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Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all of the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense - the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammeled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject and not a citizen.
- William Edgar Borah

Though not surprising, it's nevertheless extraordinary to watch Donald Trump publicly and shamelessly morph into a George W. Bush era neocon when it comes to foreign policy, and a CNBC stock market cheerleader when it comes to the economy. Just like Barack Obama before him, Trump talked a good populist game on two issues of monumental importance (foreign policy and the rigged economy), but once elected immediately turned around and prioritized the core interests of oligarchy.

A hefty case can be made that the Empire of Chaos currently has no allies; it’s essentially surrounded by an assortment of vassals, puppets and comprador 5th columnist elites professing varied degrees of – sometimes reluctant – obedience.
The Trump administration’s foreign policy may be easily deconstructed as a crossover between The Sopranos and late-night comedy.

I have certain rules I live by. My first rule: I don't believe anything the government tells me. Nothing. Zero.
- George Carlin
Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community and they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.
- Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in a 2017 interview on MSNBC

The Worship of Mammon by Evelyn De Morgan.
One of the first things to become apparent as I began reading about the deadly crash of Ethiopian Airlines’ Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane on March 10th, was the fact that nobody seemed to trust U.S. authorities.
As Fortune noted:

One of the most famous, and prescient, financial cartoons in American history is the above depiction of the Federal Reserve Bank as a giant octopus that would come to parasitically suck the life out of all U.S. institutions as well as free markets.

If you receive your news via Donald Trump tweet, or courtesy of proclamations by Larry Kudlow, you'd be forgiven for eagerly anticipating a groundbreaking U.S.-China trade deal to be announced imminently, and thinking such a deal will save the global economy from rolling over into a serious downturn as well as pacify geopolitical tensions between the number one and number two economies in the world. However, if you expect these things, I don't think you're paying attention.

2018’s valuation records are astounding in that they show the S&P 500 to be more fundamentally over-valued than it was at the prior two historic stock market valuation peaks in 1929 and 2000, bona fide speculative manias.
- From Crescat Capital's recent investor letter

From time to time, I think it's necessary and healthy to take a step back and reflect on what you're doing and why. I recently did that with regard to my work and website.
When I quit my job on Wall Street nearly a decade ago, I had no idea how life would unfold. I walked away from a highly paid position to pursue some unknown future, a simultaneously exciting and terrifying decision. I was a single guy living in NYC back then, with no pressing obligations to anyone other than myself. I'm now married with three kids in Colorado.

While the evolution of Google's YouTube from a free expression platform into something entirely different has been underway for a while, it just took another step in a very short-sighted and restrictive direction. NBC News reports: