United States

Authored by Ilana Mercer via The Mises Institute,

In a fit of pique in 2016, then-President Barack Obama expelled Russian diplomats from the United States. K. T. McFarland, Michael Flynn's deputy in the Trump transition team, worried that Obama's expulsion of the diplomats was aimed at "boxing Trump in diplomatically," making it impossible for the president to "improve relations with Russia," a promise he ran on. (For her perspicacity, McFarland has since been forced to lawyer-up in fear for her freedom.)

Authored by Alan Stanczyk via Medium.com,

Bitcoin was on my radar far back as 2011, but for years, I didn’t think much of it.

It was a curiosity. Nothing more.

With US forces in the middle-east in chaos and disarray, with Saudi Arabia unsure if it wants to side with Israel or other Arab nations, and with its ally Russia increasingly more influential in the region, Iran is not only increasingly flexing its muscles, but is hardly ashamed to show it off.

First it was the Chinese, now it’s the Europeans, as the rest of the world is suddenly very unhappy with the prospect of US tax reform (or maybe it is an unexpectedly strong US economy). As we discussed yesterday, with the historic Trump tax reforms on the verge of passage and the Fed’s dot plot signalling another 7-8 rate hikes (soon to be revised much lower), China is nervous that the capital outflows, which it thought it had bottled up, might be about to return.

Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) is turning up the heat on the Uranium One investigation, demanding documents from both the Energy Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in a Monday letter to both entities. Barrasso wants to find out if he was intentionally misled by the Obama administration about Uranium One being able to export yellowcake uranium out of the United States after the company was acquired by Russia. 

Rep. John Barrasso (R-WY)

Barrasso writes: