America

With Bloomberg writing this morning that "Mystery, Suspense Mount" two days after President Donald Trump told the American public that Congress was “just days away” on tax reform, two more senators  - including one-time Trump rival - Marco Rubio appear to be getting cold feet - much to the market’s chagrin. Yesterday afternoon, stocks dropped and the VIX jumped above 10 as Rubio and Utah’s Mike Lee said they had reservations about the draft bill being put together by the conference committee.

• Mainstream media in 2013: "Conspiracy Theorists!" 
• Mainstream media in 2017: "ISIS Got a Powerful Missile the CIA Bought!" 

If you google “London moats”, you’ll probably alight on a link which will take you to “London’s Top 10 Moats: A Spotter’s Guide”. We had no idea there were so many and could only think of the “obvious” one surrounding the Tower of London, even if it’s waterless these days. According to the guide, a defensive ditch has surrounded the Tower since its origins in the eleventh century. The moat, which contained water from the thirteenth century until the 1840s, helps to protect the roughly cuboid “White Tower” keep, which gives the Tower of London its name.

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

Criminalizing a bit of Christmas fun has to make you wonder...

Is there any aspect of our life left into which the police state does not intrude?

Parents are regulated as to how they discipline their children. Spankings that were the tool of choice in my day are now illegal. Spanking is considered child abuse and can result in state seizure of the child and prosecution of the parent.

Authored by Allen Marshall (Crimson Avenger) via Defiant Living blog,

America is the only nation brought forth by a set of beliefs, and those beliefs, captured so eloquently in our founding documents, are some of the most powerful and inspiring ever conceived. We consider this to be the land of the free, where the individual is supreme and nothing prevents us from going as far as our talents can take us. That image of America – that “brand” – is incredibly strong.