PA Bill Number: HB1472
Title: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contributions ...
Description: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contrib ...
Last Action: Referred to STATE GOVERNMENT
Last Action Date: Apr 22, 2024
Its not about the ammo! :: 03/23/2013
DHS (Department of Homeland Security) has bought lots of ammo, "personal defense weapons" (you buy it, its an "assault rifle"), and MRAP vehicles (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected). At the end of the day, dear reader, its not about the ammo, the guns, or the armored vehicles.
Denial, back peddling, lies, and propaganda: http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2013/03/22/dhs-denies-massive-ammunition-purchase
A FEW FACTS:
In 2012, DHS purchased 450 million rounds of ammo.
Their current ammo contracts add up to apprx. $1.6 billion
They purchased 2,700 Armored police vehicles
They budgeted 443 million to purchase drones
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Family Security Matters
- · 26 February 2013
It's Not the Bullets, Baby!
by Chet Nagle
In 2008 candidate Obama said, "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that is just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." Listen to it. After he was elected in 2008, President Obama never again mentioned his "national security objectives," or the "national security force" he wanted to create. Was that 2008 statement just an applause line? Not really, citizen, not really.
The president has never again mentioned his "national security force" or his "national security objectives," and because mainstream media has never questioned him, Americans have two choices: Forget it and trust the White House, or examine actions of the Obama administration over the last five years. If we look closely, a pattern emerges.
To begin, there are those massive Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ammunition buys. One contract is for 450 million rounds, according to the ammo company, ATK . With just this one contract, DHS buys 90 million rounds per year of 40-caliber pistol ammo. There are other contracts, some with parts blacked out by DHS, but that cover ammunition for 9mm pistols, shotguns, .308-caliber sniper rifles, and other weapons. These ammunition contracts surfaced last year, and some analysts calculated the total to exceed 1.6 billion rounds! There are websites laced with links to DHS ammo contracts. [ http://www.infowars.com/dhs-purchases-200-million-more-rounds-of-ammunition/ ] The official explanation for these contracts is that DHS agents need the bullets for "mandatory quarterly firearms qualifications and other training sessions." No explanation is given for the bullets that have expensive and deadly hollow-points that are not used for target practice, and no explanation for the sniper rifle ammunition. Interestingly, a comparison of these amounts with records of ammunition used by U.S. forces in battle in Iraq -- 5.5 million rounds per month -- gives a rough calculation that DHS has enough ammo to fight a thirty-year war. Since DHS does not operate in Iraq, who is the enemy in America they plan to shoot?
There are many other DHS contracts for things like: armored fighting vehicles, bullet-proof booths for street check-points, bullet-proof vests, riot gear, 7,000 fully automatic AR-15 rifles, and over $30 billion in grants to cooperating local police forces for military-style equipment. In 2011, the DHS budget was $98.8 billion, but they spent only $66.4 billion.
Then there are those viral internet rumors about internment camps. Before you think, "Right wing extremist propaganda," remember those 110,000 Japanese-American citizens in 1941. By Executive Order of President Roosevelt, they spent four years in "relocation" camps built in rural areas from the Mississippi to Hawaii. Even Canada, our very liberal northern neighbor, uprooted 27,000 Japanese-Canadians from their homes and scattered them into 22 camps across western Canada.
Of course, "It can't happen here." Nevertheless, KBR (former Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root) is soliciting support teams for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) camps. The KBR descriptive document is for services for the camps in five FEMA "regions" of the United States. (It has a map of those regions.)
And the U.S. Army issued a 326 page manual, Internment and Resettlement Operations ? It might be just a manual for army camps holding foreign prisoners of war, except for the sections under "Civil Support Operations," and how the Army will handle "DCs," that is, Dislocated Civilians. It details how Psychological Operations Officers will "reduce or remove antagonistic attitudes," including "muffling" (gagging) agitators. The manual clearly states it applies within "the U.S. and its territories," and that the Posse Comitatus Act prohibiting using U.S. soldiers as a police force in America can be sidestepped by the president "invoking his executive authority."
Some argue President Obama and DHS will not ignore constitutional limits on their authority. They are wrong. For example, the Fourth Amendment guarantees "the people have a right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures..." and a warrant is required that describes the place, person or thing to be seized. The Obama administration don't need no stinkin' warrants. Instead, DHS states that if you live within 100 miles of a U.S. international border, DHS can seize and search all your electronic devices including cell phones, tablets, and laptops - without probable cause or a warrant. They call it "the border security search zone." This 'search zone' includes entire states: Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, plus large parts of New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Take them to court, you say? It might be difficult to do after you are arrested under provisions of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and denied habeas corpus and a public trial before a jury of your peers.
Rob Natelson, former professor of law at the University of Montana, has written a masterful analysis of how Congress surrendered the right to due process to President Obama, giving him power under the NDAA to detain American citizens indefinitely.
Now look at the president's Executive Orders (EO). On 16 March 2012, President Obama issued EO, National Defense Resources Preparedness . It states the president can seize all the resources in the nation (food, water, transportation, etc.) "to promote the national defense," another undefined phrase. On 6 July 2012, this power was combined with EO, Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions that gives DHS the power to control the internet to "satisfy priority communications requirements through the use of commercial, Government, and privately owned communications resources, when appropriate." The words "when appropriate" are not defined.
So let's add it up:
1. DHS has 270,000 personnel including an army of 70,000 armed agents. Among other things, it controls the internet and all communications.
2. An Army manual says Posse Comitatus will be sidestepped by the president so uniformed troops can become national police.
3. FEMA camps are being organized and serviced.
4. The 4th and 10th Amendments are ignored by DHS, and the 2nd Amendment's 'right to bear arms,' is under vigorous attack.
5. Executive Orders enable the president to control food, utilities, and the internet. When grocery stores are empty, citizens must go to FEMA camps for bread and water. (Leave your guns at the door, please.)
6. A "civilian national security force" that candidate Obama wanted in 2008 is now the DHS, and it takes orders from President Obama.
So it is not just DHS ammo. To those billions of bullets, add the power government agents have to take control of the Republic, "when appropriate." Get ready to hear: "I'm from DHS, and I'm here to help you."
[Chet Nagle is a Naval Academy graduate, a Georgetown Law School graduate, and Cold War carrier pilot who flew in the Cuban Missile Crisis. After a stint as a Navy research project officer, he joined International Security Affairs as a Pentagon civilian involved in defense and intelligence work. Afterwards, he lived abroad for 12 years working with Aeromaritime, Inc. and as an agent for the CIA, spending time in Iran, Oman, and many other countries. Along the way, he was founding publisher of a geo-political magazine, The Journal of Defense & Diplomacy, read in over 20 countries. At the end of his work in the Middle East, he was awarded the Order of Oman for his role in Oman's victory in a guerilla war fomented by communist Yemen. Nagle's first book is a fact-based novel about Iran's nuclear weapons program, IRAN COVENANT , available on Amazon. His second novel, THE WOOLSORTER'S PLAGUE, was published in 2010 and describes an attack on Washington by terrorists using a biological weapon. He and his wife Dorothy live in Virginia.]
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"Eternal vigilance is the price we pay for liberty." ~attributed to Thomas Jefferson
Speaking of security/liberty, here is an item that is on-target relative to current government impacting our lives.....
JWReview
5 March 2013
Budget Politics
by Thomas Sowell
Back in my teaching days, many years ago, one of the things I liked to ask the class to consider was this: Imagine a government agency with only two tasks: (1) building statues of Benedict Arnold and (2) providing life-saving medications to children. If this agency's budget were cut, what would it do?
The answer, of course, is that it would cut back on the medications for children. Why? Because that would be what was most likely to get the budget cuts restored. If they cut back on building statues of Benedict Arnold, people might ask why they were building statues of Benedict Arnold in the first place.
The example was deliberately extreme as an illustration. But, in the real world, the same general pattern can be seen in local, state and national government responses to budget cuts.
At the local level, the first response to budget cuts is often to cut the police department and the fire department. There may be all sorts of wasteful boondoggles that could have been cut instead, but that would not produce the public alarm that reducing police protection and fire protection can produce. And public alarm is what can get budget cuts restored.
The Obama administration is following the same pattern. The Department of Homeland Security, for example, released thousands of illegal aliens from prisons to save money - and create alarm.
The Federal Aviation Administration says it is planning to cut back on the number of air traffic controllers, which would, at a minimum, create delays for airline passengers, in addition to fears for safety that can create more public alarm.
Republicans in the House of Representatives have offered to pass legislation giving President Obama the authority to pick and choose what gets cut - anywhere in the trillions of dollars of federal spending - rather than being hemmed in by the arbitrary provisions of the sequester.
This would minimize the damage done by budget cuts concentrated in limited areas, such as the Defense Department. But it serves Obama's interest to maximize the damage and the public alarm, which he can direct against Republicans.
President Obama has said that he would veto legislation to let him choose what to cut. That should tell us everything we need to know about the utter cynicism of this glib man.
The sequester creates more visible damage and more public alarm than if the president were given the authority to trim a little here and a little there in the vast trillions of dollars spent by the government, in order to make a relatively small "cut" that still leaves total federal spending higher than last year.
Only in Washington is a reduction in the rate of growth of spending called a "cut." Moreover, costly boondoggles not covered by the sequester can continue and grow.
Obviously Obama wants public alarm, which he can use to help defeat the Republicans in the 2014 elections, so that Democrats can take back control of the House of Representatives.
When Obama was offered the authority to make the spending cuts wherever he chooses, anywhere in the government's multi-trillion dollar budget, it was the only power that this power-grabbing president has rejected.
Why? Because with this new power would go responsibility for the consequences of his choices. And responsibility for consequences is precisely what both the Obama administration and the Senate Democrats have been avoiding for years, by refusing to pass a federal budget, as required by the Constitution of the United States.
Democrats prefer to get the political benefits from handing out goodies, while Republicans can be blamed for not subsequently raising enough taxes to pay for the Democrats' spending spree.
If Obama succeeds in maneuvering the Republicans into positions that cause them to lose control of the House of Representatives in the 2014 elections, then as a president who never has to face the voters again, he would be in an ideal position to create a big spending liberals' heaven.
But it will be far from heaven for the economy, with Obama-appointed bureaucrats burying businesses in red tape and job-killing costs, while expanding the size and arbitrary powers of government. We could become the world's largest banana republic.
