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• Tsipras Tamed as Economists Declare Greece Loses Austerity Fight (BBG)
• Greece readies reform plans to first sign of leftist unrest (Reuters)
• Yellen Faces Congress Amid Direst Threat to Fed Since Dodd-Frank (BBG)
• The war must go on: Kiev says cannot withdraw heavy weapons as attacks persist (Reuters)
• Ukraine fears spread of war after blast in eastern city (Reuters)
• Denmark Dismisses Report It Could Consider Capital Controls (BBG)
• Deadline Nears on Homeland Security Funding Impasse (WSJ)
• Gross Fund Hurt by Oil’s Plunge Amid Bets on Energy Bonds (BBG)

As the divergence between Syriza's leadership perspective on debt talks - "success...won the battle" - and the Greek voters - "It looks to me that nothing has changed" - grows ever wider, and on the heels of apparent near mutiny last week, there is growing division in the ranks of the newly elected party. Syriza MEP Manolis Glezos penned a stunning rebuke of the party's apparent U-turn and asks his electorate for forgiveness... "Pity, and pity again... I apologize to the Greek people because I have contributed to this illusion... before it is too late, let us react!"

Meet SuperFish - Lenovo's, the world's largest computer manufacturer, pre-installed, image recognizing tracking software that monitors everything you do, and breaches web security... all for the purpose of pushing more ads in your face. After its initial approach of being completely unapologetic and dismissal, Lenovo is now groveling for forgiveness. The company’s Chief Technology Officer now says, “We messed up badly here,” and “We made a mistake.”

• Greece Should Not Give In to Germany’s Bullying (FP)
• Greece Can Pay Its Debts in Full, but It Won’t (WSJ)
• Early Friday humor: Euro Region Economy Strengthens Amid Wrangling on Greece  (BBG)
• Euro zone may need extra summit to clinch Greek deal (Reuters)
• Oil-Drop Pain Spreads to Saudi Arabia’s Energy Behemoth (WSJ)
• Yellen Confronts Economists’ Ignorance (BBG) - where does one even start with this one
• ECB Plans to Push Greek Banks to Shed State Debt If Talks Fail (BBG)

But guess what? It's really, really, really different this time! In this one short post, there's more than enough indisputable evidence of a bubble than anyone can justifiably ignore.

"That misconduct happens isn’t shocking. What is: When the FDA finds scientific fraud or misconduct, the agency doesn’t notify the public, the medical establishment, or even the scientific community that the results of a medical experiment are not to be trusted. On the contrary. For more than a decade, the FDA has shown a pattern of burying the details of misconduct. As a result, nobody ever finds out which data is bogus, which experiments are tainted, and which drugs might be on the market under false pretenses."

As anti-austerity protests continue to build in numbers across Europe (and not just in Spain where Podemos now holds a commanding poll lead over the status quo) KeepTalkingGreece reports that Greek parliamentary spokesman for Syriza, Nikos Filis notes "The wave of protests indicates a new beginning... And it scares the dominant forces in Europe. Because Syriza virus can spread and in their communities." And we suspect that is indeed the Eurogroup's greatest fear...

The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland earlier this week tweeted out a notice of a working paper titled: U.S. Intervention during the Bretton Woods Era:1962-1973... a detailed report on the massive interventions in currency markets that the Treasury and the Federal Reserve conducted and is exceptionally critical of the market manipulations that took place during that period. It is probably no surprise then that the paper is no longer featured at the Cleveland Fed, and the tweet was quickly deleted.

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.

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

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.”

When you accept the fact history is cyclical and continuous linear progress is not what transpires in the real world, you free yourself from the mental debilitation of normalcy bias and cognitive dissonance. Things do get worse. There are dark periods of history and they recur on a regular cycle. And we are in the midst of one of those dark periods. This Crisis will not be resolved without much pain, sacrifice, bloodshed, and ultimately war. The American people have lost their ability to think, reason, question, do math, control their urges, defer gratification, or realize when they are being lied to by the people they elected to public office. A culture of ignorance, celebration of the absurd, salutation of stupidity, honoring of the inane, being mesmerized by electronic gadgets, and satiating their egocentric shallow impulses on social media, is a sure recipe for societal collapse.

This country has gone from being one of the most regulated countries in the OECD to one of the least regulated and as a result the economy has boomed. Many of the wealthiest people in the world have been quietly establishing escape hatches here.

• 'Glimmer of hope' for Ukraine after deal at Minsk peace summit (Reuters)
• Ruble Rebounds, Russian Stocks Surge on Ukraine Cease-Fire Deal (BBG)
• Greek PM Tsipras in Brussels as clock ticks on EU bailout (Reuters)
• Emerging-Market Currencies Rout Not Over for Traders (BBG)
• Little noticed, new Saudi king shapes contours of power (Reuters)
• In Wake of Financial Crisis, Goldman Goes It Alone (WSJ)
• AmEx Is Losing Its Millionaires (BBG)
• Thousands to Lose Health Insurance Over Residency Questions (WSJ)

To everyone who says AAPLs upside from here may be limited due to the law of large numbers or some such (as if the NSA will ever stop handing out free student loans to make sure it has voluntary tabs on everyone) oh how wrong you are.