New piece at National Review on what the movie Miss Sloane and the election results tell us about where the gun debate stands

I have a new piece at National Review on what the movie Miss Sloane and the election results tell us about where the gun debate stands.  The piece starts this way:

Miss Sloane, a highly anticipated movie demonizing the NRA and calling for gun control, has bombed. The movie succeeded only in emphasizing the top-down nature of the gun-control campaign and how little intensity there is for more regulations.
The movie seemed to have everything going for it. Liberal movie critics loved it, and it was backed by a hefty ad budget along with heaps of favorable news coverage. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has already nominated the movie’s star, Jessica Chastain, for a prestigious Golden Globe, considered a strong predictor of the Oscars.
But two weeks after its national release, it has made only $3.2 million. During its second weekend, it averaged just $102 per movie theater per day. With a ticket price of $10.30 per adult, that comes to an average of only 9.9 people a day seeing the movie in any given theater. At least people had no problem finding a good seat.
And it wasn’t for lack of trying to get people to show up. Out of the 200 highest-grossing movies of 2016, only ten exceeded the $15.9 million television advertising budget of Miss Sloane, and seven of those did so by very small amounts. Miss Sloane spent more than the Star Wars spinoff Rogue One, Star Trek, Pete’s Dragon, Arrival, Doctor Strange, and Hacksaw Ridge. It had twice the advertising budget of such hits as Sully, The Girl on the Train, and The Secret Life of Pets.
For every dollar spent on advertising, Miss Sloane brought in just 21 cents in ticket sales. By this measure, it came in dead last out of the 200 top-grossing movies in 2016. No one else was even close. Coming in second-to-last was Collateral Beauty, which made 53 cents per advertising dollar. The average movie made almost $2 for each dollar spent on advertising.
TV ads for Miss Sloane aired a total of 2,270 times: 316 times on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC; 289 on prime-time CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox shows. All told, they covered 34 different networks.
The concept of the script had also been thoroughly road-tested. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have galvanized public support by suggesting that politicians are intimidated from passing sensible regulations only because gun makers want to make money. And, like a Clinton or Obama speech, the film leaves out all of the strong arguments made by gun-control opponents. There is no response to concerns that the very gun-sale-control regulations being pushed in the movie primarily disarm law-abiding citizens, especially poor blacks and Hispanics living in high-crime inner cities.
Poorly funded gun-control advocates are shown doing battle with the big, bad National Rifle Association. Of course, Michael Bloomberg is never mentioned. He would spoil the story, since he gives $50 million a year to his regulation-pushing Everytown for Gun Safety. This is 2.5 times more than the NRA spends on political activities. From 2013 to 2016, Bloomberg donated a total of $48 million to candidates running for federal office. The NRA contributed just $2.1 million. And that’s not even mentioning the hundreds of millions that Bloomberg, George Soros, and others funnel into producing gun-control research. . . .

The rest of the piece is available here.

Snopes.com founder,who will arbitrate what is 'fake news' on Facebook, is accused of engaging in fraud to give himself credibility and of defrauding website

From the UK Daily Mail:

One of the websites Facebook is to use to arbitrate on 'fake news' is involved in a bitter legal dispute between its co-founders, with its CEO accused of using company money for prostitutes.Snopes.com will be part of a panel used by Facebook to decide whether stories which users complain about as potentially 'fake' should be considered 'disputed'. . . .
Now a DailyMail.com investigation reveals that Snopes.com's founders, former husband and wife David and Barbara Mikkelson, are embroiled in a lengthy and bitter legal dispute in the wake of their divorce. . . .
They are accusing each other of financial impropriety, with Barbara claiming her ex-husband is guilty of 'embezzlement' and suggesting he is attempting a 'boondoggle' to change tax arrangements, while David claims she took millions from their joint accounts and bought property in Las Vegas. . . .Profiles of the website disclose that for some time before it was set up, the couple had posed as 'The San Fernardo Valley Folklore Society', using its name on letterheads, even though it did not exist.A profile for the Webby Awards published in October describes it as 'an entity dreamed up to help make the inquiries seem more legit'. . . .
In the filings, Barbara, 57, has accused her former husband, 56, of 'raiding the corporate business Bardav bank account for his personal use and attorney fees' without consulting her.She also claimed he embezzled $98,000 from the company over the course of four years 'which he expended upon himself and the prostitutes he hired'. . . .

Why won't mainstream media mention all the death and economic threats aimed at Trump Electors?

Here are some of the news coverage of the death threats received by electors who are voting for Trump.  I can't find these stories in places such as the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and USA Today.

According to The Hill newspaper in Pennsylvania:

The messages have escalated to death threats, and so the 20 electors will have state troopers escorting them to cast their votes Monday.  

GOP electors have been under pressure over the past month from anti-Donald Trump groups to not vote for the president-elect. . . .

WILX Channel 10 in Lansing, Michigan

One elector from Bloomfield Hills, Michael Banerian, says he has even received death threats. Banerian says, "I've had death wishes, people just saying "I hope you die." Do society a favor, throw yourself in front of a bus. And just recently I was reading a blog about me - and unfortunately these people not only called for the burning of myself but my family. Which is completely out of line." . . .

For the same elector, the Detroit News has verified the threats.

The Detroit News verified one message containing a death wish and another containing a death threat, in which the person told Banerian he would “put a bullet” in his mouth. Banerian said he deleted the rest of the emails and messages “because as you can imagine they’re clogging up my email.” . . .

From KHBS in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

The chair of Arkansas’ slate of six electors tells KHBS in Fort Smith that he and his colleagues have received tens of thousands of demands that they change their votes, including some death threats. The effort to intimidate electors has a particular focus on Arkansas, one of 21 states where electors are not bound by state law to the popular vote within their state. . . . .

Two black electors in Michigan who are voting for Trump have also received death threats.

An African American father and daughter will cast their electoral votes for Donald Trump on Monday in Lansing, Michigan. 

Despite the abuse they’ve received the father-daughter combo will make history as they cast their votes for Donald J. Trump. 

The two black Trump supporters have received death threats.  Liberals have called them bigots for supporting Trump. . . .

More for Texas:

“At first everyone was kinda enchanted by it,” one Texas elector told local media. “Now all the electors are starting to get beaten down. There are some electors who have been threatened with harm or with death.” 

In Georgia, things got bad enough that the Secretary of State issued a statement warning that Clinton supporters who harass Electors over the phone—including anyone who encouraged the practice —could be subject to dire consequences. In Arizona, Electors reported as many as 8,000 calls, some of which, they say, became “hateful.” . . .

From the UK Telegraph

As the deadline approaches some of the appeals to electors have turned threatening. Electors around the country have reported being targeted by death threats, harassing phone calls and reams of hate mail.  

“I never can imagine harassing people like this," said Jim Rhoades, a Republican elector from Michigan who runs a home inspection service. “I’ve lost a bunch of business.” 

In Pennsylvania, the situation has become so serious that the some 20 electors have reportedly been assigned plainclothes state police troopers for protection. . . .

Disturbingly, a supposed news site, Buzzfeed, has also helped get  information on electors so that they can be harassed.

Last week, social media supporters of Hillary Clinton passed around a spreadsheetlisting the names and personal information of Electoral College voters. Helped along by news sites like Buzzfeed, Clintonites made hundreds of calls to EC delegates, hoping to persuade them to switch their vote to Clinton when the EC meets this month. . . .

While major outlets such the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and USA Today haven't found space for any of these threats, they did find space for other death threats.

Washington Post headline; "A professor called Trump’s election an ‘act of terrorism.’ Death threats forced her to flee."  The article in the Post also failed to really discuss the full problem with this professor's behavior.  For example, only vaguely is it mentioned that the professor tried to shame students for supporting Trump. "Prof who called Trump win an ‘act of terrorism’ allegedly asked Trump backers to stand during class"

George Soros and Facebook, Soros using Facebook's new rules to bias what news people read

Because of misleading news coverage, a lot of Americans apparently already believe that "fake" news is a big problem (survey available here).  Here is some background on the changes in how Facebook will protect people from "fake" news.

Facebook has announced its plan to tackle fake news by harnessing fact checking and, potentially, making disputed stories appear lower in users’ News Feeds. . . . 

The social network announced Thursday that it will make it easier for users to report fake news when they see it, which they can do by clicking the upper right hand corner of a post. If enough people report a story as fake, Facebook will pass it to third-party fact-checking organizations that are part of the nonprofit Poynter Institute's International Fact-Checking Network. 

Five fact-checking and news organizations are working with the company on this: ABC News, The Associated Press, FactCheck.org, Politifact and Snopes. Facebook says this group is likely to expand. . . .

For information on why this is a problem using these fact checkers see this article available here.

 But the problem gets even worse.  Enter George Soros who will be funding an organization to flag stories that he believes to be false and also to fund fact checking.

The International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) drafted a code of five principles for news websites to accept, and Facebook yesterday announced it will work with “third-party fact checking organizations” that are signatories to the code of principles. . . . 

IFCN is hosted by the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. A cursory search of the Poynter Institute website finds that Poynter’s IFCN is openly funded by Soros’ Open Society Foundations as well as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, and the National Endowment for Democracy. 

Poynter’s IFCN is also funded by the Omidyar Network, which is the nonprofit for liberal billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. The Omidyar Network has partnered with the Open Society on numerous projects and it has given grants to third parties using the Soros-funded Tides Foundation.  Tides is one of the largest donors to left-wing causes in the U.S. 

Another significant Poynter Institute donor is the Craig Newmark Foundation, the charitable organization established by Craigslist Founder Craig Newmark. On Monday, just days before the announcement of the Facebook partnership, Poynter issued a press release revealing that Newmark donated $1 million to the group to fund a faculty chair in journalism ethics. . . . .

and from the UK Daily Mail:

Billionaire Clinton donor George Soros is among a line-up of wealthy liberal figures who will fund Facebook's fake news fact checker.  

The 86-year-old Hungarian financier's Open Society Foundation is listed among organizations which are backing The International Fact Checking Network, the body tasked with flagging bogus news stories to social media users, on its website. 

Soros, a staunch Democrat who tried to block George W. Bush's campaign in 2004, has given $25million to Clinton and causes dear to her.  

Other donors involved in the new fact checking feature include eBay founder Pierre Omidyar who has committed more than $30million to the Clintons and their charities. Google, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Endowment for Democracy are also funding the pilot.   

The line-up feeds criticism from right-wing commentators that the new fact checking feature will be biased towards left-wing causes and could interfere with the social media feeds of millions of voters. . . .

If you think that the Russians interfered with the US election, you might reread the Washington Post piece that started this discussion

UPDATE:  Do you want more evidence that the claim that Russia interfered with the US election was political.  From Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.:

"Somebody has the time to leak it to the Washington Post and the New York Times, but they don’t have the time to come to Congress," said King, a member of the committee. "It’s their job to come. They don’t have any choice. They have to come in, especially when they have created this." 

King added that lawmakers have not received any assessment from the CIA that Russia interfered to help Trump win the presidency over Hillary Clinton, allegations that were first reported by the Washington Post Friday.

ORIGINAL POST: It isn't obvious that the people who are claiming that the Russians interfered with the US election actually read the Washington Post article that this claim is based on:

intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin “directing” the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks, a second senior U.S. official said. Those actors, according to the official, were “one step” removed from the Russian government, rather than government employees. Moscow has in the past used middlemen to participate in sensitive intelligence operations so it has plausible deniability.
Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has said in a television interview that the “Russian government is not the source.” . . .

More on Julian Assange's continued statements that the emails were not obtained from the Russians.  

"As Julian Assange has made crystal clear, the leaks did not come from the Russians. As I have explained countless times, they are not hacks, they are insider leaks – there is a major difference between the two,” he wrote. “And it should be said again and again, that if Hillary Clinton had not connived with the DNC to fix the primary schedule to disadvantage Bernie, if she had not received advance notice of live debate questions to use against Bernie, if she had not accepted massive donations to the Clinton foundation and family members in return for foreign policy influence, if she had not failed to distance herself from some very weird and troubling people, then none of this would have happened.” . . .

Has Wikileaks ever been found to provide false information? No.  So the questions is why these statements aren't given more weight in the press.  Most of the media accounts just completely ignore Julian Assange's clear statements.

A transcript from Sunday's Meet the Press is also quite useful.

CHUCK TODD: Let me move to the reports that both The Washington Post, New York Times, NBC News has confirmed it, that the assessment from the C.I.A. is not only that Russia interfere -- make an attempt to interfere on the 2016 election to be disruptive, but they actually were trying to be disruptive in order to help Donald Trump. And the transition put out a statement that essentially humiliated the C.I.A. in saying that Donald Trump didn't believe the assessment from the C.I.A. because these are the same people that said that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Does Donald Trump have confidence in America's intelligence?  

REINCE PRIEBUS: Of course he has confidence in America's intelligence. But we don't have confidence in The New York Times releasing a report of unnamed sources of some kind of study that itself, and The Washington Post said was inconclusive to claim that, because the C.I.A. had hacked e-mails of the D.N.C. and the R.N.C. and only used D.N.C. e-mails, that meant that Russia was trying to influence the election. Because the other piece of this, Chuck, is that the R.N.C. was absolutely not hacked, number one. We had the F.B.I. in the R.N.C.. We've been working with the F.B.I.--  

CHUCK TODD: Why--  

REINCE PRIEBUS: We had intelligence experts here.  

CHUCK TODD: Let me ask you.  

REINCE PRIEBUS: No, no, no, hang on, Chuck. No.  

CHUCK TODD: No. REINCE PRIEBUS: The-- the R.N.C. was --  

CHUCK TODD: Explain why you had the F.B.I there --  

REINCE PRIEBUS: --not hacked.  

CHUCK TODD: Well then, why was the--  

REINCE PRIEBUS: Because--  

CHUCK TODD: -- F.B.I. involved?  

REINCE PRIEBUS: It's really simple. Well, it's really simple. Because when the D.N.C. was hacked, we called the F.B.I. and they came in to help us. And they came in to review what we were doing and went through our systems, went through every single thing that we did.  

CHUCK TODD: Right.  

REINCE PRIEBUS: We went through this for a month.  

CHUCK TODD: I understand that.  

REINCE PRIEBUS: And we were not hacked. So wait a second. If we were not hacked, and that is absolutely not true, then where does that story lie?  

CHUCK TODD: So nobody with the--  

REINCE PRIEBUS: The story is--  

HUCK TODD: Let me ask you this, Reince.  

REINCE PRIEBUS: No.  

CHUCK TODD: Not a single person connected to the R.N.C. was hacked? No Republican vendor who had interactions with the R.N.C. network was hacked? You guys have had a specific denial that the R.N.C.'s network wasn't hacked. That doesn't mean Republicans associated with the R.N.C. weren't hacked. That doesn't rule that out. Do you categorically--  

REINCE PRIEBUS: Okay, first of all--  

CHUCK TODD: --rule all that out?  

REINCE PRIEBUS: Number one-- I don't know why you're so hot about this. I mean the fact of the matter is you should actually--  

CHUCK TODD: It's not about me.  

REINCE PRIEBUS: --be happy that the R.N.C. wasn't hacked.  

CHUCK TODD: Well, no. I'm--  

REINCE PRIEBUS: The R.N.C. was not hacked, Chuck.  

CHUCK TODD: Okay.  

REINCE PRIEBUS: Number one, the R.N.C. was not hacked. I don't know of any employee, on any of their own Gmail accounts, that was hacked. So what I'm trying to tell you is the R.N.C. was not hacked, number one. And by the way, that was the specific allegation that was made in the actual New York Times article.  

CHUCK TODD: Right.  

REINCE PRIEBUS: The article didn't say, "Affiliates of the R.N.C.."  

CHUCK TODD: Okay.  

REINCE PRIEBUS: The article didn't say, "Employee." No, wait a second, Chuck. The article said, "The R.N.C. was hacked." So don't be defensive with me that-- 

A partial list of defensive gun uses by people legally carrying concealed handguns

If you are interested in a list of people who have used legally carried concealed handguns to stop crime, the Crime Prevention Research Center has a list of cases available here.  

Debating Campus Carry in the Columbus Dispatch (Ohio)

Dr. John Lott debated Ohio State Rep. Kristin Boggs (D) about whether college campuses should be gun-free zones in the pages of the Columbus Dispatch.  Rep. Boggs' piece is available here.  Dr. Lott's is here:

Ohio State University is still reeling from the attack last week. A terrorist followed the Islamic State playbook as he drove his car into a crowd of students and slashed others with a knife — 12 people were injured. Fortunately, a campus police officer was able to shoot the attacker in a record time of less than two minutes. 

University President Michael Drake took this as evidence that only campus police should be armed on campus. Police are very important, but they virtually always arrive after the attack has occurred and they have an extremely difficult job stopping terrorists — having a uniform is often akin to wearing a neon sign saying "shoot me first." 

This latest attack raises a fundamental question: Would you feel safer posting a sign announcing your home is a gun-free zone? Criminals don’t obey these signs. In fact, to criminals, gun-free zones look like easy targets. So why do we display these signs in public places? 

Some in the Ohio legislature are considering whether to lift the statewide ban on permitted concealed handguns at universities. Opponents’ fears over this are exactly the same as their fears about the original permitted concealed-handgun law, and they are just as wrong. 

Today, 12 states have laws mandating that public college campuses allow permitted concealed handguns. An additional 21 states leave it up to the university. Prior to the early 1990s, states allowing concealed handguns didn’t have legal restrictions, and there weren’t any problems on school property.
Permit holders are extremely law-abiding, committing any type of firearms-related violation at at a rate of just thousandths of one percentage point, and most violations are trivial. A study by the Crime Prevention Research Center found that college-age permit holders in Michigan, Nevada, and Texas are at least as responsible as older permit holders. . . .

The rest of the piece is available here. 

While the media is focusing on the single Trump elector who says that he will not vote for Trump, what about all the faithless Clinton Electors?

UPDATE: Apparently as of 12/13/2016 only one Republican elector is planning on being unfaithful to Trump, so why isn't the story about Clinton facing the loss of even more electors?

ORIGINAL: Before the election two Clinton Electors refused to support Hillary Clinton.  All the focus is now on Trump elector, Christopher Suprun.  From Vox on November 6th:

Robert Satiacum, a former Bernie Sanders supporter, told the Seattle Times that he will refuse to support Clinton no matter what. A second elector from Washington state, Bret Chiafalo, is saying that he may or may not follow his state’s results.  

“No, no, no on Hillary. Absolutely not. No way,” said Satiacum in a telephone interview with the newspaper, which reached him as he was protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline. “I hope it comes down to a swing vote and it’s me. ... Good. She ain’t getting it. Maybe it’ll wake this country up.” 

Satiacum and Chiafalo are Democratic elector candidates, meaning they’ll be responsible for casting two Electoral College votes for Washington if Clinton wins the state. While they could face criminal charges for defying the state’s election results, Satiacum and Chiafalo can still, bizarrely, use their Electoral College votes to support whomever they personally choose. . . .

More recently, P. Bret Chiafalo,  has reiterated his opposition to Clinton.  From Politico:

P. Bret Chiafalo, a Washington State elector who has already declared his opposition to Hillary Clinton 

A third Democrat elector from Washington state has made a similar pledge: Levi Guerra

Washington elector refuses to vote for Clinton in attempt to keep Trump out of White House

There are also four such faithless electors from Colorado, though these electors are only doing this to try to stop Trump, not because they are upset with Clinton.

Polly Baca, a former state senator from Colorado, . . . . Bob Nemanich, a high school math teacher from Colorado Springs, Jerad Sutton of Greeley, also a math teacher, and Micheal Baca, a 24-year-old grad student who is not related to Polly Baca. . . . . .

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman caught editing users’ comments, he rewrote posts, replacing his name with others in Trump discussion

Will Reddit recover?  While the computer industry is covering this story, relatively few of the major mainstream media have covered it. From The Washington Examiner: 

The CEO of Reddit [Steve Huffman] has admitted that he edited comments in a pro-Trump discussion board, saying he "messed with" some of the comments "for about an hour," and has apologized. 

The Reddit users, known as "redditors," were already seething this week when the site that describes itself as "the front page of the Internet" banned the "Pizzagate" discussion board, where a conspiracy theory was being floated about Hillary Clinton running a pedophilia ring. Pizzagate went down due to a violation of "content policy" after users began posting the personal information of real people who were tied into the theory, like a pizza restaurant owner in Washington, after which they reportedly received death threats. . . . .

But redditors using the popular pro-Trump subreddit called "r/The_Donald" seemed particularly upset with what they viewed as unnecessary censorship, and slung a flurry of disparaging comments in Huffman's direction. Examples of the insults included "fuck u/spez," a play off his Reddit username u/spez. Others called him a "cuck," which is a word, popularized in the alt-right, that accuses one of showing weakness and which has racist undertones. . . . .

Hollywood begins massive assault on gun ownership

These movies and television shows that are pushing gun control make no attempt to treat the arguments on the other side seriously.

"Miss Sloane" -- focuses on a battle-hardened female lobbyist who gives herself the Herculean challenge of taking on the gun lobby

The movie opens on December 9th.  Is already getting a huge amount of publicity simply because it has a political message that the liberal media likes.  Just from the trailer it appears as if they make the NRA look like a bunch of evil guys, not people who really care about letting the most vulnerable people in society have a chance to defend themselves and their family.

"The Senator's Wife" -- it is still listed as "in-development" -- "Harvey Weinstein promised that an upcoming film he’s making, starring Meryl Streep, will make the National Rifle Association “wish they weren’t alive” during an interview with Howard Stern earlier this week, and now it has a title."  
"Weinstein described the film as a 'big movie like a ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,' which he hopes will make audiences think: 'Gun stocks — I don’t want to be involved in that stuff. It’s going to be like crash and burn.'”
This movie's fate may depend on what happens with "Miss Sloane."

Unfortunately, these pushes aren't alone.

gun control groups point to NetFlix’s House of Cards and CBS’ The Good Wife. Everytown worked with House of Cards to push gun control during season four of the series, and “the Brady Campaign consulted on an episode of The Good Wife” for a gun control campaign, as well.

Hollywood begins massive assault on gun ownership

These movies and television shows that are pushing gun control make no attempt to treat the arguments on the other side seriously.

"Miss Sloane" -- focuses on a battle-hardened female lobbyist who gives herself the Herculean challenge of taking on the gun lobby

The movie opens on December 9th.  Is already getting a huge amount of publicity simply because it has a political message that the liberal media likes.  Just from the trailer it appears as if they make the NRA look like a bunch of evil guys, not people who really care about letting the most vulnerable people in society have a chance to defend themselves and their family.

"The Senator's Wife" -- it is still listed as "in-development" -- "Harvey Weinstein promised that an upcoming film he’s making, starring Meryl Streep, will make the National Rifle Association “wish they weren’t alive” during an interview with Howard Stern earlier this week, and now it has a title."  
"Weinstein described the film as a 'big movie like a ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,' which he hopes will make audiences think: 'Gun stocks — I don’t want to be involved in that stuff. It’s going to be like crash and burn.'”
This movie's fate may depend on what happens with "Miss Sloane."

Unfortunately, these pushes aren't alone.

gun control groups point to NetFlix’s House of Cards and CBS’ The Good Wife. Everytown worked with House of Cards to push gun control during season four of the series, and “the Brady Campaign consulted on an episode of The Good Wife” for a gun control campaign, as well.

Broad range of company stocks soar after Trump election win

Remember the claims by Justin Wolfers and Eric Zitzewitz that a Trump win would crash the stock markets? Well, the opposite has occurred.

You get an idea of the types of industries that have been most harmed by President Obama and which ones will be helped the most by Trump see the stocks that have gone up the most.

From USA Today:

Small stocks are logging big gains largely because tiny companies generate most of their sales and profits domestically, where Donald Trump's economic agenda is seen benefiting the most.

Trump’s call for lower taxes, fewer regulations on businesses and government-financed infrastructure projects are viewed as a boon for smaller companies. . . .

From the Wall Street Journal:

Shares of banks, industrials and health-care companies propelled the Dow Jones Industrial Average to 19000 on Tuesday. The bets on those sectors largely reflect investors’ expectations of looser regulation, and higher growth and interest rates under a Trump administration. . . . 

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (contributed 240.99 points to the Dow industrials since Nov. 4) and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (73.76 points) 

The two banks have been big factors in the blue-chip index’s rally this month, largely because of the improved outlook for bank earnings and the rebound in long-term bond yields, which can make lending activity more profitable.That has particularly helped J.P. Morgan, the largest bank in the nation by both assets and market value. Since the presidential election, bond yields have risen and the gap between long- and short-dated debt has widened. That should help banks’ income because it increases the difference between what lenders charge on loans and pay out on deposits. . . . 

UnitedHealth Group Inc. (99.64 points) 

The largest U.S. health insurer has struggled to eke out profitability from its Affordable Care Act plans. UnitedHealth Group has said it intends to withdraw from nearly all of the health-law marketplaces next year amid anticipated annual losses of about $850 million on ACA plans. Other insurers have also pulled back from their coverage areas under the law, leaving many counties with only one participating insurer and increased premiums. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act. Still, the law has also resulted in a Medicaid expansion, bringing new customers to the insurer. In its latest quarter, the company added 9% more Medicaid members.  . . . 

Caterpillar Inc. (77.45 points) . . .

Looks like massive vote fraud with absentee ballots in North Carolina

The very close North Carolina gubernatorial election may very well have been decided by vote fraud with absentee ballots.  This might explain why Democrats say that vote fraud doesn't occur:

The North Carolina gubernatorial election between incumbent Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and Attorney General Roy Cooper has triggered a recount, with Cooper ahead by 5,000 votes. Many more ballots are to be counted, but the whole process is fraught with controversy. Cortney wrote earlier today that there could be some funny business with the vote counts in Durham and Bladen counties. Now, McCrory’s campaign site said they’ve filed election protests in 11 more counties:

Formal protests are being filed to challenge potentially fraudulent absentee ballots cast for Roy Cooper and other Democrats in 11 additional counties. These protests follow the discovery of a North Carolina Democrat Party-funded political action committee which appears to have paid individuals to fill out and witness hundreds of fraudulent absentee ballots for Democrats including Roy Cooper in Bladen County.

This has happened lots of times before.  Here are a couple of past examples, though the Pennsylvania one is most interesting.

Libertarian VP nominee Bill Weld:"Libertarian party pulls substantially more from Mr. Trump"

Libertarian VP nominee Bill Weld claims:"my belief is that the libertarian party pulls substantially more from Mr. Trump" @ 2:41 mark (video is available here).

I had heard that Weld has been raising money with this message as a way of getting those who want Hillary to win to donate money. Consistent with that, it also just so happens that the big dollars that the libertarians have been spending have apparently been on conservative talk radio.

The New York Times also has an op-ed saying that the Libertarians will tilt the election to Hillary Clinton.

With just a few days before Election Day and all eyes fixed on the two leading candidates, it’s easy to overlook a remarkable fact: The Libertarian candidate for president, Gary Johnson, may tilt the election for Hillary Clinton. . . .

As evidence, note that without the Libertarians and Green Party in the race, Trump is down by 1.8% as of Sunday, November 6th at Real Clear Politics.  With the Libertarians and Green Party in the race, Trump is down 2.2%.  Assuming that the Greens 1.8% are taken entirely from Hillary, to get a net loss of 0.4% from Trump you have to have 3.5% of the Libertarians vote come from Trump and 1.3% come from Hillary (73% of their vote from Trump and 27% from Hillary).  

A machine gun that "it's nearly impossible to prevent its production"

Gun control advocates don't seem to realize how gun control laws primarily prevent law-abiding citizens, not criminals from getting guns.  It isn't just an issue of smuggling guns.  It is also a question of being able to produce them, even machine guns.  Israel can't stop domestic terrorists from making their own machine guns.  From The Times of Israel:

The homemade or craft-produced rudimentary automatic weapon has been used in the majority of shooting attacks on Israeli civilians and security personnel. It’s not accurate and it has a limited range, but it’s cheap and more than powerful enough to cause mayhem and death — and it’s nearly impossible to prevent its production. . . . 

While some more advanced rifles and firearms require specialized tools, the Carlo has remained so popular because of how little machinery and technical know-how is required to produce it, according to N.R. Jenzen-Jones, director of Armament Research Services (ARES), a specialized technical intelligence consultancy. 

A drill press, some welding equipment and blueprints from the internet are all that’s needed to create one of these potentially devastating weapons, a fact that presents a real challenge for Israel and countries around the world that are trying to prevent such guns from winding up in the hands of terrorists and criminals. . . .

Dead Voters Still being Registered & Voting in Chicago years after their death

From CBS 2 in Chicago.

Susie Sallee was buried in 1998. Yet records show she voted in Chicago 12 years later.
Victor Crosswell died in 1994, but records show he’s voted six times since then. 

And then there’s Floyd Stevens. Records show he’s voted 11 times since his death in 1993. 

“It’s crazy,” Sharon Stevens Anderson, Stevens’ daughter, tells CBS 2’s Pam Zekman. “I don’t see how people can be able to do something like that and get away with it.” 

Those are just a few of the cases CBS 2 Investigators found by merging Chicago Board of Election voter histories with the death master file from the Social Security Administration. 

In all, the analysis showed 119 dead people have voted a total of 229 times in Chicago in the last decade. . . . 

Take Tadeusz Ciesla. Records show he voted in 2010. 

But his nephew Marek Ciesla says that’s impossible because he died in 1998. . . .

Of course, this is nothing like the 100,000 fraudulent votes cast in 1982.

the U.S. Attorney in Chicago at the time, Daniel Webb, estimated that at least 100,000 fraudulent votes (10 percent of all votes in the city) had been cast. 

Another example: 1,046 illegal aliens were discovered to be registered to vote in eight Virginia counties, but this number only included those who turned themselves  for being improperly registered.

Another example: In 56 counties, Indiana state police "believe there could be hundreds of fraudulent voter registration records with different combinations of made up names and addresses with people’s real information."

Another example: In 2012, 731 Pennsylvania voters may have voted twice.

More examples of vote fraud are here, here, and here.