Israel

In real democracies, governments would do what the citizens who put them in office want them to do. The United States and other Western democracies make a mockery of that ideal. But, even so, there are limits; governments cannot defy public opinion on matters of great moment indefinitely. Enabling the Saudi ruling class, and the rulers of the other Gulf states, to direct American foreign policy to the extent that they do, and to get away with whatever they please, is hardly the least of it; but neither is it the only cause for concern.

Israel is refusing to comply with an order by a Swiss court that it pay $1.1 billion that it has owed to Tehran since before Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution for its share of a jointly owned oil pipeline. “Without referring to the matter at hand, we’ll note that according to the Trading with the Enemy Act it is forbidden to transfer money to the enemy, including the Iranian national oil company,” the Israeli Finance Ministry said in a statement.

This won't end well... As far as the Empire of Chaos goes, Divide and Rule remains the sweetest game in town.

The revelation from an internal US intelligence document that the very US-led coalition supposedly fighting ‘Islamic State’ today, knowingly created ISIS in the first place, raises troubling questions about recent government efforts to justify the expansion of state anti-terror powers.

When in doubt how to boost GDP, always revert to that old Keynesian favorite. War.

Every Time We Look, We Find NEW Admissions of False Flag Terrorism

As the economic calendar slowly picks up following the NFP lull, we are looking at a busy week both globally and in the US, where an army of Fed speakers culminates with a Yellen speech on Friday at 1pm in Rhode Island.

“Federal regulation and intervention cost American consumers and businesses an estimated $1.88 trillion in 2014 in lost economic productivity and higher prices. If U.S. federal regulation was a country, it would be the world’s 10th largest economy, ranking behind Russia and ahead of India. Economy-wide regulatory costs amount to an average of $14,976 per household – around 29% of an average family budget of $51,100."

Having been 'snubbed' by the new Saudi King Salman, it appears the uneasy relationshipo with our 'allies' in The Gulf is ebbing. In what the State Department will, we are sure, just brush off, Politico reports that the king of Bahrain has apparently also snubbed President Barack Obama, preferring instead to attend a horse show with Queen Elizabeth. 

Thursday, in a long-awaited opinion, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York' three-judge panel ruled that the NSA program that secretly intercepts the telephone metadata of every American was illegal. It’s now up to Congress to vote on whether or not to modify the law and continue the program, or let it die once and for all. Lawmakers must vote on this matter by June 1, when they need to reauthorize the Patriot Act. A key factor in that decision is the American public’s attitude toward surveillance. Given the vast amount of revelations about NSA abuses, it is somewhat surprising that just slightly more than a majority of Americans seem concerned about government surveillance. Which leads to the question of why?

"The White House’s story might have been written by Lewis Carroll: would bin Laden, target of a massive international manhunt, really decide that a resort town forty miles from Islamabad would be the safest place to live and command al-Qaida’s operations? It was inevitable that the Obama administration’s lies, misstatements and betrayals would create a backlash... High-level lying nevertheless remains the modus operandi of US policy, along with secret prisons, drone attacks, Special Forces night raids, bypassing the chain of command, and cutting out those who might say no." - Seymour Hersh

Today’s Eurogroup meeting will be key in determining where Greece and its creditors negotiations currently stand. Over in the US today, it’s the usual post payrolls lull with just the labor market conditions data expected.

Ever since the mysterious, unexpected bursting of ISIS on the global stage one year ago with much fanfare and even more carefully produced with just the right amount of lighting beheading video clip, we said from the very beginning that entire rehashed sequence of events in the middle east is about one thing: removing Syria's Assad from power just so the nat gas infrastructure from Qatar can traverse the territory and enter Europe, eliminating Russia's energy dominance over the continent. Today we got the latest confirmation of this in an AP report according to which "Turkey and Saudi Arabia have converged on an aggressive new strategy to bring down Syrian President Bashar Assad."

For a long time there was confusion about the "quo" to the Saudi Arabian "quid" over its agreement to side with the US on the Iranian "nuclear deal" (which incidentally looks like it will never happen simply due to the Russian and Chinese UN vetoes). Then over the weekend we finally got the answer: the details are quite familiar to anyone who has seen the US Military-Industrial Complex in action: the US pretends to wage an aggressive diplomatic campaign of peace while behind the scenes it is just as actively selling weapons of war.

On July 12 of 2014 as part of Operation Protective Edge, Israel launched a ground assault into Gaza which promptly led to a mini-war in the Strip that left more than 2,100 Palestinians dead and reduced vast areas to rubble: a "war" which many speculated was nothing but a massacre by highly skilled, trained, and ethically drained Israeli soldiers who used civilians for target practice. Yesterday we got confirmation of just that. In a 242-page report, soldiers recount how they fire artillery at random houses to avenge fallen comrades, shoot at innocent civilians because they were bored and watch armed drones attack a pair of women. That and much more.