Israel

Israel and Hezbollah are at war.  On top of everything else that is going on in the world, now we have a new war in the Middle East, and nobody is quite certain what is going to happen next.  Israel has been preparing for this moment for more than 8 years.  So has Hezbollah...

The daily bulletin of Italy’s Communist Refoundation Party published today the apparently official program of the Greek coalition of the left, Syriza. Here the 40 points of the Syriza program...

The threat posed by cyber war to our increasingly complicated, technologically dependent and vulnerable financial institutions, markets, banks and indeed deposits becomes more clear by the day. Fail to prepare ... prepare to fail ...

In the early 1970s, there were about 200,000 new US businesses created each year (net of closures). Now, the number is negative. Why are Americans getting poorer? Look no further. No new businesses (net). No new jobs (again net). No new wealth. Under Obama and Draghi, crony capitalism flourishes. Real capitalism dies.

UPDATE: Argentine President Fernandez claims "unprecedented" media attacks, plans to dissolve Intelligence Service, announces new Agency.

Writing for Haaretz.com, Jewish journalist Damian Pachter – who first reported on the death of the special prosecutor – recounts the intimidation, the sleepless nights, the agent who stalked him and his ultimate decision to head for Israel... "So here they are, the craziest 48 hours of my life..."

Israel indicated earlier today that it has finally had it with Obama, with the above sequence of events culminated in what Haaretz described was a reciprocal snub of the "leader of the free world" by Israel's president Reuven Rivlin, who declined a White House invitation to meet with Obama during his upcoming US trip: After consultations, Rivlin finally declined the American suggestion. His advisers explained to the Americans that the two leaders’ schedules do not overlap, because Rivlin is expected to return to Israel before Obama gets back to Washington.  “At this stage, it has been agreed not to hold a meeting during his visit, due to the schedule constraints of both leaders, and that a meeting would be scheduled at a later date,” the statement said.

Non-bombastic, non-insulting simply straight-forward look at next week's key events and data.  If you are so inclined...

UPDATE: Full SOTU Speech released - "THE SHADOW OF CRISIS HAS PASSED"

By now it is well known that The State of The Union tonight will be about President Obama's Robin-Hood Agenda. Furthermore, it is entirely clear that his proposals have no chance of becoming law. As WaPo's Marc Thiessen notes, Obama is not delusional, his move is completely and transparently political... And just as Eric Cantor suggests will merely serve to inflame the GOP. From taxes to cyber security and from community college to housing... in 50-65 minutes, all will be clear...

In what Yemen's information minister described as an "attempted coup" Shia Houthi rebels (backed by Hizbollah and Iran) have surrounded the Yemeni Presidential Palace putting them, as The Telegraph reports, in direct confrontation with al-Qaeda and the Yemen government. Amid hopes of a compromise deal or cease-fire in the conflict that has been under way since September when the Houthis swept into Sana'a, the latest reports are the nation has gone from bad to worse...

YEMENI PM SAID SURROUNDED BY HOUTHI MILITIAS, INFORMATION MINISTER SAYS GOVERNMENT HAS LOST CONTROL OVER COUNTRY -- CNN

Oil prices, interestingly, fell on the increasing tensions today - as we pre-suppose the market is pricing in a successful coup - and the ensuing pump-fest of supply (at any price - just give us revenues) will trump Yelemni tribes threats to cut off supply if the President is harmed.

The Argentine prosecutor who accused President Cristina Fernandez of orchestrating a cover-up in the investigation of Iran over the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center has, according to AP, been found dead in his apartment, authorities said on Monday. As The Times of Israel reports, Alberto Nisman, 51, was discovered, by his mother, in a pool of blood in the bathroom on Sunday night with a gunshot wound to the head, hours before he was set to testify before lawmakers on his accusations of the cover-up. Coincidence we are sure, but police are investigating and Argentinian media reported that they had initially ruled the death a likely suicide but we note that The Clarin daily reported just a few days earlier that Nisman had told the newspaper, "I could end up dead because of this," and in a separate TV interview, had also been considering increasing his security detail.

Self-government is the gift our founding fathers made possible and out of lack of respect for the sacrifices of the past, the constitutional rights of the present and the freedoms of future Americans we allow it to be traded for a comfortable existence.  We must stop and truly understand the concept of self-government as it was meant to be and then mentally reconcile that with the current state of our government.  We are parented not represented.  We are enslaved with encroaching laws that are demeaning to rational self sufficient adults.   And by a legislative body that feeds from our bosom, fights with our fists and has buried us in debt to a foreign body who they sold the rights to our currency.  How is this in any way a self-governed society?  We have been captured by a group of fraudulent citizens who control our money, our military and have desecrated our constitution.

Just two day after the Turkish President Erdogan's stunning outburst that "the culprits are clear: French citizens undertook this massacre and Muslims were blamed for it," and blamed Mossad for masterminding it, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Thursday accused his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu of committing "crimes against humanity" comparable to those of the Islamist gunmen behind the Paris attacks that left 17 dead.

The U.S. now ranks not first, not second, not third, but 12th among developed nations in terms of business startup activity as Gallup CEO Jim Clifton rages, for the first time in 35 years, American business deaths now outnumber business births. Wall Street, Clifton explains, needs the stock market to boom, even if that boom is fueled by illusion. So both tell us, "The economy is coming back." Let's get one thing clear, he exclaims, "this economy is never truly coming back unless we reverse the birth and death trends of American businesses."

The quaint notion that the U.S. political system remotely resembles either a Republic or a Democracy should have been abandoned long ago. Any lingering illusions were surely extinguished last year, when an academic study empirically proved that the USA is nothing more than a corrupt oligarchy...

Throughout history, there have been cases where this willingness to live together vanished because a big part of the population expresses a desire to live under different rules. What happened last week in Paris begs the question whether Western Europe faces this problem; i.e., does France and its neighbors have a part of their population that rejects the rules on which the nation is based, and wishes to build a nation under a different set of rules?