America

One day after the DOJ announced the arrest of NSA leaker Reality Leigh Winner for distributing top secret NSA files to The Intercept, the "original NSA leaker" Edward Snowden, who has been proactive in advocating for whistleblower rights in the years since he himself disclosed countless NSA documents exposing the extent of to which the NSA spied on America's own population, has now given an official statement through the Freedom of the Press Foundation on Winner's arrest, expressing concern about the charges brought against her.

Via The Daily Bell

Banks are supposed to be the epitome of secure. You can put your money in their vaults, and forget about it. Don’t worry everything will be fine. And even if the bank goes under, the federal government insures deposits of up to $250,000.

But that won’t help if the government is the thief. The United States government can freeze your bank accounts for basically no reason, without due process. Then it is up to you to prove your innocence.

While starting a little later than usual, Trump unloaded his now traditional morning tweetstorm, where in a three tweet salvo the president first lashed out at the "FAKE MSM" accusing it of trying to stop him from tweeting and saying reporters “hate” his use of Twitter while criticizing election analysts that predicted he would lose. In a separate tweet he took credit for Monday night's diplomatic crisis in which a Saudi-led alliance cut ties with Qatar, accusing it of being the region's only source of terrorist funding.

From "Blain's Morning Porridge" by Bill Blain of Mint Partners

“You are about to embark on the great crusade toward which we have striven these many months.”

I find myself in something of a quandary this soggy morning. Wracked with nagging doubt. Why? Nothing to do with Theresa May effectively throwing the UK Election, that auto-loans are in serious trouble, or worries Qatar might escalate into something quite unpleasant (and I don't just mean for Barclays..).. These things are all noise, the daily fun and games.

The United States, unlike many other industrialized countries, has no statuary agreement on taking paid vacation. Meaning: There is no law telling employers the minimum number of days they need to give their employees off work - that are also paid for.

However, as Statista's Dyfed Loesche notes, Project:Time Off, which is sponsored by the U.S. Travel Association, has good news: After two decades of almost steady decline the average days of vacation have risen by 0.6 days year-over-year to 16.8 days in 2016.