DHS Preparing for Civil War In US?

[Steven Gaal]

Monday, 25 March 2013 12:30

Congress Seeks Answers on Huge Homeland Security Ammo Contracts

Written by Alex Newman

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Concerned lawmakers and activists across America from all points on the political spectrum have for months been seeking an explanation about the Obama administration apparently stockpiling weapons of war for domestic use. Estimates suggest, for example, that the federal government has committed to purchasing up to 2 billion rounds of ammunition over several years while rolling out

. Meanwhile, the controversial Department of Homeland Security and its boss Janet Napolitano are refusing to provide real answers.

Now, however, at least one member of Congress is proposing to stop funding DHS unless and until it explains the controversial arms buildup, which has sparked widespread suspicion even among Obama’s most devoted supporters. Speaking to We Are Change activist and reporter Luke Rudkowski at the Conservative Political Action Conference this month, liberty-minded Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) said that more than a few of his colleagues were also trying to find out why the administration would be stockpiling so much firepower for use within the “Homeland.”

“They have no answer for that question. They refuse to answer to answer that.... They refuse to let us know what is going on, so I don’t really have an answer for that,” Rep. Tim Huelskamp

, adding that multiple members of Congress were still trying to find out. “It comes down to: During the budget process, during the appropriations process, are we willing to hold DHS’s feet to the fire? We’re going to find out.... I say we don’t fund them ’til we get an answer. Those types of things really challenge Americans. They’re worried about this administration.”

Led by Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.), at least 15 U.S. lawmakers have already signed a letter demanding that Homeland Security boss Napolitano justify the controversial purchases. The letter also seeks an explanation as to whether or not the apparent bullet stockpiling is part of a deliberate effort to restrict the supply of ammunition available to the public — one of many theories that have been put forward by Americans concerned over the news amid a deeply unpopular effort by Obama and his allies to further infringe on the Second Amendment.

“The extraordinary level of ammunition purchases made by Homeland Security seems to have, in states such as my own, created an extreme shortage of ammunition to the point where many gun owners are unable to purchase any,” Rep. LaMalfa and his colleagues wrote in the letter. “Are these purchases being conducted in a manner that strategically denies the American people access to ammunition?”

News of the massive federal arms purchases for domestic agencies — enough bullets to kill every American multiple times, for example — was originally spread by radio host Alex Jones and his news service Infowars.com. Since then, however, the controversy has sparked a nationwide uproar, garnering headlines, suspicion, and outrage all across America.

Under major pressure from concerned citizens and the alternative media, even the establishment press has finally been forced to report on the issue. The Associated Press, for example, reported last month that DHS was seeking 1.6 billion rounds over the next few years. Forbes contributor Ralph Benko seized on the story, saying it was “time for a national conversation” in an opinion piece that has since gone “viral” online.

“Spending money this way is beyond absurd well into perverse,” Benko wrote, blasting the DHS activities as “wrong in every way” and calling for congressional action if Obama refuses to rein in the out-of-control bureaucrats responsible for the purchases. “Buying 1.6 billion rounds of ammo and deploying armored personnel carriers runs contrary, in every way, to what ‘homeland security’ really means.”

Military veterans are speaking out, too, with retired U.S. Army Captain Terry Hestilow publishing an open letter to Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) expressing concerns over another increasingly widespread theory — the view that the federal government is actually preparing for a war against Americans on U.S. soil. “It is with gravest concern that I write to you today concerning the recent appropriation of weapons by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that can only be understood as a bold threat of war by that agency, and the Obama administration, against the citizens of the United States of America,” reads Hestilow’s March 23 letter, which has also “gone viral” on the Internet.

In an e-mail to The New American, Homeland Security spokesperson Marsha Catron downplayed the purchases and suggested that public fear over the news was unfounded. “DHS routinely establishes strategic sourcing contracts that combine the requirements of all its components for commonly purchased goods and services such as ammunition, computer equipment, and information technology services,” she said in a statement, the same official line spouted by multiple federal spokespeople. “These strategic sourcing contracts help leverage the purchasing power of DHS to efficiently procure equipment and supplies.”

Catron pointed out that one of the contracts in question — up to 750 million rounds for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC), which reportedly goes through about 15 million bullets per year — represented “a maximum quantity” that would give the center “flexibility over the next 5 years for training of over 90 federal agencies.” A separate contract for up to 450 million bullets is intended to be used by all Homeland Security “components” except the U.S. Coast Guard, which uses Department of Defense contacts, she said.

“This contract is part of the Department’s strategic sourcing efforts to combine multiple previous contracts in order to leverage the purchasing power of the entire Department to efficiently procure equipment and supplies at significantly lower costs,” Catron claimed. “With more than 100,000 armed law enforcement personnel in DHS, significant quantities of ammunition are used to support law enforcement operations, quarterly qualifications, and training, to include advanced firearms training exercises.”

During fiscal year 2012, the department purchased almost 100 million rounds, not including ammunition used by the Coast Guard. The department also claimed in an e-mail to TNA that a “small reserve” of the overall ammunition is kept by federal law enforcement agencies, but that there is not an “ammunition stockpile.” It was not immediately clear what a “small reserve” was or what would constitute a true “stockpile.”

Catron emphasized repeatedly that DHS has over 100,000 armed agents and officers — a gargantuan number of armed bureaucrats that has raised alarm bells among critics as well. In attempting to justify the purchases, Homeland Security has also stated multiple times that the ammo totals represented a ceiling and that DHS would not necessarily buy the full amounts listed in the contracts.

Despite numerous attempts, the department did not respond to questions about what circumstances or scenarios might require two billion bullets — many of them hollow-point — to be used inside the “Homeland.” As critics have pointed out, that would be enough ammunition to wage several decades of war: Even at the height of the Iraq war, the military was using less than six million rounds per month. Catron also failed to address inquiries related to congressional oversight.

Speaking about the MRAP (mine-resistant ambush protected) vehicles in a brief phone interview with The New American, the spokesperson denied myriad media reports claiming that DHS had acquired more than 2,700 units of the heavily armored military machines. She said Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations currently uses 16 of the vehicles while U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) uses another 16 — all of which were apparently provided by the Defense Department. “DHS has no plans for future MRAP purchases,” Catron said.

On the campaign trail before taking office in 2008, without citing what section of the Constitution he thought might authorize it, Obama

that is “just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded” as the U.S. military. At the time, critics recoiled in horror, wondering why the “Homeland” might require a “force” as powerful as the U.S. military. Again, answers were never forthcoming, though apologists later tried to downplay the significance of the comments.

In recent years, however, the U.S. government has made its views abundantly clear: The biggest “threat” Obama and his administration see against the “Homeland” includes veterans, pro-life activists, supporters of individual liberty, constitutionalists, and others who disagree with the president’s radical agenda. The Justice Department, Homeland Security, so-called “fusions centers,” and even a U.S. military think-tank have all openly said as much in official reports and documents. The administration is also under the false impression that it may kill or indefinitely detain anyone it suspects of terror — including Americans in the “Homeland.”

Meanwhile, as The New American reported last month, the administration has also been fueling suspicion by engaging in deeply controversial military training operations involving unmarked black helicopters firing blanks out of machine guns over major U.S. cities. Using shooting targets featuring children and pregnant womenraised eyebrows, too. Before that, Obama also came under fire for inviting Russian terror troops to train with U.S. forces on American soil.

Why the administration believes it may potentially need billions of bullets and other weapons of war for use in the “Homeland” remains unclear. State and local agencies are also receiving a wide array of war weaponry from the federal government. What is clear, though, at least, is that more than a few lawmakers and Americans of all political persuasions are becoming increasingly uneasy about it.

Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, politics, and more. He can be reached at anewman@thenewamerican.com This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Related articles:

Military Drills and Black Helicopters in U.S. Cities Spark Panic

Feds Requested Targets With Children and Pregnant Women

U.S. Military Program Arming Local Police Expands

Ammo Shortages: More Than Simple Supply and Demand?

DHS Solicits Bids for 26.1 Million Rounds of Ammo

Federal Law Enforcement Stockpiling Arms (10,000/ICE Employee)

Justice Department Trained Police to Link Political Activism With Terror

Why is the Federal Government Disarming Veterans?

Justice Dept. Memo Refutes Obama on Guns, Calls for Gun Registration

Gun Owners Refuse to Register Under New York Law

West Point Terrorism Study Targets “Far Right” Conservatives

DHS Labels Liberty-Lovers as Potential Terrorists

Profiling and Criminalizing Political Dissent

Homeland Security: Everyone's a Threat

Do You Fit the Terrorist Profile?

New DHS Domestic Terrorism Report Targets Millions of Americans

DHS Sources Prompt Calls for Ousting Napolitano

Terror War Expanding, Shifting to the Right

Russian Troops Coming to U.S. for Terror Drills, DoD Confirms

20,000 Troops To Be Deployed in United States

U.S. Army Brigade On Call for Domestic Emergencies



Edited March 27, 2013 by Steven Gaal

[Len Colby]

OMG! the same John Birch Society that thought Ike was a Communist is worried about the ammo purchases and a few Tea Partiers are upset as well but we've already been all over the relevant facts.

[Steve Knight]

I'll have "Training exercises and Government contracts that specify maximum amounts, even if not purchasing the full amount" for $500, please, Alex!

[Steven Gaal]

OMG! the same John Birch Society that thought Ike was a Communist is worried about the ammo purchases and a few Tea Partiers are upset as well but we've already been all over the relevant facts.

####################

YES THIS POST # 91 WAS A SUMMATION (and a summation is a good thing) OF PREVIOUS INFORMATION (BUT WITH ONE ITEM ADDED, CONGRESS WANTS TO LOOK INTO AMMO PURCHASES) AND WITH AT LEAST 6 RELATED LINKS.

Edited March 28, 2013 by Steven Gaal

[Len Colby]

OMG! the same John Birch Society that thought Ike was a Communist is worried about the ammo purchases and a few Tea Partiers are upset as well but we've already been all over the relevant facts.

####################

YES THIS POST # 91 WAS A SUMMATION (and a summation is a good thing) OF PREVIOUS INFORMATION (BUT WITH ONE ITEM ADDED, CONGRESS WANTS TO LOOK INTO AMMO PURCHASES) AND WITH AT LEAST 6 RELATED LINKS.

Oh gee a summary (not 'summation') of discredited drivel, how valuable!

And there is no evidence "CONGRESS WANTS TO LOOK INTO (this)" 15 of its 535 members (less than 3%) supposedly signed a letter, and that only works out to about 5% of Republicans. Can you provide us with the text and a list of the supposed signatories? despite the claim "Concerned lawmakers and activists across America from all points on the political spectrum..." are concerned about this the only politicians I can see asking questions about this are conservative Republicans

Edited March 29, 2013 by Len Colby

[Steven Gaal]

I can see asking questions about this are conservative Republicans // Colby

You have a problem with Republicans ?? What should we do with them (?),put them in camps and tell them ,'work will set them free', and how shall we fumigate to remove their lice (?), if you cut them do they not bleed ??? To me its not wrong to ask questions ,but I can see how a quisling to authoritative power might question questioning.

LETTER per your request

http://cdn.freedomoutpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/doug-lamalfa-DHS-buyingAMMO-1.pdf

Edited March 30, 2013 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

^{I HAVE CONTENDED THAT:}

^{CYBER ATTACK IS PERFECT FOR FALSE FLAG, CANT TELL WHO DOES ATTACK (SEEMS IM RIGHT see below #1 and # 2)}

^{STRONGER INTERNET CENSORSHIP WOULD COME AFTER FALSE FLAG CYBER ATTACK ON USA}

AND A POSSIBLE CIVIL WAR OCCUR IF BANK ACCOUNT OF USA CITIZENS REMOVED

PART #1

South Korea misidentifies China as cyberattack origin

######################

PART #2

V’s Cyber Attack Alert: You are not facing a financial haircut but financial decapitation

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Smilardog

Steve Quayle Alerts

Ten months ago a massive powerful bank hack hit over 206 banks worldwide simultaneously siphoning billions from customer accounts. It went under-reported and unnoticed by main stream media. Six months ago NatWest/RBS online banking and ATM went offline. Millions had trouble accessing their funds.

A few months later online banking and ATMs from some of the biggest names in banking in the US started to receive DNS error messages and were knocked offline completely or were limping along,causing millions a hassle and head ache to get their funds.

Two weeks ago Chase had an “issue” with their online banking computers as well as their mainframe servers were hit by some “problems” that caused thousands of their customers bank accounts to read $0.00 as their balance. Millions of others had issues accessing funds and ATM’S from the house of Morgan.

Last week the entire banking network of South Korea went down for hours, millions of customers were not able to access their funds, use ATMs or even check their balance.

This week the entire Internet teetered on the brink of collapse as SpamHaus was hit by over 300 billion bits of information per second. That is what we are led to believe and that this attack was led by a rival company Cyberbunker. Whether this story is true or not, it does highlight the sensitivity of the internet.

The overpowering pattern and factor here is that wherever you look in the world there are issues with the internet, networks and servers and it all centers around banking.

For some time I have emphatically stated that there will be a bank hack or cyber attack as the global economy is pushed to the brink of collapse. From top level sources I can confirm to you what you are seeing is an emerging pattern of various beta-tests using Stuxnet like algorithms to affect the banking networks the world over.

I can tell you though that the primary target is the US. Look you can not have a bank hack a few months ago that siphoned over $2 billion and hitting over 200 banks by some mere hacking group. In order pull something off like this I stated in a prior alert that this is something that can only be done by an Intelligence Agency working in close collusion with a Central Bank. After all you need to understand that various money and wire networks through which currency flows. Who but a Central Bank can give you the access and the backdoor for this to occur?

How can so many bank and ATM networks like NYCE, PULSE, PLUS, INTERAC, CIRRUS, BACNET, NOVUS all be affected? This is truly something of a very sophisticated nature. Something that is very large in scope and very ominous in action. Folks it is without a shadow of a doubt that these are all beta-tests.

I have said it before this will be a financial false flag. The frequency of banking network failures has gotten to be very acute to the point that I am convinced that we are edging closer to the one major event that will set everything in motion. The take down of the economy is close at hand and the major cyber attack will be on it’s way. These emerging patterns are a clear picture of an malevolent power play that will be done to bring the system crashing to it’s knees.

Things have gotten to the point of ‘Critical Mass’!. Maybe that is why some of the top economist are right now panicking like never before. Get your cash out, keep what you need to pay the bills. Otherwise what you will be getting is not a 40% haircut, It will be a financial decapitation.

Be Prepared

Mar 29, 2013

http://www.stevequayle.com/index.php?s=33&d=334

################################################

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It Can Happen Here

The Confiscation Scheme Planned for US and UK Depositors

by ELLEN BROWN

Confiscating the customer deposits in Cyprus banks, it seems, was not a one-off, desperate idea of a few Eurozone “troika” officials scrambling to salvage their balance sheets. A joint paper by the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Bank of England dated December 10, 2012, shows that these plans have been long in the making; that they originated with the G20 Financial Stability Board in Basel, Switzerland (discussed earlier here); and that the result will be to deliver clear title to the banks of depositor funds.

New Zealand has a similar directive, discussed in my last article here, indicating that this isn’t just an emergency measure for troubled Eurozone countries. New Zealand’s Voxy reported on March 19^th:

The National Government [is] pushing a Cyprus-style solution to bank failure in New Zealand which will see small depositors lose some of their savings to fund big bank bailouts . . . .

Open Bank Resolution (OBR) is Finance Minister Bill English’s favoured option dealing with a major bank failure.

If a bank fails under OBR, all depositors will have their savings reduced overnight to fund the bank’s bail out

.

Can They Do That?

Although few depositors realize it, legally the bank owns the depositor’s funds as soon as they are put in the bank. Our money becomes the bank’s, and we become unsecured creditors holding IOUs or promises to pay. (See here and here.) But until now the bank has been obligated to pay the money back on demand in the form of cash. Under the FDIC-BOE plan, our IOUs will be converted into “bank equity.” The bank will get the money and we will get stock in the bank. With any luck we may be able to sell the stock to someone else, but when and at what price? Most people keep a deposit account so they can have ready cash to pay the bills.

The 15-page FDIC-BOE document is called “Resolving Globally Active, Systemically Important, Financial Institutions.” It begins by explaining that the 2008 banking crisis has made it clear that some other way besides taxpayer bailouts is needed to maintain “financial stability.” Evidently anticipating that the next financial collapse will be on a grander scale than either the taxpayers or Congress is willing to underwrite, the authors state:

An efficient path for returning the sound operations of the G-SIFI to the private sector would be provided by exchanging or converting a sufficient amount of the unsecured debt from the original creditors of the failed company [meaning the depositors] into equity [or stock]. In the U.S

., the new equity

would become capital in one or more newly formed operating entities

. In the U.K., the same approach could be used, or

the equity could be used to recapitalize the failing financial company itself

—thus, the highest layer of surviving bailed-in creditors would become the owners of the resolved firm. In either country

, the new equity holders would take on the corresponding risk of being shareholders in a financial institution

.

No exception is indicated for “insured deposits” in the U.S., meaning those under $250,000, the deposits we thought were protected by FDIC insurance. This can hardly be an oversight, since it is the FDIC that is issuing the directive. The FDIC is an insurance company funded by premiums paid by private banks. The directive is called a “resolution process,” defined elsewhere as a plan that “would be triggered in the event of the failure of an insurer . . . .” The only mention of “insured deposits” is in connection with existing UK legislation, which the FDIC-BOE directive goes on to say is inadequate, implying that it needs to be modified or overridden.

An Imminent Risk

If our IOUs are converted to bank stock, they will no longer be subject to insurance protection but will be “at risk” and vulnerable to being wiped out, just as the Lehman Brothers shareholders were in 2008. That this dire scenario could actually materialize was underscored by Yves Smith in a March 19th post titled When You Weren’t Looking, Democrat Bank Stooges Launch Bills to Permit Bailouts, Deregulate Derivatives. She writes:

In the US, depositors have actually been put in a worse position than Cyprus deposit-holders, at least if they are at the big banks that play in the derivatives casino. The regulators have turned a blind eye as

banks use their depositaries to fund derivatives exposures

. And as bad as that is, the depositors, unlike their Cypriot confreres, aren’t even senior creditors. Remember Lehman? When the investment bank failed, unsecured creditors (and remember,

depositors are unsecured creditors

) got eight cents on the dollar. One big reason was that derivatives counterparties require collateral for any exposures, meaning they are secured creditors. The 2005 bankruptcy reforms made derivatives counterparties senior to unsecured lenders.

One might wonder why the posting of collateral by a derivative counterparty, at some percentage of full exposure, makes the creditor “secured,” while the depositor who puts up 100 cents on the dollar is “unsecured.” But moving on – Smith writes:

Lehman had only two itty bitty banking subsidiaries, and to my knowledge, was not gathering retail deposits. But as readers may recall, Bank of America moved most of its derivatives from its Merrill Lynch operation [to] its depositary in late 2011.

Its “depositary” is the arm of the bank that takes deposits; and at B of A, that means lots and lots of deposits. The deposits are now subject to being wiped out by a major derivatives loss. How bad could that be? Smith quotes Bloomberg:

. . . Bank of America’s holding company . . . held almost $75 trillion of derivatives at the end of June . . . .

That compares with JPMorgan’s deposit-taking entity, JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, which contained 99 percent of the New York-based firm’s $79 trillion of notional derivatives, the OCC data show.

$75 trillion and $79 trillion in derivatives! These two mega-banks alone hold more in notional derivatives each than the entire global GDP (at $70 trillion). The “notional value” of derivatives is not the same as cash at risk, but according to a cross-post on Smith’s site:

By at least one estimate, in 2010 there was a total of $12 trillion in cash tied up (at risk) in derivatives . . . .

$12 trillion is close to the US GDP. Smith goes on:

. . . Remember the effect of the 2005 bankruptcy law revisions: derivatives counterparties are first in line, they get to grab assets first and leave everyone else to scramble for crumbs. . . . Lehman failed over a weekend after JP Morgan grabbed collateral.

But it’s even worse than that. During the savings & loan crisis, the FDIC did not have enough in deposit insurance receipts to pay for the Resolution Trust Corporation wind-down vehicle. It had to get more funding from Congress. This move paves the way for another TARP-style shakedown of taxpayers, this time to save depositors.

Perhaps, but Congress has already been burned and is liable to balk a second time. Section 716 of the Dodd-Frank Act specifically prohibits public support for speculative derivatives activities. And in the Eurozone, while the European Stability Mechanism committed Eurozone countries to bail out failed banks, they are apparently having second thoughts there as well. On March 25^th, Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who played a leading role in imposing the deposit confiscation plan on Cyprus, told reporters that it would be the template for any future bank bailouts, and that “the aim is for the ESM never to have to be used.”

That explains the need for the FDIC-BOE resolution. If the anticipated enabling legislation is passed, the FDIC will no longer need to protect depositor funds; it can just confiscate them.

Worse Than a Tax

An FDIC confiscation of deposits to recapitalize the banks is far different from a simple tax on taxpayers to pay government expenses. The government’s debt is at least arguably the people’s debt, since the government is there to provide services for the people. But when the banks get into trouble with their derivative schemes, they are not serving depositors, who are not getting a cut of the profits. Taking depositor funds is simply theft.

What should be done is to raise FDIC insurance premiums and make the banks pay to keep their depositors whole, but premiums are already high; and the FDIC, like other government regulatory agencies, is subject to regulatory capture. Deposit insurance has failed, and so has the private banking system that has depended on it for the trust that makes banking work.

The Cyprus haircut on depositors was called a “wealth tax” and was written off by commentators as “deserved,” because much of the money in Cypriot accounts belongs to foreign oligarchs, tax dodgers and money launderers. But if that template is applied in the US, it will be a tax on the poor and middle class. Wealthy Americans don’t keep most of their money in bank accounts. They keep it in the stock market, in real estate, in over-the-counter derivatives, in gold and silver, and so forth.

Are you safe, then, if your money is in gold and silver? Apparently not – if it’s stored in a safety deposit box in the bank. Homeland Security has reportedly told banks that it has authority to seize the contents of safety deposit boxes without a warrant when it’s a matter of “national security,” which a major bank crisis no doubt will be.

The Swedish Alternative: Nationalize the Banks

Another alternative was considered but rejected by President Obama in 2009: nationalize mega-banks that fail. In a February 2009 article titled “Are Uninsured Bank Depositors in Danger?“, Felix Salmon discussed a newsletter by Asia-based investment strategist Christopher Wood, in which Wood wrote:

It is . . . amazing that Obama does not understand the political appeal of the nationalization option. . . . [D]espite this latest setback nationalization of the banks is coming sooner or later because the realities of the situation will demand it. The result will be shareholders wiped out and bondholders forced to take debt-for-equity swaps, if not hopefully depositors.

On whether depositors could indeed be forced to become equity holders, Salmon commented:

It’s worth remembering that depositors

are

unsecured creditors of any bank; usually, indeed, they’re by far the largest class of unsecured creditors.

President Obama acknowledged that bank nationalization had worked in Sweden, and that the course pursued by the US Fed had not worked in Japan, which wound up instead in a “lost decade.” But Obama opted for the Japanese approach because, according to Ed Harrison, “Americans will not tolerate nationalization.”

But that was four years ago. When Americans realize that the alternative is to have their ready cash transformed into “bank stock” of questionable marketability, moving failed mega-banks into the public sector may start to have more appeal.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

ELLEN BROWN is an attorney and president of the Public Banking Institute. In Web of Debt, her latest of eleven books, she shows how a private banking oligarchy has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her websites are http://WebofDebt.com, http://EllenBrown.com, and http://PublicBankingInstitute.org.

Edited March 29, 2013 by Steven Gaal

[Len Colby]

RE:

^{I HAVE CONTENDED THAT:}

^{CYBER ATTACK IS PERFECT FOR FALSE FLAG, CANT TELL WHO DOES ATTACK (SEEMS IM RIGHT see below #1 and # 2)}

We've been over this

Quayle, not an expert didn't cite any sources

Rubin - TL:DR get back to us with the primary sources that support her contentions.

[Len Colby]

I can see asking questions about this are conservative Republicans // Colby

You have a problem with Republicans ?? What should we do with them (?),put them in camps and tell them ,'work will set them free', and how shall we fumigate to remove their lice (?), if you cut them do they not bleed ??? To me its not wrong to ask questions ,but I can see how a quisling to authoritative power might question questioning.

LETTER per your request

http://cdn.freedomou...uyingAMMO-1.pdf

An obscenely stupid an offensive twisting of my comment which was obviously in response to the lie that '"Concerned lawmakers and activists across America from all points on the political spectrum..." are concerned about this'. The questions in the letter have been asked and answered repeatedly.

Edited March 30, 2013 by Len Colby

[Steven Gaal]

I can see asking questions about this are conservative Republicans // Colby

You have a problem with Republicans ?? What should we do with them (?),put them in camps and tell them ,'work will set them free', and how shall we fumigate to remove their lice (?), if you cut them do they not bleed ??? To me its not wrong to ask questions ,but I can see how a quisling to authoritative power might question questioning.

LETTER per your request

http://cdn.freedomou...uyingAMMO-1.pdf

An obscenely stupid an offensive twisting of my comment which was obviously in response to the lie that '"Concerned lawmakers and activists across America from all points on the political spectrum..." are concerned about this'. The questions in the letter have been asked and answered repeatedly.

+++++++++

GEE I READ THE WORDS REFUSE TO ANSWER QUESTIONS

Now, however, at least one member of Congress is proposing to stop funding DHS unless and until it explains the controversial arms buildup, which has sparked widespread suspicion even among Obama’s most devoted supporters. Speaking to We Are Change activist and reporter Luke Rudkowski at the Conservative Political Action Conference this month, liberty-minded Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) said that more than a few of his colleagues were also trying to find out why the administration would be stockpiling so much firepower for use within the “Homeland.”

“They have no answer for that question. They refuse to answer to answer that.... They refuse to let us know what is going on, so I don’t really have an answer for that,” Rep. Tim Huelskamp

, adding that multiple members of Congress were still trying to find out. “It comes down to: During the budget process, during the appropriations process, are we willing to hold DHS’s feet to the fire? We’re going to find out.... I say we don’t fund them ’til we get an answer. Those types of things really challenge Americans. They’re worried about this administration.”

[Steven Gaal]

_{Fusion center director: We don't spy on Americans, just anti-government Americans}

March 30, 2013

Print Version

Source: Privacy SOS

The Arkansas State Fusion Center

An official from an Arkansas State Fusion Center recently spoke to the press to clear up what he called "misconceptions" about what his office actually does, with depressingly hilarious results. (For some background on fusion centers, click here.)

"The misconceptions are that we are conducting spying operations on US citizens, which is of course not the fact. That is absolutely not what we do," fusion center director Richard Davis told the local press.

Fusion center employees are in a tight spot to justify the existence of their operations after multiple congressional reports over the past year took them to task for being poorly run, duplicative of other counterterrorism efforts, privacy violative wastes of money, or some combination of the three.

So what does Mr. Davis' fusion center do, then? Why does it exist?

The Arkansas fusion center director, after having flatly denied that his office spies on US citizens, told the reporter the following:

"I do what I do because of what happened on 9/11," Davis says. "There's this urge and this feeling inside that you want to do something, and this is a perfect opportunity for me."

Davis says Arkansas hasn't collected much information about international plots, but they do focus on groups closer to home.

"We focus a little more on that, domestic terrorism and

certain groups that are anti-government

," he says. "

We want to kind of take a look at that and receive that information.

"

So the fusion center does in fact spy on US citizens! Among them, "groups that are anti-government." But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here: perhaps Mr. Davis thinks that people who hold "anti-government" views should not be treated as US citizens?

The fact is, in the United States, holding "anti-government" views is protected by the First Amendment. And everyone in the United States, not just its citizens, is protected by the First Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights.

Disliking the government isn't a crime. But that's not stopping many fusion centers from associating dissent with terrorism.

Here in Boston we learned that the Boston police intelligence unit spied on anti-war and other activist groups for years, filing "intelligence reports" on activists at its fusion center, the Boston Regional Intelligence Center. Fusion centers in other states have reported on people for high crimes like putting political stickers up in restrooms, or participating in anti-death penalty organizing.

Activists in Los Angeles have brought their concernsabout inappropriate political spying straight to the fusion center itself. Perhaps people in Arkansas should tell Mr. Davis how they feel about their tax dollars supporting shadowy surveillance of so-called "anti-government" groups. Then again, they might not want to be listed as "anti-government."

If you live in Massachusetts, please take action to ensure that our two fusion centers don't (continue to) spy on people who are protesting the government. The Free Speech Act, now before state legislators, would bar the police from spying on people unless they have reasonable suspicion to believe their targets are involved in criminal activity.

Edited March 30, 2013 by Steven Gaal

[Len Colby]

_{Fusion center director: We don't spy on Americans, just anti-government Americans}

March 30, 2013

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Source: Privacy SOS

The Arkansas State Fusion Center

An official from an Arkansas State Fusion Center recently spoke to the press to clear up what he called "misconceptions" about what his office actually does, with depressingly hilarious results. (For some background on fusion centers, click here.)

"The misconceptions are that we are conducting spying operations on US citizens, which is of course not the fact. That is absolutely not what we do," fusion center director Richard Davis told the local press.

Fusion center employees are in a tight spot to justify the existence of their operations after multiple congressional reports over the past year took them to task for being poorly run, duplicative of other counterterrorism efforts, privacy violative wastes of money, or some combination of the three.

So what does Mr. Davis' fusion center do, then? Why does it exist?

The Arkansas fusion center director, after having flatly denied that his office spies on US citizens, told the reporter the following:

"I do what I do because of what happened on 9/11," Davis says. "There's this urge and this feeling inside that you want to do something, and this is a perfect opportunity for me."

Davis says Arkansas hasn't collected much information about international plots, but they do focus on groups closer to home.

"We focus a little more on that, domestic terrorism and

certain groups that are anti-government

," he says. "

We want to kind of take a look at that and receive that information.

"

So the fusion center does in fact spy on US citizens! Among them, "groups that are anti-government." But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here: perhaps Mr. Davis thinks that people who hold "anti-government" views should not be treated as US citizens?

The fact is, in the United States, holding "anti-government" views is protected by the First Amendment. And everyone in the United States, not just its citizens, is protected by the First Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights.

Disliking the government isn't a crime. But that's not stopping many fusion centers from associating dissent with terrorism.

Here in Boston we learned that the Boston police intelligence unit spied on anti-war and other activist groups for years, filing "intelligence reports" on activists at its fusion center, the Boston Regional Intelligence Center. Fusion centers in other states have reported on people for high crimes like putting political stickers up in restrooms, or participating in anti-death penalty organizing.

Activists in Los Angeles have brought their concernsabout inappropriate political spying straight to the fusion center itself. Perhaps people in Arkansas should tell Mr. Davis how they feel about their tax dollars supporting shadowy surveillance of so-called "anti-government" groups. Then again, they might not want to be listed as "anti-government."

If you live in Massachusetts, please take action to ensure that our two fusion centers don't (continue to) spy on people who are protesting the government. The Free Speech Act, now before state legislators, would bar the police from spying on people unless they have reasonable suspicion to believe their targets are involved in criminal activity.

It would not surprise me at all if federal, state and local law enforcement/intel. agencies routinely violate the privacy rights of Americans without just cause, but this is nothing new and not evidence the USG is preparing for a civil war.

[Len Colby]

I can see asking questions about this are conservative Republicans // Colby

You have a problem with Republicans ?? What should we do with them (?),put them in camps and tell them ,'work will set them free', and how shall we fumigate to remove their lice (?), if you cut them do they not bleed ??? To me its not wrong to ask questions ,but I can see how a quisling to authoritative power might question questioning.

LETTER per your request

http://cdn.freedomou...uyingAMMO-1.pdf

An obscenely stupid an offensive twisting of my comment which was obviously in response to the lie that '"Concerned lawmakers and activists across America from all points on the political spectrum..." are concerned about this'. The questions in the letter have been asked and answered repeatedly.

+++++++++

GEE I READ THE WORDS REFUSE TO ANSWER QUESTIONS

[...]

An ideologue claiming his questions have not been answered and that being the case are NOT the same thing. They have been answered, thats probably why 95% of congressional Republicans did not sign the stupid letter.

[Steven Gaal]

ALERT TO Mr. COLBY SOMETIMES PEOPLE WHO LIVE WITHOUT HOPE REBEL

It behooves us to remember the words of Martin Niemoller.

"First they came for the communists," he wrote, "and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me."

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America’s two-tiered future: The deterioration of the once-mighty middle class

GREG KEENAN

ORION TOWNSHIP, MICH. — The Globe and Mail

When Sean Crawford and three co-workers hit the road for their daily carpool to a General Motors Co. factory, they talk about drama at work, home renovations and cars. But they seldom talk about money.

That’s because inside the car rolling along I-75 out of Flint, Mich., there’s a two-track version of America’s future: one with a secure, traditional path to middle-class comfort and the other to a less-prosperous existence with lower pay, no pension and meagre benefits.

When Sean Crawford and three co-workers hit the road for their daily carpool to a General Motors Co. factory, they talk about drama at work, home renovations and cars. But they seldom talk about money.

That’s because inside the car rolling along I-75 out of Flint, Mich., there’s a two-track version of America’s future: one with a secure, traditional path to middle-class comfort and the other to a less-prosperous existence with lower pay, no pension and meagre benefits.

Data

By the numbers: The wage reality of a Tier 2 worker

Sean Crawford, 30, is one of the American auto industry’s so-called tier-two workers, employees hired in recent years at lower wages as part of the Detroit Three’s bid to ratchet down costs and become globally competitive. For them, the classic middle-class life of a house in the suburbs, a new car every five years or so and maybe a cottage or regular travel isn’t possible on pay of $18 (U.S.) an hour. For The Globe and Mail

Gallery

How middle-class life eludes many Americans

video

Video: Obama says he's still the candidate for change

Mr. Crawford and his colleague Dave Duehring are so-called tier-two workers, employees hired in recent years at lower wages as part of the Detroit Three’s bid to ratchet down costs and become globally competitive. For them, the classic middle-class life of a house in the suburbs, a new car every five years or so and maybe a cottage or regular travel isn’t possible on pay of $18 (U.S.) an hour.

By contrast, the other men who share the ride and work on the same assembly line get paid a lot more – $28 an hour, and they enjoy better benefits and can look forward to a healthy pension. The higher wage equals about $20,000 more a year.

There’s the odd jab at each other about their economic circumstances as they make the 45-minute drive through the lake-sprinkled country between Flint and GM’s Orion assembly plant in the leafy northern suburbs of Detroit, Mr. Crawford says. But “a tier two will pretty much never ever want to hear a tier one complain about their money problems,” he says. “Ever.”

Mr. Crawford and his tier-two co-worker are on the leading edge of a transformation of the auto industry that is contributing to a profound shift in American society – the deterioration of the once-mighty middle class.

It’s a pivotal issue in the U.S. election and the central challenge facing the next president. A frustrated electorate is looking for a real plan to boost the ailing economy and restore middle class prosperity.

President Barack Obama is promising middle-class Americans that he will extend tax cuts given to them by George W. Bush. Republican challenger Mitt Romney bemoans how the middle class got crushed during the past four years and promises to extend the Bush tax cuts and reduce taxes by another 20 per cent.

Experts are skeptical, however, that easing the tax burden or other promises made from political podiums will reverse the decline.

“Neither one of these guys is going to deliver a hell of a lot,” says Tim Smeeding, a professor at the University of Wisconsin and director of the school’s Institute for Research on Poverty.

The 2000s were a cruel decade for middle-class America. Incomes dropped, net worth fell and jobs that once promised a middle-class lifestyle were vaporized amid globalization and the restructuring of entire industries such as airlines, steel and pharmaceuticals. As if that wasn’t enough, the decade ended with the real estate crash and the Great Recession.

The growth in income inequality and the crisis facing the middle class have spawned fears that the long era of economic growth that turned the United States into the wealthiest nation on earth has ground to a halt. The risk is that the country is entering a period of economic stagnation, shattering the optimism that led generations of Americans to improve their lot in life.

THE EVAPORATION OF DREAMS

The recovery from the Great Recession is the first economic comeback that has skipped the middle class, Prof. Smeeding notes.

U.S. census data show the percentage of U.S. households with median incomes between $50,000 and $149,999 fell to 41 per cent last year from 44.5 per cent in 2000. Households earning less than $15,000, meanwhile, jumped to 13.5 per cent from 11.1 per cent in 2000.

The median U.S. household income itself tumbled to $50,054 last year from $54,932 in inflation-adjusted 2011 dollars.

“Without a middle class, this society is in big trouble, big trouble,” Prof. Smeeding says. “If they’re not spending money, that lowers the demand for all goods and services.”

In the days before globalization, when U.S. companies had little competition in their home market, middle-class demand for bigger houses and the furniture and appliances to fill them – plus the vehicles to stuff into two-car garages – fed a virtuous circle.

But when the middle class is squeezed as it has been for more than a decade, the overall economy takes a hit.

The squeeze has affected more than just factory workers. Tens of thousands of Americans in white-collar positions also lost their jobs in restructurings and the recession.

Bob Poropatich, who was laid off in June, 2008, from his $85,000-a-year job designing store displays for American Eagle Outfitters, can testify to how losing a good job forces cutbacks in personal spending.

“I haven’t been anywhere on vacation since ’08,” says the 60-year-old Pittsburgh resident, who now works 32 hours a week earning $11 an hour stocking shelves at grocery stores. “I haven’t done anything. Haven’t seen a movie. Haven’t bought gifts.”

He will have trouble getting to his part-time job if anything happens to his six-year-old Subaru Forester.

“I pray that if I take it in for an oil change they don’t find $2,000 of repairs on it,” he says.

The Detroit auto makers helped create middle-class America back in the day when they were called the Big Three and there were no Subarus on U.S. roads – or Hondas, Hyundais or Toyotas for that matter.

The $5-a-day wage that Henry Ford began paying his workers in 1914 was generous at the time and was aimed in part at giving them enough money to buy the Model Ts they were bolting together. By the middle of the 20th Century, workers at Chrysler Corp., Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. earned higher wages and better benefits than any other factory workers.

The work was – and still is – exhausting and mind-numbing, but the money allowed workers to flock to suburbia, buy new cars, cottages and boats and pay university tuition for their children.

What was good for General Motors was good for the country, and people in the heart of the auto industry in Michigan were better off than much of the rest of the country.

But the upheaval in the sector has changed all that.

In 1979, when the first energy crisis began three decades of wrenching restructuring for Detroit that led to hundreds of thousands of job cuts, middle-class incomes in Michigan were 13 per cent higher than those of Americans as a whole, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a labour-financed think tank based in Washington.

By 2010 and the end of the crisis that sent GM and Chrysler LLC into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, middle-class incomes in the Great Lake State were 6 per cent below those in the rest of the country.

More than 75 per cent of workers in Michigan were covered by an employer-provided health care plan in 1979, compared with 70 per cent of all Americans. By 2010, employers provided such coverage for 54.8 per cent of Michigan workers, just slightly higher than the 54 per cent of all Americans who were covered.

Shifting health care costs represents another cut in disposable income for middle-class Americans.

For auto workers in the higher-tier wage group making $28 an hour, toiling in a car factory still finances a pretty good lifestyle, although annual wage increases have disappeared – replaced by the much more volatile profit sharing – and even tier-one workers now bear much more of the cost of their health care.

It’s worse for Mr. Crawford and thousands of others hired on since the Detroit Three started the two-tier wage system in 2007.

“The whole idea of the traditional going up north and having a cabin and having a boat and a couple of new cars every year or two and a nice house is not accessible,” he says over dinner at an Olive Garden restaurant, a 10-minute drive from the GM plant.

His job title is production support member, which means he needs to be able to do all the jobs in the trim department. He installs most of the interior components of a car and fills in for people making $28 an hour or his $18-an-hour colleagues.

The tier-one co-workers who share his car pool live in the suburbs of Flint. Mr. Crawford and Mr. Duehring live in a sketchier neighbourhood of that city, which gained fame as the setting for Roger and Me, filmmaker Michael Moore’s satire of GM, but is also where David Buick started the GM division that still bears his name.

Mr. Crawford would like to move. He put an offer in on a house in Waterford, Mich., about 30 minutes closer to work.

“It was on a quarter acre, fenced-in yard, single-car garage, three bedrooms, two full baths, partially finished basement. It was nice – a step up.” The $86,000 asking price, however, was higher than the $78,000 maximum he thought he could afford.

So for now, he’s still in the car pool.

When one of the tier-one employees takes the wheel, the four men pile into a newer-model Buick Lucerne or a GMC Acadia, more comfortable and modern rides than Mr. Crawford’s 13-year-old Buick Century or the 14-year-old Jeep of Mr. Duehring.

“I can definitely tell they’re better off,” he says. “The other tier-two guy and I, we’re both working on our tiny little houses hoping people don’t come in and scrap our copper pipes.”

When Mr. Crawford’s car breaks down, he fixes it himself. He has no vision care plan from GM, so when his glasses broke, he took them to a jeweller to have them soldered back together.

He often dreams of buying a new car, but can’t afford the monthly payments or higher insurance, so the Buick Veranos and Chevrolet Sonics he helps build are out of reach.

So the 30-year-old spends $100 to buy a new steering wheel cover, or speakers or new floor mats. “It feels new for a second, you know?”

Newer vehicles are not the only luxury that is out of reach for an increasing number of U.S. families. Boats were once a popular discretionary purchase for many middle-class people; the National Marine Manufacturers Association explicitly touts the connection, declaring on its website: “Boaters are middle-class Americans who own boats made by middle-class Americans.”

But like the auto sector, the industry has been caught in a cycle of declining sales and falling employment. Sales of new power boats, which reached a high of 311,700 in 2001, have fallen by more than half, NMMA numbers show. In 2011, Americans put just 142,830 new power boats in the water. Some 135,000 jobs at boat manufacturers and dealers and marinas were lost during the recession.

RE-ENERGIZING THE MIDDLE CLASS

There is no boat in Elisa Gurule’s future.

Ms. Gurule, 34, is not sure what future she has in the auto industry. Her current job, installing seat belts and windshields at a Chrysler assembly plant in Sterling Heights, Mich., pays $17.53 an hour.

That’s better money than she made when she was waiting on tables before joining Chrysler as a tier-two employee in 2011 – enough to buy one of the Chrysler 200 cars she helps put together. But at that wage, she still has to make tough choices about what to give up.

She and two sisters are trying to scrape together some extra cash to help a fourth sister buy a car so that she can travel to her new job at another Chrysler plant near downtown Detroit.

The Romney campaign’s criticisms of the auto bailout carry no weight with Ms. Gurule, because, as she notes, without Mr. Obama, she would not have a job.

But while there is a consensus that Mr. Obama is far more sensitive to concerns about inequality than Mr. Romney is, neither man has presented a compelling vision in this campaign on how to reverse the middle-class decline.

Tax policies are critical, and if done right, tax cuts may be a useful tool. But other changes to macroeconomic and fiscal policies are needed to get the middle class thriving again, Prof. Smeeding and other experts argue.

They point out that boosting economic growth will help. There is also the not-so-small matter of the millions of Americans who still owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.

A rebound in the housing market will alleviate some of the post-crash hangover. But a more concerted effort by policy makers to help out families who are stuck in homes they can’t afford to sell might help – for example, by freeing people to move to regions where their job prospects are better.

Making university education more affordable would also likely provide a long-term boost to the fortunes of the middle class, some economists say.

Top wage earners – and not just the 1 per cent vilified in the Occupy Movement, but the top 10 to 15 per cent – need to pay higher taxes, argues Frank Levy, an MIT professor who studies living standards and the economics of education.

That would help make university education more accessible by boosting revenues for cash-strapped state governments that cut funding to universities during the recession. “Denying people access to education – pricing it out of people’s reach – is exactly the wrong thing you want to do,” he noted.

Ms. Gurule was able to obtain an English degree at Wayne State University in Detroit, but four years of study left her with student loans of $38,000 that she will have trouble paying back because of the monthly payments on her new car.

She has a quick answer when asked if she’s leading a middle-class lifestyle.

“Hell no. I hope I’m working class.”

With a report from New York bureau chief Joanna Slater

Edited March 31, 2013 by Steven Gaal

[Len Colby]

ALERT TO Mr. COLBY SOMETIMES PEOPLE WHO LIVE WITHOUT HOPE REBEL

It behooves us to remember the words of Martin Niemoller.

"First they came for the communists," he wrote, "and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me."

########################

========================

America’s two-tiered future: The deterioration of the once-mighty middle class

GREG KEENAN

ORION TOWNSHIP, MICH. — The Globe and Mail

When Sean Crawford and three co-workers hit the road for their daily carpool to a General Motors Co. factory, they talk about drama at work, home renovations and cars. But they seldom talk about money.

That’s because inside the car rolling along I-75 out of Flint, Mich., there’s a two-track version of America’s future: one with a secure, traditional path to middle-class comfort and the other to a less-prosperous existence with lower pay, no pension and meagre benefits.

When Sean Crawford and three co-workers hit the road for their daily carpool to a General Motors Co. factory, they talk about drama at work, home renovations and cars. But they seldom talk about money.

That’s because inside the car rolling along I-75 out of Flint, Mich., there’s a two-track version of America’s future: one with a secure, traditional path to middle-class comfort and the other to a less-prosperous existence with lower pay, no pension and meagre benefits.

Data

By the numbers: The wage reality of a Tier 2 worker

Sean Crawford, 30, is one of the American auto industry’s so-called tier-two workers, employees hired in recent years at lower wages as part of the Detroit Three’s bid to ratchet down costs and become globally competitive. For them, the classic middle-class life of a house in the suburbs, a new car every five years or so and maybe a cottage or regular travel isn’t possible on pay of $18 (U.S.) an hour. For The Globe and Mail

Gallery

How middle-class life eludes many Americans

video

Video: Obama says he's still the candidate for change

Mr. Crawford and his colleague Dave Duehring are so-called tier-two workers, employees hired in recent years at lower wages as part of the Detroit Three’s bid to ratchet down costs and become globally competitive. For them, the classic middle-class life of a house in the suburbs, a new car every five years or so and maybe a cottage or regular travel isn’t possible on pay of $18 (U.S.) an hour.

[...]

Though you seem to be salivating at the prospect people with regular jobs, even if they don't pay very well, are unlikely to join a violent revolution. Note also this limited to people hired since 2008 or so.