President Obama

Britain is set to deploy additional troops to the fight in Afghanistan after a suicide bomber on a motorbike killed six US troops near Bagram. The Taliban advance in Helmand underscores the country's worsening security situation and suggests that in relatively short order, Afghanistan will once again become a key battleground in what has become a multi-state regional proxy war.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s seminal masterpiece Crime and Punishment is often thought of as one of the longest classics at more than 200,000 words. The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016, which was signed into law on Friday, is nearly twice as long. At 887 pages, the bill allocates $1.15 trillion in war and discretionary spending for fiscal year 2016 which began almost three months ago. (That’s an average of $1.3 billion in spending PER PAGE of the bill.) In making it public law, President Obama has effectively signed the death warrant of the US government’s finances.

The basic policy-difference on Syria has been between U.S. President Barack Obama’s insistence that Syria’s legal President must be ousted before any peace-process starts, versus Russian President Vladimir Putin’s insistence that no foreign power possesses the right to determine whom the leader of Syria or any other country will or won’t be - only the residents there do, via free and fair democratic elections. Putin proposes an internationally monitored and verified election in Syria to determine the identity of Syria’s President; Obama has rejected that proposal - until now.

The announcement of the restoration of Israel-Turkish relations should be seen in the context of Turkey having nowhere else to go.

Following Vladimir Putin's 'endorsement' of The Donald, explaining his hope for "a more substantial, deeper relationship," with America, Trump has reciprocated the show of respect by thanking the Russian president for the "great honor." This mutual back-patting stunned MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough, who exclaimed, Putin "is a person who kills journalists, political opponents and invades countries," to which Trump responded, silencing Scarborough, "he's running his country, and at least he's a leader, unlike what we have in our country."

More un-fearmongery? More re-reassurance? Noone really knows but President Obama will address the nation ahead of tomorrow's reportedly 2nd biggest shopping day of the year. Fear the bad guys... but spend, spend, spend...

With another big-spending weekend ahead for the American consumer, President Obama is set to explain to an increasingly worried nation that despite the apparent very real threat of terrorism (and all the spending, surveillance, and loss of liberty that is required to maintain your freedom), they should go about their borrowing-and-spending consumption duties... or else the terrorists win. Having managed somehow to both increase gun sales and push a majority to oppose an assault weapon ban, Obama will today re-reassure his fellow Americans that he knows what's best for them.

“The deal to lift the crude ban is a significant change in U.S. policy, but in terms of the near-term impact on prices, we expect that to be blotchy and sentiment driven. All that you’re doing is transferring the glut from the U.S., where most of the storage capacity is, to elsewhere in the world.”

As concerning and hateful as so much of Trump’s commentary is, we can at least be sure he speaks from his own twisted mind. This is precisely why he appeals to so many people in this day and age of completely captured politicians. People like the fact that every word out of his mouth hasn’t been carefully placed there by some billionaire patron. On the exact opposite end of that spectrum we find Marco Rubio. A man so incapable of free-thought, he becomes the ideal target for billionaires looking to craft the perfect puppet. Forget Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio is now the establishment GOP’s pick, and they will do everything in their power to get him the nomination.

This is the highest percentage of Americans to mention terrorism in a decade... So are the terrorists winning? Or the fearmongers?

Official Washington is awash with tough talk about Russia and the need to punish President Putin for his role in Ukraine and Syria. But this bravado ignores Russia’s genuine national interests, its “red lines,” and the risk that “tough-guy-ism” can lead to nuclear war. In short, Russia is being offered only the binary choice: to acquiesce to the “benevolent” hegemon, or to prepare for war.

Having earlier taken credit for the 'success' achieved recently against ISIS, one comedic trader had a suggestion for how President Obama could really "depress, deflate, defeat, and destroy" the terrorists: "We are going to break ISIS financially by requiring them to enroll in the Affordable Care Act by 2017" - POTUS

Judging by his prime-time speech last week, the final year of Barack Obama’s presidency will be marked by increased militarism abroad and authoritarianism at home. The centerpiece of the president’s speech was his demand for a new law forbidding anyone on the federal government’s terrorist watch list from purchasing a firearm. There has never been a mass shooter who was on the terrorist watch list, so this proposal will not increase security. However, it will decrease liberty.

Jim Cramer - of all people - warned about this in 2007: watch the video inside!