Politics

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

For the French establishment, Sunday’s presidential election came close to a near-death experience. As the Duke of Wellington said of Waterloo, it was a “damn near-run thing.”

Neither candidate of the two major parties that have ruled France since Charles De Gaulle even made it into the runoff, an astonishing repudiation of France’s national elite.

Marine Le Pen of the National Front ran second with 21.5 percent of the vote. Emmanuel Macron of the new party En Marche! won 23.8 percent.

North Korea conducted what various media outlets have dubbed as its largest ever live-fire exercise on Tuesday to mark the 85th anniversary of the foundation of its military, as a U.S. submarine docked in South Korea in "a show of force" amid growing concern a showdown between the US and North Korea may be imminent.

Not long into Trump’s presidency, he announced his plans to increase the country's defense budget in 2018 by 54 billion dollars. The extra money is seen as necessary in order to "rebuild the depleted military of the United States of America at a time we most need it". Whether justified or not, this extra outlay will take the U.S. even further ahead of the rest of the world in terms of outright military spending.

The infographic below shows how the current budget compares to the world's other top spenders. 

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

The markets appear giddy over the election prospects of Emanuel Macron in France.

Equities are up along with bond yields. Gold is down.

Macron won round one of the French election Sunday and will square off against Marine Le Pen in round two on May 7. He is widely expected to win round two, becoming the next president of France. 

Policy Advancement

Can Macron Save the World? Save France?

We all knew it was coming and now it has finally been confirmed that the Senate's favorite Socialist will introduce legislation later this week calling for a $15 federal minimum wage.  The pending release of the bill was confirmed earlier today by Bloomberg's Josh Eidelson.  Apparently co-sponsored by fellow liberals, Senator Murray, Keith Ellison, Bobby Scott and Raul Grijalva, the bill will call for a $15 federal minimum wage to be fully implemented by 2024.