Obama Administration

• Crude sinks 4 percent as market braces for more Iranian oil (Reuters)
• Plunge in crude oil prices send stock futures sliding (Reuters)
• Oil Slides, Deepening Gloom in Stocks as Bond Buyers Celebrate (BBG)
• China Stocks Enter Bear Market, Erasing Gains From State Rescue (BBG)
• Friendly no more: Trump, Cruz erupt in bitter fight at Republican debate (Reuters)
• Dollar in Best Run Since July on Haven Bid Even as Fed Odds Fall (BBG)

Senior-level sources in numerous Middle Eastern governments have privately expressed bewilderment at recent and current U.S. government strategies and policies toward the region. But a closer examination of U.S. policies, now almost entirely dictated by the Obama White House, shows no cohesive national goals or policies exist, but rather an ad hoc set of actions and reactions, which are largely dictated either by ideological positions, ignorance, whim, or perceived expedience.

“Following technical and operational investigations and in interaction with relevant political and national security bodies of the country and after it became clear that the US combat vessels’ illegal entry into the Islamic Republic of Iran’s waters was the result of an unpurpuseful [sic] action and a mistake and after they extended an apology, the decision was made to release them."

As the towering forces that are prevailing against failing global economic architecture and the pit of debt beneath that structure, as laid out below, it is clear that the 'Epocalypse' - encompassing the roots "economic, epoch, collapse" and "apocalypse" - is here, and it is everywhere. The Great Collapse has already begun. What follows are the megatrends that will increasingly gang up in the first part of 2016 to stomp the deeply flawed global economy down into its own hole of debt.

For imprisonments, the US really does have no close second: it’s the unquestionable global market-leader, for prisons and prisoners. And this gets us to the market-leader for prisons within America itself, and to the stunning corruption that stands behind it. So, here’s that extraordinary example, and the story behind its corruption, which will provide a close-up view of America’s general corruption, from the top (including the government itself) on down.

The state of our nation under Obama has become more bureaucratic, more debt-ridden, more violent, more militarized, more fascist, more lawless, more invasive, more corrupt, more untrustworthy, more mired in war, and more unresponsive to the wishes and needs of the electorate. Most of all, the government, already diabolical and manipulative to the nth degree, has mastered the art of "do what I say and not what I do" hypocrisy.

Health insurers are in panic mode as the Obama administration, ever eager maximize coverage optics for Obamacare, has, as The NY Times reports, allowed large numbers of people to sign up for insurance after the deadlines in the last two years, destabilizing insurance markets and driving up premiums. This surge in costs, from unintended consequences, has left 1 in 5 Americans with health insurance is having problems paying medical bills; and, as a new poll finds, more than one in three Americans, or 35 percent, said they were unable to pay for basic necessities such as food, heat, and housing because of medical bill problems...

"The increasingly frequent departures from Constitutional principles are destroying the Rule of Law foundation on which this country was built... The cure to these problems will not come from Washington D.C. Instead, the states must lead the way. The irony for our generation is that the threat to our Republic doesn’t come just from foreign enemies, it comes, in part, from our very own leaders."

- Texas governor Greg Abbott

"I commend the law enforcement for apprehending these two individuals, but their apprehensions raise the immediate question: Who else is there? What are they planning next? We need to see a systematic and careful retroactive assessment of refugees brought in from high-risk countries."

• U.S. jobs market seen fairly healthy despite slowing economy (Reuters)
• China State Funds Said to Buy More Shares After Market Rout (BBG)
• Global Stocks Gain Some Respite (WSJ)
• U.S. Jobs Data Take on Added Importance With Markets in Turmoil (BBG)
• GOP Health Plans Are Works in Progress (WSJ)
• For economy czar of crisis-hit Venezuela, inflation 'does not exist' (Reuters)

As our situation in this country becomes more precarious, there are going to be far more flashpoints than anyone will be able to keep track of. It is inevitable that a fight between corrupt elements of the U.S. government and regular people will erupt.If internationalists were to get their way fully with the world and future historians write their analysis from a globalist perspective of the defunct American nation, they will probably say simply that our collapse was brought about by our own incompetence - that we were our own worst enemy. Yes, they would treat America as a cliché. They will of course leave out the destructive influences and engineered disasters of elitists, that would just complicate the narrative. My hope is that we do not prove these future historians correct, and that they won’t have an opportunity to exist.

Obama's Keystone pipeline rejection "mission accomplished" banner has just led to a big slap on the face of the former constitutional expert, and could carry a multi-billion dollar chage after late this afternoon, TransCanada filed a lawsuit in Federal court in Houston, suing the U.S. government and claiming the Obama acted unconstitutionally when he rejected the Keystone XL, while also seeking $15 billion alleging the pipeline denial was "arbitrary and unjustified."

We don’t have a dog in this fight.  San Bernardino doesn’t change the calculation.  ISIS will eventually collapse under its own homicidal and parasitical weight, probably with the help of one or more of its neighbors, whose inactivity and divisiveness we currently underwrite. Then ISIS will be replaced by something better... or worse... it is impossible to know in this region.  In the interim, we and our European friends should focus our efforts on isolating ourselves from the madness.  And we certainly should not go out of our way to draw further fire.

See For Yourself ...