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In Related News: Western Politicians and Media Rush To Issue Tributes To King That Led The World In BEHEADINGS, FLOGGED Bloggers For Criticism & BANNED Women From Driving

History proves a government can’t be fiscally responsible and the policeman of the world. All great empires were befallen by the inability of resources to keep up with ambition. From Alexander the Great to Rome to the great British Empire, hegemony doesn’t last forever. The U.S. government guarantees security to over 35 countries and has troops stationed in over 146 countries. Does such an astounding presence – completely unmatched by previous empires – really sound all that sensible?

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...

If Americans were honest with themselves they would acknowledge that the Republic is no more. We now live in a police state. If we do not recognize and resist this development, freedom and prosperity for all Americans will continue to deteriorate. All liberties in America today are under siege. Reality is now setting in for America and for that matter for most of the world. We should not be discouraged. Enlightenment is not nearly as difficult to achieve as it was before the breakthrough with Internet communications occurred. I smell progress.

As Politico's Michael Grunwald writes below (we believe non-satirically), the midterm election’s discontent was illegitimate. The point is that Americans should cheer up! And whose fault is all the collective doom? Well, Bill De Blasio already explained that, as Grunwald confirms, the press has a problem reporting good news. So sit back, grab a drink (though swallow it first) and enjoy reading why "everything is awesome" in America (apart from a record 101.5 million Americans not working, record numbers on foodstamps, record numbers on disability, a record wealth divide, a record - and deadly - racial divide, record poverty, and record child homelessness).

• Police officers' slaying raises pressure on New York mayor (Reuters)
• People Call for Cooling of Racial Tensions After Murder of NYPD Officers (BBG)
• The $6.3 Trillion Frenzy That Vanquished Treasury Bears (BBG)
• China Investigates Possible Stock-Price Manipulation (WSJ)
• Citigroup Was Wary of Metals-Backed Loans (WSJ)
• UPS Turns Parking Lots Into Sorting Centers to Add Speed (BBG)
• U.S. Move to Normalize Cuba Ties Boosts Firms’ Asset Claims (WSJ)
• Meredith Whitney’s Fund Said to Drop 11% as Office Put on Market (BBG)
• Railcar Bottleneck Looms for Oil (WSJ)

Despite the authorities' best efforts to keep everything orderly, we know how this global Game of Geopolitical Tetris ends: "Players lose a typical game of Tetris when they can no longer keep up with the increasing speed, and the Tetriminos stack up to the top of the playing field. This is commonly referred to as topping out."

"I’m tired of being outraged!"

Outspoken realist billionaire Sam Zell tells Fox's Maria Bartiromo, "the US economy is bifurcated," noting that "the very top has done very well as The Fed's QE 'saved the system'," but, he adds, the 90% that did not benefit from that "have seen wages go down and the recent election showed a lot of discomfort and a lack of trust." A hopeful money-honey asks whether the president will work with the Republicans to improve this situation, Zell lashes back, "isn't the question whether the president wants to work with anybody to create anything?"

Was it a conspiracy or was it incompetence?  Those appear to be the only two alternatives that we are left with after this week's violent protests arcoss the country...

Sporadic confrontations and violence between protesters and police continued to occur overnight in Ferguson as multiple news agencies report grand jury considering whether to indict the Ferguson police officer who shot and killed teenager Michael Brown is unlikely to meet and render a decision this weekend. The fear, as we have previously noted, is a major uprising as one sign protested, "if the killer cop walks, AmeriKKKa Halts," and as Fox reports, Brown family attorney is managing expectations, "99% of the time the police officer is not held accountable for killing a young black boy," Crump said. "The police officer gets all the consideration." There is, however, another potential reason for delaying the decision's reporting, as VICE reports, business owners in the St. Louis, Missouri area have hired private military contractors to transport guns and gold, fearing their shops will be targeted by looters if a grand jury does not indict.

I believe aggressive empires with bloated bureaucracies, unsustainable debt loads, and chronic military overreach cannot compete against the now capitalist, relatively free-market Asia. The truth is Asia is rising and the debt-ridden Western democracies are failing. The world is an interesting place, and the American Dream still lives - just not so much in the United States any longer. But countries can change for the better; tyrannies are overthrown, and the Internet reformation is a big advantage for people desiring freedom and honest information around the world.

Don’t fence yourself in.

Plummeting oil prices are a symptom of terrible mounting instabilities in the world. After years of stagnation, complacency, and official pretense, the linked matrix of systems we depend on for running our techno-industrial society is shaking itself to pieces. American officials either don’t understand what they’re seeing, or don’t want you to know what they see. The tensions between energy, money, and economy have entered a new phase of destructive unwind. The global economy has caught the equivalent of financial Ebola: deflation, which is the recognition that debts can’t be repaid, obligations can’t be met, and contracts won’t be honored. Financial Ebola means that the connective tissues of trade start to dissolve, and pretty soon blood starts dribbling out of national economies.

RCMP Press Conference at 2pmET - Live Feed

Two days after two Canadian soldiers were hit by a car driven by Martin Couture-Rouleau, a 25-year-old Canadian who, as The Globe and Mail reported, "converted to Islam recently and called himself Ahmad Rouleau."

At least two people are injured, including a soldier, after shots were fired in the Parliamentary precinct in Ottawa on Wednesday morning; one shooter is dead and police suspect as many as two others are on the loose. A dark-clothed gunman fired the shots just before 10 a.m. at the Canadian War Memorial, where a uniformed soldier was shot. The gunman then fled for Parliament Hill, where he unleashed more gunfire inside Centre Block. A security guard was injured before the sergeant-at-arms shot the suspect dead, according to multiple reports. Ottawa Police said there was also an incident near the Rideau Centre, a large mall metres from Parliament Hill. Still active shooter, 3 separate shooting sites, Multiple gunmen, 1 gunmen dead, soldier dead