Archive - Feb 13, 2015 - Story

As reported earlier, today Obama will unleash his latest executive order, one which will set the stage for "information sharing and analysis organizations" (ISAOs) - or, in political jargon "hubs where companies share cyber threat data with each other and with the Department of Homeland Security."  In regular parlance, what Obama will do is merely codify the second coming of the Patriot Act. Click here to make it easier for the NSA watch you watch the president.

In our national insanity, the U.S. has only 5% of the worlds population, yet 25% of its prisoners. Many of these people have no business being locked in a cage to begin with, and are wasting their lives away for committing “victimless crimes,” i.e. for no good reason. While the immorality of locking up so many of our fellow citizens for non-crimes should be readily apparent, today’s article from Five-Thirty-Eight offers evidence that America’s incarceration rate has become so saturated that it has absolutely no meaningful impact in lowering crimes rates anyway. The time for prison reform and the elimination of mandatory minimum sentences is long overdue.

"Isolated, sanctioned, oil-crushed, 'economy is dying', warmonger" Russia...

Here come the "information sharing and analysis organizations", or ISAOs.

Gold and government bonds now cost about the same to own, but governments actively trying to lower the value of their bonds and bank accounts while gold is rising wherever trouble erupts. The logical conclusion is that if gold and cash both cost the same to own, then maybe gold — which has held its value over millennia while every previous fiat currency has evaporated — is the better bet.

Despite the dramatic plunge in rig counts, this week saw yet another surge in production to record highs and with storage levels getting close to full, it would seem  - despite the bounce/squeeze in prices to $53 as the data hit - that supply remains well ahead of any demand. Total rig count dropped 98 to 1,358 - for the largest weekly drop of the 10 week run as cutting is accelerating rapidly - now down 30%.  This is the biggest weekly rig count drop since 1993. West Virginia remains the relative hardest hit with rig count depletions but Permian Basin collapse 49 rigs to 369 this week.

For the 4th time in February, NATO dispatched Typhoon jets to track a Russian Il-20 today over The Baltic Sea. However, as fighting rages in Ukraine - despite the apparent market excitement at a truce deal - today's biggest news is NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's claims that his alliance has evidence of Russian military presence in Ukraine, despite the 'independent' OSCE chief having stated he saw no Russian troops in Ukraine's east. One wonders if NATO has YouTube proof like that of the American-accented fighter we recently noted.

With everyone making nice - apart from Dijsselbloem - ahead of the weekend, we thought some reality checks were in order... This whole Greek debt “face-off” with the rest of Europe is so comical. First of all, as previously mentioned, there is NO way that Greece will EVER pay off all of its debt. And its ability to even service [interest payments] its debt is questionable. So, really, if you are a creditor to Greece what are you to do? You are definitely going to get “stiffed”. The question = Can you recover even some of your principal? In this case probably not a lot.

"A ceasefire is due to come into effect from Sunday under the agreement, which also envisages a withdrawal of the heavy weapons responsible for many of the 5,000 casualties in the conflict that broke out almost a year ago. Kiev said pro-Russian rebels had built up their forces across separatist-held zones since the deal and both sides accused each other of killing civilians." There is still hope that on Sunday morning things will be different. Yet, one element that is certain to undermine any deal, in addition to the now usual suspects because after all this is a proxy civil war with far greater geopolitical interests involved, is Ukraine’s ultranationalistic Right Sector, whose leader Dmitry Yarosh today said his radical movement rejects the Minsk peace deal and that their paramilitary units in eastern Ukraine will continue “active fighting" according to their "own plans."

Just weeks after the death of Alberto Nisman - the prosecutor who was investigating Argentine President Fernandez' alleged cover-up of an Iranian bombing - it appears the discovery of an arrest warrant for the President at his home has prompted the following:

*ARGENTINA'S FERNANDEZ CHARGED IN PROBE OF ALLEGED COVER UP: TN

Given her insistence that Nisman's death was not suicide but from a faction within her (now defunct) intelligence unit, we can only imagine the level of uncertainty in the nation and the potential for social unrest (or worse) is growing rapidly as the movement supporting Nisman was already surging. Analysts warned that charging Fernandez would be "a scandal on a level previously unseen.”

Do you believe in miracles?

The 2015 World Press Freedom Index highlights the worldwide drastic decline in freedom of information in 2014. The rise in overall violations of freedom of information was evident in all continents, but for America - the bastion of press freedom in the land of the free and "the most transparenet administration ever" - fell once again... to 49th!!

While military officials have stated that their "advisers" are not involved in the fighting, WaPo reports that ISIS militants have seized an Iraqi town within two miles of the Ayn al-Asad base where 300 US military advisers are stationed. The region remains under "severe threat" and the local council has called for "immediate and urgent military reinforcements” after the attack on the town of al-Baghdadi, which began in the early morning." It seems those non-boots-on-the-ground advisers are about to get a taste of what President Obama promised they would not...

The game of words continues, and following reports both yesterday and today that first Germany, and then Greece would compromise, and in the case of the latter even do "whatever it can" to reach a deal, it is time for Europe's bad cop, Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem, to pour cold water on the party and crush Greek enthusiasm even more when he said moments ago that he was "very pessimistic" about the chances that a meeting he will chair on Monday of euro zone finance ministers would reach a final debt deal with Greece.  Cited by Reuters, he said that Greek voters' expectations of their new government were "a mile high", Dutch finance minister Dijsselbloem was asked whether a plan to resolve Athens' financial problems would be achieved on Monday. He replied, in a remark aired on Dutch television: "I’m really still very pessimistic about that now."