Seven years after ZIRP (then NIRP) was launched and central banks grew their balance sheets by $13 trillion, in the process inflating the biggest bubble the world has ever seen, sending risk prices to record highs and trillions in government debt to record negative yields, first the Fed admitted QE was a mistake, and now the investment banks - especially those who were bailed out and were the biggest beneficiaries of QE such as Citigroup - admit central bank quantitative easing failed.

Official Washington says it welcomes freedom of thought, but there is a startling absence of diverse opinions especially on key foreign-policy topics, such as Russia’s President Putin. In those cases, shallow “group think” prevails and belligerent “information warfare” rules, as Gilbert Doctorow observes. By Gilbert Doctorow The U.S. establishment writers on Russia are one and all…

Defeating ISIL in Iraq requires coordination between the Sunni tribes and the Shiite dominated Iraqi government. The problem is however that the U.S is empowering both the Shiites and the Sunnis and thus is able to direct the course of events. The Sunni tribes were the ones who defeated the original Al-Qaeda in Iraq and are now the ones capable of eradicating ISIL. They need to be free of the threat of sectarianism in order to free their own towns and villages.

Authored by Dave Barry, originally posted at The Miami Herald,

Sometimes we are accused - believe it or not - of being overly negative in our annual Year in Review. Critics say we ignore the many positive events in a given year and focus instead on the stupid, the tragic, the evil, the disgusting, the Kardashians.

OK, critics: We have heard you. This year, instead of dwelling on the negatives, we’re going to start our annual review with a List of the Top 10 Good Things That Happened in 2015. Ready? Here we go:

The U.S. Congress, still in thrall to Israeli leaders and the neocons, cited Islamic State terrorism as an excuse to clamp down on travel to Iran even though Iran has nothing to with ISIS or other Sunni jihadists, unlike Saudi Arabia and Persian Gulf states that were left off the list, notes ex-CIA analyst Paul R.…