NC Renegades

h/t Robin S

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“The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. … What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

First Lady Michelle Obama celebrated the beauty, power and tenacity of black women while spreading her own message of education for girls at Black Girls Rock!, an annual event honoring trailblazing women of color from all walks of life.

“No matter who you are, no matter where you come from, you are beautiful,” Obama told the crowd, which included many young black girls.

“I am so proud of you. My husband, your president, is so proud of you,” she added. “We have so much hope and dreams for you.”

Obama was not among the honorees at Saturday night’s festivities, held at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. That distinction went to actress Jada Pinkett Smith, singer Erykah Badu, actress Cicely Tyson, “Selma” director Ava DuVernay, educator Nadia Lopez and Dr. Helene D. Gayle, president and CEO of CARE USA, a humanitarian organization.

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Up until now, the world’s descent into the NIRPy twilight of fiat currency was a function of failing monetary policy around the globe as central bank after desperate central bank implemented negative and even more negative (in the case of Denmark some four times rapid succession) rates, hoping to make saving so prohibitive consumers would have no choice but to spend the fruits of their labor, or better yet, take out massive loans which they would never be able to repay. However, nobody said it was only central banks who could be the executioners of the world’s saver class: governments are perfectly capable too.  Such as Australia’s.

According to Australia’s ABC News, the “Federal Government looks set to introduce a tax on bank deposits in the May budget.”

Ironically, the idea of a bank deposit tax was raised by Labor in 2013 and was criticized by Tony Abbott at the time. Much has changed in two years, and as ABC reports, assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has indicated an announcement on the new tax could be made before the budget.

Mr Frydenberg is a member of the Government’s Expenditure Review Committee but has refused to provide any details.

“Any announcements or decisions around this proposed policy which we discussed at the last election will be made in the lead up or on budget night,” he said.

Speaking at the Victorian Liberal State Council meeting Mr Abbott has repeated his budget message, focusing on families and small businesses.

“There will be tough decisions in this year’s budget as there must be, but there will also be good news.”

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Egypt’s president says leaders at summit have agreed to create a joint Arab military force, according to the Associated Press. Egyptian officials say the proposed Arab force would be made up of roughly 40,000 elite troops and backed by jets, warships and light armor.

SANAA, Yemen — The first three days of airstrikes by a coalition led by Saudi Arabia have destroyed Yemen’s fleet of fighter aircraft and crippled military command centers, dealing a blow to Houthi insurgents, a senior defense official in Riyadh said.

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If, as one claims, one is innocent of i) using a personal email account to send out confidential information and/or to take advantage of one’s political position to abuse opponents and ii) deleting said confidential emails against government regulations, what would one do when faced with a government subpoena demand? If one is the IRS’ Lois Lerner, one would claim, against subsequently revealed facts, that a hardware error led to a permanent loss of all demanded emails, even though by email protocol definition, said emails are always stored on at least one off-site server. Or, if one is Hillary Clinton, one would just format the entire server.

This, according to the Hill, is precisely what Hillary Clinton has done as the recent clintonemail.com scandal continues to grow bigger and impair ever more the already frail credibility and decision-making skills of the former first lady and democratic presidential hopeful.  According to the head of the House Select Committee on Benghazi says former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has erased all information from the personal email server she used while serving as the nation’s top diplomat.

“We learned today, from her attorney, Secretary Clinton unilaterally decided to wipe her server clean and permanently delete all emails from her personal server,” Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said in a statement Friday.

What difference does it make if she deleted all her emails? Well, apparently a lot.

The key question is when said server formatting took place. This appears to have taken place after the first production request had come in, which means that Clinton may well be guilty of destruction of evidence. He said while it’s “not clear precisely when Secretary Clinton decided to permanently delete all emails from her server, it appears she made the decision after October 28, 2014, when the Department of State for the first time asked the Secretary to return her public record to the Department.”

What’s worse, the evidence destroyed officially is US government property, since it was all created when Clinton was an employee of Uncle Sam.

Last week, Gowdy sent a letter to Clinton’s attorney asking that the email server be turned over to a third party in the hopes that an investigation could recover about 30,000 emails that her team deleted before turning the rest over to the State Department.

Gowdy said “it is clear Congress will need to speak with the former Secretary about her email arrangement and the decision to permanently delete those emails.”

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Are you old enough to remember when this sign was prominently displayed in the windows of almost all businesses ?

This was a foundational principle of Liberty … the right to contract, or not, for any reason.

It is a remnant from a time when civilized men and women saw benefit in the human ability to discriminate: to notice and understand that one thing is different from another thing : to recognize a difference between things.

Read the sign above one more time … it does not say what Liberals want it to say:

Therefore they are outraged that a new Indiana law affirms people should not be forced to conduct business when it conflicts with their religions principles.

Supporters say the law prevents the state from forcing people to provide services contrary to their religion.

Similar bills are being considered across the US as court rulings have made gay marriage legal in more states.

Activists have encouraged a boycott of Indiana after the US state enacted a “religious freedom” law, which they say discriminates against gay people.

Source

It’s a shame Indiana didn’t go all the way and fully defend Liberty of Contract.

Read about it … then live it.

Yesterday morning, CNBC Asia’s anchorman Martin Soong cradled a young, hairy-nosed wombat named Billi on live television.

He then transitioned to interview an entrepreneur who is raising money to colonize Mars.

Now, as much as I’m sure we’re all fans of wombats… and as much as it might be a great idea to colonize Mars, it’s time to be soberingly honest: these are classic indicators that we’ve reached the top of the market.

Money is no longer serious business. It’s all fun and games chasing the latest investment fad with no regard whatsoever to the risks involved.

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Source

It’s Official: Americans Spent All Their “Gas Savings” On Obamacare

And the absolute shocker: of the $89.1 billion increase in Q4 GDP in chained-dollars, healthcare was $35.3 billion of that, or 40% of the total.

Yes, healthcare spending accounted for 40% of GDP growth in Q4!

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