NC Renegades

Even the government is admitting that the U.S. economy is slowing down.  On Thursday, we learned that U.S. GDP grew at just a 0.5 percent annual rate during the first quarter of 2016.  This was lower than analysts were anticipating, and it marksthe third time in a row that the GDP number has declined compared to the previous quarter.  In other words, GDP growth has been declining for close to a year now, and this lines up perfectly with what I have been saying about how the second half of last year was a turning point that plunged us into the early chapters of a brand new economic crisis.  And as you will see below, the official GDP number is highly manipulated, and the way that it is calculated has been changed numerous times over the years.  So the bad number that is being reported by the government is actually the best case scenario.

Of course many of the “experts” being quoted by the mainstream media are saying that this is just a temporary blip and that good times for the U.S. economy are right around the corner.  For instance, check out this quote from Reuters…

“The economy essentially stalled in the first quarter, but that doesn’t mean it is faltering,” said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania. “Some of the restraints to growth are dissipating. Growth is likely to accelerate going forward.”

We have been told this same story for years, but the “acceleration” has never materialized.  In fact, Barack Obama is poised to become the only president in U.S. history to never have a single year when the economy grew by more than 3 percent during his presidency.

That is a statistic that is hard to believe, but it is true.

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“[Ted Cruz] is lucifer in the flesh…I have as many Democrat friends as I have Republican and I get along with almost everyone… but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch than Ted Cruz… over my dead body would he represent [Republicans]”

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I dare you to watch this video all the way through. It will drive you mad, but it illustrates a point which cannot be well made, absent such a blatantly irrational exercise of theoretical speculation clothed as sublime fact, as it is offered here.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND? People who indulge in such wild and immaterial speculation and call it science, without any requirement or expectation that there be factual relevance to the actual, real world; and who shield this speculation from any and all normal criticism by putting it under the heading of “Theoretical Science” and/or Mathematics, are the progenitors of those who believe in the socialist/utopian concept, whose origins are clearly and plainly within academia, cut loose from all sensible constraints and wildly run amok.

Just like the socialists/utopians, these “theorists” choose to believe the impossible because it amuses them and gives them a sense of superiority. And if you can’t or WON’T follow along in their didactic sophistry, they will simply classify you as ignorant, incapable of understanding them and their ideas, and thenceforth ignore you and your opinion.  The very conclusion of the video is a plea to “the Universe” as the ultimate authority, and places the value of the imagined construct above the rational human mind engaged in the real and material world.  Or in other words, Insanity. Continue reading →

h/t Tom R

A cadet at The Citadel said he is being punished with 33 hours of marching after he revealed in a Facebook post that the school was considering allowing an incoming cadet to wear a hijab in uniform.

The cadet, senior political science student Nick Pinelli, said officials at the public military college originally sought to charge him with behavior “unbecoming to a cadet,” a Class I offense that can lead to dismissal under the school’s disciplinary code. Instead, he said the school reduced the charge to “gross poor judgment” and handed him the maximum punishment: 40 “tours,” each consisting of 50 minutes of silent marching with a rifle in a barracks quadrangle. Pinelli, who has also been working as an intern for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, must complete the tours before graduating on May 7.

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A north Florida school board approved a measure on Tuesday that will limit restrooms to students based on their birth sex, not their gender identity.

The Marion County School Board approved the ban which took effect Wednesday morning.

The decision came despite a warning from the American Civil Liberties Union that the ban is unlawful, and could jeopardize federal funding for the district.

Board member Carol Ely says transgender students shouldn’t get to choose which restroom to use.

“I thought about it and that’s reverse discrimination,” she said.

Board Chairman Bobby James urged the board to hold off on creating an official resolution until further study could be done over the summer. His motion to delay the decision was not seconded, and died.

The district started allowing transgender students to choose their restroom two months ago. But a parent claimed his son’s privacy rights were being violated because he’s not comfortable sharing a restroom with a student who was born female but now identifies as male.

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Isn’t it past time that we put our children and their future first?

David DeGerolamo

It is very fitting that on today’s April 28th anniversary of the bull market, the day that officially makes this the second-longest “bull market” in history, the market got a stark reminder of just how it got there: through constant and relentless central bank intervention, which has been “beneficial” to stocks for the most part, however last night was anything but.

Less than one week after the BOJ floated a trial balloon using Bloomberg, that it would reduce the rate it charged some banks which set off the biggest USDJPY rally since October 2014, we are back where we started following last night’s “completely unexpected” (for everyone else: we wrote “What If The BOJ Disappoints Tonight: How To Trade It” hours before said “shock”) shocking announcement out of the BOJ which did absolutely… nothing.

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Japanese Bloodbath After BoJ Disappoints – Nikkei Drops 1000 Points, USDJPY Crashes