FBI

Overnight, two hostages including an American photojournalist, 33-year-old Luke Sommers, who was held for more than a year by al Qaeda's Yemen branch, as well as a South African teacher, Pierre Korkie, were killed in a botched rescue attempt by US special operations forces. This was the second rescue attempt in as many weeks. According to the WSJ, Luke Somers, 33 years old, was killed by militants, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Saturday. Several members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, were also killed in the raid.

• Thanks Fed: Meet the high schooler who made $300K trading penny stocks under his desk (Verge)
• Protesters block NY streets after officer cleared in chokehold death (Reuters)
• U.S. Plans Probe of New York Police Chokehold Death (BBG)
• Sharpton Leads Civil-Rights Meeting on Chokehold Decision (BBG)
• Staten Island on Edge Over Grand Jury Decision In Death of Eric Garner (WSJ)
• Draghi Tests Speed Limit as ECB Awaits Stimulus Evidence (BBG)
• European Stocks Approach Seven-Year High Before Draghi Statement (BBG)
• Britain targets multinationals that try to dodge taxes (Reuters)
• Oil Trains Hide in Plain Sight (WSJ)

In a surprise development involving the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, earlier today security officials announced that the Lebanese army had captured the wife and daughter of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as they crossed from Syria nine days ago. According to Reuters, the woman was identified as Saja al-Dulaimi, an Iraqi, by a Lebanese security official and a senior political source. The Lebanese newspaper As-Safir reported she had been detained in coordination with "foreign intelligence." The official spin is clear: in Reuters' words, "the arrest is a blow to Baghdadi and could be used as a bargaining chip against his group, which has captured many foreign, Iraqi and Syrian prisoners and declared a caliphate in territory it has seized in Syria and Iraq." Unless, of course, it isn't, and it merely sets off the ISIS leader even more. 

Since 2006,MRAPs, helicopters, machine guns, and night-vision-goggle have been increasingly evident across America as the good ol' yankee copper morphs into a full-metal-jacket-looking killer (even as the FBI admits the threats to police have not escalated as much as the media would like). So it isjust 'lucky' that Ferguson has reignited a narrative that enables President Obama "to discuss federal programs and funding that provide equipment to the state and local enforcement agencies," in a series of meetings today at The White House. We suspect funding will increase (for your own protection) and a new SWATification Tzar will be unveiled.

A recently published FBI report accidentally proves that while the police claim cops face growing threats from rowdy populations – like in Ferguson – the opposite is true. The governemnt places a higher priority on their own than on the lives of those they claim to “serve,” “protect,” and “work for.” It cares more about exonerating the police of their crimes than providing justice to those they abuse. There is no justice when the criminal is the cop.

In 2013, 186,000 people were allowed to buy weapons without a background check at all, according to the AP, after the FBI was unable to process their applications within the legal window of three days. This year demand is even higher...

• Oil Seen in New Era as OPEC Won’t Yield to U.S. Shale (BBG)
• Alberta Producers With World’s Cheapest Oil Face Cascading Woes (BBG)
• Bundesbank’s Weidmann Rejects Calls for German Stimulus Plan (WSJ)
• Google Should Be Broken Up, Say Euro MPs (BBC)
• Calm comes to troubled Ferguson; protests dwindle across U.S. (Reuters)
• Russia’s Banks Feel Capital Squeeze in Grip of Sanctions (BBG)
•  Italian Unemployment Rate Rises to Record, Above Forecasts (BBG)

While the second day of protests in Ferguson were far more contained as a result of the tripled presence of national guard troops in the St. Louis suburb, with media instead focusing on events in New York, LA and other major metropolitan centers, St. Louis violence failed to avoid the headlines for another day when shortly before 3 am, two FBI agents were shot early Wednesday morning in north St. Louis County.  The good news according to Reuters, is that this latest assault was "not directly related" to racially charged unrest in and around nearby Ferguson, an agency spokeswoman said.   "The incident is not directly related to the Ferguson protests," Wu said, but did not elaborate further.

A lot of Americans have an impression that drone strikes are less damaging to civilian populations than conventional airstrikes. This would be false..."A new analysis of the data available to the public about drone strikes, conducted by the human-rights group Reprieve, indicates that even when operators target specific individuals – the most focused effort of what Barack Obama calls “targeted killing” – they kill vastly more people than their targets, often needing to strike multiple times. Attempts to kill 41 men resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,147 people, as of 24 November." We strongly believe that the reason so many Americans blindly support the widespread use of drones is due to the mistaken belief that they are precise and result in few civilian casualties. It’s important to get some of the facts out to the public in order to have a more informed debate on the matter.

Gallup recently conducted a poll asking Americans to rate (excellent, good, fair, or poor) thirteen of the most visible agencies/quasi-agencies of the United States government... the winner may surprise you (as a taxpaying member of the public).

"... Shortly after returning from a trip in late 2009, Farmer erased electronic notes, in Microsoft Word format, that were stored on thumb drives, Zip drives and a shared drive at Citadel, agents wrote in a summary of one of the interviews with him. Farmer also threw away his handwritten notes because that was his normal practice and because they were incriminating, agents wrote. Farmer got rid of e-mails as well, according to their summary. “This,” they wrote, “wiped the slate clean."

It isn’t just our economy that is crumbling.  Something is happening to America that no amount of money will be able to fix.  Everywhere around us we can see evidence of the social decay that is systematically eating away at the foundations of our society.  It can be found on the streets of our inner cities, in dark basements in extremely rural communities, in the most prestigious boardrooms on Wall Street, and definitely in the halls of power in Washington.   Bringing in an entirely different crop of politicians or printing gigantic mountains of money is not going to solve this problem, because it exists in the hearts of millions of ordinary men and women.  The truth is that we really need to take a good, long look at ourselves in the mirror...

As America holds its breath for tonight's (expected) grand jury verdict over the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown - by police officer Darren Wilson on August 9th - Missouri officials have said they have reached an understanding with protest leaders, as NY Times reports, on the conduct of demonstrations expected after the decision whether to indict Wilson or not comes down. Despite this 'understanding' it is clear that law-enforcement is 'prepared'...

"Back in the heyday of the old Soviet Union, a phrase evolved to describe gullible western intellectuals who came to visit Russia and failed to notice the human and other costs of building a communist utopia. The phrase was “useful idiots” and it applied to a good many people who should have known better. I now propose a new, analogous term more appropriate for the age in which we live: useful hypocrites. That’s you and me, folks, and it’s how the masters of the digital universe see us. And they have pretty good reasons for seeing us that way."