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Nearly all empires end due to over-extension. If brave people from Ottawa to Baghdad simply say “enough” within a brief space of time, hopefully this empire can dissolve relatively peacefully like the Soviet Empire did, leaving its host civilization intact, instead of dragging that civilization into oblivion along with it like the Roman Empire did. But beware, the imperial war party will not go quietly into the night, unless we in their domestic tax base insist that there is no other way. Russia’s entry into Syria has thrown all of the neocons’ schemes into disarray, as even Jordan, that favorite proxy force in Israel’s dreams of regional dominance, has begun coordinating with Russia, in spite of its billion dollars a year of annual aid from Washington. Et tu Jordan?!

"Debates in Turmoil" would have been an appropriate summary for tonight's free-for-all CNBC-sponsored screamfest in Boulder, Colorado. Argumentative moderators, mis-stated facts, time complaints, and general whining was everywhere but Trump still managed to come out the other side of this gauntlet unscathed. One major highlight included Santelli and Paul pushing 'Audit The Fed', calls for gold-backed currency,and exclaimed that The Fed "has been a great problem" in US society. However, what was odd was the apparent slights to Trump and Carson (questioned less directly) which resulted in an aberrantly low 'talking time' for the leading candidates; as Politico noted, the repeated bursts of anger and anarchy were prompted, in part, by questions from the moderators that veered, at times, beyond sharp into contentiousness.

The exciting, if brief, life in the wild by the untethered JLENS blimp has come to a crashing halt. Moments ago, Norad told AP reported that the blimp is "on the ground and secure."

In a day in which the walking dead were on the verge of going green (Twitter nearly wiped out its entire loss following last night's earnings), there was some hope that momo stocks would finally make a come back. Alas, for the company which we first dubbed "camera on a stick" it was just not meant to be.

Moments ago something even more disturbing than the Fed statement took place when a blimp used by NORAD in its surveillance of the east coast has become untethered from its mooring in Maryland and it's now flying somewhere over Pennsylvania, according to NORAD spokesman Lt. Joe Mavrocki.

Following last night's API reported 4 million barrel inventory build (against 3.75mm bbl expectations) and Cushing draw, DOE confirms a build (but smaller, at 3.38 million barrels) and Cushing saw a draw of 785k barrels (th elargest in 4 weeks). Crude reactiopn was to extnd gains from the earlier knee-jerk and break back above $45, even as crude production rose.

Gold will also be vulnerable towards the end of an interest rate tightening cycle as was the case in January 1980. Today, central banks including the Fed  are having difficulty raising interest rates in even a small nominal way.

While we await the full Twitter slidedeck presentation, here are the key results as they come in.

The head of the UN Human Rights Council is at it again, although this time it appears Saudi warplanes spared the Yemeni wedding parties in favor of a Medecins Sans Frontieres hospital that was completely destroyed along with all of the equipment and supplies inside around 11:30 PM local time. This is latest in a string of "mistakes" and the second tragedy to strike an MSF facility in the last 30 days.

In the event of a systemic European banking crisis, however, laws could be changed at the stroke of a pen and “bail-in” mechanisms could become fully operational. Also, the comforting guarantee of €100,000 ($100,000 or £80,000) would likely be reduced in such a crisis.

It is obvious that the Healthcare Industry in the US is in need of some major overhaul, and I am not talking about a politically expedient solution as was the latest undertaking by the Obama administration.