention of completing it), Coronavirus and political fandangaling in the US, China has stolen 2020 from the USA, giving some much needed time to develop strategy and tactical positioning before the Thucydides showdown emerges later down the track — in whatever form it does.
The broader battle of de-centralisation vs centralisation will be important in the competition between the two powers and something that digital assets, the ethos and philosophy behind the space will become more important in creating competitive advantages in macro-strategy of all kinds.

Australian Policy

Now that we have seen Australian house prices down for 5 months in a row there are hints of a dead-cat bounce in the Australian property market. With restricted access to Chinese investors as well as poor sentiment in the conditions of the year the Australian government is expected to intervene in the property market in some way later this year or early next.
A federal budget is being delivered Tuesday the 6th October which has been described as a ‘jobs budget’. This budget is expected to have a $200 billion deficit with Australian national debt edging towards $1 trillion. $140 billion of stimulus is expected over the next four years with net migration negative for the first time since the 1940's.
There is specific infrastructure and manufacturing expenditure as well as a continuation of JobSeeker payments in which the government is in a bind between encouraging re-entry to the workforce and providing a gentle landing for the unemployed adjusting to the boosted payments. Housing is likely to be one area where surprises would emerge, given Australia’s dependency on residential construction and broader housing prices.
Some specific areas of interest are $1.5 billion to manufacturing and $7.5 billion of spending in infrastructure projects covering all states and territories.
Whether this will be enough to avoid recession in a global slowdown remains to be seen. Recessions gather momentum slowly with employment decreasing only gradually before accelerated layoffs take hold.
Despite this outlook Australia is likely to remain a benefactor of global government policies where monetary policy has been taken as far as it can go in many places and fiscal policy is expected to replace it. There is upto $2.2 trillion of fiscal expenditure in the US expected, along with other fiscal expenditure that would improve the price of commodities. We have already seen this effect in China this year with their record increases in debt on the iron ore price.

Digital Assets

In the third quarter of 2020 we saw Decentralised Finance projects stage a bubble of their own.
This gold-rush became so competitive at its peak that a project had been unnannounced, unreleased and in testing but was funded with $15mil of assets staked before it had a public name.
Now in the late stages of this phenomenon we are likely to see many lessons learnt, some impressive winning stories and some disastrous losses.
And the output of all of this chaos in defi includes projects that create a new aspect to the digital asset ecosystem as well as testing new products and game theory.
Leading projects include yearn.finance, Synthetix, Uniswap, Compound, Ren and Aave. Some notable game-theory has been developed to bolt onto the Ampleforth tokenomics in Yam and Based amongst others.

Ethereum

One of the key takeaways of the de-fi boom was the inability of Ethereum to handle transactions with costs per transaction skyrocketing. In addition to this there has been statements made by Vitalik to temper expectations in the full release of Ethereum 2.0. However the comments also include a clear direction for the asset, a focus on rollups, plasma and state channel with upto 4000 TPS (transactions per second)’ and upto 100,000 TPS in the full release of Ethereum 2.0.

Bitcoin

Although it has traded higher over the time-frame, bitcoin has not done a great deal in Q3. With a major announcement from Microstrategy investing their entire treasury into Bitcoin ($425 million USD) and Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ($4.4 billion USD) holding about 2.2% of Bitcoins total market cap and reports from other institutional players such as OSL there is significant interest in the asset that is not translating smoothly into higher prices.
Originally published at https://minedigital.exchange on October 5, 2020. Visit the original link for a more in-depth report including charts.

With the pandemic and his approval sliding, and with the new pools showing Joe with the advantage, why is Trump still favoured by the bookies?
At oddschecker.com Trump's odds are 1/1 against Biden's 5/4.
Can someone with knowledge of gambling comment on this?
How should we interpret this? Is this something that Democrats should be worried about?

Alabama

• Some DMV hours limited to open one day per month. Some, the only DMVs in the county, also close as early as 2:30pm. https://web.archive.org/web/20181102034221/http://dps.alabama.gov/Home/DriverLicensePages/wfDLOffices.aspx https://www.safemotorist.com/Alabama/DMV_Locations.aspx https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/us-department-transportation-investigate-possible-discrimination-through-alabama
  
• Judge states two witnesses in 2011 showed “a deep-seated racial animus” seeking to suppress black turnout. Judge argues that they kept pro-gambling referendum off the ballot as it would bring out more black voters https://www.tuscaloosanews.com/news/20111021/judge-bingo-witnesses-aimed-to-suppress-black--voter-turnout
  
• 2016 USDOT investigation concluded that disproportionate closing of Alabama DMVs in the Black Belt caused a "disparate and adverse impact on the basis of race." https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdal/pus-department-transportation-takes-action-ensure-equitable-driver-license-office-access
  
• Online SoS website provides no mobile ID locations the day before 2017 election https://twitter.com/srl/status/940252427302985728 https://web.archive.org/web/20171212092531/https://sos.alabama.gov/alabama-votes/photo-voter-id/mobile-id-locations
  
• In 2017 election inactive voters could not cast a regular ballot, were either given provisional ballot or were illegally misinformed about voting procedures http://www.naacpldf.org/files/about-us/2017%2012%2014%20LDF%20Letter%20re%20Issues%20Concerning%20the%20Special%20Election.pdf http://alisondb.legislature.state.al.us/alison/codeofalabama/1975/17-4-9.htm
  
• Despite 2017 "Moral Turpitude" change to which felonies disqualify you from voting, officials will not educate or inform voters who are no longer disqualified. According to Secretary of State John H. Merrill, “I don’t see any reason to contact them directly if we’re already reaching the entire population.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/more-ex-prisoners-can-vote-in-alabamathey-just-dont-know-it http://ballot-access.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/gov.uscourts.almd_.61662.72.0-1.pdf As a result, even official registrars said they were uninformed how to manage the reinstated rights. https://www.al.com/news/2017/10/alabama_election_officials_rem.html
  

Arizona

• SC allows ban of collected ballots for early voting. Ruling is without explanation but the suspicion is because Appeals Court ruled a week before 2016 election https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/11/05/us-supreme-court-oks-arizona-ballot-collection-ban/93344652/
  
• GOP reached agreement after suit calling for deadline for signature verification, which would eliminate all votes where the signature couldn't be confirmed on election day. Even though it was legal for voters to verify their signature up to 5 days later (treated as a provisional ballot), the GOP solution to different deadlines in different counties was to end the service altogether. https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2018-11-08/arizona-gop-sues-to-change-how-mail-in-ballots-are-counted-in-sinema-mcsally-race
  

Arkansas

• ~4000 ex-felons and others never charged flagged for removal from voter rolls in 2016 despite being eligible to vote https://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2016/07/25/data-mix-up-from-ark-secretary-of-state-purges-unknown-number-of-eligible-voters

Florida

• DoJ orders Florida Secretary of State to cease voter purge within 90 days of an election https://thinkprogress.org/breaking-justice-department-demands-florida-stop-voter-purge-a38bf978a103/
  
• Trump calls for state to end absentee ballot count 4 days before deadline, which would negate about 20,000 ballots mostly by overseas military members in a race the Republican leads by less than 13,000 https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/as-nation-observes-veterans-day-trump-calls-for-blocking-military-votes/
  
• Although in November 2018 the voters backed a state amendment restoring voting rights to over one million felons who completed their sentence, State Governor Ron DeSantis and State Secretary Ken Detzner said it would not be active in time for the February elections. This contradicts the directive from the Florida Department of State. https://theintercept.com/2019/01/08/florida-felon-voting-rights-amendment-4-2/
  
• Despite successful Amendment 4 in 2018 to reinstate voting rights to former felons (estimated 1.5 million), GOP advanced a bill requiring court fees be paid in order to register https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/florida-republicans-move-limit-felon-voting-rights-despite-constitutional-amendment-n985156
  
• Florida Governor DeSantis signs poll tax in 2019, requiring felons who completed their sentence to pay fines in order to reclaim right to vote. Affecting approximately 1.4 million voters, it is also an amendment of the referendum backed by voters in 2018. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/florida-felon-voting-rights-ron-desantis_n_5d03c20de4b0985c419ce5af
  

Georgia

• Between 2012 and 2016, Georgia purged 1.5 Million voters from the voter rolls. 735,000 were purged from 2016 to 2018, with a whole 500,000 removed in one day. A federal court found that the 83% increase (12,000 to 22,000) in provisional ballots from 2014 to 2018 was likely due to administration errors. https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/georgia-cancels-fewer-voter-registrations-after-surge-last-yeafqT1bcSzGu33UEpTMDzMVK/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/11/brian-kemps-win-in-georgia-tainted-by-voter-suppression-stacey-abrams/
  
• Despite a 6% increase in Georgia population from 2012 to 2018, county election officials closed 214 precincts across the state during that time https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/voting-precincts-closed-across-georgia-since-election-oversight-lifted/bBkHxptlim0Gp9pKu7dfrN/
  
• Elections director Linda Ford resigned after “a technical error” resulted in nearly 8,000 voters being transferred from “inactive” to “canceled” status six days after registration deadline https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/georgia-elections-official-resigns-over-misidentified-voters/XPpF1fvSyHJnmmD9VYQJSI/
  
• State settled on "Exact Match" rules dispute in 2017 and restored over 42,000 voters (64% purged were African-American) as Secretary of State promised to prevent future conflict https://lawyerscommittee.org/press-release/voting-advocates-announce-settlement-exact-match-lawsuit-georgia/
  
• Despite promise, "Exact Match" returned in 2018 as state purged voters for data errors like misplaced hyphens, typos, etc. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/states-push-new-voter-requirements-fueled-trump-n780611 https://thinkprogress.org/georgia-registration-lawsuit-b789d24105ed/ https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/11/17964104/georgia-voter-registration-suppression-purges-stacey-abrams-brian-kemp
  
• 107,000 registered voters purged in 2017 through "use it or lose it" policy after not voting for 3 years or responding to notice https://www.apmreports.org/story/2018/10/19/georgia-voter-purge
  
• After Kemp settled case in 2017 by removing 40-day deadline to correct "exact match" information, Georgia passed a new law reinstating a deadline. It also blocked tribal identification cards as ID when registering https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/11/17964104/georgia-voter-registration-suppression-purges-stacey-abrams-brian-kemp https://politics.myajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/georgia-elections-bill-passes-senate-after-debate/irbaMooFPhQPfuR1AvDTKP/
  
• In 2010, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Kemp’s office proceeded to question hundreds of voters and arrested a dozen activists, over a surge in minority registrations. There were no guilty verdicts. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/feature/abrams-kemp-bring-long-running-war-over-voting-rights-to-georgia-governors-race
  
• In 2012, Kemp blocked registrations from and investigated minority registration groups. Two and a half years later, the investigation closed without charges. https://newrepublic.com/article/121715/georgia-secretary-state-hammers-minority-voter-registration-efforts
  
• In 2018, Kemp arrested Black Get-out-the-vote activists accusing them of fraud, although the cases ended without conviction https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/11/17964104/georgia-voter-registration-suppression-purges-stacey-abrams-brian-kemp https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/av4nzb/the-quitman-10-2-and-voter-suppression-in-modern-georgia-715
  
• In 2018, county officials block bus delivering senior citizens to vote https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/10/17/17990110/georgia-senior-citizens-bus-removal-black-voters-matter-suppression
  
• Ahead of 2018 election, election board seeks to close 7 of 9 polling locations because they are not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, rather than improve disabled access https://thinkprogress.org/ada-voter-suppression-cd7031080bfd/
  
• Federal judge blocks Georgia from rejecting absentee ballots and applications for ballots with signature problems without first giving voters notice and a chance to fix the problem. Close to 600 absentee ballots were thrown out in 2018. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5018933/10-24-18-TRO-Martin-v-Kemp.pdf https://www.aclu.org/blog/voting-rights/fighting-voter-suppression/court-blocks-georgia-rejecting-ballots-over
  
• DeKalb County board claims 50 absentee applications have been received and processed, despite 4,700 applications sent with USPS scans verifying https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/dekalb-county/state-investigating-claims-local-elections-office-lost-1-000s-of-absentee-ballot-applications/859826997
  
• Two days before 2018 election, Kemp accuses Democrats of attempting to hack the election but won't give evidence. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/kemp-charges-georgia-democrats-attempted-voter-hack-abrams-fires-back-n931011?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma In 2016, Kemp accused the same thing, which was debunked by the DHS Inspector General. https://www.wabe.org/federal-review-debunks-georgia-election-hack-accusation-2/
  
• Still without evidence of a hack by Democrats, Kemp has repeatedly published the accusation on the front of http://sos.ga.gov/ which voters use to get voting information https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/georgia-governor-candidate-brian-kemp-attempts-last-minute-banana-republic-style-voter-manipulation.html
  
• Voting machines reported switching votes from Democrat to Republican but NOT switching from Republican to Democrat https://www.theroot.com/black-voters-in-georgia-say-something-funny-is-going-on-1829979736
  
• Federal judge blocks Gwinnett County from rejecting absentee ballots solely on the basis of an omitted or incorrect birth year and certifying election before ballots were counted https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/416427-federal-judge-finds-georgia-county-violated-civil-rights-act-by-rejecting
  
• Georgia held the third-longest wait times in the US in 2016, which repeated in 2018 with a Gwinnett County precinct outside Atlanta showing 4.5-hour lines. This lag did not exist in Republican districts. https://elections.mit.edu/#state-GA https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/11/equipment-malfunctions-and-voting-machine-shortages-bring-long-lines-in-georgia/ https://twitter.com/_2lite/status/1059802363995807750 https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/11/brian-kemps-win-in-georgia-tainted-by-voter-suppression-stacey-abrams/
  
• 127,000 votes in black neighborhoods did not have a recorded vote for lieutenant governor in 2018, also known as a “drop-off,” despite continuing voting down the ballot. This loss is inconsistent with historical and national trends, and inconsistent between in-person and absentee votes. https://www.theroot.com/exclusive-thousands-of-black-votes-in-georgia-disappea-1832472558 https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/bjgh8qu5ymagc1ekkuor.png
  
• Federal Judge orders Georgia to switch to paper ballots for 2020 elections. Georgia has to replace its Diebold Accuvote TSX touchscreen machines, which were banned in other states after vulnerabilities were discovered as early as 2006. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/judge-bans-insecure-touchscreen-voting-machines-from-georgia-after-2019/
  

Illinois

• GOP vetoes to end same-day voter registration https://thinkprogress.org/illinois-reg-lawsuit-673f3867612b/#.e61j0wjld

Indiana

• Voters removed due to recommendation by Crosscheck database not informed of removal https://www.thedailybeast.com/indiana-kicks-voters-off-the-rolls-and-isnt-telling-them
  
• 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2019 upholds Federal ruling blocking Indiana law to purge voter registrations without verification or notice, solely based on Crosscheck https://apnews.com/48214553535a404aac3376451387190a
  

Kansas

• Only polling site in Dodge City moved outside of town in 2018, county's polling locations halved https://fox4kc.com/2018/11/02/kansas-towns-only-polling-place-was-moved-outside-the-city-a-lawsuit-opposed-the-change-but-a-judge-says-its-too-late/ https://www.apnews.com/78f02d14245043aab005046ef4063c10
  
• Photo ID state closes DMVs on one of last weekends to get ID https://twitter.com/davis_hammet/status/1053328872303984642?s=21
  
• DMVs give false information up until two days after registration deadline, telling citizens that they can only vote for federal offices, not state. Kobach had declared voters cannot vote for state offices back in June 2018, despite two court orders to register thousands of suspended voters https://www.kcur.org/post/kansans-got-wrong-information-dmv-until-voter-registration-deadline
  
• Self-branded investigator of Voter Fraud and Kansas Secretary of State and Chief Elections Officer Kris Kobach driven to recuse himself in 2018 after the Secretary of State's office reported multiple election discrepancies from county tallies, where he claimed victories that county clerks claimed he lost. He stated however he would not recuse himself should there be a recount. https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/09/politics/kris-kobach-kansas-republican-governor-primary/index.html
  

Maryland

• 2010 Governor Campaign Manager Paul E. Schurick convicted for fraudulent robocalls to 112,000 voters pretending to be Democrats telling them they don't need to vote https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/ex-ehrlich-campaign-manager-schurick-convicted-in-robocall-case/2011/12/06/gIQA6rNsaO_story.html?noredirect=on
  
• GOP proposes closing early-voting sites http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-montgomery-voting-20151001-story.html
  

Michigan

• Lame-duck Senate alters voter-approved referendum by increasing ID requirements to register as a voter and protecting partisanship of the commissioner of the redistricting commission https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/michigan/2018/12/04/michigan-legislature-bills-lame-duck-session/2162560002/
  
• 3 Federal Judges in 2019 rule Michigan map is unconstitutional for gerrymandering, following email leaks of GOP staffers admitting to intentional gerrymandering, describing a finger-shaped district as "giving the finger to Sandy Levin... I love it," and strategist Robert LaBrant being concerned a 10-4 seat advantage would be too "blatant." On May 26, 2011, LaBrant wrote “We needed for legal and PR purposes a good looking map that did not look like an obvious gerrymander.” Each year the GOP took 9 of 14 House seats despite getting only 46% (2012), 47% (2014), and 48% (2016) of the votes. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/us/michigan-gerrymandering.html https://www.bridgemi.com/public-sectoemails-suggest-republicans-gerrymandered-michigan-weaken-dem-garbage
  

Mississippi

• In 2019, video and state election officials confirm that electronic machines repeatedly changed ballot, do not provide paper backup https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/politics/2019/08/27/voting-machine-problems-video-changing-vote-bill-waller-tate-reeves-ms-election-governor-runoff/2129515001/ https://www.newsweek.com/touch-screen-voting-devices-are-automatically-changing-votes-mississippi-1456445

Nevada

• At least 90,000 purged due to notices being returned "non-deliverable" https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/at-least-90000-voters-purged-from-nevada-voter-rolls-voting-rights-group-claims/

New Hampshire

• Gov. Chris Sununu signed House Bill 1264 requiring part-time residents (students and military personnel) to become permanent residents, buy an in-state license in order to vote https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/n-h-makes-it-tougher-students-vote-democrats-call-it-n892906

New York

• NYC Board admits wrongdoing after over 220,000 voters purged, including over 126,000 Democrats in Brooklyn http://gothamist.com/2017/10/25/city_board_of_elections_admits_wron.php

North Carolina

• Appeals Court strikes down Voter ID law in 2016 for “target[ting] African Americans with almost surgical precision” and "retained only the kinds of IDs that white North Carolinians were more likely to possess” http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/nc-4th.pdf https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/29/the-smoking-gun-proving-north-carolina-republicans-tried-to-disenfranchise-black-voters/?utm_term=.c0961256a9c0
  
• Court strikes down Voter ID law in 2016 for creating undue burden on black and latino voters https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/court-north-carolina-voter-id-law-targeted-black-voters/
  
• State admitted in 2016 its reason for cut early voting was “[c]ounties with Sunday voting in 2014 were disproportionately black” and “disproportionately Democratic.” J.A. 22348-49. https://twitter.com/haroldpollack/status/1051657219899617280 http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/7-29-16%204th%20Circuit%20NAACP%20v%20NC.pdf
  
• In 2016, 7,000 voters removed for not showing up to hearing challenging their registration http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article112015652.html https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/3/13511264/north-carolina-voter-purge
  
• In 2016, judge ruled counties must restore thousands of voters removed due to mass-mailed notices being returned as "undeliverable" https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/04/politics/north-carolina-naacp-voter-registration/index.html
  
• In 2016, suits challenged Voter ID laws and state gerrymandering. On the floor, House Rep David R. Lewis, chairman of the redistricting committee, said “I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats ... so I drew this map in a way to help foster what I think is better for the country.” https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/11/us/north-carolina-voting-rights-redistictricting-battles.html
  
• Supreme Court rejects district map for gerrymandering in 2017 due to racial motivation https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/22/15676250/supreme-court-racial-gerrymandering-north-carolina
  
• Elections committee chair files 2017 bill that makes it so that the majority party (Democrats) can NEVER control an election board during an election year. Majority party would control chair in odd years, minority (GOP) would control chair in even years https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/north-carolina-republicans-election-boards_us_5c070ebfe4b0a6e4ebd96ee4 https://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2017/Bills/House/PDF/H1117v0.pdf
  
• GOP officials call election boards to keep early-voting sites open for shorter hours on weekends and in evenings. Counties that opened only one polling site during the first week of early voting had turnout decrease of 20% https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-northcarolina-insight-idUSKBN12Y0ZY
  
• Party Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse asks election boards to “make party line changes to early voting” to limit hours and keep polls closed on Sundays. Multiple counties vote to end Sunday voting http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article96179857.html https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article100284162.html
  
• GOP bill in 2018 to eliminate requirement for early voting the Saturday before election day, when 192k voted that day in 2016 (6.5% of early votes) https://www.wral.com/gop-proposal-would-drop-final-saturday-from-early-voting/17627479/
  
• State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement collects sworn statements that Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. and other staffers on behalf of Harris campaign paid people to collect absentee ballots in 2018, coordinated alteration of Democrat and minority absentee ballots. The Harris campaign is also under suspicion for the abnormally high absentee ballots that he won (96%) in primary https://wapo.st/2rgE7Ap?tid=ss https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/419561-woman-admits-to-picking-up-absentee-ballots-in-north-carolina https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/419693-second-woman-says-she-was-paid-to-collect-absentee-ballots-in-north https://www.apnews.com/ab20c7bd12464a4383abfdc2bd88ca92 Dowless campaign worker gives testimony at evidentiary hearing that she and others collected and opened unsealed absentee ballots they collected to fill in the Republican candidate, in addition to fabricating absentee forms, using false names as witness, and storing copies of all ballots to be sent to a Bladen County PAC https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/gop-campaign-worker-admits-to-filling-in-republican-votes-on-absentee-ballots-says-she-was-later-told-to-lie/ Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. and 7 others indicted https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/us/mccrae-dowless-indictment.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
  
• NC Board of Elections investigated campaign operative Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. earlier in 2010 over allegations that he paid voters to fill out ballots. No criminal charges were made, as witnesses were unwilling to testify https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/424441-man-at-center-of-nc-election-fraud-allegations-was-previously-probed-for
  
• Elections board ordered new election for House seat due to 2018 absentee ballot fraud https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-north-carolina/north-carolina-orders-new-u-s-house-election-after-tainted-vote-idUSKCN1QA1QG
  
• Democratic governor accuses GOP of blocking both 2018 investigation and interim Board of Elections after the North Carolina Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement declined to validate the election results. The investigation was forced to dissolve and the Republican chair is declining to nominate for the interim board, resulting in no investigation hearings https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/north-carolina-gop-accused-of-derailing-investigation-into-election-fraud/
  
• DA says over 1,000 ballots may have been destroyed in 9th district 2018 race https://www.foxnews.com/politics/over-1000-ballots-may-have-been-destroyed-in-tighty-contested-north-carolina-congressional-race
  
• In 2019 Federal judge shuts down GOP attempt to preserve gerrymander, where state Republicans claimed legislators and the justices are too racist to be trusted to redraw the maps in a way that wouldn’t violate the Constitution https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/01/north-carolina-republicans-gerrymander-anita-earls.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/12/north-carolina-republican-gerrymandering-plan-insanity.html
  
• NC judges strike down map for 'extreme partisan gerrymandering', requiring the new map be drawn in full public view at public hearings with all computer screens visible to legislatures and observers https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/09/03/north-carolina-judges-toss-maps-partisan-gerrymandering/2204294001/
  
• Hofeller emails released in 2019 show that Voter ID models and research discriminated based mostly on race rather than partisanship as claimed. For example, one document included a district dividing HBCU A&T State University with the city map color-coded by race and age. Emails also include Hofeller pushing Republicans to campaign protecting the use of inmates in gerrymandering, as prisons cannot vote but would inflate population. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-secret-files-of-the-master-of-modern-republican-gerrymandering https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5d7291409cecbb00083874cf/mastew_774,c_limit/Daley--Gerrymandering02.jpg
  
• North Carolina Republicans recommend Art Pope, who funded REDMAP which was behind multiple court-declared gerrymandered districts, to come back as special master to "referee" the new NC map replacing the invalidated map he helped make https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6386074-LD-S-Suggested-Referees.html https://www.npr.org/2011/10/06/141078608/the-multimillionaire-helping-republicans-win-n-c
  

North Dakota

• State required residential street address (rather than mailing address) to register, which can prevent registration of those in rural areas or reservations. 70,000 state residents lack a qualifying residential address ID, and thus the 2017 law will prevent more voters than the 3,000-vote lead Heitkamp (D) held in 2012. https://inforum.com/news/government-and-politics/4514040-nd-tribal-leaders-hope-overcome-voter-id-barriers-after-supreme https://www.aclu.org/blog/voting-rights/supreme-court-enables-mass-disenfranchisement-north-dakotas-native-americans

Ohio

• Documents reveal Boehner encouraged precision gerrymandering in Ohio districts in 2011 https://thinkprogress.org/documents-show-boehner-helped-gerrymander-ohio-map-giving-gop-12-of-16-congressional-seats-b1e1199ac4e3/
  
• State cuts "Golden Week" early voting in 2016, cuts early in-person voting from 35 days to 29 days https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/23/politics/ohio-golden-week-early-voting/
  
• Voters assigned as inactive not included in absentee application mailings in 2016, reducing options for them becoming active again https://thinkprogress.org/ohio-is-making-it-harder-for-inactive-voters-to-become-active-again-94bc31dc5f4f/#.3qf08ru6y
  
• Removed registration of voters who didn't vote in 3 elections and failed to reply to notice. Given the fact that nobody reported any of this back when notices were claimed to be sent, did they even send notice? Upheld by Supreme Court 5-4 in 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/us/politics/supreme-court-upholds-ohios-purge-of-voting-rolls.html
  
• Federal judges ordered Ohio to allow voters to vote in 2018 who had been purged for not voting over a six-year period https://www.10tv.com/article/federal-judges-order-ohio-allow-purged-voters-back
  
• In 2019, Sixth District Court for Ohio ruled district map unconstitutional. Leaked emails revealed that the map (made in secret) was intentionally designed to increase partisanship. As a result of the gerrymandering, the GOP consistently claimed 75% of House seats despite a 51%-47% vote lead in 2012, a 58%-42% lead in 2016 and a 52%-47% lead in 2018. https://www.cleveland.com/open/2019/05/federal-judges-toss-out-ohios-congressional-map-as-illegal-gerrymander.html https://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/2017/11/emails_documents_disclose_ohio.html https://www.scribd.com/document/408565244/Sixth-District-Court-Ohio-Redistricting-Decision
  
• Ohio set to remove 235,000 people from voter rolls in 2019 for being inactive, although thousands were found as incorrectly listed in the month since and 11,872 voters demonstrated legitimacy by updating registration https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ohio-voter-purge_n_5d713ebce4b0a606aa4f3df2
  

Pennsylvania

• Poll-watchers blocked voter check-ins, demanding affidavits signed by friends or other arbitrary proof of identity in 2004. Trump encouraged more people to be poll-watchers in 2016 https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/2016-election-pennsylvania-polls-voters-trump-clinton-214297
  
• 2012 data shows ID law state has as many as 758,000 registered voters in without photo ID http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/07/05/_9_2_percent_of_pennsylvania_voters_lack_valid_id.html
  
• Map struck down in 2018 for gerrymandering https://www.vox.com/2018/1/22/16920636/pennsylvania-gerrymander-ruling-house https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/02/19/pennsylvania-supreme-court-draws-a-much-more-competitive-district-map-to-overturn-republican-gerrymande?noredirect=on
  

Texas

• Judge rules in 2017 that Texas Voter ID law discriminates https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/23/politics/texas-voter-id-ruling/index.html
  
• Texas election officials confirmed that voting machines used in 30% of its counties are switching people’s votes https://twitter.com/ajplus/status/1055912575093792768?s=19 https://apnews.com/a8825810d10441f2ad828e95d6851d55
  
• Secretary of State David Whitley apologizes for 2019 claim of 58,000 illegal votes that was shared by the AG, Governor, and President as at least 20,000 votes have already been identified as legitimate. Whitley blames it on bad wording and will still forward the names for investigation and possible prosecution, a claim which was itself denied by the AG. https://thinkprogress.org/texas-secretary-of-state-illegal-voters-david-whitley-donald-trump-d3c6d9c3b29f/ https://www.texastribune.org/2019/02/11/texas-ags-office-said-it-was-investigating-voters-citizenship-review-l/
  
• Judge halts effort to purge 100,000 voters in 2019, which so far only found 80 ineligible out of 100,000 accused registered voters. Even the Secretary of State David Whitley, who has since resigned, admitted to accidental additions. Gov. Greg Abbott, who pushed the voter purge before Whitley, gets to pick his replacement ahead of 2020. https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2019/ma02/federal-judge-halts-texas-voter-roll-pu/ https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a27750601/texas-governor-greg-abbott-voter-roll-purge/
  
• Texas responding to signature discrepancies by throwing out mail-in ballots, rather than allowing provisional ballot verification as other state laws allow https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-signature-mismatch-absentee-ballot_n_5d4b414ae4b01e44e4749888?3cl
  

Virginia

• Kobach-backed "Crosscheck" database leads to 39,000 voters removed from rolls in 2013 for similar information https://www.richmond.com/news/local/chesterfield/chesterfield-registrar-delays-purge-of-voter-rolls/article_162e36b5-0be7-5dc8-af9f-48876a167b43.html http://projects.aljazeera.com/2014/double-voters/ https://www.theroot.com/the-gop-keeps-quietly-purging-black-voters-and-democrat-1795474628 https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/publications/Purges_Growing_Threat_2018.pdf
  
• Officials were aware of voters being assigned to wrong district for at least two years before 2017 election, did not investigate or fix. In that year, Republican Bob Thomas defeated Democrat Joshua Cole in the 28th District race by 73 votes, less than half the number of wrongly-cast ballots https://wtop.com/virginia/2018/01/exclusive-va-knew-voting-wrong-house-districts-issues-2017-election/
  

Wisconsin

• Voter ID law deterred a potential 16,800 to 23,250 voters in 2016 https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2017/09/26/wisconsin-voter-id-law-deterred-nearly-17-000-voting-uw-study-says/702026001/
  
• Court orders state to investigate DMV failing to provide IDs within required time in 2016 https://www.thenation.com/article/a-federal-court-orders-wisconsin-to-stop-suppressing-the-vote/
  
• Merged DMVs in 2018 in areas with limited transit https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/madison-leaders-criticize-state-s-dmv-consolidation-over-potential-voting/article_c6bc7568-f494-560e-9cbf-ba8cc9d5a578.html
  
• Lame-duck bills made to move 2020 presidential primary from April to March to separate appointees from a risk of presidential "blue wave," leading to 3 elections in 3 months. They would also restrict in-person voting ahead of an election, despite a previous attempt being ruled unconstitutional https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/wisconsin/articles/2018-11-30/legislative-leaders-to-vote-on-extraordinary-session Outgoing governor Scott Walker signs the bills into law https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/wisconsin-gov-scott-walker-signs-bills-weakening-democratic-successor-n948096
  
• Judge blocks lame-duck 2018 laws by outgoing GOP leadership to, among other changes, restrict in-person voting to the two weeks before an election http://www.startribune.com/judge-blocks-wisconsin-lame-duck-laws/507466732/
  

National

• In the 2008 and 2012 elections, there was an anomalous vote gain relative to precinct size that increased Romney's count and McCain's when Romney quit, but did not affect Democrats or other elections https://web.archive.org/web/20130126180125/http://www.themoneyparty.org/main/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/2008_2012_ElectionsResultsAnomaliesAndAnalysis_V1.51.pdf
  
• Supreme Court 2013 ruling freed nine states, mostly in the South, to change their election laws without advance federal approval https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/us/supreme-court-ruling.html
  
• In 2016, at least 868 polling places closed in southern states, increasing lines https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/4/13501120/vote-polling-places-election-2016
  
• In 2018 Supreme Court ruled 5-4 ok'ing an already proven gerrymandered map. Argument was that if a judge reactivates interim map without intent to gerrymander, it isn't a gerrymandered map https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/the-abbott-v-perez-case-echoes-shelby-county-v-holder-as-a-further-death-blow-for-the-voting-rights-act.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-upholds-texas-redistricting-that-a-lower-court-said-discriminated-against-black-and-hispanic-voters/2018/06/25/bd09592a-7885-11e8-93cc-6d3beccdd7a3_story.html?noredirect=on
  
• GOP strategist Thomas Hofeller, who ghostwrote the Neuman DoJ letter to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, cited his own unpublished study showing that the question would be "advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites" and had been talking to Census Bureau since 2010. The DoJ claims Hofeller's study "played no role" but they copied from his study verbatim. https://www.npr.org/2019/05/30/728232221/gop-redistricting-strategist-played-role-in-push-for-census-citizenship-question https://www.npr.org/2019/06/15/732669380/emails-connect-census-official-with-gop-strategist-on-citizenship-question https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6077735-May-30-2019-Exhibit.html#document/p120/a504025 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6077715-May-30-2019-Letter-to-Judge-Jesse-Furman.html
  
• In 2019, 3 Federal judges - New York, California, and Maryland districts - find Trump's citizenship census question unlawful. They claim it violated the Administrative Procedure Act, that Wilbur Ross concealed his basis for the question, that there's no genuine need for the question, and it prevents the US gov from carrying out its mandate. https://www.npr.org/2019/04/05/700982993/trump-administrations-census-citizenship-question-plans-halted-by-third-judge Supreme Court agrees, saying the Trump explanation for it is inadequate but allowing for a citizenship question in the future. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/citizenship-question-supreme-court-2020-census-trump-today-latest-scotus-news-a8977936.html
  
• In 2019, Supreme Court temporarily blocks lower rulings requiring new voting maps for Ohio and Michigan, despite leaked emails in both states showing intentional gerrymandering. In Ohio the GOP consistently claimed 75% of seats despite a 51%-47% vote lead in 2012, a 58%-42% lead in 2016 and a 52%-47% lead in 2018. In Michigan the GOP consistently claimed 64% of seats despite a 46%-51% loss in 2012, a 47%-49% loss in 2014, and a 48%-47% lead in 2016. https://www-nbcnews-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1010146 https://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/2017/11/emails_documents_disclose_ohio.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/us/michigan-gerrymandering.html?module=inline
  
• In 2019, Supreme Court rules 5-4 that vetting gerrymandering is beyond its constitutional reach, moving districting out of federal control and overturning lower rulings in Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/06/27/fiasco-democracy-right-wing-supreme-court-gives-green-light-partisan-gerrymandering https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/27/18761166/supreme-court-gerrymandering-republicans-democracy
  
• In 2019, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked an election security bill to authorize hundreds of millions of dollars to update voting equipment. McConnell himself has put no bills on the floor for machine improvement. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mcconnell-defends-blocking-election-security-bill-rejects-criticism-he-is-aiding-russia/2019/07/29/08dca6d4-b239-11e9-951e-de024209545d_story.html
  
• South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona and Kansas GOP officials seeking to cancel 2020 primaries and caucuses, skipping over challengers to Trump to require Trump as 2020 candidate https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/06/republicans-cancel-primaries-trump-challengers-1483126?cid=apn
  
• Other general reports - https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/publications/Purges_Growing_Threat_2018.pdf, https://www.usccr.gov/pubs/2018/Minority_Voting_Access_2018.pdf, https://www.wired.com/story/voter-id-law-algorithm/, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2016/11/22/gop-seats-bonus-in-congress/, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/20/this-anti-voter-fraud-program-gets-it-wrong-over-99-of-the-time-the-gop-wants-to-take-it-nationwide/?noredirect=on, http://bl.ocks.org/cingraham/7551527
  

"I don't want everybody to vote... As a matter of fact our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."
-Paul Weyrich, co-founder of Heritage Foundation and ALEC, 1980
“Look, if African Americans voted overwhelmingly Republican, they would have kept early voting right where it was,” Wrenn said. “It wasn’t about discriminating against African Americans. They just ended up in the middle of it because they vote Democrat.”
-Carter Wrenn, Republican consultant in North Carolina
“There's a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who that maybe we don't want to vote. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. And I think that's a great idea.”
-Cindy Hyde-Smith, Republican Senator of Mississippi, 2003
Seeking more examples, if you have them.
Get out and vote. https://www.vote.org/

​
https://preview.redd.it/fchmljnubkn41.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e6c7348c401d4986b2b707e23fbeff1f1bccdcea
The crypto exchange FTX offers the ability to gamble on the winner of the 2020 US presidential election.
The winning odds of all candidates adds up to only 0.973. That means the market values a 2.7% chance that no candidate from a major party wins the election.
The last person who was unaffiliated with a major party yet won the election was George Washington, in 1793.

​
https://preview.redd.it/9vcpwd5wbkn41.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ac0fc91513e2fe2bf31be2187d6583a6f881d74a
The crypto exchange FTX offers the ability to gamble on the winner of the 2020 US presidential election.
The winning odds of all candidates adds up to only 0.973. That means the market values a 2.7% chance that no candidate from a major party wins the election.
The last person who was unaffiliated with a major party yet won the election was George Washington, in 1793.

Good morning and happy Saturday to all of you here on wallstreetbets. I hope everyone on this subreddit made out pretty nicely in the market this past week, and is ready for the new trading week ahead.
Here is everything you need to know to get you ready for the trading week beginning July 22nd, 2019.

Week ahead: Earnings, GDP expected to show sluggish growth as investors await rate cut - (Source)

Sluggish economic and earnings growth will be a theme in markets in the week ahead, as investors await a Fed interest rate cut at the end of the month.
More than a quarter of the S&P 500 companies report earnings in the coming week, the second big week of the second quarter reporting season. FAANG names, like Alphabet and Amazon, and blue chips from McDonald’s to Boeingand United Technologies are among the more than 130 companies reporting.
There is also some key economic data, including Friday’s second quarter GDP, which should show a slowing to 1.8% from the first quarter’s 3.1% pace, according to Refinitiv. On Thursday, durable goods are reported and will include an update on businesses investment. There are also existing home sales Tuesday, new home sales Wednesday and advance economic indicators Thursday.
But there will be no Fed speakers, after a parade of central bank officials in the past week, including Fed Chair Jerome Powell. The most impactful comments, however, came Thursday from New York Fed President John Williams, who set off a debate about how much the Fed could cut rates at its July 30-31 meeting — 25 or 50 basis points.
Even as the New York Fed later said Williams comments were not about current policy, market pros took heed of his words about how central bankers should “act quickly.”
Fed dominates Fed officials do not speak publicly in the days ahead of policy meetings, but market pros will find plenty to debate. Fed funds futures were predicting a 43% chance of a 50 basis point cut in July, after shooting as high as 70% Thursday afternoon.
“For sure, the Fed is going to dominate for next week. I think we’ll get at least a 25 basis point cut. I’m thinking we’re not going to get 50 basis point cut...The Fed has been burned when it’s been bold,” said Tony Roth, chief investment officer at Wilmington Trust.
Roth said he believes the market is already pricing in a quarter-point cut, and he does not see the Fed’s rate cut as much of a longer-term catalyst for stocks. If it trims by a half percentage point, he expects just a short-term pop.
Economists believe the Fed will cut interest rates even though recent data has improved. That’s in part because Powell has stressed the Fed is focused on the global economic slowdown, trade wars and low inflation, and that it will do what it takes to keep the economy expanding.
“The only real catalyst that would really help the market would be if there was a trade deal with China,” Roth said. “I think the likelihood of that is less than > 10%. We’re very pessimistic on the possibility of a real deal with China prior to the [2020 presidential] election.”
So, in the void ahead of the Fed’s meeting, the market will be watching earnings. As earnings rolled out this past week, stocks took a rest from their record-setting streak, as some companies lowered forecasts and most beat earnings and revenue estimates.
As of Friday morning, 77% of the roughly 80 companies reporting had beaten earnings estimates, and 65% topped revenue forecasts, according to Refinitiv. Based on actual reports and forecasts, earnings per share for the S&P companies are expected to be up 1% in the second quarter. That is up from expectations that the profit growth would be slightly negative this quarter.
“If you look at the numbers, we’re above the averages for top and bottom line beats, but at the same time when you look at revisions, every day we’re getting revisions for third and fourth quarter, and they’re coming down.There’s a real worry of an earnings recession, when you get out into the third and fourth quarter and out to next year,” Roth said.
Roth said he’s currently neutral on risk assets, and he sees a slowdown brewing in the smallest U.S. companies that could spread up the food chain.
“We do see those fundamental cracks in the economy in small business and the small business labor market, and on top of that you have these big macro risks out there,” such as trade and the upcoming election, Roth said.
Slower economy As earnings growth was muted in the second quarter, so was the pace of economic gains. If growth comes in as expected, it would be the first quarter where growth was under 2% since the first quarter of 2017. Economists are watching to see how consumer spending fared in the quarter, after a recent pickup and also whether business inventories are declining.
“The data we need is not Q2. What’s at risk is the growth and magnitude of the Fed rate cut. I don’t think Q2 is going to have much impact on the Fed’s thinking,” said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex. “It’s really how Q3 is progressing. It seems to me the economy softened in April and May and picked up in June with jobs data, retail sales and manufacturing sector.”
Chandler said investors will also be focused on the European Central Bank, which some economists believe could cut its overnight deposit rate to negative 0.5% from negative 0.4% currently when it meets Thursday. Chandler said odds are about 50% for the rate cut, which many also expect in September.
“While we’re waiting for the Fed to figure out whether it’s 25 or 50 basis points, and we’re waiting for the ECB to get all its forms sorted out ... the emerging markets are pushing ahead,” said Chandler, noting Russia and Turkey could cut rates in the next several days, after similar moves in the past week by South Africa, South Korea and Indonesia.
“It just makes the story more global. You’re seeing the trade numbers from China, Japan, Singapore and South Korea weaken. You’re seeing exports form China suffer. Exports from all of Asia are suffering,” he said. “The big surprise for China and Japan has also been on the import side. The declines in their imports is really someone else’s [drop in] exports.”
Rate cuts and currency wars Dollar strength has been a consequence of the trade war, and Fed action could help turn it around.
“If the Fed fails to move, you’re going to end up with an increasingly stronger dollar,” which impacts corporate earnings, Roth said.
“The dollar is quite strong and is increasingly going to be a headwind for U.S. companies. It hasn’t appreciated that much in 12 months, but if we see a divergence in monetary policy between the U.S. and the rest of the world, you would see a carry trade develop where people would want to buy assets in the U.S.,” he said.
The dollar index was slightly higher on the week, but Wall Street has been focused on President Donald Trump’s negative comments on the currency’s strength. As Trump has criticized the Fed, he also complains that other central banks manipulate their currencies to give them an edge in trade. Trump has said the Fed should already be cutting rates, something it hasn’t done since December 2008.
A number of Wall Street strategists have said they now believe it is possible that the U.S. government could intervene to weaken the dollar, but that would be unlikely.

This past week saw the following moves in the S&P:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL S&P TREE MAP FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

Major Indices for this past week:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MAJOR INDICES FOR THE PAST WEEK!)

Major Futures Markets as of Friday's close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MAJOR FUTURES INDICES AS OF FRIDAY!)

Economic Calendar for the Week Ahead:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ECONOMIC CALENDAR FOR THE WEEK AHEAD!)

Sector Performance WTD, MTD, YTD:

(CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S PERFORMANCE!)

(CLICK HERE FOR THE WEEK-TO-DATE PERFORMANCE!)

(CLICK HERE FOR THE MONTH-TO-DATE PERFORMANCE!)

(CLICK HERE FOR THE 3-MONTH PERFORMANCE!)

(CLICK HERE FOR THE YEAR-TO-DATE PERFORMANCE!)

(CLICK HERE FOR THE 52-WEEK PERFORMANCE!)

Percentage Changes for the Major Indices, WTD, MTD, QTD, YTD as of Friday's close:

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S&P Sectors for the Past Week:

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Major Indices Pullback/Correction Levels as of Friday's close:

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Major Indices Rally Levels as of Friday's close:

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Most Anticipated Earnings Releases for next month:

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Here are the upcoming IPO's for this week:

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Friday's Stock Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades:

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #2!)

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART LINK #3!)

Lagging Small-caps: Seasonal and Economic Factors Weigh

Small-caps measured by the performance of the Russell 2000 have been lagging since mid-March with the gap in performance widening in June and continuing into July. At yesterday’s close the Russell 2000 was up 15.35% year-to-date compared to a gain of 19.87% for the Russell 1000. Based upon historical trends this is not unusual for this time of the year nor during times when U.S. economic data is mixed.
In the following chart the one-year seasonal pattern of the Russell 2000/Russell 1000 has been plotted (solid black line with grey fill) along with 2019 year-to-date (blue line). This chart is similar to the chart found on page 110 of the 2019 Stock Trader’s Almanac. When the lines are rising small-caps are outperforming, when the lines are falling small-caps are lagging. Small-caps exhibited typical seasonal strength during the first quarter but have been fading ever since. In some years, small-cap strength can last until mid-June however, that is not the case this year. Going forward, small-cap underperformance is likely to persist until early in the fourth quarter with possible a hint of strength at the end of August.

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Robust Summer Rallies Trim Fall Pullbacks

It’s usually about this time of the year, when trading volumes begin to slump and markets meander that we begin to hear talk of the infamous “Summer Rally” featured on page 74 of the Stock Trader’s Almanac 2019. The “Summer Rally” is usually the weakest seasonal rally of them all.
We looked at the current Summer Rally and found it to be above average already, up 10.2% from the Spring low on May 31, and that does portend well for the Summer and Fall Corrections. We lined up the Summer Rallies ranked from weakest to strongest since 1964. Over the past 55 years prior to this year DJIA has rallied and average of 9.1% from its May/June low until its Q3 high. The Fall Rally averages 10.9% and the Summer and Fall Corrections average a loss of just under 9% for a net average gain of a few percentage points over the summer and fall.
As shown in the table below, when the Summer Rally is greater than or equal to the 55-year 9.1% average, the summer and fall correction tend to be bit milder, -6.2% and -8.2%, respectively. Summer Rally gains beyond 12.5% historically had the smallest summer and fall corrections. One prominent exception being 1987.

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Earnings (and Guidance) Likely to Make or Break the Rally

Once again today, DJIA, S&P 500 and NASDAQ closed at new all-time highs. With today’s modest gains, DJIA is up 17.3% year-to-date. S&P 500 is even better at 20.2% while NASDAQ is still best at 24.5%. Compared to historical average performance in pre-election years at this time of the year, DJIA and S&P 500 are comfortably above average. NASDAQ’s impressive 24.5% gain is just average (since 1971). NASDAQ’s Midyear Rally delivered again, but officially ended last Friday. The seasonal pattern charts, above and below, along with July’s typical performance over the last 21 years suggest further gains during the balance of July and the third quarter could be limited. For the market to make meaningful gains in the near-term earnings will need to decent and forward guidance will also need to be firm.

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"We Don't Need Your Stinking Data"

Yesterday was another one of those days that makes you scratch your head. In a relatively busy day for economic data, Initial Jobless Claims came in within 25K of a 50-year low, and the Philly Fed Manufacturing report saw its largest m/m increase in a decade. That follows other data last week where Retail Sales were very strong and CPI and PPI both came in ahead of consensus forecasts. The trend of better than expected data since the June employment report on July 5th is reflected in recent moves of the Citi Economic Surprise Index which has rallied from -68.3 up to -41.5. Granted, it’s still negative, but what was looking like a real dismal backdrop for the economy just three weeks ago seems to be showing signs of improvement.

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On top of the economic data, two notable interviews from FOMC officials Williams from New York and Vice Chair Clarida moved markets. Given the strong tone of economic data, one would expect both officials to try and tone down rising market expectations regarding any aggressive policy moves at the July meeting. Well, markets don’t always make sense.
In their respective interviews, both Williams and Clarida not only didn’t tone down expectations, but they added fuel to the fire. Williams noted that “it pays to act quickly to lower rates" and "vaccinate” the economy "against further ills." Clarida was even more direct when he said that “Research shows you act preemptively when you can.” In other words, the data-dependent Fed is casting the data aside and ready to move anyway. In his interview on Fox Business, Clarida almost got a chuckle when asked whether there was any chance the Fed wouldn’t cut rates in July.
The dovish turn from the Fed was immediately reflected in market expectations for rate policy at the July meeting. Back in June, market expectations for a 50 basis points (bps) cut at the next meeting peaked out at under 50%. Then, in the days following the June employment report, expectations dropped all the way down to 3%. In the last ten days, though, the trend has completely reversed, and as of yesterday’s close topped out at 71% versus just a 29% chance for a 25 bps cut. Probabilities for a 50 bps cut came in a bit overnight but are still at about 50/50. Yesterday alone, though, expectations for a 25 bps cut and a 50 bps cut more than completely reversed from the prior day, and remember, that’s after what was a good day of economic data! Can you imagine what expectations would be like if the data was actually bad?

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US Beats World When It Comes to Stocks

The Bloomberg World index is a cap-weighted index made up of nearly 5,000 stocks from around the world (including US stocks). While the S&P 500 has been hitting new all-time highs over the last week, the Bloomberg World index remains 7% below highs that it last made back in January 2018.

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Below is a chart showing the ratio of the S&P 500 to the Bloomberg World index since the World index's inception back in August 2003. While the World index outperformed the US for five years in the mid-2000s, the US has been outperforming since the end of 2007, which includes both the Financial Crisis and the bull market that has been in place since the 2009 lows.

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Along with the relative strength chart between the two indices above, below we show the price change of the S&P 500 versus the Bloomberg World index since August 2003. Through today, the S&P was up 203% versus a gain of 142% for the Bloomberg World index.

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Since the November 2016 election, the S&P 500 is up 40% versus a gain of 26% for the Bloomberg World index. Notably, the World index kept up with the S&P through early 2018, but weakness for the World index in mid-2018 and a failure to bounce back as much as the US this year has left the World index well behind.

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Best Performing Stocks Over the Last 12 Months

The S&P 500 is up over 20% YTD, but over the last 12 months, it is up just under 10% on a total return basis. And within the S&P 1500, there are only 44 stocks that are up more than 50% on a total return basis over the last 12 months. These 44 stocks are listed below.
Innovative Industrials (IIPR) -- a cannabis REIT -- has been the best performing stock in the S&P 1500 over the last year with a total return of 302%. In second place is eHealth (EHTH) with a gain of 269%, followed by Avon Products (AVP) at +174.8% and Coca-Cola Bottling (COKE) at +128.58%. Coca-Cola Bottling is probably one of the last names you would have guessed as a top five performer over the last year! Other notables on the list of biggest winners include Advanced Micro (AMD), LendingTree (TREE), Starbucks (SBUX), AutoZone (AZO), Chipotle (CMG), Hershey (HSY), and Procter & Gamble (PG).
Some names that aren't on the list that you may have expected to see? AMZN, NFLX, MSFT? Nope. None of the mega-cap Tech companies are on the list of biggest winners due to serious weakness from this group in Q4 2018.

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2% Days Few and Far Between

Although the last two trading days have seen exceptionally narrow daily ranges, today we wanted to take a quick look at the S&P 500's frequency of 2% daily moves (either up or down) in the post-WWII period. The chart below breaks out the frequency of 2% days by year, and years with more than 25 one-day moves of 2% are notated accordingly.
Overall, there have been an average of 11 daily 2% moves in a given year. After five straight years from 2007 to 2011 where we saw an above-average number of 2% days, the last seven years have only seen one year with an above-average number of occurrences (2018, 21). Remember, in 2017 there wasn't one single trading day that saw the S&P move up or down 2%!
So far this year, there have only been four 2% days, but with the most volatile part of the year on tap, we are likely to see that number increase in the months ahead. Don't expect the relative calm that we have seen in the last few trading days to last forever. Volatility is unpredictable and usually comes up and surprises you when you least expect it!

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STOCK MARKET VIDEO: Stock Market Analysis Video for Week Ending July 19th, 2019

([CLICK HERE FOR THE YOUTUBE VIDEO!]())

(VIDEO NOT YET UP!)

STOCK MARKET VIDEO: ShadowTrader Video Weekly 07.21.19

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Here are the most notable companies (tickers) reporting earnings in this upcoming trading week ahead-

• $FB
• $AMZN
• $TSLA
• $BA
• $T
• $SNAP
• $PIXY
• $HAL
• $TWTR
• $KO
• $F
• $V
• $LMT
• $GOOGL
• $INTC
• $CAT
• $PYPL
• $BIIB
• $UTX
• $IRBT
• $XLNX
• $UPS
• $ABBV
• $CNC
• $NOK
• $CMG
• $MMM
• $RPM
• $SBUX
• $JBLU
• $BMY
• $GNC
• $MCD
• $CDNS
• $CADE
• $NOW
• $AMTD
• $HAS
• $HOG
• $ANTM
• $WM
• $CMCSA
• $FCX

(CLICK HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S MOST NOTABLE EARNINGS RELEASES!)

(CLICK HERE FOR NEXT WEEK'S HIGHEST VOLATILITY EARNINGS RELEASES!)

(CLICK HERE FOR MOST ANTICIPATED EARNINGS RELEASES FOR THE NEXT 5 WEEKS!)

Below are some of the notable companies coming out with earnings releases this upcoming trading week ahead which includes the date/time of release & consensus estimates courtesy of Earnings Whispers:

Monday 7.22.19 Before Market Open:

(CLICK HERE FOR MONDAY'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!)

Monday 7.22.19 After Market Close:

(CLICK HERE FOR MONDAY'S AFTER-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!)

Tuesday 7.23.19 Before Market Open:

(CLICK HERE FOR TUESDAY'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!)

Tuesday 7.23.19 After Market Close:

(CLICK HERE FOR TUESDAY'S AFTER-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!)

Wednesday 7.24.19 Before Market Open:

(CLICK HERE FOR WEDNESDAY'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR WEDNESDAY'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES LINK #2!)

Wednesday 7.24.19 After Market Close:

(CLICK HERE FOR WEDNESDAY'S AFTER-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR WEDNESDAY'S AFTER-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES LINK #2!)

Thursday 7.25.19 Before Market Open:

(CLICK HERE FOR THURSDAY'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR THURSDAY'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES LINK #2!)

Thursday 7.25.19 After Market Close:

(CLICK HERE FOR THURSDAY'S AFTER-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES LINK #1!)

(CLICK HERE FOR THURSDAY'S AFTER-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES LINK #2!)

Friday 7.26.19 Before Market Open:

(CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S PRE-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!)

Friday 7.26.19 After Market Close:

([CLICK HERE FOR FRIDAY'S AFTER-MARKET EARNINGS TIME & ESTIMATES!]())

NONE.

Amazon.com, Inc. $1,964.52

Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 4:00 PM ET on Thursday, July 25, 2019. The consensus earnings estimate is $5.29 per share on revenue of $62.51 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $5.70 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 78% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for year-over-year earnings growth of 4.34% with revenue increasing by 18.20%. Short interest has increased by 14.0% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 1.8% from its open following the earnings release to be 13.0% above its 200 day moving average of $1,737.93. Overall earnings estimates have been revised lower since the company's last earnings release. On Thursday, July 11, 2019 there was some notable buying of 3,494 contracts of the $2,000.00 call expiring on Friday, August 16, 2019. Option traders are pricing in a 4.4% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 4.0% move in recent quarters.

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Facebook Inc. $198.36

Facebook Inc. (FB) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 4:05 PM ET on Wednesday, July 24, 2019. The consensus earnings estimate is $1.90 per share on revenue of $16.45 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $2.01 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 82% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for year-over-year earnings growth of 9.20% with revenue increasing by 24.33%. Short interest has increased by 21.7% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 0.7% from its open following the earnings release to be 20.8% above its 200 day moving average of $164.17. Overall earnings estimates have been revised higher since the company's last earnings release. On Wednesday, July 17, 2019 there was some notable buying of 16,697 contracts of the $290.00 call expiring on Friday, September 20, 2019. Option traders are pricing in a 6.5% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 8.6% move in recent quarters.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Tesla, Inc. $258.18

Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 5:15 PM ET on Wednesday, July 24, 2019. The consensus estimate is for a loss of $0.52 per share on revenue of $6.38 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is ($0.44) per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 33% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for year-over-year earnings growth of 84.80% with revenue increasing by 59.41%. Short interest has increased by 26.5% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 1.2% from its open following the earnings release to be 8.1% below its 200 day moving average of $280.96. Overall earnings estimates have been revised higher since the company's last earnings release. On Tuesday, July 16, 2019 there was some notable buying of 30,445 contracts of the $50.00 put expiring on Friday, August 16, 2019. Option traders are pricing in a 7.8% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 7.4% move in recent quarters.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Boeing Co. $377.36

Boeing Co. (BA) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 7:30 AM ET on Wednesday, July 24, 2019. The consensus earnings estimate is $1.89 per share on revenue of $20.27 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $1.91 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 17% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 43.24% with revenue decreasing by 16.44%. Short interest has increased by 11.2% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted lower by 0.1% from its open following the earnings release to be 4.0% above its 200 day moving average of $362.82. Overall earnings estimates have been revised lower since the company's last earnings release. On Monday, July 8, 2019 there was some notable buying of 6,176 contracts of the $325.00 put expiring on Friday, August 16, 2019. Option traders are pricing in a 3.8% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 3.0% move in recent quarters.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

AT&T Corp. $32.79

AT&T Corp. (T) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 6:50 AM ET on Wednesday, July 24, 2019. The consensus earnings estimate is $0.89 per share on revenue of $45.02 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $0.90 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 66% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 2.20% with revenue increasing by 15.48%. Short interest has increased by 16.4% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 5.5% from its open following the earnings release to be 4.5% above its 200 day moving average of $31.37. Overall earnings estimates have been revised lower since the company's last earnings release. On Monday, July 8, 2019 there was some notable buying of 144,398 contracts of the $28.00 call expiring on Friday, January 17, 2020. Option traders are pricing in a 4.1% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 4.5% move in recent quarters.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Snap Inc. $14.02

Snap Inc. (SNAP) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 4:10 PM ET on Tuesday, July 23, 2019. The consensus estimate is for a loss of $0.10 per share on revenue of $358.48 million and the Earnings Whisper ® number is ($0.08) per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 61% expecting an earnings beat The company's guidance was for revenue of $335.00 million to $360.00 million. Consensus estimates are for year-over-year earnings growth of 9.09% with revenue increasing by 36.69%. Short interest has decreased by 3.8% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 13.5% from its open following the earnings release to be 36.9% above its 200 day moving average of $10.24. Overall earnings estimates have been revised lower since the company's last earnings release. On Friday, July 5, 2019 there was some notable buying of 7,449 contracts of the $19.00 call expiring on Friday, July 26, 2019. Option traders are pricing in a 13.7% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 19.1% move in recent quarters.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

ShiftPixy, Inc. $0.63

ShiftPixy, Inc. (PIXY) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 8:00 AM ET on Monday, July 22, 2019. The consensus estimate is for a loss of $0.08 per share on revenue of $14.39 million. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 44% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 33.33% with revenue increasing by 53.48%. Short interest has decreased by 8.2% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted lower by 50.9% from its open following the earnings release to be 63.8% below its 200 day moving average of $1.74. Overall earnings estimates have been revised higher since the company's last earnings release. The stock has averaged a 16.9% move on earnings in recent quarters.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Halliburton Company $21.75

Halliburton Company (HAL) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 6:45 AM ET on Monday, July 22, 2019. The consensus earnings estimate is $0.30 per share on revenue of $5.97 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $0.29 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 60% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 48.28% with revenue decreasing by 2.88%. Short interest has increased by 39.2% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted lower by 31.6% from its open following the earnings release to be 25.7% below its 200 day moving average of $29.27. Overall earnings estimates have been revised lower since the company's last earnings release. On Tuesday, July 16, 2019 there was some notable buying of 9,264 contracts of the $20.00 put expiring on Friday, August 16, 2019. Option traders are pricing in a 5.3% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 3.5% move in recent quarters.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Twitter, Inc. $36.77

Twitter, Inc. (TWTR) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 7:00 AM ET on Friday, July 26, 2019. The consensus earnings estimate is $0.19 per share on revenue of $828.49 million and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $0.24 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 75% expecting an earnings beat The company's guidance was for revenue of $770.00 million to $830.00 million. Consensus estimates are for earnings to decline year-over-year by 0.00% with revenue increasing by 16.60%. Short interest has increased by 9.0% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted lower by 0.4% from its open following the earnings release to be 10.1% above its 200 day moving average of $33.39. Overall earnings estimates have been revised higher since the company's last earnings release. On Monday, July 15, 2019 there was some notable buying of 7,151 contracts of the $60.00 call expiring on Friday, January 15, 2021. Option traders are pricing in a 10.4% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 12.7% move in recent quarters.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

Visa Inc $179.24

Visa Inc (V) is confirmed to report earnings at approximately 4:05 PM ET on Tuesday, July 23, 2019. The consensus earnings estimate is $1.33 per share on revenue of $5.70 billion and the Earnings Whisper ® number is $1.37 per share. Investor sentiment going into the company's earnings release has 79% expecting an earnings beat. Consensus estimates are for year-over-year earnings growth of 10.83% with revenue increasing by 8.78%. Short interest has decreased by 6.9% since the company's last earnings release while the stock has drifted higher by 11.7% from its open following the earnings release to be 19.5% above its 200 day moving average of $150.03. Overall earnings estimates have been revised higher since the company's last earnings release. On Tuesday, July 16, 2019 there was some notable buying of 4,839 contracts of the $165.00 put expiring on Friday, August 16, 2019. Option traders are pricing in a 3.1% move on earnings and the stock has averaged a 2.6% move in recent quarters.

(CLICK HERE FOR THE CHART!)

DISCUSS!

What are you all watching for in this upcoming trading week ahead?
I hope you all have a fantastic weekend and a great trading week ahead wallstreetbets!

RALPH NADER ON BLOOMBERG’S PLOT TO STOP BERNIE, THE ROT WITHIN THE DNC, AND HIS RECENT CALL WITH PELOSI
Jeremy Scahill 2/16/20
LAST FALL, the third most powerful figure in the U.S. government, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, had a phone call with a man who is undoubtedly one of the most hated people among her base of Democratic Party supporters: the famed consumer advocate and former independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader.
Their phone call took place as the Democrats were preparing to launch a narrowly focused impeachment case against Donald Trump. On the call, Nader laid out a strategy for attacking Trump that he believed could have resulted in his actual removal from office. Nader, who has spent his life working to implement a wide range of consumer and environmental protections, argued that it would be a mistake to focus solely on the Ukraine phone call. Instead, Nader suggested that Pelosi orchestrate a public prosecution of Trump’s crimes against ordinary Americans — what he called “kitchen table issues.” Nader beseeched Pelosi to go after Trump on issues far more pressing than Ukraine to millions of Americans, regardless of their political affiliation. He suggested subpoenaing witnesses who could testify to Trump’s “destruction of life-saving consumer protections, environmental protections, workplace safety protections, in his destruction of social safety net protections for children.” Pelosi, Nader says, did not take any of his advice.
Trump’s popularity has risen in the aftermath of his “acquittal,” as he continues his victory tour and purges dissidents from his administration. As the Democratic presidential primary process intensifies, the institutional Democratic Party appears once again to be doing everything in its power to hurt the effort to unseat Trump. The attempt to purchase the Democratic nomination by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is being aided by a Democratic National Committee that ran a dirty operation against Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2016. Nader also believes that the Bloomberg candidacy has at its core an effort to block Sanders from winning the nomination, perhaps by forcing a brokered convention. “It’s Armageddon time for the Democratic Party,” Nader said. “If Bernie wins the election against Trump, should he get the nomination, it has to be a massive surge of voter turnout which will sweep out a lot of the Republicans in the Congress. So he will have a much more receptive Congress. It will sweep out the corporate Democrats in the Democratic National Committee, and it will reorient the Democratic Party to where it should be which is a party of, by, and for the people. That’s why they want to fight him.”
Nader joined Intercepted to discuss the failed impeachment move against Trump and the state of the Democratic primary. Nader ran for president in 2000, 2004, and 2008, and throughout his career has been one of the most important voices for justice, as well as environment and consumer protections, in U.S. history. His latest book, written with the consumer advocate Mark Green, is called “Fake President: Decoding Trump’s Gaslighting, Corruption, and General Bullsh*t.” What follows is the extended transcript of the excerpt of the conversation broadcast on Intercepted.
Jeremy Scahill: Ralph Nader, welcome back to Intercepted.
Ralph Nader: Thank you, Jeremy.
JS: So I want to begin with the big picture of this impeachment fiasco that we’ve just gone through, and while we have Trump on his victory tour talking about his acquittal, we also have this other phenomenon which is that the corporate elite Democratic Party is trying to crush Bernie Sanders’s candidacy. Let’s begin with the impeachment and your assessment of the strategy that Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats employed in going after Trump.
RN: Well, I and others beseeched her months ago to go with a strong full hand of impeachable offenses and send it to McConnell and have them reflect kitchen table issues because she always used to say we need kitchen table issues to increase the polls from 50 or 52 percent for impeachment and removal up higher. Well, that didn’t happen. We did see that major committee chairs wanted to put a bribery provision in. She turned that down. They wanted to expand the obstruction in defiance of subpoenas, a critical impeachable offense beyond the Ukraine matter. She turned that down. We had congressman John Larson put in the congressional record on December 18, 12 impeachable offenses of which Ukraine was one.
And the Democrats were basically subjected to one person’s decision, Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker. Well, she gambled and lost badly. Not only, obviously, he was acquitted, but polls went up for Trump, which was astounding. Nobody’s really explained that yet. So now the question is, will the committee chairs whose expanded recommendation to her was rejected, will they now come back to her and say round two? Now round two is quite explicit and quite effective. She has stated repeatedly that she thinks Trump “is a liar, a crook, a thief, and he should be in prison.” It’s a pretty good start. She also stated she wants the five committee chairs to continue their investigations into the corruption and wrongdoing and refusal to enforce the laws on behalf of the health safety and economic well being of the people. That’s the Banking Committee, the Oversight Committee, Judiciary Committee, etc. And if they do that, they are going to run up against a Trump stonewall for further information witnesses, which means they’re going to be obligated to issue subpoenas, which will be defied. That is a per se impeachable offense.
The House, went against Nixon, the third article of impeachment was he defied one subpoena. So when Trump defies these subpoenas for witnesses and documents, Speaker Pelosi will have to face up to the Constitution. The Constitution does not require her to go to court. That’s a tutorial that a lot of Democrats need to be taught. Congress’s power is plenary. They can enforce their own subpoenas, even by use of an antiquated tradition of a sheriff and a prison. They can enforce their own subpoenas. So they can go to the floor, no witnesses are needed, clean cut. Trump, you defied the subpoenas. You defied the essential power of Congress without which all other authorities are debilitated.
If they cannot get information under the Constitution from the executive branch, how debilitated will be the war power, the appropriations power, the tax power, the confirmation power? You defied it. You’re going to be impeached. These subpoenas would be associated with all kinds of kitchen table issues where people have a stake in these impeachments, didn’t have a stake much in Ukraine important as that is. It’s too remote. But they do have a stake in, for example, his destruction of life-saving consumer protections, environmental protections, workplace safety protections, in his destruction of social safety net protections for children.
JS: But are those impeachable offenses?
RN: Yes, they are when they’re associated with corruption, and treading. In other words, this isn’t just normal deregulation, what they’re doing now to the EPA is stripping it of its capacity to enforce the law. They’re pushing out scientists. They’re downgrading other professionals. They’re cutting budgets without congressional authority, and they’re run by people who have conflicts of interest and are corrupt, some of them have already left like Scott Pruitt. It’s the failure to execute the laws. That’s one of the impeachable offenses in the Constitution. Now, if Nancy Pelosi doesn’t do that, Trump will go all over the country, all over his tweets, all over the obsequious media with his disparaging nicknames and taunting and gloating. I told her in a conversation I had with her three months ago. I said, “Nancy, you know what he’s gonna do? He’s gonna say, ‘Nancy Pelosi had the majority in the House and she had all these crazy charges and she didn’t want to get them through. You know why she couldn’t get them through? Because they’re all lies. They’re all fake. I did nothing wrong.'”
JS: What did she say to you when you said that?
RN: When you have the president of the United States doing this with essentially no rebuttal. The reason why Trump stays where he is in the polls is he’s a soliloquist. He’s a slanderist soliloquist with no rebuttal. Look at the nicknames he gives all these people and they never give many nicknames back. The only way you deal with a bully who gives you nicknames like Crazy Bernie and Low IQ Maxine Waters is to give him his own medicine: Decadent Donald, Draft-Dodging Donald, Dangerous Donald, Dumb Donald, Low IQ Donald, Illiterate Donald. That’s the only way. Some say, well, we don’t want to get in the mud with him. Well, that’s an interesting comment. But not when the New York Times, Washington Post, and all the main media repeat verbatim his nicknames without giving the target of the nicknames any right of reply? That’s unethical journalism.
JS: Ralph, what did Pelosi say to you when you were laying all of this out?
RN: She said several things. She said that “I want an airtight case,” and she thinks Ukraine is an airtight case. Number two, she thought the public attention span couldn’t endure multiple impeachment charges. And number three, I think she cut a deal with her 12 Blue Dog Democrats who are in swing districts that that was the only thing she was going to bring forward. They could have had a national security, military sheen about it that insulated them.
JS: Why did Nancy Pelosi meet with you, given the way that you’re, to this day, vilified by the establishment Democratic Party for daring to run for president multiple times?
RN: Well, it wasn’t a meeting. It was a telephone conversation. I think because they’re interested in what I have to say. I mean, I could give them all kinds of strategies to landslide, Donald Trump, if they would listen. I could show them how to argue their case. I’m just giving you an example, Jeremy: You’ve got some currency in the Democratic Party now for universal basic income. I mean Andrew Yang, most prominently, and it’s viewed as a giveaway and simply, pandering to the people. How do you argue universal basic income in addition to alleviating dire poverty, in addition to increasing consumer demand for goods and services which stimulates the economy far better than a corporate tax cut? Well, one way is you say, hey, these corporations have already had universal basic income. What do you mean? Yeah, what do you think massive corporate subsidies, handouts, giveaways and bailouts are? They’re massive universal basic income giveaways. They are not only getting all these taxpayer freebies, but they also get trillions of dollars in the last decade of free government research and development which built Silicon Valley and built the biotech, nanotech, a lot of the aerospace and pharmaceutical industries. That’s pretty good, universal basic income.
Apart from the tax credits they get for doing the research that companies should be doing anyway in a so-called capitalist society. So, they don’t know how to argue full Medicare for All. I put out 25 ways life in Canada — because they have single payer full health care — compared to life in the United States. It isn’t just you know, a matter of un-affordable health insurance. It’s the removal of anxiety, dread and fear. It’s the situation in Canada where you’re not afraid to change your jobs because you might lose your health insurance. It’s a situation where you’re not ripped off by inscrutable sheets of computerized billing which total about 350 billion dollars according to Professor Malcolm Sparrow, an applied mathematician at Harvard. Imagine one-tenth of the entire health expenditure is corporate crime, it’s crime on Medicare, crime on Medicaid, crime on insurance companies because of the billing frauds that they’re paying for, crime on individual patients and payers. They don’t know how to argue it. That’s why once in a while I get through on a phone call.
JS: You know, you’re laying out a much broader strategy for what charges should have been brought against Trump and of course, criticizing the strategy that they ended up employing, but at the same time, Mitch McConnell, runs that Senate with an iron fist. It seemed clear from the jump that only Romney and maybe one or two others would have jumped ship. And in the end, it was just Romney. So, is the strategy you’re advocating putting forth those charges, getting an impeachment on those charges, sending it to the Senate for trial as a way of educating the public or revealing these crimes? Because it seems very unlikely in this day and age that more than one or two Republicans, no matter how much evidence was out there would have jumped ship on Trump over the issues you’re describing. They love that form of deregulation and they seem to not really care at all about the overt corruption that we’re witnessing.
RN: Not when they’re preceded by dozens of highly televised House committee hearings on the misuse of presidential power that is harming in kitchen table manners where people live, work, and raise their families, the American people.
JS: But these people aren’t watching MSNBC, C-SPAN, or CNN. I mean, Fox News is the single most powerful news entity as well as social media. And as Trump has said, he’s his own media outlet. I mean, I see it, Ralph, as part of the problem is there is such low trust in media, such low approval ratings of the Democrats in Congress, that it doesn’t matter if you hold those hearings, given the media landscape today. This is not like the 70s where it’s every single night on the news. It’s people are seeking out information they want, not seeking out the truth.
RN: Wrong analysis.
JS: All right. Correct me.
RN: When you see the kind of witnesses that the House could have brought, the kind of empathy, that kind of resonance, just the way they did when they brought some of those civil servants. You have to admit their testimony reached a lot of people. Fox has its own constituency. So the other networks, the other cable, the social media, the newspapers, the word of mouth. These are very easy abuses by Trump to understand unlike the more arcane diplomatic situation with Ukraine.
JS: Right.
RN: And what’s really important here is she wanted to tie up the Republicans in knots in the Senate and she only used one knot. She used one finger out of ten that could have been curled into a tough fist with very perceived abuses of the Constitution, of protective statutes, of income preservation and of turning over by Trump, turning over the U.S. government to Wall Street. You know how Wall Street polls, Jeremy? 90 percent of the people when they were asked two, three years ago, wanted to break up the big banks. That’s a lot of conservatives. Wall Street over Main Street. It’s an unbeatable presentation to get to the American people. You get left-right combination here. Let’s not subsume our factual imaginations to this polarization. It’s exaggerated because it’s a divide and rule strategy with any broader rebuttal where people work, live and raise their families where they all bleed alike from rip offs, from being denied health care, from usurious interest rates, payday loan rackets, installment, loan rackets, rental abuses, all that will come out because they’re not enforcing the law.
Now remember, the committee hearings do not have to be impeachment hearings at all. They’re just regular investigations so they can range broad far and deep and to watch what Trump is doing to make America fail. And then when the subpoenas are defied, that’s when it turns into an impeachable offense after the hearings. Also, they won’t be able to in the Senate, block witnesses. They blocked witnesses because people like Dershowitz gave them the plausible argument. Well, everything that the Democrats say is true about what Trump did. If it was all true, it didn’t reach an impeachable offense status. So that gave them an out. They can’t get an out when it deals with all these other impeachable offenses which are violations of different clauses of the U.S. Constitution.
JS: Ralph, how has this strategy that you’ve been describing that Nancy Pelosi did end up implementing in just going very narrowly over the Ukraine issue, and then Trump now on his victory lap, how does this impact the broader move at the ballot box to try to defeat Donald Trump?
RN: It produces slippage by the Democrats. They’ve already acknowledged it in the last two weeks. You see, the Democrats cannot defeat Donald Trump by themselves because they don’t use all the arguments and all the issues. There has to be a parallel get out the vote civic initiative in every precinct, in every place in those key six or seven swing states. Now there’s a group in Kentucky which you may know about called Ditch Mitch and it started about six months ago. It’s a PAC. It is not affiliated with the Democratic Party. Its sole purpose is to elaborate Mitch McConnell’s horrific record against Kentucky interests and Kentuckians and get out the vote. Get out the vote, OK. So that’s the formula. There has to be a parallel movement to get out the vote against Trump because the Democrats are not listening.
It’s almost impossible to get through to Tom Perez, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. I’ve had people who’ve run for major office, they can’t even get his ear, much less sit in his office to give them advice. When Mark Green and I just came out with this book, “Fake President” which is more than a book to be read. It’s a book to be used like a resource book by field organizers, by activists and Mark who you know, who’s [an] upstanding Democrat went to try to see him. He couldn’t see him, couldn’t even get an appointment, couldn’t even get him on the phone. I mean, you know, Mark is, you know, was almost mayor of New York. Bloomberg beat him with huge money in the last few weeks. He’s written the two major policy tracks two giant volumes for the Democratic party in prior elections. And he can’t even get through. Congressman John Larson tells me he can’t even get through to Perez.
It’s very hard to get through to any of these people. They think they know it all and what kind of know-it-all? The caution of Nancy Pelosi has brought her defeat in four out of the five congressional elections 2010, ’12, ’14, ’16, squeezed through in 2018 with the help of progressive candidates, but it’s not exactly confirmation that her cautious approach is winning for her. It illustrated itself in the Senate debate recently over the Ukraine impeachment articles.
JS: You know, we have this, and it’s ongoing, this debacle in Iowa. And it does seem like there was some dirty pool at play there. You just talked about Tom Perez. At the same time, you have the sort of establishment Democratic Party and figures like you know, he’s not so significant in many ways right now, but his history is worth reminding people of James Carville, who was one of the brains behind Clinton’s ascent to the presidency, basically having an aneurysm over the notion that Bernie Sanders could be the Democratic nominee. Your current assessment of how Tom Perez, the establishment elite of the Democratic Party, are mobilizing against Bernie Sanders in particular but also against anyone with a truly progressive policy platform.
RN: Well, the Democratic corporate establishment deep in the Democratic National Committee and the super delegate fiasco, imagine, nobody elects them, but they can tip the balance, undermined Bernie in 2016. There are strong arguments to say that he did really win Iowa and Nevada before he landslided Hillary in New Hampshire, but that’s the past, but they’re at it again. They have to stop Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren because their hegemony is over if one of those people gets elected, and they want to continue dialing for corporate dollars. They want to continue Obama’s record setting fundraising from Wall Street which exceeded his Republican opponents. Imagine, he got more money from Wall Street than John McCain in 2008. He even got more money from Romney’s venture capital firm. So, that’s the internal struggle. This business about socialism, that’s just a cover but they’re willing to emulate themselves this year, and let Trump win by basically stereotyping any kind of progressive legislation as socialism.
Now, for example, the argument should be by the progressive Democrats, “Look, here’s what we mean by socialism. It’s what led the Western European countries and Canada to a higher standard of living, higher equality. It means full health insurance. It means a living wage. It means retirement security. It means protecting people from serious erosions of their rights as workers. It means the ability to repeal the Taft Hartley Act and reflect majority desires in the retail trades like Walmart to join unions and so on.” But if you want more examples, people, well, let’s see the post office. That’s socialism. Public drinking water departments all over the country, I guess that’s social and public libraries. I guess that’s socialism, public electric utilities, over 1,000 of them around the country, including Jacksonville, Florida. How about the Tennessee Valley Authority deep in red state territory? You think you can repeal that? By conservative voters in Tennessee and Alabama, they’d run you out of town. So they don’t know how to argue this.
And here’s the umbrella argument, Jeremy. Look, it’s a choice between Trump’s corporate socialism which you cannot dis-elect and throw the rascals out because it’s Wall Street controlling Washington, or democratic socialism where if you don’t like it, if you don’t like law and order to corporate domination of your lives, and the corporate state, which Franklin Delano Roosevelt called fascism in a message to Congress in 1938, you can always throw the rascals out. That’s the difference. And what is corporate socialism? It’s seizing your tax money and bailing out the crooks in Wall Street in 2008 with trillions of dollars. Corporate socialism is shoveling out your hard earned dollars to company subsidies, handouts, giveaways, etc, anti-market quotas. And above all, it’s taking your money away by giving it to tax breaks for the rich and powerful which creates huge deficits that are going to be paid by your children and your grandchildren instead of putting the trillion and a half dollars of Trump’s tax cut, including cutting his own family’s taxes into rebuilding America, into rebuilding schools and public transit and water and sewage systems and bridges and highway and airports and ports. That’s the way you argue it, Jeremy.
JS: What is, given your history in electoral politics and the way that you’ve been treated by the Democratic party establishment, if you take that history that you’ve lived, and then you look at Hillary Clinton’s interventions in this current electoral cycle where they, you know, the hagiography on Hulu just premiered at Sundance and she you know, this line gets floated that “nobody likes Bernie,” you take that and then you look at Pete Buttigieg coming out of the McKinsey world, the sort of consiglieres of capitalism and then you have Michael Bloomberg just pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into ads. I was just recently in Puerto Rico and watched ad after ad after ad of Bloomberg saying he’s already rebuilding Puerto Rico. But what is the emerging elite Democratic corporate wing of the Democratic Party strategy in this primary? What are they trying to do? Who are they going to get behind in your assessment?
RN: They have to block as I said, Bernie Sanders. They have to block Elizabeth Warren. They have to block universal basic income proposals like Andrew Yang. And basically, they like people like Joe Biden, you know, he comes out of the corporate state, out of the Obama world, out of the Clarence Thomas, enabler chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, mistreating Anita Hill and, and he comes out of that. They like him and if he falters, they’ll go for Bloomberg, because they know he’s got a lot of money to go up against the Republicans. It’s just redux. It’s corporate state Democrat redux. That is they’re almost identical in military and foreign policy with the Republicans. They’re almost identical and booming, bigger military budgets and lathering the military industrial complex with whatever they want. They’re almost identical with avoiding applying law enforcement to Wall Street.
Their rhetoric is a little different, but we talk about the rhetoric in realistic terms, rhetoric doesn’t really matter politically. So what their record is they have never introduced into Congress any comprehensive corporate crime enforcement. The corporate crime laws are absurd. They’re obsolete. Their fines are, you know, nickels and dimes, and they cut the enforcement budgets of all these agencies to begin with. So, they can’t even enforce against fraud on Medicare, for example, $60 billion a year, billion with a B. They bring back about two, three billion. That’s all. They don’t have enough prosecutors.
All that is deliberate. All that is part of the Rep/Dem consensus, the two party duopoly that stereotypes third parties, and when they start seeing an insurgence in their own party, they go to work on it behind the scenes, tipping close primary elections. They go to work on them, by slandering them, by stereotyping them. And the most interesting person emerging here is Pete Buttigieg because he’s coming on almost like a new Obama or a new Clinton, this kind of smooth moderation. He’s signaling with his fundraising parties with billionaires and millionaires that he’s going to be acceptable to them.
JS: Oh, that’s my favorite line is when Pete Buttigieg says “Hey, we have to include the billionaires. Let’s not exclude people. Let’s include people.” He has the audacity to make that argument and very, I don’t recall any pushback against that particular line that he keeps deploying when people ask him about the 40 odd billionaires who are financing his campaign?
RN: Well, Bernie, obviously pushed back in the recent debates. I don’t mind billionaires, if they support universal basic income, or I don’t mind billionaires who support the stronger enforcement of corporate crime. But his billionaires are basically Clinton-type billionaires, Wall Street billionaires. Remember he came out of McKinsey and Company. That’s the essence of the Wall Street establishment. This giant consulting firm.
JS: You know, at the same time you have — I mentioned Hillary Clinton earlier, but Hillary Clinton also really early on in Tulsi Gabbard’s candidacy for the Democratic nomination, smearing her as essentially a Russian agent. Tulsi Gabbard is of course, suing her for defamation. Now, I have a lot of problems with some aspects of Tulsi Gabbard’s history, her record, her relationship with some very frightening individuals in India, some of her positions on gay marriage, gay rights that have now shifted, and I think she has some questions to answer about some of her positions on Syria but it reminds me also of how you were treated and I’m wondering what your assessment is of that preemptive strike against Tulsi Gabbard by Hillary Clinton to say, “Hey, this is the new Jill Stein. This is who the Russians have chosen.”
RN: Well, you know, she’s not gonna do very well at all in the New Hampshire primary. I think, Hillary Clinton if she continues berating Tulsi Gabbard’s afraid that she’ll go independent and so-called, take away some votes in key states. I don’t think that’s going to happen.
JS: She says she won’t you know, she says she’s not going to do that. In fact, she even —
RN: The more serious attack is the use of the word electability. If they can’t use the word democratic socialism, they use the word electability to marginalize main progressive candidates in the Democratic primary. Now, this is basically a symptom of the defeatism of the Democratic Party. How can anybody running for president against this relentless savage sexual predator, this constant liar on matters of serious import to the American people, separating millions of people from reality into his commercialized fantasy, this person who’s a bigot and a racist and he follows up with actions reflecting that — how can the Democrats even raise the issue of trying to find a candidate who’s electable against this person?
That’s just a technique to marginalize progressive candidates, and they use the words moderate and centrist and leftist and extremist to pursue the same strategy, to mainstream their corporate Democratic primary candidates. For example, Joe Biden is called a moderate. Joe Biden, for example, has supported wars abroad that are unconstitutional. Why is that a moderate? Joe Biden has been to toady the big banks. Why is that a moderate? Joe Biden has supported corporate-type policies on consumer bankruptcy limiting them, and credit card insurance gouging. Why is that considered moderate or centrist? Why is it considered leftist to support universal health insurance and a living wage and cracking down on corporate crime? Those received enormous results in the polls. Left, right support, 65, 70, 75, 80, 90 percent. Why is that considered extreme or leftist? Because the progressive Democrats don’t know how to argue their case, Jeremy. They don’t know how to argue.
And now they’re so tired, going five events a day in the primary, flying in that they can’t think anymore. I’ve been through that kind of pressure. They can’t think anymore. Their wind up speeches are getting stale. They are repeated. They’re not infused with the kind of new facts and new ranges. To open it up, they’ve got to raise the issue of 300 billion dollars a year from a tiny less than 1 percent tax, sales tax on Wall Street transactions. They can say, look, people, you go into a store and you got to pay 6, 7 percent on necessities of life. How come someone buys 100 million dollars of Exxon options or stock and doesn’t have to pay a cent? See, and then you take that 300 billion and you put it back into dealing with student loans. Wall Street basically disenfranchised a whole generation of young Americans by collapsing the economy in 2008. And these people are owed that kind of transfer of sales tax for their technical training, their student loans. They don’t open it up.
As a result, the media which follows them, it gets jaded. They hear the same wind up. It’s a good wind up, but it’s too repetitive. And it excludes a whole range of factual conditions on the ground that will alert more and more millions of people to say to themselves, she’s on my side, he’s on my side and they don’t do that. Therefore, they don’t generate any news, even though they’re in the eye of the media during the primary season, day after day.
JS: We know that there were very dirty tricks played in the 2016 primary by Hillary Clinton and the DNC against Bernie Sanders. I think, Iowa, the Iowa Caucus, made a lot of Sanders supporters believe that that already is happening right now. Not just the overt kind of war against the Sanders and to a lesser extent, but still there Warren candidacy, but if you have a DNC that is willing to rig its own primary, what is Bernie Sanders’ path not just to winning that nomination, but then running a national campaign against a humongous war chest that Trump already is amassing?
RN: Well, he’s doing pretty well without our advice, huh, Jeremy? It’s really quite remarkable.
JS: He is but we’re only you know, we’re only at the very beginning of this and I’m referencing what they did in 2016. I mean, he basically has to fight the DNC and Trump simultaneously.
RN: Well, Bernie doesn’t like to appear like a sore loser. So he doesn’t complain in 2016 about what happened in the casinos where votes were counted, can you imagine? In Nevada, and in Iowa. First of all, he has to attack the caucus system. The caucus system is a form of voter suppression. Let’s face it. I mean, how many people can take out four or five hours, travel to a location, stay there at night, leave their kids? So it’s a form of voter suppression.
JS: We can barely get people to just go and vote in a poll, you know, in a normal one person, one vote.
RN: Just a normal primary, like New Hampshire. So, he lost an opportunity after 2016 to go after them. Although he did change some rules. He reduced the number of super delegates which is a way the corporate Democrats jab in at the end to tip the close race between their candidates and progressive candidates. And now the super delegates only kick in at the Democratic National Convention on the second round, but still, they can be decisive. And you know, the super delegates are members of Congress who are Democrats and former Democratic governors, etc. They haven’t been elected to anything as far as this election is concerned, but they can decide the outcome.
JS: If Sanders does get the nomination, what will that mean for the Democratic Party? I mean, would it be akin to, you know, to sort of what the Tea Party and ultimately Trump did to the Republican Party? I’m not drawing a comparison between their individual policies or their morality in terms of Bernie and Trump. But in terms of what it does to the party, it seems to me like Bernie winning would effectively shatter parts of the Democratic Party for the better, like get rid of some of these toxic elements that dominate that party.
RN: I think you’re right. If Bernie wins the election against Trump, should he get the nomination, it has to be a massive surge of voter turnout which will sweep out a lot of the Republicans in the Congress. So he will have a much more receptive Congress. It will sweep out the corporate Democrats in the Democratic National Committee, and it will reorient the Democratic Party to where it should be which is a party of, by and for the people. That’s why they want to fight him.
JS: Finally, Ralph, what about the state of third-party organizing in this country. I mean, the last truly successful runs were your runs. I mean, I think that the, you know, the Green Party has been just decimated and I think has made some strategically very unwise decisions in recent campaigns. But is there a future for third party organizing in this country given what is happening right now with the ascent of Donald Trump and the threat of an even more authoritarian second term if the Democrats lose?
RN: Well, two responses and by the way, your listeners, if they want more of what they’ve been hearing and my background, they can go to my website nader.org. If they want to see how a progressive campaign on issues that both parties take off the table, they can go to my still-open votenader.org from the 2008 campaign to see what issues we espoused to have majority support that were taken off the table for even discussion by the Democrats and Republicans. I see two scenarios here for third parties: One, they proceed as they are proceeding, maybe get some more votes to nudge the major party that’s closest to their views in the right direction. That happened in the 19th century when some of the smaller parties never won a national election, but they push the two parties on things like anti-slavery, the 1840 run by the Liberty party and women’s suffrage, industrial labor, farmer parties, People’s Party. So that’s one scenario.
A second scenario if the Democrats lose to the worst president in history, the crudest, the most overt disgusting, foul-mouthed corporate toady who’s destroyed the rule of law and constitutional observance, if they lose to him, I can see the Republican Party breaking open. I can see some reminiscence of the Republican Party being created in 1850s, splitting and replacing the Whig Party. In an era of billionaires who are willing to fund new parties, that is not out of range. They will call it a new centrist party something the way Bloomberg has been talking about. And then the third and this is the one the Democrats got to be really afraid of — a progressive third party with hundreds of millions of dollars in their war chest, enough to get five to 10, 12, 15 percent. So this is really Armageddon time for the Democratic Party. They’ve been losing and losing to the worst Republican Party in history. I mean, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Senator Robert Taft would have been aghast at the extreme nature of this Republican Party, the stupidity, the ignorance, the bigotry, the corporatism, the self-serving enrichments, etc. They’re a mirror of Trump which is why they clap for him in the White House. And I can see, if the Democrats lose this one, there’s going to be a lot of fissure and a lot of splits.
The civic community in this country, environmental, consumer workers, civil rights, civil liberties, housing, tenant groups are excluded from the electoral arena. All you gotta do is look at Judy Woodruff on PBS, the News Hour. She interviews reporters. She doesn’t interview leaders who know what you’re talking about of civic groups. The civic community has got to stop being passive and demand that they have a role in the deliberations and in the media coverage of these campaigns, because they know a lot that the candidates don’t know. They know even a lot more that the reporters don’t know. And they are the seed corn for American democracy since day one in the 18th century.
JS: Ralph Nader, thank you very much for being with us.
RN: Thank you, Jeremy.

<.24hr-7d) Imagine, in an alternate reality, 4 years from today, IF?

It didn't matter so much who you voted for in the last elections because you could vote again with a smart price tag and your personal economy preferences. Buyers and sellers using fee market places financial technology innovations allowed anyone to voluntarily create and define their own price system with Price tariffs and discounts subsidies that they define and agree too. Consumers could choose from several price tags or optional use discount coupons and price structures conveniently and profitably when shopping. Popular price structures and price tags for consumers and sellers to agree on for their mutual profit might include, FOR EXAMPLE

• "Bernie+MLK Shoppers Union of USA" is a price that is lower for people who support Bernie Sanders political goals and uses a form to determine a $/hr rate that gives an extra price discount for Native Americans, And Black people as reparations. For Those Who Hate Bernie, they can Feel The Bern In their wallets! LOL. The most dedicated Bernie supporters get the lowest prices and first in line in market places where this has proved profitable for sellers that Bernie cares most about and his Peeps are Gonna save dollars and hours with this cause S/he deserves it. Students, mothers, the working class, LGBT, minorities, the poor and absolutely everybody Bernie loves get a price discount while sellers make more profit at the same time by charging higher prices to the job takers in our society who got rich at everyone else's expense.

OR

• "Andrew Yang's American Consumer Dividend Discount Price Club Card" is a credit card that starts with $1500/month given to every consumer for free, but adds a 1-300% luxury tax on all products produced or sold with Automation that displaced human workers or other Job Takers. A fair solution to tax robots and AI robots have to pay the most to provide things humans want equally. Look for the Andrew Yang 2020 Presidential logo showing voluntary participation on the windows of participating retailers and stores in market places where popular and profitable for all. You shop at Yang stores first for best price discounts first because regular prices have gone up a lot. In this timeline future reality, you thank yourself for having chosen to vote for Andrew Yang and Bernie Sanders VP ticket OR Bernie 4 President with Yang 4 VP? AND You vote frequently at the cash register for causes and price discounts as is your prerogative. You can survive with your political Freedom Dividend of $1000/month AND get another $1,500/month more each month with A Consumer Dividend Price Club Card Too. Poor people and good citizens get extra price discounts with more sellers AND stores profit more by price discounting for those most deserving :-)

OR

• "Thomas Paine Citizens Dividend Business Price Club" is a simple coupon issued by a collection of retailers and consumers allowing the price club to negotiate with all sellers a lower price based on the group purchasing power and market demand of the club members. Individual club members are given a $/hr rate for discount prices pending business review and verification via democratic solutions. In this reality you thank yourself for getting Trump re-elected even though he hates the job, he's fixing America and gave us hOPE! For very very complex and classified reasons involving Artificial Intelligence singularity dangers of creating a self aware marketplace, the only place you can exchange currency in this reality is at a casino. Converting hours to dollars directly or hours to environmental credit is fast and convenient at casino's such as Trump Towers where you have the privilege and right to gamble with other real people in person, or by practicing manual price line arbitrage trading places with people in lines which takes all your time and is more complicated than 3D chess!!! NO Computer assisted or automated time gambling or automated trading allowed! You will be searched upon entering and leaving the Casino's of America the Great to make a currency exchange wager with another willing gambler to verify you aren't a cheater and take their commission. See a TrumpCash dealer for latest odds and exchange wager rates. Wave your O-Kay hands in the air if you want for the VIP wager room AND if you're young and attractive woman interested in exchange of personal private time ;-)

OR

• "Communism V2.86 price system for the 99%" leaves the bureaucratic political class understandably confused? As long as the price system makes a profit for sellers and buyers, it can be defined and things can be priced however you want in a form of structural anarchism and material ecosystem + human time value economics in the marketplace? If you can make a formula for it then you make your own economic system and call it Socialist Marxist fundamentalist coin and if customers sayin O-Kay. Consider something like the Chinese Social Credit System to help scaling larger than a family or tribe size to manage state control without growing the bureaucrats class? 100%HR pricing is closer to "communism" than the status quo Fixed Price in the opinion of 99% of all shoppers, and you can add any additional terms and price to the standard purchase agreement as a collective in free pluralist market places. hOEP generates public verifiable good with "human value exchange receipts" to prove it at Mondragon and with the day fine law and anywhere citizens choose it for use purchasing. Your "hOEP+Community" coin will work before, during and after, capitalism destroys itself or the communist class awareness revolution. #WhiteRose0fMrRobot endorses this price formulae.

AND

• "Britney Spears The Price $ystem for her Bitches (#BSTP$B.club)" is a very popular choice for many who like to get discounts on Britney Spears Endorsed products according to how hard they work for The Legendary Miss Brittney Spears (#TLMBS) to dance around the unstoppable danger LIGO before they have to be removed. hOEP<3 + BSTP$B enable buyers and sellers to get the most profit for spreading her words. Take a short Loyalty and Humane Awareness Test for her to understand your consumption preferences and #DanceStyle OR She'll test you personally if you're in the top #BeSTiePrice$aleBitches AND/OR exceptionally hot stallion. Members are also auto-enrolled by default in hOEP Attention Rewards program for royalties and making her the center of attention or putting her in a crazy position if you can vote to enroll personably starting with a tweet for her permission to #hOEPHeart. Britney offers everyone $1-$3000/month and ads a 1-3000% price increase to products and services Britney hates most! AND Britney offers everyone 1HR-50Hmonth while adding a 1-500%HR price tax on things high ranked Britney's Bitches hate on most. In This reality, you can listen to find stores that offer #BSTP$B pricing because they are the only stores allowed to freely play music by Britney Spears. Also look for her logo on price tags, store windows, and WebStores. <3

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https://sites.google.com/view/the-hoep-project/home #hOEPHeart<3:-0;-):-)