Events are moving faster than most can keep up with.

One thing liberty advocates must always be alert for is the dreaded deep cover mole. These are people and organizations who pretend to support you and your cause but who can be counted on to double cross you at critical moments, even if that means exposing themselves as…deep cover moles.

Take, for example, CPAC. Ron Paul wins the Presidential straw poll; Fox News falsifies the results in a televised report, gets caught and “apologizes.” Meanwhile, Donald Trump tells the crowd there Ron Paul is “unelectable” but fails to mention his having given $50,000.00 to Rahm Emmanuel’s Chicago mayoral campaign. How did this guy get invited to speak at CPAC, anyway? Inquiring minds want to know.

The Middle East is going its own way; this, coupled with QE infinity, means energy prices are headed in only one direction. Unrest has broken out in:
Tunisia
Egypt
Yemen
Algeria
Bahrain
Libya
Djibouti
Morocco
Iran

A word on Tunisia: the unrest was kicked off by an act of desperation committed by a young man named Mohamed Bouazizi. This man was trying to keep his family alive by selling produce from a cart on the street. After yet another incident of brutality at the hands of corrupt local authorities (they repeatedly seized his wares) he doused himself with gasoline in front of a government building and set himself on fire. He died a few weeks later. The national government fell soon after that. One man can make a difference.

Libya seems in the middle of a full blown revolution right now as I write this. Reports of defections by army and security forces continue to come in. By the time this gets posted it could all be over for Qaddafi. On the interconnectedness front, Zerohedge is reporting that Libya owns 7% of Italy’s largest bank, whose stock is getting pummeled. Globalization is fun! Update: International Business Times is reporting that Qaddafi’s son has been wounded by gunfire, and Qaddafi himself has already fled the country for Venezuela.

Meanwhile, security forces in Bahrain are actively engaged in shooting unarmed protesters. Video is available on youtube if you really need to see it. The situation in Yemen continues to escalate, and casualties mount.

Protesters are also trying to get organized in China, but the authorities there are adept at following their actions on Twitter etc and are arresting the leaders before anything gets started. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.

In financial news, the brave Republican party has offered a bold plan to cut sixty whole billion dollars from the $1.5 Trillion deficit. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

There’s a very important story playing out right now in the silver pits at COMEX, more like a war, and you’re not hearing about it. Deep-pocketed and determined buyers have come to the silver pits. It seems they intend to stand for delivery and force the issue. For the past several days the price of silver has been exploding higher; one silver analyst estimates that the bullion banks have losses that exceed $100 Billion due to their naked short silver positions. The current speculation is that the bullion banks do not have the silver, will not be able to deliver, and will be forced to settle in cash with a 20% premium. It is expected that the speculators will then use the cash to buy the next delivery month, and stand for delivery again. Will we see a “Commercial Signal Failure”? I wonder who will make up for the banks’ losses? There are very large potential implications in this situation. Very. Large.

As I write, silver is up another 4% today, West Texas Intermediate Crude (WTIC) is up 4.5% today, Brent crude is up 2% today; tomorrow promises to be an interesting day on Wall Street and in the grain pits. Edit: 1500, 21 Feb (just a few hours after I originally wrote this post) WTIC is now up 8% (a rise of $8.50) and stands at $97.39 per barrel. You care, because your gas prices generally track WTIC. What’s 8% of 3 bucks a gallon? Twenty four cents. Maybe this will blow over when the ME calms down? Maybe when Ben stops printing? Then again…

Zerohedge reminds us that each $1 rise in oil reduces U.S. GDP by about $100 Billion. Time for another stimulus!