Futures, WTI Weak Early On; Gold Rises

Trump triggered Clinton supporters by saying he won the popular vote after deducting all of the illegal votes that were cast for Hillary. In response to the tweet below are so many falling snowflakes by ‘journalists’ and celebrities, it’s simply too much to delve into.

In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016

But one of them stood out, a tweet by the former DNC Chair and prominent democrat, Howard Dean — suggesting Hillary might’ve won the electoral college after subtracting all of the illegal votes that were cast for Trump. This is an obvious poke at the Putin conspiracy theories that are running rampant in the minds of the left.

@realDonaldTrump @KattyKayBBC It's beginning to look like HRC won the electoral college if you "deducted the millions who voted illegally"

— Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) November 27, 2016

BASED.

If you thought Trump was going to take it easy on Twitter, after becoming President of the United States, think again. He’s been going apeshit on Twitter over the Jill Stein recount scheme and is now trying to trigger Hillary Clinton and her supporters by suggesting he actually won the popular vote (latest data shows Clinton with a 2 million vote lead in the popular vote), when taking into account all of the illegal voters that participated in the elections — most of which voted for her.

In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016

The whole popular vote narrative the Clinton supporters are pushing is extremely flawed, since the rules of the game dictated an electoral college win is all that mattered. If the contest called for a popular vote win, Trump would’ve spent all of his time in Texas and other red states, ginning up votes for the win. The whole point of the electoral college is to ensure the states have a say in who the next President of the United States will be.

Here are some other tweets that are sure to infuriate the real news reading left.

It would have been much easier for me to win the so-called popular vote than the Electoral College in that I would only campaign in 3 or 4–

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016

states instead of the 15 states that I visited. I would have won even more easily and convincingly (but smaller states are forgotten)!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016

The Democrats, when they incorrectly thought they were going to win, asked that the election night tabulation be accepted. Not so anymore!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016

The Green Party scam to fill up their coffers by asking for impossible recounts is now being joined by the badly defeated & demoralized Dems

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016

Hillary Clinton conceded the election when she called me just prior to the victory speech and after the results were in. Nothing will change

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016

And here’s Trump going in on Hillary’s hypocrisy.

Lastly, instead of praising the late Fidel Castro as a romantic figure, like the NY Times, Trump coldly tweeted “CASTRO IS DEAD.” OMG

Fidel Castro is dead!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 26, 2016

Poor James Alefantis, a regular Mario from Comet Ping Pong pizza was interviewed this morning to discuss the conspiracy theory being leveled against him, in regards to Pizzagate and how it pertains to child trafficking.

Thank you NPR for rooting out this fake news.

Here is David Seaman’s rebuke of the NY Times article, which dismissed the conspiracies as ‘fake news.

Paul nails it, as usual. The hypocrisy of the left is palpable.

Blame it on the weather, the elections or God forbid Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com — but retails sales at traditional brick and mortar stores are looking like a complete and total bust for the much anticipated Black Friday. Sales were expected to stabilize this year, with projections ranging from flat to negative 3.5% year over year. However, according to RetailNext, sales plunged by more than 10% on Black Friday. Additionally, the number of transactions were down nearly 8%, year over year.

Sales and traffic at U.S. brick-and-mortar stores on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday declined from last year, as stores offered discounts well beyond the weekend and more customers shopped online.

Internet sales rose in the double digits on both days, surpassing $3 billion for the first time on Black Friday, according to data released on Saturday.

Data from analytics firm RetailNext showed net sales at brick-and-mortar stores fell 5.0 percent over the two days, while the number of transactions fell 7.9 percent.

Preliminary data from retail research firm ShopperTrak showed that shopper visits to such stores fell a combined 1 percent during Thanksgiving and Black Friday when compared with the same days in 2015.

The data highlights the waning importance of Black Friday, which until a few years ago kicked off the holiday shopping season, as more retailers start discounting earlier in the month and opened their doors on Thanksgiving Day.

“We knew it (holiday season) was going to be off to a slow start,” Shelley Kohan, vice president of retail consulting at RetailNext, said.

“The first couple of weeks with the election were a complete distracter from the normal course of business and…a warmer climate in November may have made the sales more stubborn,” she said, adding that she saw sales picking up in December.

Net sales on Black Friday slid 10.4 percent for brick-and-mortar chains, according to RetailNext.

“Stores that opened on Thursday were not very busy on Black Friday,… and while the Thanksgiving Day opt-outs were busier on Black Friday, they didn’t see the crowds they saw in previous years,” NPD group’s Chief Industry analyst Marshal Cohen said.

Conversely, online sales dominated by Amazon.com, spiked doubled digits to more than $3b on Black Friday, a new record. While interesting and also a strong sign of consumer demand, none of this bodes well for the litany of stores domiciled in the endless sea of shopping malls across America.

The Amazonian vortex continues to draw everything into its vortex.

Because the Russians are hacking everything in sight, the Hillary Clinton campaign has decided to join the grass roots efforts of Jill Stein to overthrow the elections and to hopefully get to the bottom of all of this craziness — which perhaps may pave the way to the first female President of the United States of America.

Her campaign counsel, Marc Elias, said the Clinton campaign ‘will participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides.’ How benevolent of them, to take time out from their busy schedules to ensure that Donald Trump is getting a fair deal.

Kellyanne Conway wasn’t at all appreciative of this Clinton generosity, saying “what a pack of sore losers. After asking Mr. Trump and his team a million times on the trail, ‘Will HE accept the election results?’ it turns out Team Hillary and their new BFF Jill Stein can’t accept reality.”

Indeud.

The unappreciative Conway furthered her assault:

“Rather than adhere to the tradition of graciously conceding and wishing the winner well, they’ve opted to waste millions of dollars and dismiss the democratic process. The people have spoken. Time to listen up. #YesYourPresident.”

Elias insisted that they hadn’t found “any actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology.” Even still, one can never be too careful with the diabolical Putin still out there, lurking in the shadows, hacking about the internets.

Even though Elias thinks this is all a grand waste of time and money, they’re gonna participate anyway, in order to ensure fairness, justice and the American way.

“We do so fully aware that the number of votes separating Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the closest of these states — Michigan — well exceeds the largest margin ever overcome in a recount,“ Elias said. “But regardless of the potential to change the outcome in any of the states, we feel it is important, on principle, to ensure our campaign is legally represented in any court proceedings and represented on the ground in order to monitor the recount process itself.”

As the interview with Bloomberg wasted on, Elias became emboldened, decrying his duty to the 64 million people who voted for Hillary.

“We believe we have an obligation to the more than 64 million Americans who cast ballots for Hillary Clinton to participate in ongoing proceedings to ensure that an accurate vote count will be reported.”

And then he showed his cards, the fucking Russians.

The 2016 election cycle “was unique in the degree of foreign interference witnessed throughout the campaign,” Elias said, noting that the U.S. government had concluded Russian state actors behind hacks of the Democrat National Committee and the personal e-mails of some Clinton campaign officials.

Data scientists have been on the job, making sure the vote was legit. Bear in mind, these same data scientists, whatever the fuck that term means, were all clown raped on election night — made to look like data idiots — completely and utterly disgraced by the election results.

“We have quietly taken a number of steps in the last two weeks to rule in or out any possibility of outside interference in the vote tally in these critical battleground states,” he said, including having data scientists and lawyers comb over the results, and monitored and staffed post-election canvasses.

Trump called the recount efforts by Stein a scam.

“This is a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded, and the results of this election should be respected instead of being challenged and abused, which is exactly what (Green Party leader) Jill Stein is doing,” Trump said in a statement about the recount.

“This recount is just a way for Jill Stein, who received less than one percent of the vote overall and wasn’t even on the ballot in many states, to fill her coffers with money, most of which she will never even spend on this ridiculous recount.”

It would be ironic if this meddling by the Clinton’s convinced Trump that Hillary was irredeemable and a motivator to prosecute a case against her for the emails and the Clinton Foundation pay to play schemes.

The Jill Stein campaign prides itself for being anti-corporate — only accepting the donations from the small people — the disenfranchised folks who cannot afford to donate to her losing campaign — but do so nonetheless to help Jill fulfill an otherwise pointless existence in the political landscape.

Thanks to her website and the Wayback machine, we can examine the donations and the rate by which they came in — to see if they have a ‘grass rootish’ demeanor or not.

Here is the timeline on 11/23/16.

Upon launching the new fundraiser to help ensure the Russians didn’t hack the Presidential election, Jill raised an immediate 87k.

20:51:29

The second update occurred at 21:13:23, funds on hand now $131,526. Money was being raised at about $2k per minute.

The third update occurred at 23:40:49, funds on hand now $626,916.47. Money was being raised at $3,370 per minute.

The fourth update occurred at 23:45:01, funds on hand now $646,386.47. Money was being raised at $4,867 per minute.

On November the 24th, 2016, there was 22 updates. I’ve chosen to analyze 3 time periods, every seventh update, in an effort to further analyze Dr. Stein’s grass roots fundraising feats.

Schedule.

The fifth update occurred at 00:14:41, funds on hand now $780,759.00. Money was being raised at $4,633 per minute.

The sixth update occurred at 6:16:36, funds on hand now $2,315,213.66. Money was being raised at $4,250 per minute.

The sixth update occurred at 14:33:33, funds on hand now $2,929,566.10. Money was being raised at $1,236 per minute. Such slackers.

The seventh update occurred at 20:49:17, funds on hand now $4,005,993.85. Money was being raised at $2,862 per minute. Much better.

I’ll summarize for the 25th and the 26th, in an effort to preserve brevity.

Here is the timeline of updates for the 25th.

During Thanksgiving, Jill Stein’s grass roots campaign had $4,591,039.66 on hand at 06:11:44. By 22:52:24, that number swelled to $5,322,206.01. Money was raised at $730 per minute.

At 3:29:47 on 11/26, Jill Stein had $5,483, 727.60 on hand. As of right now, at 23:37, she has $5,532,782.53 on hand. Money is being raised at $40.87 per minute.

In summary, Jill Stein raised an enormous amount of money in the opening hours of her campaign to recount the votes in the all important swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Although she claimed her fund raising efforts were entirely grass roots, the facts suggest otherwise. By what I’m seeing here, big donors stepped in early to put her over the top — then the grass roots plebs stepped in to toss nickels at her — with donations shrinking from $4,800 per minute to just over 40 bucks now. Interestingly, the rate by which she’s raised funds have an inverse correlation to the amount of press she’s been receiving.

In other words, none of this makes any sense. Where did all of the early money come from?

Live shot of Jill Stein's headquarters: pic.twitter.com/kKQb0R558x

— Jason C. (@CounterMoonbat) November 26, 2016

Hillary Clinton already conceded the election and isn’t interested in dividing the country via a ridiculous recount. After all, she was the one holding Trump’s feet to the fire in accepting the outcome of the elections and not challenging its efficacy.

Enter Shill Stein and her money grabbing schemes — playing off the butthurt feelings of the millions of people crying into their dinner jackets over the Clinton loss — raising enormous amounts of funds from them since Wednesday.

Let me rephrase that so it can sink in.

Jill Stein is brazenly taking advantage of people by hanging hope of their heads, saying send me your money and I will ensure Trump isn’t the next President of the United States. Essentially, that’s what this is about, no?

Since Wednesday, Stein’s money raising schemes have topped $5 million. Her original goal was $2.5m, but rose, dramatically, after the money started to roll in. Her new goal is $7 million. Recounts will begin in Wisconsin soon. She’s hoping to do recounts in PA and MI too, for the sake of the people, of course.

Via her own website:

“We cannot guarantee a recount will happen in any of these states we are targeting. We can only pledge we will demand recounts in those states.”

If the recounts don’t happen, what will become of all that money? Stein’s website says any “surplus will also go toward election integrity efforts and to promote voting system reform.”

Interestingly, as her money raising schemes proved successful, the alleged costs associated with the recount rose dramatically — including millions to be paid out to lawyers.

It appears that as more money came in, Jill Stein's estimated recount costs rose dramatically. https://t.co/aoOqH0VVkP pic.twitter.com/kcoYTrSUm3

— Yashar (@yashar) November 24, 2016

READ THE FINE PRINT: There probably won't be a recount and Jill Stein will line her pockets with the money for "integrity efforts" #NoRefund pic.twitter.com/a3fF5JOpGP

— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) November 24, 2016

Nate Silver isn’t a fan.

Not saying this Jill Stein thing is a scam, but if it were a scam, it would probably look a lot like this. https://t.co/pg4eAuFQ4h

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 25, 2016

Jonah sums it up perfectly.

Jill Stein's racket is incredible:

Step 1: Cost the Dem the Election
Step 2: wait for Trump panic
Step 3: Bilk millions for recount.

— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) November 25, 2016

Here’s Stein’s conference, discussing her absurd contest.

The neverending election continues.

I took the day off. I’m guilty as sin. It was a wonderful trading session, betwitx with all sorts of fuckery — like stocks hitting new highs and oil crashing by 4% — all at the same time. I love when that happens.

Crude is down on renewed fears over prospective OPEC cuts. The people who run OPEC are professional liars and can never be trusted, so guessing whether or not they’ll cut production is anyone’s guess.

At the end of the abbreviated session, a lovely volume spike from one of our algorithmic based trading bots, smashed into the SPY to make it great again.

The bet here is a simple one: Black Friday sales are going to be fucking awesome — as the animals rampage throughout America’s shopping malls like savages — killing one another for toasters and pairs of rubber sneakers.