Europe

Trump is the perfect court jester for the time, a clown sent into the three ring circus to cheer society’s forlorn and make them forget, at least temporarily, the hopelessness and banality of their existence. He could not have won in the past, and will not win in the future, but dumb luck and serendipity---plus the Democrat’s foolhardiness in selecting their most polarizing candidate ever---allowed him to seize his brief moment in time and exploit it.

Via Federico Pieraccini of The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The best-case scenario has come about, which is to say the end of a world facing the specter of a mushroom cloud. With Hillary Clinton's defeat, we avoided a nuclear denouement stemming from a direct clash with Russia in Syria and an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine. Unfortunately the good news ends here.

 

Via Jeff Thomas of InternationalMan.com,

The image above is of the 18th-century home of friends in Colonia, Uruguay. Today, sitting on their back patio on the Rio de la Plata, I looked out at a small yellow buoy in the harbour that marks the final resting place of the Lord Clive, a large, 60-gun British warship from the 18th century.

Newly-declassified documents show that a senior CIA agent and Deputy Director of the Directorate of Intelligence worked closely with the owners and journalists of many of the largest media outlets:

The United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities found in 1975 that the CIA submitted stories to the American press:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ED63A_hcd0

Wikipedia adds details:

While US equity markets drift endlessly higher on sea of Trumptopian euphoria (and retail ETF ramps), European equity investors have hit the panic button this week.

In the last week, investors have been piling into European VIX futures - hedging for a potential catastrophic end to the market calm ahead of French and Dutch elections.

Historically, European 'VIX' has traded around 20% higher than US 'VIX' over the last 8 years. The current spike to an 80% premium is unprecedented.