Is Homeland Security Preparing for the Next Wall Street Collapse?

by Ellen Brown

Reports are that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is engaged in a massive, covert military buildup. An article in the Associated Press in February confirmed an open purchase order by DHS for 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition. According to an op-ed in Forbes, that’s enough to sustain an Iraq-sized war for over twenty years. DHS has also acquired heavily armored tanks, which have been seen roaming the streets. Evidently somebody in government is expecting some serious civil unrest. The question is, why?

Recently revealed statements by former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the height of the banking crisis in October 2008 could give some insights into that question.

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IMF: Risks to global economy are growing

A failure by Congress to raise the nation's borrowing limit "could severely damage the global economy," the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday as it trimmed its global economic forecast due to slowing growth in emerging markets.

If Congress doesn't increase the nation's borrowing authority this month, "it would probably lead to a lot of financial turmoil," IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard said at the annual meeting of the IMF and World Bank. "It would be an issue for all credit markets, including China."

Blanchard added that the current federal government shutdown — resulting from a separate standoff over funding the government — would hurt the U.S. economy and, in turn, the global economy, only if it persisted for several weeks.

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Did Obama swap 'black' detention sites for ships?

WASHINGTON (AP) Instead of sending suspected terrorists to Guantanamo Bay or secret CIA "black" sites for interrogation, the Obama administration is questioning terrorists for as long as it takes aboard U.S. naval vessels.

And it's doing it in a way that preserves the government's ability to ultimately prosecute the suspects in civilian courts. That's the pattern emerging with the recent capture of Abu Anas al-Libi, one of the FBI's most wanted terrorists, long-sought for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. He was captured in a raid Saturday and is being held aboard the USS San Antonio, an amphibious warship mainly used to transport troops.

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ATF tries to block Fast and Furious whistle-blower from publishing book

The ATF agent who blew the whistle on Operation Fast and Furious has been denied permission to write a book on the botched anti-gun trafficking sting "because it would have a negative impact on morale," according to the very agency responsible for the scandal. 

After first trying to stop the operation internally, ATF Agent John Dodson went to Congress and eventually the media following the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010. Two guns found at the murder scene were sold through the ATF operation. 

Dodson's book, titled "The Unarmed Truth," provides the first inside account of how the federal government permitted and helped sell some 2,000 guns to Mexican drug cartels, despite evidence the guns killed innocent people.

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Was Government’s Amber Alert Offline Notice A Fake?

The Amber Alert government website has been restored to functionality after internet users pointed out that the website and the system was never really down, and was just made to appear that way by the Department of Justice, possibly as a publicity stunt.

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The Truthseeker: 'Worse than Hiroshima': US war chemicals and 'stinking hypocrisy'

One in three American servicemen permanently disabled, 'the worst genetic damage in any population ever studied', 'confirmed' US govt behind world record Afghan opium crop, and October's protest calendar.

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A U.S. Default Seen as Catastrophe Dwarfing Lehman’s Fall

BLOOMBERG

Anyone who remembers the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. little more than five years ago knows what a global financial disaster is. A U.S. government default, just weeks away if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling as it now threatens to do, will be an economic calamity like none the world has ever seen.

Failure by the world’s largest borrower to pay its debt -- unprecedented in modern history -- will devastate stock markets from Brazil to Zurich, halt a $5 trillion lending mechanism for investors who rely on Treasuries, blow up borrowing costs for billions of people and companies, ravage the dollar and throw the U.S. and world economies into a recession that probably would become a depression.

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Glenn Greenwald vs. hopelessly unprepared BBC interviewer

BBC current affairs shows have long been about their own adversarial tone, and there's something to be thankful in that: Britain's media culture forces politicians to subject themselves to grillings in a way that just doesn't happen much in America.

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Peter Schiff Warns of Martial Law

American investment broker, businessman, author and financial commentator Peter Schiff warns us that we are in worse shape now economically than we were just before the 2008 financial crisis, which we still have yet to recover from.

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Afghan 'civilians killed in NATO airstrike'

At least five civilians, including three children, have been killed in a NATO airstrike in eastern Afghanistan, officials have said.

The civilians, aged between 12 and 20, were killed overnight on Friday while they were out hunting birds in the area of Saracha, a few kilometres from Jalalabad city, the capital of eastern Nangarhar province, provincial police spokesman Hazrat Hussain Mashreqiwal told the AFP news agency.

However, the US-led coalition said that it targeted fighters and that its initial reports indicate no civilian casualties.

Lieutenant Colonel Will Griffin, a spokesman for the coalition, told the AP news agency that the attack near an airport used by NATO forces was a "precision coordinated strike".

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GCHQ and NSA Repeatedly Tried and Failed to Crack Tor Network

According to a top secret presentation called 'Tor Stinks' leaked by former NSA contractor Snowden, the US National Security Agency says its agents will "never be able to de-anonymise all Tor users all the time," and that even with manual analysis of their online actions, the NSA admits it can only "de-anonymise a very small fraction of Tor users."

Tor, originally standing for The Onion Router, is a system which can be used to create online anonymity by directing web traffic through a worldwide volunteer network consisting of thousands of relays, concealing the user's location and their browsing history from anyone trying to watch them.

Such anonymity meant users could buy illegal drugs, weapons and even hitmen from the SIlk Road website without fear of being caught.

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A government looking for witches will find them

By Judge Andrew P. Napolitano

While the nation’s political class has been fixated on a potential government shutdown in Washington this week, the NSA has continued to spy on all Americans and by its ambiguity and shrewd silence seems to be acknowledging slowly that the scope of its spying is truly breathtaking.

The Obama administration is of the view that the NSA can spy on anyone anywhere. The president believes that federal statutes enable the secret FISA court to authorize the NSA to capture any information it desires about any persons without identifying the persons and without a showing of probable cause of criminal behavior on the part of the persons to be spied upon. This is the same mindset that the British government had with respect to the colonists.

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CIA ramping up covert training program for moderate Syrian rebels

The CIA is expanding a clandestine effort to train opposition fighters in Syria amid concern that moderate, U.S.-backed militias are rapidly losing ground in the country’s civil war, U.S. officials said.

But the CIA program is so minuscule that it is expected to produce only a few hundred trained fighters each month even after it is enlarged, a level that officials said will do little to bolster rebel forces that are being eclipsed by radical Islamists in the fight against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The CIA’s mission, officials said, has been defined by the White House’s desire to seek a political settlement, a scenario that relies on an eventual stalemate among the warring factions rather than a clear victor.

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U.S. speeds up end of Dollar era

Fiscal panics & selfishly erratic monetary policy...the world may still be too reliant on the Dollar to care, but that will change, says Breakingviews.

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Dr. Ben Carson: ‘I had my first encounter with the IRS’ after prayer breakfast with Obama

Dr. Ben S. Carson went years without ever having a run-in with the Internal Revenue Service. But his good fortune changed after his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in February, the former Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon said Monday night at an event with business leaders and elected officials in Alabama.

Alabama’s Yellow Hammer News tweeted Dr. Carson’s remarks from the annual Business Council of Alabama Chairman’s Dinner: “I had my first encounter with the IRS this year, unsurprisingly after the Prayer Breakfast.”

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The One Word Missing From All Those ObamaCare Ads

In a speech at a Maryland community college last week promoting his namesake health reform law, President Obama mentioned the word "benefits" 10 times.

Free preventive care, coverage for children up to age 26, a better drug plan for seniors. "We're giving more benefits and protections," he said.

But there was one word Obama didn't mention once in his entire 51-minute talk. And that word was "mandate."

That's despite the fact that a central feature of ObamaCare is the requirement that all those adoring young people buy insurance or pay a fine, and is the key to whatever chances of success it has.

Mum On Mandate

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NSA stores metadata of millions of web users for up to a year, secret files show

The National Security Agency is storing the online metadata of millions of internet users for up to a year, regardless of whether or not they are persons of interest to the agency, top secret documents reveal.

Metadata provides a record of almost anything a user does online, from browsing history – such as map searches and websites visited – to account details, email activity, and even some account passwords. This can be used to build a detailed picture of an individual's life.

The Obama administration has repeatedly stated that the NSA keeps only the content of messages and communications of people it is intentionally targeting – but internal documents reveal the agency retains vast amounts of metadata.

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Mr. Rumsfeld Doesn’t Regret

EDITOR'S NOTE: Rummy says, in the interview, that the US doesn't assassinate leaders of other countries! What?!? Didn't a drone controlled out of Nevada fire a hell fire missile into Gaddafi's car? BTW, McNamara was basically crying in the film 'The Fog of War' because of his regrets! Rummy is in complete and total denial!

VANITY FAIR

In May of 2011, I sat in a conference room in Washington, D.C. The walls were papered with citations by presidents from Richard M. Nixon to George W. Bush, evidence of a life in power. In front of me was Donald Rumsfeld, a man who had helped persuade the country to go to war with Iraq, a war I strongly opposed. I was there to persuade him to let me make a film about him.

Rumsfeld showed me a crumpled piece of metal, a fragment of an anti-ballistic missile. He said, “They say you can’t hit a missile with a missile—well, look at this!”

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Suspected Agitators to Face Detention at Next Year’’s G20 Summit in Brisbane, Australia

A “catch all” offence of attempting to disrupt the G20, and powers to refuse bail for alleged offenders were yesterday highlighted by the Queensland Law Society as of grave concern.

Criminal lawyer Peter Shields told a public hearing of the Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee even carrying eggs to a breakfast at South Bank could be enough to get thrown in jail under the proposed legislation for G20.

“The real concern we can see with the legislation is persons who get caught up with an event, where English is not their first language, may not understand that they have to explain to the police that they are in possession of eggs because they’re on their way to South Bank for a breakfast or something,” said Mr Shields.

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Krugman: Rich Are Waging “Pure Class Warfare”

In a post at his blog, New York Times columnist and award-winning economist Paul Krugman argues that while it may appear the rich want to destroy all forms of government, that isn’t the case. What they really want to do, Krugman writes, is destroy all forms of government that don’t benefit themselves.

More from Krugman:

[M]any of the rich are selective in their opposition to government helping the unlucky. They’re against stuff like food stamps and unemployment benefits; but bailing out Wall Street? Yay!

Seriously. Charlie Munger  says that we should “thank God” for the bailouts, but that ordinary people fallen on hard times should “suck it in and cope.”

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