In North Carolina freakout news:
Lionsgate and the A+E network say they won’t film TV shows and movies in North Carolina if the state doesn’t repeal its new LGBT law.
Along with Fox, Miramax and The Weinstein Company, the entertainment producers have voiced opposition to House Bill 2, which replaces local ordinances with a statewide nondiscrimination law that doesn’t include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected categories.
Trump appears to be on track for at least three more wins in the states that vote today. He has commanding leads in North Carolina and Florida, and he has a smaller lead in Illinois. The best chance for a Cruz win is in Missouri, where there has been almost no polling and where socially conservative/evangelical candidates have done well in the previous cycles. Santorum won Missouri in 2012, and in 2008Huckabee finished in second close behind McCain, so it wouldn’t be surprising if Cruz prevailed.
I see that my “SJWs Will Elect Trump” post was a big hit over the weekend (thanks, Real Clear Politics, for the link). I posted it after midnight on Saturday morning — after reading accounts of the cancelled Trump rally in Chicago — and by Sunday afternoon, had changed one thing about the view expressed in that post. I had said that the SJWs shutting down an American presidential candidate’s rally was a sign that Trump had to go on — by which I meant that the SJWs could not be allowed to win yet again.
If you were looking for signs that US trade may be collapsing on itself, a good place to start would be Class 8 truck orders which, as we first documented in early December, have posted sharp y/y declines of late.
In November for instance, orders collapsed 59% y/y. In December, the drop was 37%, and in January, Class 8 orders dove 48% from the year ago period.