The strategic challenge that Russia poses to the United States today is quite serious. Russia is increasingly anti-democratic and hostile to the United States.  Xenophobia is widespread in Russia.  The Kremlin is currently encouraging nationalism and militarizing the country.  It constantly attacks the West.  And a sizable number of the Russian population sees neighboring countries as part of the Russian zone of influence.

Now this is not me speaking, this is taken from a recent statement by Alexei Kudrin, who until September of 2011 was the finance minister of Russia, and who has just been publicly offered a cabinet position by Vladimir Putin. 

The most serious aspect of the Russian threat to the United States is their nuclear use doctrine.  They have the lowest nuclear use threshold in the world.  Russia reserves the right to introduce nuclear weapons into conventional warfare, and they characterize this, amazingly, as "de-escalation" of the conflict.

You won't believe the statements of Russia's nuclear commanders.  Here's one:

There is a photograph prominently displayed in the Vietnamese Communist War Remnants Museum (formerly known as the "War Crimes Museum") in Saigon (called Ho Chi Minh City by the Communists). The photograph, in a room dedicated to foreign activists who contributed to the Communist victory over America in the Vietnam War, shows Senator John Kerry being greeted by Comrade Do Muoi, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam.

The curse of hedging that blighted gold in the 1990s is making a comeback, and threatens to loom over the market like Banquo's ghost.

London-listed gold producer Petropavlovsk has said it will pre-sell 55pc of its future output planned for the second quarter of 2014, at an average price of $1,408 an ounce. This is the first time that a big producer has hedged more than half its future sales.

"We have a huge investment program and thought a little price protection in the short-term will let us sleep better at night," said chairman Peter Hambro.

Tyler Broda from Nomura said this may signal the return of "structural hedging" across the industry, with other companies scrambling to lock in forward contracts. "This could increase the pressure on the spot gold price over the coming years," he said. The risk is a vicious circle as hedging leads to lower prices, leading to more hedging.

Many Democrats (and some Republicans) are all atwitter about Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin deciding to move to Singapore to partially escape what he believes is excessive taxation. Leaving the U.S. is a much more extreme action than moving from a high-tax state to a low-tax state, but a record number of Americans gave up their citizenship last year.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, and Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr., Pennsylvania Democrat - whose thought processes seem to be similar to those of King George III in 1776 - have denounced Mr. Saverin and introduced legislation to punish him and others who may wish to leave because of high taxes.

It appears to me that this is nothing more than a modern version of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which demanded slaves be returned to their "owners," who were in effect imposing close to a 100 percent tax upon their slaves.

Why don't more Republicans in Congress stand up to such Democrat thugishness -- most especially when it comes to the deficit spending that's bankrupting us and causing wealthy Americans to leave America?

Wrap your brain around this:

· The Policy Director for the Intelligence Division of the Department of Homeland Security - who has access to classified information on all our ports, airports, and everything else pertaining to national security - is a Moslem with direct ties to Islamic radicals under indictment by the FBI.

· This individual, named Faisal Gill, received his security clearances despite his lying on his clearance forms about his ties to Islamist organizations. When his deception was disclosed, he was suspended last March - and then reinstated with his clearances intact.

· The reason he got the job, received his clearance, and was reinstated after being suspended, was pressure from the single most influential Republican activist and lobbyist in Washington, Grover Norquist.

Here we go again. A new bird-flu virus in China, the H7N9 strain, is spreading alarm. It has infected about 130 people and killed more than 30. Every time this happens, some journalists compete to foment fear, ably assisted by cautious but worried scientists, and then tell the world to keep calm.

We need a new way to talk about the risk of a flu pandemic, because the overwhelming probability is that this virus will kill people, yes, but not in vast numbers.

In recent years flu has always proved vastly less perilous than feared. In 1976 more people may have died from bad reactions to swine-flu vaccine than from swine flu. Since 2005, H5N1 bird flu has killed 374 people, not the two million to 7.4 million deemed possible by the World Health Organization. In 2009, H1N1 Mexican swine flu proved to be a normal flu episode despite apocalyptic forecasts.

No doubt some TTPers will remind me that, in the story of the boy who cried "Wolf!", there eventually was a wolf. And that in 1918 maybe 50 million people died of influenza world-wide. So we should always worry a bit. But perhaps it's not just luck that has made every flu pandemic since then mild.  It may be evolutionary logic.

Last week, Jamie Dimon, CEO of the nation's largest bank, JPMorgan Chase, revealed that the bank had made a $2 billion-plus trading mistake. The bank has more than $2 trillion in assets and made a profit of about $20 billion last year. So it lost one-tenth of 1 percent of its assets and about 10 percent of its income for last year. No big deal, despite all the hand-wringing of the political and media class.

Predictably, Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat and arguably the most irresponsible member of Congress, immediately issued a press release calling for more bank regulation.

Congress has the oversight responsibility for the U.S. government, in much the same way a corporate board has the oversight responsibility for a corporation. Mr. Levin has the responsibility (along with his colleagues) to make sure taxpayer dollars are spent wisely and not wasted or stolen.

Medicare, for example, spends more than $500 billion annually. Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican (and medical doctor), who, unlike Mr. Levin, tries to be fiscally responsible, estimates that about 20 percent, or $100 billion, of Medicare spending is fraudulent.

Yet  Mr. Levin and many of his colleagues prefer to spend their time bashing private businesses rather than protecting the taxpayer, which is their responsibility.