NC Renegades

Personal Philosophy, from a friend in the UK who has significant interest in American politics:

“Show me a selfless politician, working strictly for the common good and defending our individual rights and liberties as citizens, and I will show you a saint!

There are precious few!

The vast majority unfailingly succumb to their own petty lust for power, and the ecumenical dogma among politicians that we ‘ordinary’ citizens cannot think for ourselves. . The ‘representation’ aspect is instantly forgotten, and the people’s voice and interests soon fade into the background, while political infighting and jockeying for position take precedence.

Most don’t look upon themselves as ‘public servants,’ but rather as ‘ public parents’ They are truly paranoid, afraid of everything!

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Hawaii is preparing for massive casualties through the large scale exercise, Vigilant Guard 15. Complete with crisis actors, decontamination centers, and quarantine zones. In one scenario that played out, soldiers practiced treating casualties from a collapsed building as a fuel spill contaminated the area.

Using the Campbell Industrial Park as their staging ground the Hawaiian National Guard set up triage and decontaminated victims.

Vigilant Guard 15 utilized over 2,200 participants from multiple states reacting to a natural disaster and is the largest mass casualty exercise to date.

More than 700 participants traveled from Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon and Guam.

Military personnel and first responders, using Chinook and Blackhawk Helicopters, also practiced a variety of scenarios including disease outbreak and cyberattack.

The Obama administration is moving forward with regulations designed to help diversify America’s wealthier neighborhoods, drawing fire from critics who decry the proposal as executive overreach in search of an “unrealistic utopia.”

A final Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rule due out this month is aimed at ending decades of deep-rooted segregation around the country.

The regulations would use grant money as an incentive for communities to build affordable housing in more affluent areas while also taking steps to upgrade poorer areas with better schools, parks, libraries, grocery stores and transportation routes as part of a gentrification of those communities.

“HUD is working with communities across the country to fulfill the promise of equal opportunity for all,” a HUD spokeswoman said. “The proposed policy seeks to break down barriers to access to opportunity in communities supported by HUD funds.”

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It is no secret that US healthcare corporations have been among, if not the biggest beneficiaries of Obamacare: by “socializing” costs and spreading the reimbursement pool over the entire population in the form of a tax, pharmaceutical companies have been able to boost medical product and service costs to unprecedented levels with the help of complicit insurance companies who have subsequently passed through these costs to the consumer, in the process sending the price of biotech and pharma stocks to levels not seen since the dot com bubble.

But when it came to the highly confidential TPP, it was unclear just which corporations were dominant in pulling the strings.

Now thanks to more documents published by Wikileaks, and analyzed by the NYT, it appears that “big pharma” is once again pulling the strings, this time of the Trans Pacific Partnership, which if passed will “empower big pharmaceutical firms to command higher reimbursement rates in the United States and abroad, at the expense of consumers” according to “public health professionals, generic-drug makers and activists opposed to the trade deal.”

In other words, just like the narrowly-passed Obamacare was a gift for big Pharma, so America’s legal drug dealers are now trying to go for another price boosting catalyst, one which however will involve not just the US but some 12 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Worst of all, the negotiations for the next price increase is taking place in utmost secrecy where “American negotiators are still pressing participating governments to open the process that sets reimbursement rates for drugs and medical devices.”

As RT notes, the latest disclosure links the Healthcare Annex to the secret draft of the quite aptly-named “Transparency” Chapter of the TPP, along with each country’s negotiating position. The leaked “Annex on transparency and procedural fairness for pharmaceutical products and medical devices” is dated from December 2014, with the draft being restricted from release for four years after the passage of the TPP into law.

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SECURITY: A Primer for Freedom Fighters is a down and dirty guide covering what you need to know about security.  It’s 50 pages of important information written from the perspective of an Army Intelligence Analyst.  FREE SHIPPING on all orders (except International orders).

Table of Contents

Communications Security (COMSEC)
SYMMETRIC ENCRYPTION
ASYMMETRIC ENCRYPTION
ONE TIME PADS
STENOGRAPHY
CRYPTONYMS
VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORK
ANONYMOUS BROWSING
ONLINE CHAT
TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
RADIO
DEAD DROPS
META-DATA

Information Security (INFOSEC)
PREVENTION
DEFENSE
MITIGATION

Personnel Security (PERSEC)
PERSONNEL SECURITY CONTROLS
CODE NAMES
BIOMETRIC THREAT
SOCIAL MEDIA
RISK MANAGEMENT
PERSONAL SECURITY

Operations Security (OPSEC)
COMPROMISE
CRITICAL INFORMATION
INDICATORS
ENEMY COLLECTION
THREAT ANALYSIS
VULNERABILITY ANALYSIS
RISK ASSESSMENT
OPSEC VIOLATIONS

APPENDIX

$14.99

Six openly gay U.S. ambassadors meet in Washington in March 2015. They are, from left, Ambassador to Australia John Berry, Ambassador to the Dominican Republic James Brewster, Ambassador to Denmark Rufus Gifford, Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Daniel Baer, Ambassador to Spain James Costos, and Ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius (Photo: Blake Bergen/Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies)

International free-trade agreements like those being negotiated with countries in the Pacific and Europe should help to export American values such as human rights, including for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people, according to seven openly homosexual U.S. ambassadors.

The seven, joined by the State Department’s first “special envoy for LGBTI persons,” Randy Berry, signed a joint letter published Tuesday in the national gay and lesbian news magazine The Advocate, and re-posted by the White House.

“Through the President’s trade agenda, we will not only support more American jobs, but we can also promote greater justice beyond our borders,” they wrote.

“We are committed to working closely with the White House to ensure that any trade arrangement approved by Congress is a force for progress on human rights for everyone, including for LGBTI persons.”

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A republic can only be held by moral and virtuous people. Just in case you were wondering how our Liberty died.

David DeGerolamo

As reported yesterday, in the latest escalation of the “war on ISIS”, Obama – winner of the Nobel peace prize for pulling US soldiers out of Iraq – was said to be sending even more US soldiers, pardon military advisors, to Iraq to halt the inexplicable, constant expansion of ISIS, now deep in Syrian territory. Earlier today, this was confirmed when Reuters reported that, as expected, the US will announce on Wednesday plans for a new military base in Iraq’s Anbar province and the deployment of around 400 additional U.S. trainers to help Iraqi forces in the fight against Islamic State, citing an unnamed U.S. official.

From Reuters:

The plan would expand the 3,100-strong U.S. contingent of trainers and advisers in Iraq and would mark an adjustment in strategy for President Barack Obama, who is facing mounting criticism for not being tougher in combating Islamic State.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed hope that even a modestly strengthened U.S. presence could help Iraqi forces plan and carry out a counter-attack to retake Anbar’s capital Ramadi, which insurgents seized last month….

The expected troop announcement was unlikely to silence Obama’s critics, who say the modest contingent of U.S. forces is far from enough to turn the tide of battle.

In an administration in which the aptly named US Freedom Act does precisely the opposite of what its name suggests, it was good to see that the semantic games continue: as Reuters further notes, “Obama was expected to stick to his stance against sending U.S. troops into combat or even close to the front lines, officials said.” And yet, he is doing just that.

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