United States

A doomsday machine contained within a briefcase is always within the vicinity of US president Barack Obama. The mysterious “Nuclear Football” has the power to destroy the world within minutes and it follows the president wherever he goes. The device known as the “President’s emergency satchel” follows him even in the White House. The black leather bag contains the necessary tools for the president of the United States to facilitate a nuclear attack that could lead to Armageddon and an era of radiation sickness.

A Grand Book From The Saker

Paul Craig Roberts

Several years ago a new commentator appeared on the scene. He writes under the pen name, The Saker, and describes himself as European born son of Russian refugees from the Bolshevik Revolution. He has two US college degrees and worked in Europe as a military analyst until his opposition to the US/NATO sponsored wars in Chechnia, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo cost him his career. He retooled as a software engineer and began writing in response to the nonsense spewed by the Western media.

Submitted by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog,

A person often reads that low oil prices–for example, $30 per barrel oil prices–will stimulate the economy, and the economy will soon bounce back. What is wrong with this story? A lot of things, as I see it:

1. Oil producers can’t really produce oil for $30 per barrel.

As anyone who holds a “non-supervisory” job in America’s double-adjusted “recovery” is acutely aware, wage growth is missing in action in the US.

Your boss may have gotten a raise, but you probably didn’t and if the number of multiple job holders is any indication, America’s rapid transformation from middle class utopia to feudal system is likely to continue unabated for the foreseeable future.

Of course it’s not just Americans who are forced to deal with economic realities like the soaring cost of housing on wages that never rise.

Just when we thought the surreal story surrounding Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's second capture couldn't get any more bizarre, it does just that, but in an oddly satisfying way, one which ties the soon to be incarcerated criminal south of the border with a criminal located right inside Washington D.C., one who however will never be punished. According to the Hill, a .50-caliber rifle recovered from El Chapo's hideout was one of the firearms lost by the U.S. government's gun-smuggling operation Fast and Furious.