The threat from the federal government increases - Lew Rockwell: Gov’t is Far Worse Than The Mafia

DHS Purchases 200 Million More Rounds of Ammunition

Additional purchase includes bullets designated for snipers

Paul Joseph Watson

Infowars.com

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Following controversy over its purchase of around 1.2 billion bullets in the last six months alone, the Department of Homeland Security has put out a new solicitation for over 200 million more rounds of ammunition, some of which are designated to be used by snipers.

A series of new solicitations posted on the FedBizOpps website show that the DHS is looking to purchase 200 million rounds of .223 rifle ammunition over the next four years, as well as 176,000 rounds of .308 caliber 168 grain hollow point boat tail (HPBT) rounds in addition to 25,000 rounds of blank .308 caliber bullets.

As James Smith over at the Prepper Podcast website highlights, “It is the type of ammunition and not necessarily the quantity that is troubling.” 

Smith points out that the DHS’ acquisition of .308 rounds is of concern because they are set to be used by well-trained snipers.

“All of the sniper grade ammunition is being used by trained, or in-the-process-of-being-trained snipers,” writes Smith, noting that the math adds up to 135,384 potential kills for the snipers to make, using the 176,000 rounds of ammunition, basing the figures on the fact that United States Army and Marine Corps snipers in the Vietnam War expended 1.3 rounds of ammunition for each claimed and verified kill.

As this police training website documents, .308 caliber 168 grain bullets are the ammunition of choice for experienced law enforcement snipers.

The number of bullets purchased by the DHS now adds up to a staggering 1.4 billion over the last six months alone. Although all those bullets won’t be delivered at once, the DHS’ commitment to purchasing such an arsenal of ammo is both worrying and ironic given that Americans are being harassed and treated with suspicion for buying a couple of boxes of ammo at their local gun store.

Following a barrage of questions about why the federal agency has purchased so many bullets, the DHS has refused to respond and even gone to the lengths of censoring information relating to solicitations for ammunition.

The DHS’ decision back in March to purchase of 450 million rounds of .40-caliber hollow point bullets that are designed to expand upon entry and cause maximum organ damage prompted questions as to why the federal agency required such powerful bullets and in such large quantities merely for training purposes.

This was followed up by a more recent order for a further 750 million rounds of assorted ammunition, including bullets that can penetrate walls.

The mainstream media responded to the controversy by focusing on a purchase of 174,000 bullets by the Social Security Administration while completely ignoring the fact that the DHS had purchased well over a billion rounds.

Although the Associated Press and other media outlets dismissed concerns over the federal government purchasing large quantities of ammunition as paranoia, the fact that the DHS is preparing for civil unrest cannot be denied.

Having recently acquired riot gear, the DHS also purchased a number of bullet-proof checkpoint booths that include ‘stop and go’ lights.

Last year, Department of Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano directed ICE to prepare for a mass influx of immigrants into the United States, calling for the plan to deal with the “shelter” and “processing” of large numbers of people.

The U.S. Army has also been preparing for domestic disorder.

A recently leaked US Army Military Police training manual for “Civil Disturbance Operations” outlines how military assets are to be used domestically to quell riots, confiscate firearms and even kill Americans on U.S. soil during mass civil unrest.

On page 20 of the manual, rules regarding the use of “deadly force” in confronting “dissidents” are made disturbingly clear with the directive that a, “Warning shot will not be fired.”

The manual includes lists of weapons to be used against “rioters” or “demonstrators,” including “antiriot grenades.” It also advises troops to carry their guns in the “safe port arms” stance, a psychological tactic aimed at “making a show of force before rioters.” Non-lethal weapons and water cannons are also included.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.

FYI

 

"Its one-metre-long penis is also intact so we can conclude that this was a male," Mr Tikhonov said, adding it also had one 1.5-metre-long tusk.

Russian boy discovers 'woolly mammoth of the century'

An 11-year-old boy from a nomadic family in Russia's north has discovered a well-preserved woolly mammoth, in what scientists describe as the best such discovery since 1901.

Yevgeny Salinder, whose family lives near a polar station in the northern Taymyr Peninsula, discovered the frozen prehistoric animal when he was walking along the banks of the Yenisei River in late August.

"He sensed an unpleasant odour and saw something sticking out of the ground – it was the mammoth's heels," said Alexei Tikhonov, director of the St Petersburg-based Zoological Museum, who rushed to the tundra after the boy's family notified scientists of the historic find.

Mr Tikhonov said it was the best preserved adult mammoth discovered in more than 100 years.

"So far we can say it is the mammoth of the century," he said.

"An employee of the International Mammoth Committee and me went to the site. Judging by its legs, it turned out to be quite a large mammoth, it was lying on its right side at the height of 5 metres (15 feet) above sea level. We had to start the excavation as soon as possible and there were just the two of us."

Joined by employees of the nearby Sopkarga polar station, the scientists spent five days digging out the animal.

Mr Tikhonov said the mammoth had died aged 15-16 around 30,000 years ago, adding that the tusk, skin, an eye and an ear were clearly visible.

"Its one-metre-long penis is also intact so we can conclude that this was a male," Mr Tikhonov said, adding it also had one 1.5-metre-long tusk.

"Its skeleton is virtually intact and its heart in the rib cage may be intact, too."

The precious find weighing nearly one tonne was transported to the northern city of Dudinka and will later be brought to St Petersburg and Moscow where scientists can study it.

Mr Tikhonov said that geneticists might be interested in trying to clone the animal, dubbed Zhenya after the nickname of the boy who discovered it, but he suggested that this would be difficult.

Global warming has thawed ground in northern Russia that is usually almost permanently frozen, leading to the discoveries of a number of mammoth remains.

Source: AFP

Benghazi was a complete intelligence failure and coverup by the Obama Administration

In Libya, contingency plan seemed to go awry during attack on U.S. outpost

By Michael Birnbaum, Published: October 4 Washington Post

BENGHAZI, Libya — Amid the chaos of the attack on the U.S. mission in this coastal city last month, neither the militia charged with guarding the compound nor American diplomats appeared to follow plans for what to do under assault, according to Libyan officials and guards, as well as documents found in the wreckage.

In addition, at least three Libyan guards hired to defend the compound said in interviews that they had met with American officials to express concerns about lax security, and two said they had done so on Sept. 11, the day of the attack.

A directive, dated Sept. 9, two days before the attack, specified that members of the 17th February Martyrs Brigade, a Libyan militia, would call for backup from within their own ranks in case of attack, the documents show.

In practice, three Libyan officials said, the designated militia asked another ultraconservative Islamist militia to join in the response, and the fleeing Americans do not appear to have trusted those Libyan guards with details about their movements.

The directive and a year-old contingency plan for responding to an attack were found by a Washington Post reporter this week in the debris of the U.S. mission in Benghazi, where Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in last month’s assault. The first step in the contingency plan called for securing the ambassador.

“Of course there were contingency plans drawn up for our personnel in Benghazi — that is the kind of prudent security planning that takes place at our missions worldwide,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. But he declined to comment about whether those plans were followed.

The attack and its aftermath have presented the Obama administration with a political challenge just weeks before the election. House Republicans have criticized the slow pace of an investigation and questioned whether warning signs were disregarded in the weeks and months before the attack.

For the first time since the onslaught, an FBI team accompanied by a “small footprint’’ of U.S. military personnel visited Benghazi, Pentagon spokesman George Little said. A spokesman for the Libyan Interior Ministry in eastern Libya, Ezzdeen Alfizany, said that the Americans spent less than five hours in the city, including about an hour at the ransacked U.S. mission, and visited a tatty bazaar called the “two dinar” market, apparently in search of items looted from the compound.

Also on Thursday, U.S. officials confirmed that two Tunisians with possible connections to the attack in Benghazi have been arrested by authorities in Istanbul. The U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said the pair may have been transiting Turkey when they were detained. The officials would not discuss the nature of the possible ties to the attack.

The Libyan guards interviewed by The Post had been hired by Blue Mountain, a British company employed under contract by the U.S. mission. The guards said their training had anticipated a small attack on a single entrance — not a large-scale assault by heavy weaponry from three sides.

At the time of the siege, the security force inside the compound included three armed militia members, four unarmed guards and a handful of armed American personnel, the guards said. One guard said he had told American officials on Sept. 11 that the single Libyan police car typically posted outside the compound was not sufficient.

“The same day as the attack, I told the American Embassy that the one car was not good to protect this mission. I said we need many cars from the military,” said the Blue Mountain guard, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his safety.

A soot-soaked copy of a memorandum found in the looted security office shows that as late as Sept. 9, American security officials were working to “clarify the work requirements and expectations” of the 17th February Martyrs Brigade, the militia that had been tasked with securing the Americans since they established the mission in 2011.

The document, cast as a request, specified that in case of an attack the guards “will request additional support” from their militia’s nearby base. The guards did so during the Sept. 11 attack, according to Libyan security officials, guards who were present from the beginning and other members of the 17th February militia who were summoned within minutes.

But a second militia, Rafallah al-Sehati, that had not previously been involved in guarding the Americans, was also asked to provide assistance that night, a spokesman for the militia said. The group has been backed by the Libyan government and provides security in Benghazi, which has a minimally developed police force. But one of its leaders has described himself as a “jihadist,” and Rafallah al-Sehati officials said that weapons capable of taking down airplanes were stolen when their compound was overrun by protesters last month.

Jamal Aboshala, a spokesman for Rafallah al-Sehati, said the request came at 3 a.m. local time from Fawzi Bukhatif, the commander of the 17th February militia. He said that American officials had initially declined an offer of help, and were later reluctant to share with militia members the precise location of an annex to which they had retreated.

“Really, they mixed up. They didn’t know an enemy from a friend,” said Fawzi Wanis al-Gaddafi, the head of Benghazi’s Supreme Security Committee. “It was a messy night.”

The American protocols were posted on the wall in the former security office and scattered on the floor in the form of laminated index cards when a reporter entered the mission this week. The protocols were dated 2011 and appear to have been at least partly outdated. Among telephone numbers listed as emergency contacts to summon extra security support, one routed to a former commander who said he left the militia six months ago.

Among the items listed as priorities in the case of an emergency, the first was “secure principal officer,” or the ambassador. Stevens went missing in the blaze and had not been accounted for when the Americans evacuated to the annex, a step that was called for under the protocols.

Posted on the wall was a gloomy accounting of security incidents in Benghazi, detailing attacks, explosions and battles between June 1, 2011, and Sept. 2 of this year. Of the 38 incidents, 27 happened since July 26 of this year.

Abigail Hauslohner in Cairo, Ayman Alkekly in Benghazi, and Anne Gearan and Greg Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

Entangling Alliances

Turkey parliament gives green light for Syria operations

By: AFP | October 05, 2012 |

AKCAKALE - Turkey’s parliament on Thursday authorised military action against Syria but insisted it was not a war mandate following deadly cross-border fire that sent tensions soaring.The vote came as Turkey retaliated for the shelling that killed five Turkish nationals, and Syria apologised and vowed it would not happen again. 

At the Security Council, Russian objections to a draft statement condemning Syria’s deadly shelling sent the UN body back into consultations. The draft had been expected to be approved by a ‘silence procedure’ — the text is considered adopted if no country objects — but “the Russians broke the silence,” Britain ambassador Mark Lyall Grant told reporters.

He did not give details on the Russian objections. The draft statement condemns “in the strongest terms” the Syrian strike against Turkey, saying the shellings “constitute a serious threat to international peace and security.”

With Western powers urging restraint, the US said it was outraged and France cautioned the incident had threatened global security. In Ankara, the Turkish parliament met behind closed doors in an emergency session and agreed to the government’s request to authorise military operations inside Syrian territory.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay told reporters that Syria had admitted responsibility for the shelling. He stressed that the parliament’s decision was “not a war mandate”, adding however that it would have a deterrent effect.“Turkey has no interest in a war with Syria. 

But Turkey is capable of protecting its borders and will retaliate when necessary,” Ibrahim Kalin, chief advisor to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said earlier on Twitter.

The incident prompted a forecast that it could tip events in favour of the rebels fighting to bring down President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.“The Syrian regime is playing a dangerous game,” said Riad Kahwaji, who heads the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis (INEGMA).

“Turkey can considerably change the balance of power in favour of the rebels, even it doesn’t deploy troops into Syria, and limits itself to using its firepower.”

Ankara unleashed artillery shells at its neighbour late on Wednesday after mortar fire crashed on to the Turkish border town of Akcakale.

A Turkish mother and her three children were among five civilians killed in Akcakale. As they were buried on Thursday, debris still littered the spot where they died.

The shell smashed through a wall, landing in a courtyard near an olive tree where they had come to prepare their evening meal. Damascus’s close ally Russia said Syria had admitted that the deadly shelling was “a tragic accident”. It marked the first time that Turkish citizens had been killed by Syrian fire since the uprising against Assad’s regime began in March 2011.

Several Syrian soldiers were killed as a result of the Turkish riposte, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog said, without giving an exact figure.

Turkey had demanded that the UN Security Council take action against Damascus over Wednesday’s fire, which drew sharp Western condemnation.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington was “outraged”, while France said it constituted “a serious threat to global security and peace.” 

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the incident was “completely unacceptable not only for Turkey but for the international community as a whole”.

Amid the rising tensions, calls for calm poured in. The European Union condemned Syria but urged restraint on all sides, while Germany called for a “de-escalation”, “a measured handling of this worsening situation.”

Syria’s main ally Iran also sought to cool tempers, asking “both sides to show restraint.” In a crisis meeting late on Wednesday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government drew up a motion asking parliament to allow it to conduct operations inside Syria, like the bombing raids that the army regularly carries out against suspected Kurdish rebel bases in neighbouring Iraq.

The 550-seat parliament complied Thursday, approving a one-year mandate by 320 votes. Akcakale and the surrounding region had come under stray fire from Syria for several weeks as government and rebels battle for a border post, forcing the closure of some 100 schools and prompting the government to advise people to stay away.

Previously the most serious incident between Turkey and Syria was in June, when Syria shot down a Turkish fighter jet that had briefly strayed into its airspace, killing the two crewmen. Following Wednesday’s shelling, Nato member Turkey called an emergency meeting of the alliance and demanded action from the UN Security Council over what it called a “heinous” attack.

Nato said that it stood by its member Turkey and urged the Syrian regime to end “flagrant violations of international law” that it described as “a clear and present danger” to an ally.

Syrian Information Minister Omran Zoabi reiterated his government’s charges that it was battling foreign-backed “terrorists” whom it has frequently accused Ankara of training and financing.

Who is the boss?

Who’s your daddy?

The Real Obama

FOX  NEWS

It’s the Obama speech on race you probably haven't heard.

In June 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama told a mostly black audience of ministers that the country’s leaders "don't care about" New Orleans residents, suggesting the city was neglected in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina because of institutional racism, according to a an unedited video uncovered by The Daily Caller.

In the address, delivered during the upswing of the Democratic presidential primary season, candidate Obama specifically criticizes in outspoken terms the decision not to waive a federal law known as the Stafford Act that requires communities hit by disasters to match 10 percent of federal aid.

“When 9/11 happened in New York City, they waived the Stafford Act. … And that was the right thing to do,” he tells the crowd at Hampton University in Virginia. “When Hurricane Andrew struck in Florida, people said, 'Look at this devastation. We don't expect you to come up with your own money. Here, here's the money to rebuild. We’re not going wait for you to scratch it together, because you're part of the American family.' "

Obama, echoing rapper Kanye West’s infamous anti-Bush remarks a couple years earlier, then argues that New Orleans was treated differently, suggesting the reason was that the city is mostly black.

"What's happening down in New Orleans? Where's your dollar? Where's your Stafford Act money?" Obama says. "Makes no sense. ... Tells me that somehow the people down in New Orleans they don’t care about as much."

The Obama campaign didn’t response to FoxNews.com's request for comment Tuesday night about the Daily Caller report and the video, but the Associated Press reported that Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt dismissed the criticism as "a transparent attempt to change the subject" at a time when Mitt Romney is down in the polls.

Media organizations covered the speech at the time, but the Daily Caller said the video it obtained showed parts of the speech that had never been publicized. It posted what it said was the complete speech on the website.

By January 2007, nearly a year and a half after Hurricane Katrina hit, the federal government had committed $110 billion to relief efforts in areas hit by Katrina through a variety of programs, including Community Development Block Grants, funding for the Corps of Engineers and Small Business Administration loans, according to a report that May by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic and Statistics Administration.

But at the time of Obama's speech, there were still concerns about federal response to the disaster under the Stafford Act, which governs relief efforts. The Federal Emergency Management Agency was unwilling to waive the law’s 10 percent local match provision for aid, like it did after the Sept. 11 attacks and other hurricanes.

“One reason cited for FEMA’s reluctance to waive the 10 percent match in New Orleans is concern about corruption,” the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies said in a 2008 report on the relief efforts.

That report also noted that then-Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco was pushing in early 2007 for a federal law eliminating the 10 percent match. The House passed the bill, but it stalled in the Senate and President Bush had threatened to veto it.

The complete video of Obama’s 2007 speech, surfacing barely a month before the presidential election and the night before Obama’s first debate with Romney, could complicate Obama’s efforts to avoid a politically risky debate over race that partly ensnared him during the 2008 race. Four years ago, his fiery pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, became a political liability over videos that showed Wright making controversial statements.

Obama, after initially defending him, eventually was forced to condemn Wright publicly, and the controversy prompted Obama to deliver his much-heralded 2008 address on race in Philadelphia.

Wright reportedly attended the 2007 speech, and in the video obtained by the Daily Caller, Obama is heard calling Wright "my pastor, the guy who puts up with me, counsels me, listens to my wife complain about me. He's a friend and a great leader. Not just in Chicago, but all across the country.”

The Daily Caller also highlighted a segment in which Obama questions federal priorities in transportation spending.

"We need additional federal public transportation dollars flowing to the highest-need communities. We don’t need to build more highways out in the suburbs. If we have people in the cities right now who want to work but have no way to get into those jobs, we've got to help connect them to the jobs that exist,” Obama said. “We should be investing in minority-owned businesses, in our neighborhoods, so people don’t have to travel from miles away.”

Obama’s ATF supplied thousands of weapons used in murder of hundreds of Mexicans

THE UNIVISION REPORT:




Following the release of the Justice Department's Inspector General's report on the failed ATF  gunwalking program known as "Fast and Furious", the Obama administration response to GOP calls for Attorney General Eric Holder's resignation was to call off anymore "witch hunts."  One top DOJ official resigned while another announced his retirement as a result of the IG report. AG Holder was not ultimately held responsible in the IG’s report. 

However, the Justice Department may not be breathing too easily just yet. On Sunday evening the Spanish Network Univision (above video)  aired programming that investigated the deaths that occurred south of the U.S. border as a result of fast and furious weapons which got into the hands of drug cartel members. According to an ABC report:

On January 30, 2010, a commando of at least 20 hit men parked themselves outside a birthday party of high school and college students in Villas de Salvarcar, Ciudad Juarez. Near midnight, the assassins, later identified as hired guns for the Mexican cartel La Linea, broke into a one-story house and opened fire on a gathering of nearly 60 teenagers. Outside, lookouts gunned down a screaming neighbor and several students who had managed to escape. Fourteen young men and women were killed, and 12 more were wounded before the hit men finally fled.

THIS IS HOW THE OBAMA ATF GUN-SUPPLIED SLAUGHTER WAS ORIGINALLY REPORTED:

Indirectly, the United States government played a role in the massacre by supplying some of the firearms used by the cartel murderers. Three of the high caliber weapons fired that night in Villas de Salvarcar were linked to a gun tracing operation run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), according to a Mexican army document obtained exclusively by Univision News.

Univision News identified a total of 57 more previously unreported firearms that were bought by straw purchasers monitored by ATF during Operation Fast and Furious, and then recovered in Mexico in sites related to murders, kidnappings, and at least one other massacre.

WASHINGTON TIMES

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QUICK REFERENCE TO FEDERAL FIREARMS LAWS

I. POSSESSION OF A FIREARM OR AMMUNITION BY A PROHIBITED PERSON:

18 USC § 922(g) & (n). Punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment. May receive minimum sentence of 15 years without parole if offender has three or more prior convictions for a felony crime of violence (e.g. burglary, robbery, assault, possession of offensive weapons) and/or drug trafficking felony.

Elements

1. Possession or receipt of a firearm or ammunition; 
2. By a subject who falls within one of the following categories: 
   Felon - (Additionally, persons awaiting trial on felony charges are prohibited from receiving firearms.); 
   Drug user or addict - (Often shown where paraphernalia seized, subject tests positive for drugs and/or subject claims drugs were possessed for personal use.); 
   Alien - (Includes illegal aliens and aliens lawfully admitted under non-immigrant visas, i.e., those aliens not admitted for permanent residence. This provision does not prohibit aliens who lawfully possess a so-called “green card” from possessing guns or ammunition.); 
   Is subject to a domestic restraining order - (The order must prohibit contact with an intimate partner, or child of the subject, and must have been issued only after a hearing of which the subject was notified and at which the subject had an opportunity to participate. The order must also find the subject poses a threat to the physical safety of the intimate partner or child or must prohibit the use, threatened use or attempted use of physical force.); 
   Has a prior conviction for domestic assault - (Includes a prior conviction for any assault or threatened use of a deadly weapon against a present or former spouse or partner or child or guardian of any such person. The subject must have been entitled to a jury trial and been represented by counsel in the prior proceeding or be shown to have waived those rights.); 
   Fugitive from justice - (Fled any state to avoid being prosecuted or to avoid testifying in any criminal proceeding.); or 
   Dishonorably discharged from the military; AND 
3. The firearm or ammunition was transported across a state line at any time.
   

II. KNOWINGLY SELL, GIVE OR OTHERWISE DISPOSE OF ANY FIREARM OR AMMUNITION TO ANY PERSON WHO FALLS WITHIN ONE OF THE ABOVE CATEGORIES:

18 USC § 922(d). Punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment. 

THE COVERUP:



THE OUTRAGE: