China Seizes Unmanned, Underwater US Navy Vehicle Off South China Sea

China has seized an unmanned, underwater US navy vehicle inside off international waters in the South China Sea; leading to a formal request by the US demanding the return of the vehicle.

Did Satellites Expose A Secret American Drone Hangar In A Saudi Desert?

FBI Director: Russia Did Not Influence Election

by Sean Adl-Tabatabai, Your News wire:
FBI Director James Comey has confirmed to President-elect Donald Trump that Russia did not influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.
In a telephone conversation between Trump and Comey, the FBI Director said there was no credible evidence that Russia hacked DNC emails of John Podesta. Comey also revealed that James Clapper, director of National Intelligence, agreed with his conclusion.
Edwardklein.com reports:
The only member of the U.S. intelligence community who was ready to assert that the Russians sanctioned the hacking was John Brennan, the director of the CIA, according to sources who were briefed on Comey’s conversations with Trump.
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2016 Facts And Figures Quiz

From Donald Trump’s unorthodox but successful campaign for President to the Brexit vote, popular votes shifted the course of global politics in ways very few could have imagined a year ago. Here is a brief quiz that highlights the year’s politics, developments in technology, and changes in the U.S. labor market/economic policy.

Stunning Visualization Of The Flow Of International Trade

Trade is an essential part of economic prosperity, but how much do you know about global trade?

How Come No One Involved in the Russian Hacking Conspiracy Talked?

What we are experiencing in the delegitimization of Donald Trump is an extraordinary rejection of democracy by elements in the government and by the presstitutes.

Obama "Housing Recovery" Crushes "Blacks, Young Adults" As Homeownership Rates Crash

As the Obama administration continues to applaud its "housing recovery", homeownership rates among "Young Adults" and "Blacks" are down 18% and 16%, respectively, since 2004...And while that's definitely a big "Change," its somewhat lacking on the "Hope."

Princeton & NYU Professor Warns Of Dangers From Liberal Media's "False Narratives Of A New Cold War"

"So this is the problem. In a democracy we fight through discourse. If you can’t get to the mainstream media and make the argument, then there’s no way of slowing the drift toward catastrophe."

Central Banker Sees "Scary" 2017

Q. When you look ahead to 2017, what keeps you awake at night?
A. Short term, the Fed rate hikes. Medium-to-long term, the retreat from multi-lateralism related to the performance of the global economy - the major and various economies, and emerging markets like China.

Why The Bill Of Rights Is Failing

225 years ago today, the first ten amendments were added to the new Constitution of 1787. Those amendments have come to be known as the Bill of Rights. The fact remains that the American public generally tolerates countless violations of the Tenth Amendment, the Ninth Amendment, the Sixth Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, the Second Amendment, and now even the First Amendment is being targeted by labeling objectionable ideas as "fake news."

George Soros Is Funding Facebook's "Third-Party Fact Checking" Organization Targeting "Fake News"

Yesterday, Facebook announced plans to use a "third-party fact checking organization" known as The Poynter Institute to flag "fake news."  Imagine our complete shock when we discovered that the funding sources behind Poynter included the who's who of Billionaire leftists like George Soros.

Obama Blames Russia For Hacking, Slams "Domestic Propagandists" For Rise Of "Fake News"

"To the extent that our political dialogue is such that everything is under suspicion, everybody's corrupt and everybody is doing things for partisan reasons, and all of our institutions are, you know full of malevolent actors... when a foreign government introduces that same argument, with facts that are made up, voters who have been listening to that stuff for years, who have been getting that stuff every day from talk radio or other venues, they're going to believe it."

Is This Why Snowden Had to Break the Law to Become an NSA Whistleblower?

“More generally, there are few if any incentives for intelligence whistleblowers to report problems through designated authorities when the IG of [the] NSA is found to have retaliated against such an individual.”

'Faithless' Electors Will Not Receive Intelligence Briefing, NPR Says

"When Gold Goes Above 1430 We Whack It"

As it goes in silver, so it goes in gold. In London at least.  In a bid to have UBS reinstated as a defendant in a London Gold Fix antitrust lawsuit, plaintiffs documents submitted to a New York Court last week include explosive chat room transcripts of UBS and traders from different banks encouraging each other to “push,” “smack,” and “whack” gold prices.

What Did The Russian People Know About The US Election Result?

The Russians knew!!....

Putin Lashes Out At Obama: "Show Some Proof Or Shut Up"

Putin has had enough of the relentless barrage of US accusations that he, personally, "hacked the US presidential election" and on Friday his spokesman told reporters in Tokyo that "you need to either stop talking about it, or finally show some kind of proof. Otherwise it just looks very indecent."

Weekend Reading: Copious Cognitions

If this market rally seems eerily familiar, it’s because it is. In fact, the backdrop of the rally reminds me much of what was happening in 1999...

New York Times Will Vacate 8 Floors In Its HQ To Generate "Significant Rental Revenue"

Remember when The NYT reported that its ad hoc campaign to boost revenue by selling subscriptions in response to the vicious back and forth with Donald Trump, was said to be a smashing success? It appears it was not smashing enough, and according to a just released note, the newspaper will vacate at least eight floors in its iconic building, allowing it to "generate significant rental income."

"Dash-For-Trash" At Its Most Extreme Since DotCom Peak...

The Trump rally's animal spirits might be jumping the shark. The massive outperformance of the 'riskiest' high-volatility stocks over 'stodgy' low-volatility stocks in the last few weeks has seen the usually high correlation between the two 'classes' collapse to zero... the biggest plunge since the peak of the panic-buying extreme vol names during the DotCom boom.

'Puzzled' Why Trump Won The Election?

One big piece to the 'puzzle'...

Stocks Suffer Worst Week Since Election As Banks, Bullion, & Bonds Sink

Republican Elector Slams “Coup D’etat” Attempt to “Overturn a Fair and Legal Election”

by Paul Joseph Watson, Infowars:
A Republican elector who has been bombarded with irate letters, emails and phone calls from Hillary Clinton voters has slammed the left’s efforts at influencing electors as a “coup d’etat” attempt to “overturn a fair and legal election”.
Alan Braun, a Republican elector from Des Moines, Iowa, blasted the move as a partisan ploy and refused to be affected by it.
“What the Hamilton Electors are suggesting amounts to a coup d’etat to overturn a fair and legal election. I refuse to co-operate with them,” he tweeted.
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Barack Obama Promises Retaliation Against Russia Over Hacking During US Election

from TheGuardian:
Outgoing president says US will respond to cyberattacks by Moscow ‘at a time and place of our choosing’, as Donald Trump rejects reports of interference.
Barack Obama has warned that the US will retaliate for Russian cyberattacks during the presidential election.
According to extracts of an interview due to air on National Public Radio on Friday morning, the US president said he was waiting for a final report he has ordered into a range of Russian hacking attacks, but promised there would be a response.
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The House Passes A Microchipping Law That Is Intended To Help Local Authorities Microchip Disabled People

by Michael Snyder, End Of The American Dream:
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that would get the federal government heavily involved in microchipping disabled people for tracking purposes. If you would like to read it for yourself, you can find H.R. 4919 right here. The bill is also known as Kevin and Avonte’s Law, and the idea behind it is that if disabled people are microchipped it won’t be so easy for them to get lost. Of course we have been microchipping pets in this country for years, and this is yet another giant step down the road toward universal microchipping of everyone. We are being told that implanted microchips will make those with developmental disabilities “safer”, but where does this stop? Pretty soon there will be a huge push to microchip all children “for their safety”, and once that is accomplished it won’t be too long before they will want to microchip the entire population.
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Veteran Thrown in Jail for Living Off-Grid — Officials Claim They’re ‘Just Doing Their Jobs’

by Daisy Luther, The Free Thought Project:
Here’s an entry for the “Job-Doing Hall of Fame.”
What if your job meant that you had to go arrest a guy who just wanted to live off the grid on his own land? What if that guy was a veteran? What if his only crime was refusing a service that he was supposed to pay for, like public water or utilities?
Is it actually acceptable to go to his place, kidnap him, and hold him against his will for that?
If YOU are the person who takes any of those actions, are you to blame if you’re “just doing your job?”
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Sheriff’s Probe Finds Obama Birth Certificate ‘Fake’

by Bob Unrah, WND:
A years-long forensics investigation into the computer image of the long-form Hawaiian birth certificate image that Barack Obama released during a White House news conference during his first term and presented to the American people as an official government document concluded it is “fake.”
The probe also confirms that those who were subjected to the derogatory “birther” label from many media outlets and Democrats were right – at least regarding the document used to establish Obama’s eligibility to be president.
The issue is that the U.S. Constitution requires the president to be a “natural-born citizen” but does not define the term. Scholarly works cited by the Founders defined it as a citizen at birth, born in the country to two citizens of the country, or merely the offspring of two citizens of the country.
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Martin Armstrong, 2010-2011

by Bill Holter, JS Mineset, via SGT Report:
In an effort to put the Martin Armstrong saga to bed, I post below quotes and links to two articles he put out in 2010 and 2011 just before being released from prison. Please read not just the quotes provided but his full articles as they are both excellent in content and logic. His 2010 article sounds a lot like “Bill Holter” as I have done this math and logic several times for readers over the years. Back then he said “$5,000 gold is “VERY CONSERVATIVE” …while he now says it will be as high as gold can go. In the second article he takes on “manipulation” which he has since changed his tune on.
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China Dumps Treasuries: Foreign Central Banks Liquidate A Record $403 Billion In US Paper

from ZeroHedge:
One month ago, when we last looked at the Fed’s update of Treasuries held in custody, we noted something troubling: the number had continued to drop sharply, declining by another $14 billion in one week, and pushing the total amount of custodial paper to $2.788 trillion, the lowest since 2012. One month later, we refresh this chart and find that in last week’s update, there is finally some good news: foreign central banks finally bought some US paper held in the Fed’s custody account, which following months of liquidation, rose over the past two weeks by $23 billion, the biggest two-week advance since November of 2016, pushing the total amount of custodial paper to $2.816 trillion, the highest since early October.
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Major Economic Warning Sign: The Euro Is Heading For Parity With The U.S. Dollar

by Michael Snyder, The Economic Collapse Blog:
The collapse of the euro is accelerating, and it looks like we could be staring a major European financial crisis right in the face early in 2017. On Thursday, the EUR/USD fell all the way to $1.0366 at one point before rebounding slightly. That represents the lowest that the euro has been relative to the U.S. dollar since January 2003. Ever since 2011, I have been relentlessly warning that the euro is heading for parity with the U.S. dollar. When the EUR/USD was trading at about $1.40 that must have seemed like crazy talk, but I never wavered. I just kept warning people that the euro was going to weaken greatly relative to the U.S. dollar. Here is one example from March 2015: “How many times have I said it? The euro is heading to all-time lows. It is going to go to parity with the U.S. dollar, and then it is eventually going to go below parity.” After Thursday, we are almost there, and once we do hit parity that is going to be a sign that all sorts of chaos is about to erupt in Europe.
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