NC Renegades

A Syrian suicide bomber is thought to be responsible for an attack which killed at least ten people including foreigners in the heart of Istanbul’s historic Sultanahmet tourist district on Tuesday, President Tayyip Erdogan said.

There was a high probability Islamic State militants were behind the blast near the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, major tourist sites in the center of one of the world’s most visited cities, two senior Turkish security officials told Reuters.

Several bodies lay on the ground in the Sultanahmet square in the immediate aftermath of the blast. A police officer and witness at the scene also reported seeing several body parts

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The leader of a small, armed group occupying a national wildlife refuge in southeastern Oregon said Monday he and his followers are going through government documents stored inside refuge buildings.

Ammon Bundy told reporters the documents will be used to “expose” how the government has discriminated local ranchers who use federal land for cattle grazing.

Bundy said the documents would also help secure the release of Steven and Dwight Hammond, two area ranchers convicted of arson who returned to prison last week to serve longer sentences. The Hammonds’ case set off the occupation of the Burns-area refuge on Jan. 2.

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Never before have we seen a year start like this.  On Monday, Chinese stocks crashed once again.  The Shanghai Composite Index plummeted another 5.29 percent, and this comes on the heels of two historic single day crashes last week.  All of this chaos over in China is one of the factors that continues to push commodity prices even lower.  Today the price of copper fell another 2.40 percent to $1.97, and the price of oil continued to implode.  At one point the price of U.S. oil plunged all the way down to $30.99 a barrel before rebounding just a little bit.  As I write this article, oil is down a total of 6.12 percent for the day and is currently sitting at $31.13.  U.S. stocks were mixed on Monday, but it is important to note that the Russell 2000 did officially enter bear market territory.  This is yet another confirmation of what I was talking about yesterday.  And junk bonds continue to plummet.  As I write this, JNK is down to 33.42.  All of these numbers are huge red flags that are screaming that big trouble is ahead.  Unfortunately, the mainstream media continues to insist that there is absolutely nothing to be concerned about.

A little over a year ago, I wrote an article that explained that anyone that believed that low oil prices were good for the economy was “crazy“.  At the time, many people really didn’t understand what I was trying to communicate, but now it is becoming exceedingly clear.  On Monday, one veteran oil and gas analyst told CNBC that “half of U.S. shale oil producers could go bankrupt” over the next couple of years…

Half of U.S. shale oil producers could go bankrupt before the crude market reaches equilibrium, Fadel Gheit, said Monday.

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So the sheriff who has told the Bundys to get out worked for the BLM in the past and was a witness against the Hammonds.

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The value of Ammon Bundy’s stance in Oregon is illuminating the issue of federal ownership of land they have no right to own. But this, like so many other violations of the Constitution, requires the understanding of the Constitution in order to understand the issue. Unfortunately, most Americans have no understanding of the Constitution, its limitations on the federal government or the rights of the people it is required to defend.

They are locked into a simplistic understanding of the Constitution that creates the United States of America and little else. The fact that there is a United States of America, to them, means that the government is allowed to do whatever it wants. This is a view recently adopted by the Supreme Court. Rights are something that rich people are afforded, because they have the funds to hire lawyers that will argue for those rights. Public Defenders simply want to move the case through the system efficiently, which often means a plea of guilty for their clients. The facts, to them, are irrelevant. When one is paid by the state, they act in the interest of the state. This is exactly the position of the Supreme Court. They are paid by the federal government and they act in its interest.

There are so many cases that demonstrate that reality, I don’t even want to go into it. Knowing it as a fact, is enough.

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The mayor of Harrisburg, Penn., ordered his police department on Friday not to provide security for an upcoming NRA-sponsored gun show after the association refused to meet a demand to pay a 60-percent increase in fees for the service.

Harrisburg police have provided security for the annual Great American Outdoors Show, scheduled this year for February 6-14, in the past. Mayor Eric Papenfuse said that the decision not to offer the department’s services this year was motivated in part by the NRA’s opposition to the city’s gun control policies.

“We have an epidemic of gun violence,” Papenfuse told WHTM. “It’s no secret that the NRA has worked against the city’s interests repeatedly over the past year causing us to spend tens of thousands of dollars to defend common sense gun ordinances. We don’t need to be doing them any favors.”

An NRA spokesman said that despite payments of $600,000 directly to the city since 2014, the mayor wanted the gun rights group to pay additional fees in order to obtain police protection for the show.

“Unfortunately, demands were made by the mayor for the 2016 show that included a 60 percent increase in fees to [the police department] to work the show and a requirement of a $50,000 grant for five years to the city,” Jeremy Greene, an NRA spokesman, said in a statement. “This offer was presented as all or nothing. If we did not accept, the mayor would pull [police] support.”

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