"Gold and silver have turned!" I bet you have heard that one before. In fact, I said this almost 12 months ago at the end of last June. Back then we had another 2 day waterfall event which became common events throughout 2013. As it turns out, that event was the (a) "retest" of $1,180 in gold and $18 in silver. I believe that last June really was the bottom in price. We have chopped since then and had a good little rally to start this year off only to be pressured down again...but I believe that things have now changed.

So why did the metals soar on Thursday? Was it because Janet Yellen and the Fed were "dovish" as is commonly thought? Maybe, but haven't they been dovish since 2008? Didn't we have QE's 1, 2 twist and then QE3? Hasn't the Fed, the BOE, BOJ and ECB all flooded the markets with cheap and nearly free currency? Yes they have, but all we have for their efforts is more debt, inflated markets and stagnant economies where it costs the average person more each day to live and survive. Six years after the fact they are still using the word "recovery" when during a normal business cycle we would have had another recession, a second recovery and already be in a 2nd growth phase.

Macroeconomist Gordon Long says,

"We're not really running a capitalist system. We are running a credit system. Instead of using savings, we are using credit. Credit, the way we are doing it now, is really a form of counterfeiting. If you look at the $72 trillion shadow banking system that we have operating right now, that is generating this credit . . . it collapsed in 2008 . . . and now it's on a hairy edge. It's not mortgages and housing this time. It's student loans through Sallie Mae. These students don't have any hope of paying this back. We are talking north of $1.1 to $1.2 trillion. It's car loans this time because of subprime. That's the way to look at car loans, they are sub-prime. . . . And you got these highly leveraged real estate investment trusts also operating through the shadow banking system. These problems are blatantly evident, and I don't think the powers that be have any control over them."

On the next financial crisis, Mr. Long contends,

"I think 2008 was an early warning signal of the magnitude of the problem. We didn't fix it. We did extend and pretend. Dodd-Frank did not solve the underlying issues. The global swaps market went from $600 trillion to $700 trillion last year, alone. We've watched the shadow banking system push through $72 trillion. So, we didn't stop it. We just, in fact, inflamed it even worse, and we got into even riskier kinds of assets. Is it imminent? No, I think we are talking 2015. I think we have a little bit of a deflation scare before we get into the hyperinflation. Don't underestimate the central bankers and the politicians' ability to kick the can down the road. They still got some more bullets here."

"I think we have to understand first how we got here. We have been arming ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) in Syria. ISIS, an al Qaeda offshoot, has been collaborating with the Syrian rebels whom the Obama administration has been arming in their efforts to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad." - Senator Rand Paul, Interview CNN 

Today's head-scratcher: How could a two-mile long column of jihadi-filled white Toyota Land rovers barrel across the Syrian border into Iraq - sending plumes of dust up into the atmosphere - without US spy satellites detecting their whereabouts when those same satellites can read a damn license plate from outer space? And why has the media failed to inquire about this massive Intelligence failure?

The U.S. government's no-fly list banning people accused of links to terrorism from commercial flights violates their constitutional rights because it gives them no meaningful way to contest that decision, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Anna Brown, ruling on a lawsuit filed in federal court in Oregon by 13 Muslim Americans who were branded with the no-fly status, ordered the government to come up with new procedures that allow people on the no-fly list to challenge that designation.

"The court concludes international travel is not a mere convenience or luxury in this modern world. Indeed, for many international travel is a necessary aspect of liberties sacred to members of a free society," Brown wrote in her 65-page ruling.

"Accordingly, on this record the court concludes plaintiffs inclusion on the no-fly list constitutes a significant deprivation of their liberty interests in international travel," Brown said.

The US Commerce Department has given the go-ahead to several companies to export crude oil, a big policy change essentially ending a ban in place for the last four decades. At question is whether the end of the ban will mean higher prices at the pump.

Ultra-light oil, often referred to as 'condensate' by the energy industry, will be cleared to be exported abroad, according to a private ruling by the federal government impacting Pioneer Natural Resources Co. and Enterprise Product Partners LP, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Currently, the export of crude oil is restricted by the US government, though the ban has not applied to refined versions such as gasoline and diesel. The restrictions were put into place during the 1970s as a direct result of the 1973 oil embargo imposed by a number of Arab nations. At the time, global oil prices were spiking upwards, and many Americans were struggling to simply fill their car's gas tank.

Exceptions to the crude ban - known officially as the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act - have been made over the years, including for crude oil produced in Alaska's Cook Inlet, oil that travels through the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline, certain fields in California, and oil shipped to Canada for domestic consumption. Still, even after all of those exceptions, the amount of crude being exported by the US amounted to a modest 67,000 barrels per day in 2011, reported the Washington Post.

The parliament of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) in southeastern Ukraine has passed a constitutional act on a confederation with the neighboring Lugansk People's Republic (LPR).

"The DPR Supreme Soviet passed a constitutional act on the unification of the DPR and LPR on a confederative basis into the Union of People's Republics," the DPR said on its official website on Twitter.

A list of DPR deputies to the parliament of the Union of the People's Republics has been approved.

The DPR and LPR proclaimed independence from Kiev after the May 11 referendums on their self-determination.

On May 24, the two republics signed a treaty on the creation of the Union of the People's Republics under the name of Novorossiya.

Earlier, South Ossetia officially recognized the Lugansk People's Republic's sovereignty.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday predicted there would be an attack on the United States within the next decade that is "far deadlier" than the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"I doubt it," Cheney told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, when asked if he thinks the U.S. would "get through this decade" without another "massive attack on the homeland."

"I think there will be another attack. And the next time, I think it's going to be far deadlier than the last one. Imagine what would happen if somebody could smuggle a nuclear device, put it in a shipping container, and drive it down the beltway outside Washington, D.C."

Hewitt then asked Cheney if another attack would lead to "military rule" and the reconstitution of the U.S. government. Cheney detailed the "continuity of government" program, which he said was set up during the Cold War so that a "government in waiting" could be in place if necessary.

British Medical Association (BMA) doctors have voted to demand a permanent ban on selling cigarettes to those born after the millennium - i.e. kids who are currently 14 or under. The group's ambitious plan is to make British society tobacco free by 2035.

The motion was passed at a meeting on Tuesday.

"It is not expected that this policy will instantly prevent all people from smoking, but [rather it will] de-normalise cigarette smoking," said London research assistant in academic public health, Dr Tim Crocker-Buqué at the meeting. "The level of harm caused by smoking is unconscionable."

The decision was made at the British Medical Association's annual representatives' meeting on Tuesday. The doctors' voting in favor means that the doctors' union will push for the British government to introduce the ban.

Russia and Austria have agreed on a joint company to construct the Austrian arm of the $45 billion South Stream gas pipeline project, which is expected to deliver 32 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to the country, bypassing Ukraine.

At Tuesday's meeting in Vienna, the creation of South Stream Austria was announced.The company will be 50 percent owned by Gazprom, Russia's largest gas producer, and 50 percent by Austria's OMV Group, the country's largest oil and gas company.

Construction on the Austrian section is expected to begin in 2015 and that the first deliveries will start in 2017, reaching full capacity in January 2018.

OMV spokesman Robert Lechner was more optimistic, and said the first South Stream deliveries could come as early as 2016.

In April, Gazprom and the OMV Group signed a memorandum to implement the South Stream project in Austria.

Craig Monteilh describes how he pretended to be a radical Muslim in order to root out potential threats, shining a light on some of the bureau's more ethically murky practices.
Craig Monteilh says he did not balk when his FBI handlers gave him the OK to have sex with the Muslim women his undercover operation was targeting. Nor, at the time, did he shy away from recording their pillow talk.

"They said, if it would enhance the intelligence, go ahead and have sex. So I did," Monteilh told the Guardian as he described his year as a confidential FBI informant sent on a secret mission to infiltrate southern Californian mosques.

It is an astonishing admission that goes to the heart of the intelligence surveillance of Muslim communities in America in the years after 9/11. While police and FBI leaders have insisted they are acting to defend America from a terrorist attack, civil liberties groups have insisted they have repeatedly gone too far and treated an entire religious group as suspicious.