“When I spoke with Trump, I ventured that, based on available evidence, it seemed as though conservatives probably shouldn’t hold their breath for the next four years expecting entitlement reform. Trump’s reply was immediate. “I think you’re right,” he said. In fact, Trump seemed much less animated by the subject of budget cuts than the subject of spending increases.

“We’re also going to prime the pump,” he said. “You know what I mean by ‘prime the pump’? In order to get this” — the economy — “going, and going big league, and having the jobs coming in and the taxes that will be cut very substantially and the regulations that’ll be going, we’re going to have to prime the pump to some extent.”

In other words: Spend money to make a lot more money in the future. “And that’ll happen.” A clearer elucidation of Keynesian liberalism could not have been delivered by Obama. "Priming the pump" is one of the scariest economic programs you can hear promoted by a president. It is nothing but the promotion of rotund government expansionism justified by confused Keynesian theory.

Flanked by coal miners and Cabinet members, Trump vowed to spark an “energy revolution” that would put coal miners across the country back to work. “Today’s energy independence action calls for an immediate re-evaluation of the so-called Clean Power Plan,” he said during a ceremony at the Environmental Protection Agency that lasted less than 30 minutes. “We’re ending the theft of American prosperity and rebuilding our beloved country.” 

The order instructs all agencies to identify all policies that “serve as obstacles or impediments to energy production,” said the official, who spoke on background. The White House provided no timeline for implementing the order, but said that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt was “ready to hit the ground running.” 

The executive order takes other measures to protect the coal industry, such as instructing the Department of the Interior to lift a temporary ban on coal leasing on federal lands that the Obama administration put in place last year. The order scraps federal guidances instructing agencies to factor climate change into policymaking, and to disband a team tasked with calculating the “social cost of carbon.” 

Much of the blame for the bill's failure was placed on the Freedom Caucus, a secretive group of Republicans who refused to get in line behind Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Mr Trump. The Freedom Caucus emerged in 2015, in response to complaints that then-Speaker of the House John Boehner tried to jam through legislation in defiance of House rules - specifically, legislation they thought wasn't conservative enough.

The caucus is "concerned about procedure, but also concerned about procedure because they're concerned about policy," said Dr Laura Blessing, a senior fellow at the Georgetown Government Affairs Institute. The group formed to restore power to the rank-and-file Republicans, and lead the charge in opposition to the Affordable Care Act. Popular ideals among Freedom Caucus members include balanced budgets and shrinking the size of government. 

The meeting took place just hours after the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) debated its controversial Agenda Item 7, which makes alleged Israeli “human rights abuses” a permanent discussion item. The WJC released a statement affirming the secretary-general reiterated comments similar to those he had previously made on Israeli radio, in which he said, “It is completely clear the Temple that the Romans destroyed in Jerusalem was a Jewish temple.”

During the meeting, Lauder expressed frustration regarding the UNHRC’s “obscene” bias against Israel. “The UN was built on the broken bones of the Jewish people after World War II… It is an institution dedicated to making sure that what happened in the Holocaust never happens again,” he said, adding, “So it is particularly outrageous that the UN has been hijacked by Israel’s enemies to delegitimize the Jewish state.”

The WJC also noted that Guterres is committed to curtailing biased anti-Israel pronouncements at the UNHRC, but stopped short of making a vow to prevent anti-Israel resolutions from passing in the council.

As it would be doled out by the banking elites, the price for misbehavior at the Kremlin could be ostracization from this global commerce vehicle. But that isn’t the end of the story… Putin is readying his people to divorce from the international banking system altogether, and start over with a nationalistic platform, backed by thousands of tons of gold, and growing alliances with Europe, China and the BRICS nations, the Middle East and several emerging powers.

A major attempt to bring Russia under heel could result in the greatest schism the global system of finance has ever seen. Will there be economic wars, or outright World War III? Nobody knows for sure, but things could get very tense very quickly. Already, loose allegations are flying at an unprecedented rate. Somebody wants to egg this thing on.

Russia under Putin has seen a significant challenge to a world order that has, for some time, been ultimately controlled by the central banking elite.

The Rothschild presence in Russia has been challenged; Soros-front NGOs have been kicked out, and it seems that only all out war will ever settle these power plays for the dominance or death of the US petrodollar, which is ultimately controlled by the same few hands that steer and control the central banks of nearly all the world’s nations. Only by stealth and monotony have these activities remained in the shadows.

Indeed, the only countries left on the map which have not yielded to yoke of the central bank are the countries that are most at threat of being drawn into war: Syria; Iran; North Korea; Cuba. With that list so close to complete, a reversal could be a real blow to global order, and to maintaining orderly deposits.

One key measure of US corporate borrowing is falling at the fastest rate since the onset of the Lehman Brothers crisis. Money supply growth in the US has also slowed markedly. These monetary and credit signals  tend to be leading indicators for the real economy.

Data from the US Federal Reserve shows that the $2 trillion market for commercial and industrial loans peaked in December. The sector has weakened abruptly as lenders tighten credit, especially for non-residential property. Over the last three months it has dropped at a rate of 5.4 percent on annual basis, a pace of decline not seen since December 2008.

While they are not yet alarmed, their concerns are worth heeding. Credit has tended to pick up signs of trouble several weeks before equity markets in recent episodes of financial stress. "Without another big dose of momentum, the cracks in the global reflationary consensus are liable to grow bigger. All around, existing trends are being called into question," said Matt King, global credit strategist at Citigroup.

Judge Amy Holmes, who approved the petition, also last year approved a “non-binary” gender designation for another Portland resident. The 27-year-old formerly known as Patrick Abbatiello, now legally designated agender, also got legal approval to change names, now going only by “Patch,” no surname. That name also serves as a pronoun, Patch explained to the local NBC affiliate this week.

“Even gender-neutral pronouns don’t feel as if they fit me,” Patch said. “I feel no identity or closeness with any pronouns I’ve come across. What describes me is my name.”

By deadline, Patch did not respond to requests for interview sent by phone and Facebook through Portland Community College’s Queer Resource Center. Patch works there as a co-coordinator, and a Facebook post for the center lauded the student for “blazing the way.”

While the comic book industry has been making great strides in its efforts to reflect the real world in its characters, the same has not always been true of their creators, who have typically been straight, white and male. But the ratio of representation continues to change. 

David F Walker, who is black, is writing a new Luke Cage series for Marvel that begins in May; that same month introduces a superhero universe from Lion Forge, with a diverse team of creators and characters, including Noble, the flagship hero who is black; and this summer will see the return of Kim & Kim, from Black Mask Studios, about two bounty hunters, one a trans woman, the other bisexual, written by Magdalene Visaggio, who is transgender.

They join the growing list of comic book series with diverse characters at the forefront. For a long time, “the American comic book industry has marginalized and excluded the voices of writers of color,” said Joseph Phillip Illidge, a senior editor at Lion Forge Comics. That has caused some fans to ask that characters of color have their stories done by creators of color.

When characters and creators share a special bond, there is an increased chance of authenticity. That seems to be the case in Ms Rivera’s work on America, judging by the early reviews. “One big part of this book’s personality is that it allows America to be totally, unapologetically queer,” wrote Kat Overland on the website Women Write About Comics. “It’s the same with her brownness. She’s Latina, style-wise, speech-wise, everything, and it feels natural. Ultimately, the more diverse voices you have in the room, the greater the worldview you’ll get in your fiction.”