On three separate occasions since 2013, the US Federal Reserve sent shock waves through the global financial system when it tried to tighten monetary policy, and each time it was forced into partial retreat to halt the mayhem.

Over recent months the Federal Open Market Committee has been careful to take the global pulse before acting. It now hopes the coast is clear. Yesterday's (3/15) quarter point rise in the federal funds rate to 1% has been so loudly signaled in advance that investors have already adjusted.

Emerging markets seem better prepared, so far able to shrug it off. China has restored confidence in its exchange rate regime. Capital flight appears to be under control. Europe's shift towards bond tapering reduces the risk of a rocketing dollar. "We're not overly worried about downside shocks," said Janet Yellen, the Fed chairman.

Yet nobody really knows whether the world can handle a total of six rate rises over the course of 2017 and 2018 as sketched in the Fed's 'dot plots' scenario.

The recent (3/03) attack on a BBC television crew in Hunan province, China, reveals once again the Communist Party of China’s brazen thuggery and out-of-control bullying.

To physically attack a major foreign media crew, smashing their equipment, and then to force them to sign a confession is the most public example of what has been apparent for several years: Xi Jinping’s regime behaves more like gangsters than government.

Yet just as the assault on the BBC helps highlight China’s aggressively repressive behavior toward anyone, Chinese or foreigner, deemed to dissent or threaten the regime’s interests, it is only the tip of the iceberg.

If government-backed thugs can behave that way toward the international media, imagine how much worse it is for Chinese people?

Since he became president, Xi has presided over a dramatic deterioration in human rights over the past four years:

Was former secretary of labor and assistant attorney general Tom Perez’s victory over Cong. Keith Ellison in the race to serve as the new chairman of the Democrat National Committee a victory of centrist Democrats over radical anti-Semitic leftists in the party?

That is how the mainstream media is portraying Perez’s victory.  But how is that possible when Perez appointed the former Nation of Islam spokesman to serve as deputy DNC chairman as soon as his own victory was announced?

Perez is ready to cooperate with Ellison because the two men have the same ideological worldview and the same vision for the Democrat Party. As Mother Jones explained, “There’s truly not much ideological distance between the two.”

Far from being a victory for the centrist forces in the party, Perez’s win marks the solidification of the Far Left’s control over the party of Harry Truman.

The OPEC oil cartel – and Putin’s Russia – are waking up to an unpleasant surprise. Shale output from the Permian Basin in Texas is expanding faster than the world thought humanly possible.

The scale threatens to neutralize output cuts agreed by Saudi Arabia and a Russian-led bloc last November, and ultimately threatens break their strategic lockhold on the global crude market for a generation.

"People just don't seem to realize how big the Permian is. It will eventually pass the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia, and that is the biggest in the world," said Scott Sheffield, founder of Pioneer Natural Resources and acclaimed 'King of the Permian'.

Fresh science broadly confirms the once-outlandish claims of Mr. Sheffield and the veteran wildcatters. Consultants IHS have tripled their estimate of ultimate recoverable resources in the Permian to 104bn barrels – recoverable now due to astonishingly rapid advances in American fracking technology.

Scientists at the Roslin Institute, near Edinburgh, said last week that they had edited the genomes of pigs, rendering them immune to a dangerous virus. The announcement is extraordinary precisely because it sounds almost routine these days.

Gene editing is already starting to save the lives of human cancer patients and generate healthier crops. Yet the battle to ensure it gains favor with public opinion must be urgently addressed. The usual suspects are already trying to blacken its name.

With the new gene-editing tool Crispr-Cas9, the Roslin scientists sliced out a short section from this gene in the fertilized egg of a pig. They then grew pigs from these eggs that turned out healthy and entirely normal in every way, including the functioning of the gene, but which denied the virus entry to the cell.

Cue an outbreak of horror about the risks of (cliché alert) designer babies. One newspaper has been blathering about “Frankenstein pigs.”  But a similar technique is already being used to treat leukemia in children: are they Frankenstein kids?

What will be the public reaction to the release of gene-edited animals or plants? Bring it on and cure us, or how dare you try to poison us? We have been here before, twice.

HA HA HA. Let’s be honest, the greatest Oscars fiasco in history couldn’t have happened to a bunch of smugger, more deserving people.

All night on Sunday (02/26), the theme of the Academy Awards had been one of truth and facts.  Forgive me if I laugh again?

For truth and facts have never been Hollywood’s strong point. Time and again, movies abuse and bastardize historical events to suit its slathering need to drive box office cash.  I don’t object to that practice, because frankly, I just want to be entertained when I go to the movies.

But I do object when Hollywood pretends to stand for “The Truth.”  Just as I object when the New York Times pretends to be an impartial newspaper.  It’s not.

The Times is the media version of the Academy and its membership: an elite, preening organization stuffed full of liberals that absolutely loathe all things Republican, and especially loathe Donald Trump.

I do not write these words lightly, and there is not an ounce of mockery or, God forbid, hatred in my heart when I say that Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner is a man wearing a dress. I am simply speaking the plain and obvious truth, as politically incorrect as that truth might be right now.

But with transgender issues dominating the news these days, and in light of Tucker Carlson’s epic takedown of Democratic leader Zac Petkanas on national TV last week (02/23) specifically discussing gender-related questions, it appears that now is as good a time as ever to state some things clearly.

So then, to avoid all ambiguity:

*No, you do not get to choose your gender;

*No, gender is not determined by the level of your personal enlightenment (as Petkanas alleged);

*No, your gender does not change simply because you announce that it has changed;

*No, it is not good science to allow people to change their sexual identity on their birth certificates. In fact, there is nothing scientific about that at all.

This being said, my goal is neither to belittle nor disparage.  As loudly and clearly as I can, I proclaim God’s love for all of you who identify as transgender, reminding each one that Jesus died for you just as He died for me and that God has a good and godly purpose for each of your lives.

There are more Iraqis living in the United States than there are in some major cities in Iraq. 156,000 Iraqi refugees have entered this country in just the last decade. 30,000 of those have ended up in California.

71% of Iraqi refugees are receiving cash assistance. 82% are on Medicaid and 87% are on food stamps. Compare those atrocious numbers to only 17% of Cubans on cash assistance and 16% on Medicaid.

Notable Iraqi refugees include “Bowling Green terrorists”  Waad Ramadan Alwan and Mohanad Shareef Hammadi.

Alwan and Hammadi were thoroughly vetted before they were resettled in Nevada and Kentucky. The only omission in their thorough vetting was an unfortunate failure to note that the refugees were terrorists who had spent years trying to kill American soldiers in Iraq.

Below are many more examples.  Do we need more of this?