Politics

As it deals with the economic slowdown and a plunge in oil prices, Norway has turned to its massive sovereign wealth fund in order to cover 2016 budget deficits, in continuation of a trend noted here first last October. As Bloomberg reports, the country withdrew $898 million in March from the fund, putting the year-to-date total at roughly $3.1 billion, a run rate that is higher than the estimate the central bank governor gave just this past February.

Cruz and Kasich made a deal to focus their resources on different states to make it easier to stop Trump, but the anti-Trump pact is already running into problems:

The marriage of political convenience between Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) was tested less than 12 hours into the honeymoon, as Kasich told reporters that he still wanted votes from his supporters in Indiana.

Submitted by Nick Bernabe via TheAntiMedia.org,

Hillary Clinton-aligned Super PAC, Correct the Record, is taking a page out of Vladimir Putin’s playbook by employing a $1 million dollar professional internet troll army to build a paid, positive consensus about the Clinton campaign. The effort, called “Breaking Barriers 2016,” claims:

Who could have seen that coming? It appears President Obama's ill-advised Op-Ed and visit to The United Kingdom, exhorting his "friends" to 'just say no' to Brexit and vote democratically to stay part of an undemocratic superstate, has backfired for the establishment. A poll by YouGov suggests that Obama's high profile intervention in the UK's EU Referendum failed with 65% of Brits seeing his comments were not "appropriate."

Emma Ashford rejects the idea that Saudi Arabia is a “good ally” for the U.S.:

These tensions reflect a basic reality: Saudi Arabia may once have been a good ally, but today the relationship is toxic. Saudi actions are more often negative for U.S. policy objectives than positive. Rather than repairing the relationship, U.S. policymakers should reduce support for Saudi Arabia’s regional agenda.