The United States is flooding the European markets with record amounts crude oil as US producers seize on Russia and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) pact to cut output resulting in soaring oil prices.

US crude oil is seen as the cheaper option as the OPEC-Russia pact begins to bite after agreeing to oil output jointly by 1.8million barrels per day (bpd) help rebalance the market and to help elevate the benchmark Brent prices.

Now, the relatively high prices brought about by that pact, coupled with surging US output, are making it harder to sell Russian, Nigerian and other oil grades in Europe, traders say.

A trader with a Mediterranean refiner, who regularly buys Russian and Caspian Sea crude and has recently started purchasing US oil. He said: “US oil is on offer everywhere. It puts local grades under a lot of pressure.”  Call it Trump’s Revenge.

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Grand geopolitical scheming took a break in Moscow last week. The main news—improbably—turned to the fiasco of the government trying and failing, since April 16, to ban the popular instant messenger app Telegram.

The fiasco exposes Vladimir Putin as a “poser” – someone who pretends to know what he’s doing but doesn’t.

Millions of Russians remain blissfully unaware about this “state failure,” but probably as many others are following it with keen interest; in fact, use of this popular app has actually increased since being “blocked” in Russia (RBC, April 19).

One striking feature of this developing story is that President Vladimir Putin is absent from the picture.  As he is in so much else.

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When we enjoyed this back in 1984, and began to understand black criticisms of our dancing, we had no idea it would be prophecy. More people are waking up to the fact that the civil war is here, and it's real. The Thing is under the boat, and it's beginning to rise. If you aren't woke to that reality yet, recent events should wake you. After that, we face a question that was old when Thyucididies chronicled it: what then is to be our war? Recent times offer us more than a few pointers. So do ancient times.

I'm going to touch on a few highlights, and offer some resources you can peruse now or later. There is hope. There is always hope. But genuine hope can only begin once you understand where you really stand...

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It’s really not that complicated.

President Trump’s Syria strikes have reopened the debate over what defines his foreign policy. Is he an interventionist or an isolationist? Foreign policy experts claim that he’s making it up as he goes along.

They’re not paying attention.

President Trump’s foreign policy has two consistent elements. From threatening Kim Jong-Un on Twitter to moving the embassy to Jerusalem to bombing Syria, he applies pressure and then he disengages.

Here’s how that works.  Hint:  Regarding North Korea, Trump accomplished more with a few tweets than previous administrations had with billions of dollars.

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What a delicious hors d’oeuvre Michael Horowitz gave the world on Friday!

The inspector general for Department of Justice finally issued his eagerly awaited (eagerly awaited by some of us, anyway) report on Andrew McCabe, the disgraced former deputy director of the FBI.

Note that this is only an appetizer. In the coming weeks, Horowitz will follow up with entrees on the FBI’s partisan activities in the 2016 presidential election and, later, another report on (if I may employ the term) collusion with the State Department.

As of today (4/17), it is unclear exactly what the scope of the inspector general’s inquiries will be.

Speaking for myself, I hope the desert course includes a close look at the January 5, 2017 meeting at the Obama White House.

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The economic outlook in Germany is deteriorating with alarming speed and any mistake by policy-makers could push the country into a full-blown slump, a leading economic institute has warned.

“The danger of recession has increased markedly. It is a notably more critical picture than a month ago,” says the Macroeconomic Policy Institute (IMK) in Düsseldorf.

The IMK’s early warning indicator says the recession risk over the next three months has jumped suddenly to 32.4% as trade tensions mount and liquidity ebbs away in the international financial system.

Germany is heavily reliant on world trade and is therefore a bellwether for the broader health of the global economy. Its industrial sector lurched abruptly from boom to bust early in the last downturn and proved to be a leading indicator for the Great Recession.

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Whoever was surprised by the hate-fest against the National Rifle Association and conservative Americans in general that followed the Parkland, FL school shooting must not have been paying attention.

Over the past half century, a ruling class formed by our uniformly leftist educational system and occupying the commanding heights of corporate life, governmental bureaucracies, the media, etc. accuses its targets of everything from murder and terrorism to culpable psycho-social disorders (racism, sexism, and so forth).

When one side rejects persuasion in favor of war, what are the other’s options? To convince our opponents to accept us as equals? To reform them? Fat chance! Decency for ourselves is our objective. Hence, the words and deeds by which we deal with those who make war on us must aim at affirming ourselves, despite them.

Hence, the practical question: what is to be our war?

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