United States

Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner,

The recent column by Pat Buchanan could not be more spot on. It slices through the misbegotten assumption that Saudi Arabia is our ally and that the safety and security of the citizens of Lincoln NE, Spokane WA and Springfield MA have anything to do with the religious and political machinations of Riyadh and its conflicts with Iran and the rest of the Shiite world.

Submitted by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

Homicide rates in the United States have been declining for 20 years as the number of privately-held guns in the US has increased substantially.

In some states, such as New Hampshire and Oregon, which have very weak gun laws, homicide rates are remarkably low, and these states are among the safest places on earth.

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

On December 3rd, a month before Saudi Arabia carried out it largest mass execution since 1980 — subsequently setting the region on fire — Arjun Sethi wrote an article for Al-Jazeera titled: Saudi Arabia Uses Terrorism As An Excuse for Human Rights Abuses. According to Cora Currier at the Intercept:

Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Qatar appear to have blocked the article outside of the United States because it is critical of an ally of Qatar.

It was less than two months ago when we brought to you the "Macy's Massacre": on November 11, the stock of the iconic retailer crashed 13% and its CDS soared after Macy's announced a trifecta of weak data, reporting a miss on Q3 sales which came at $5.87 billion below the $6.1 billion expected, down from the $6.2 billion, as well as a plunge in comparable store sales which tumbled by 3.9%, far worse than the expected drop of -0.4%, and nearly three times as bad as the 1.4% drop a year ago.

Overnight, we got two notable headlines out of the Far East.

First, the yuan devaluation continued unabated with the RMB falling to five-year lows and the spread between the onshore and offshore spots blowing out to record wides.

Second, Kim Jong-Un detonated an H-bomb. Or so Pyongyang says.