NC Renegades

Multiple far-left groups are using Ferguson as a pretext to rehearse widespread civil disobedience when the Welfare State taps the brakes.

The scaling down of the Welfare State in America is not a question of “if,” but “when.” The status quo is unsustainable.

“Unsustainable” is one of those Washington D.C. words with a history of meaning little — like Foggy Bottom’s use of “unacceptable.”  But unlike unacceptable, unsustainable, when applied to the Welfare State, is a derivative of mathematics — a major determinant of the wealth of nations.

The American Welfare State is unsustainable — destined for significant downsizing by cold, impassionate, apolitical Arithmetic.

All except the most hardcore leftist pols inside the Beltway know this to be true, but it remains mostly unspoken.

The first line of defense for those who would sustain the life of the Welfare State is to reduce expenditures for the Warfare State. That battle is yet to be fully engaged, but is already underway in D.C. skirmishes.

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h/t Stephen

President Barack Obama is holding three meetings on Monday to discuss issues relating to unrest in Ferguson, Missouri.

According to the White House schedule, the first afternoon meeting will be a talk with members of Obama’s Cabinet “to discuss federal programs and funding that provide equipment to the state and local enforcement agencies.” Vice President Joe Biden will also be in attendance.

Obama is then scheduled to meet with local and national civil rights leaders.

The third session will take place among elected officials, law enforcement officials and community and faith leaders “to discuss how communities and law enforcement can work together to build trust to strengthen neighborhoods across the country.”

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I feel like a Thanksgiving turkey with a bullseye on my back. And the sheeple said “BAH”.

David DeGerolamo

The North Carolina Army National Guard has quietly stood up a new commando detachment for secretive missions around the world.On Oct. 18th, federal and state officials held a ceremony marking the creation of Special Operations Detachment-X—a.k.a., SOD-X — in the capital Raleigh. The Guard already has 10 commando detachments spread across the country.

The addition of the of the SOD … means North Carolina now has the ability to accomplish worldwide missions,” Brig. Gen. John Byrd, the state’s assistant adjutant general for domestic operations, said at the ceremony.

All of the Army’s commando detachments align with an active-duty headquarters. We don’t know what the “X” stands for, but it appears the Army intends for the new detachment to help out the super-secret Joint Special Operations Command.

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Your tax dollars (and my tribute) at work.

This is not what our country was intended to be.

David DeGerolamo

h/t Tom R

Given the presumed 17% expansion of the global economy since 2009, the tiny increases in production could not possibly flood the world in oil unless demand has cratered.

The term Black Swan shows up in all sorts of discussions, but what does it actually mean? Though the term has roots stretching back to the 16th century, today it refers to author Nassim Taleb’s meaning as defined in his books, Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets and The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable:

“First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility.

Second, it carries an extreme ‘impact’.

Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.”

Simply put, black swans are undirected and unpredicted. The Wikipedia entry lists three criteria based on Taleb’s work:

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“Never provide unnecessary details.”  That’s something that I always teach in my Operations Security (OPSEC) classes.  I’s a pretty self-explanatory statement, and it should be easy to follow.  But today I read an article on Mother Jones, the infamously leftist news magazine, about a current Army soldier who spoke about his involvement with the Oathkeepers organization.  With all due respect to him, I’ll point out some fairly gross violations of an OPSEC practice that each and every one of you should develop.

Now OPSEC is sometimes belittled, mainly because it’s misunderstood.  The point of OPSEC isn’t to not tell anyone anything and only communicate using dead drops and cut outs.  The point of OPSEC is to protect your sensitive information.  Now if he’s smarter than your average bear, and some of this information is disinformation, then that’s great, but it’s not going to help his military career.

So back to this article: Oathkeepers and the Age of Treason.  I’ll go through the article and point out some specific examples of what you should not be telling strangers, including reporters.

The model that Pvt. 1st Class Lee Pray is saving up for has a 2,500-yard range and comes with a Mark IV scope and an easy-load magazine. When the 25-year-old drove me to a mall in Watertown, New York, near the Fort Drum Army base, he brought me to see it in its glass case—he visits it periodically, like a kid coveting something at the toy store. It’ll take plenty of military paychecks to cover the $5,600 price tag, but he considers the Bushmaster essential in his preparations to take on the US government when it declares martial law.

Telling a reporter that you plan on purchasing a rifle to fight the USG is just bad OPSEC policy, aside from using his name, which I can only hope is a pseudonym.

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Swiss voters overwhelmingly rejected proposals on Sunday that would have forced the central bank to buy huge amounts of gold and imposed strict curbs on immigration, in what is seen as a result strengthening Swiss ties with the European Union.

The measures proposed on Sunday reflect a growing sense that Switzerland is under siege by foreign workers eroding its Alpine culture and trading partners who have insisted in recent years that the Swiss dismantle their business model based on banking secrecy.

The “Save our Swiss gold” initiative failed to secure a winning vote in a majority of Swiss cantons, the so-called “cantonal majority” required for the initiative to pass, according to data from Swiss broadcaster SRF.

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Every year, it has been my tradition to write an article about the mini-riots that erupt in retail stores all around the country on Black Friday.  This year things were a bit calmer because so many stores opened up on Thanksgiving itself, but there was still plenty of chaos.  For example, in the video posted below you can see women viciously fighting one another over discounted lingerie and underwear…

But instead of launching into another diatribe about how we are committing national economic suicide by buying hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign-made goods with money that we do not have, I want to focus on what is coming next.

You see, I believe that in the not too distant future many of us will be wishing for the days when the debt-fueled U.S. economy was healthy enough for people to be wrestling with one another on the floor over good deals in our retail establishments.

The next great financial crash (which many have been anticipating for years) is rapidly approaching.  So many of the same things that happened last time are happening again.  As I noted above, this includes a crash in the price of oil.

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With appreciation to Mike Myers.