Submitted by Chris Martenson via PeakProsperity.com,
Fair warning, my family just received a 61.5% increase in our healthcare insurance premium of 2017, on top of last year’s 24.8% increase, so I am quite annoyed at the moment. For my non-US readers, perhaps what follows will interest you as a means of understanding how and why Donald Trump came to be elected President. I am going to be channeling some of my inner crank today.
One of the reasons behind the first ever visit by a Chinese president to next week's Davos boondoggle is that, as reported last week, president Xi was open to a meeting with US president-elect Donald Trump’s team, if clearly not the president-elect himself, who will be far busier on January 20 - the day the World Economic Forum in Davos ends - getting inaugurated.
Jerusalem’s Grand Mufti Muhammad Hussein has voiced his objection to plans by president-elect Donald Trump to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Trump during his campaign called for the US embassy to be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, “the eternal capital of the Jewish state.” During a sermon Friday at the al-Aksa mosque the Grand Mufti condemned Trump’s plans and said such a move would be an “assault” on all Muslims.
For a brief but tense period, two weeks ago the US found itself without a single aircraft carrier in any area of the globe. The absence of a deployed U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, long seen as a symbol of American power projection, was noteworthy because according to Fox, "it is believed to be the first time since World War II that at least one U.S. aircraft carrier has not been deployed."
Following Trump's Friday night interview with the WSJ, in which the president-elect suggested he would use any available leverage to realign the U.S.’s relationship with its two biggest global strategic rivals, China and Russia, Beijing responded promptly when China's foreign ministry said on Saturday that its "One China" principle was the non-negotiable political basis for China-U.S. relations, and urged all "relevant parties" in the United States to recognize the sensitivity of the Taiwan issue.