- DHS Secretary Sees All Americans As A Threat: "Gun Control Has To Be A Part Of Homeland Security"
Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,
The agency’s source of power has always been fear.
And now is the time to capitalize upon it.
Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson has seized upon the Orlando shooting and is… rather predictably… using the specter of terrorism as a pretext for instituting gun control on a wider scale. (Of course, he isn’t alone.)
Secretary Johnson told CBS News that:
Just days after the massacre in an Orlando nightclub left 49 people dead and 53 wounded, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Tuesday said that gun control is now a critical element of protecting the U.S. homeland and keeping Americans safe.
“We have to face the fact that meaningful gun control has to be a part of homeland security,” Johnson said in an interview on “CBS This Morning.” “We need to do something to minimize the opportunity for terrorists to get a gun in this country.”
[…]
“I thought frankly after Sandy Hook where you have schoolchildren murdered in a classroom that maybe finally this will be the tipping point and we were not able to move the needle in Congress, unfortunately,” Johnson said.
It seems Jeh Johnson thought Sandy Hook would be all that was necessary to reign in gun rights. For him, it is all part of ‘public safety.’
But apparently, the powers-that-be will wait for a bigger and bigger tragedy until something too big to ignore happens, then they can push for their un-American agenda with the opposition pinned down and the rest of the population too afraid to think.
Maybe the Orlando mass murder is that event.
DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson: Passing gun control is now ‘part and parcel of homeland security’
Though quieter than than it has been under past heads, Homeland Security has clearly maintained the twisted view that all Americans are potential terrorists, and that a preemptive police state, complete with surveillance, data mining and social profile trolling is necessary in order to maintain relative peace.
This attitude is noted in recent meetings of the Homeland Security Advisory Committe, discussing in part its community partnership program for Countering Violent Extremism (CVE):
“Secretary Johnson said there is much left to accomplish in this final year of the Administration… Counterterrorism remains a cornerstone mission of the Department. There is a new environment when it comes to the global terrorism threat, which includes not only terrorist-directed attacks, but terrorist-inspired attacks. These threats call for a whole-of-government response, including military, law enforcement, and robust intelligence gathering and sharing efforts. These efforts extend to the private sector as well, and DHS is very active in this arena.”
It is clear that so-called “right-wing extremists” are still a leading concern for Homeland Security and the federal government agencies.
via Breitbart
One month after the San Bernardino terrorist attack that left 14 innocent people dead, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told advisors that right wing extremists pose just as much of a threat to the country as Islamic extremists.
Johnson made the comments during the Homeland Security Advisory Council’s (HSAC) January meeting. City of Austin Mayor Art Acevedo, whom Johnson appointed to HSAC, shifted the discussion to the threat of right-wing extremists, according to the official meeting minutes.
“Member Acevedo reminded the Council that the threat from right-wing extremists domestically is just as real as the threat from Islamic extremism,” the minutes state.
The Homeland Security Advisory Committee reports:
“Secretary Johnson agreed and noted that CVE, by definition, is not solely focused on one religion. Member Goldenberg seconded Member Acevedo’s remarks and noted the importance of online sites in right wing extremist communities, not only in America but worldwide.”
Against all logic, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration and the borders in addition to law enforcement and national security issues, has vowed to ‘give voice to the plight’ of Muslims, rather than focusing on keep out radical and potentially violent members of that group – essentially welcoming another attack.
Instead, ordinary Americans, including those with dissident political views of any kind, are typically regarded as potential threats under Homeland Security watch lists.
Flags, firearms and incendiary conversations on social media have given ’cause’ to a government that is out of control and only wants a population that is ready to turn in its guns and be afraid of what the media tells them, not a population that is ready to challenge the unconstitutional actions of its government.
Changes are coming. Keep your eyes open and encourage those around you to stand up for their rights.
- USDJPY, Nikkei Plunge As BoJ Disappoints With "No Change"
While only 5 of 40 economists expected a rate cut and only 7 of 39 any additional easing, hopes were rife for some additional ETF buying or hints at further stock purchasing by The Bank of Japan… but no. USDJPY immediatley plunged to a 104 handle and Nikkei 225 crashed 300 points.
As Bloomberg reports, for a two-day meeting, this was the BOJ's earliest announcement since June 2014. Some more headlines crossing terminal:
- BOJ Board Votes 7-2 to Keep Neg Rate Unchanged – Sato, Kiuchi Dissented on Vote on Negative Rate
- BOJ Board Votes 8-1 to Keep monetray base target
- BOJ: Production Continues to Be More or Less Flat After Quake
- BOJ: Japan's Economy Continues to Recover Moderately
- BOJ: Needs to Be Mindful of Risks to Price Trend
- BOJ slightly more bearish on price outlook, admitting that CPI might be “a little negative'' or around 0% for the time being.
- BOJ says inflationary expectations have weakened recently, yet no action. Kuroda's explanation later today will be interesting.
- 55 percent of economists forecast a BOJ move at the next BOJ meeting on July 29, in a June 6-10 Bloomberg survey. How many will changed their minds after the BOJ did nothing even with the yen at the highest since September 2014?
Risks highlighted in the statement include uncertainties surrounding emerging and commodity-exporting economies, particularly China, developments in the U.S. economy and the European debt problem.
The doves and the hawks are growing further apart…
And the "no change" decision has crushed USDJPY and Japanese stocks…
Nikkei 225 is testing the critical 15,500 level once again…
USDJPY is now at its lowest since Sept 2014 and 17% from the June 2015 highs…
The USDJPY tumble is dragging US equity futures lower… Dow Futs -180 from post-Fed spike highs…
Finally, as Enda Curran, Bloomberg's Chief Asia Economics Correspondent notes,
Is Kuroda handing the growth baton to the government? That's been a theme of G-7 and G-20 policy gatherings this year that it's time for governments to step in and do more for growth by spending money and pushing through reforms. It's hard to pick up any sense of urgency from this on the BOJ side.
When asked what he thought of Kuroda's decision, Shinzo Abe said "Depends."
- Violence Begets Violence: The Orlando Shootings And The War On Terror
Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“Americans have been told that their government is keeping them safe by preventing and prosecuting terrorism inside the US… But take a closer look and you realize that many of these people would never have committed a crime if not for law enforcement encouraging, pressuring, and sometimes paying them to commit terrorist acts.” – Human Rights Watch
We can rail against ISIS, hate crimes, terror threats, Islamic radicalization, gun control and national security. We can blame Muslims, lax gun laws, a homophobic culture and a toxic politic environmental. We can even use the Orlando shooting as fodder for this year’s presidential campaigns.
But until we start addressing the U.S. government’s part in creating, cultivating and abetting domestic and global terrorism – and hold agencies such as the FBI and Defense Department accountable for importing and exporting violence, breeding extremism and generating blowback, which then gets turned loose on an unsuspecting American populace – we’ll be no closer to putting an end to the violence that claimed 50 lives at an Orlando nightclub on June 12, 2016, than we were 15 years ago when nearly 3,000 individuals were killed on Sept. 11, 2001.
Here’s what I know:
The United States, the world’s largest exporter of arms, has been selling violence to the world for too long now. Controlling more than 50 percent of the global weaponry market, the U.S. has sold or donated weapons to at least 96 countries in the past five years, including the Middle East.
The U.S. also provide countries such as Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan and Iraq with grants and loans through the Foreign Military Financing program to purchase military weapons.
At the same time that the U.S. is equipping nearly half the world with deadly weapons, profiting to the tune of $36.2 billion, its leaders have also been lecturing American citizens on the dangers of gun violence and working to enact measures that would make it more difficult for Americans to acquire certain weapons.
Blowback, a CIA term referring to the unintended consequences of the U.S. government’s international activities, is a reality. Chalmers Johnson, a former CIA consultant, repeatedly warned that America’s use of its military to gain power over the global economy would result in devastating blowback. We failed to heed his warning.
The 9/11 attacks were blowback: the CIA provided Osama bin Laden with military training and equipment to fight the Soviet Union, only to have him turn his ire on the U.S. The Boston Marathon Bombing was blowback: the Tsarnaev brothers reportedly credited the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as the motives for their attacks.
The attempted Times Square bomber was blowback for America’s drone killings of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Fort Hood shooter, a major in the U.S. Army, was blowback for the horrors our enlisted men and women are being exposed to as part of this never-ending war on terror: the 39-year-old psychiatrist had been struggling to come to terms with when, if ever, is the death of innocents morally justified.
The Orlando nightclub shooting is merely the latest tragic example of blowback on a nation that feeds its citizens a steady diet of violence through its imperial wars abroad and its battlefield mindset at home, embodied by heavily armed, militarized police and SWAT team raids.
You want to put an end to the mass shootings, the terrorist bombings and the domestic extremism?
Then start by telling the government to stop creating blowback at home by stirring up wars abroad, stop killing innocent civilians as part of its drone wars, and stop policing the world through foreign occupations.
Demand that the U.S. government stop turning America into a battlefield. Hillary Clinton may be right that “weapons of war have no place on our streets,” but I don’t see her attempting to demilitarize the U.S. government—the largest gun owner in the nation—she just wants to take guns away from American citizens.
And while you’re at it, tell the FBI to stop labeling anyone who might disagree with the government’s policies as “anti-government,” “extremist” and a “terrorist,” because while they’re busy turning average Americans into criminals, the real criminals are getting away with murder.
Omar Mateen, the alleged gunman responsible for the Orlando shooting, is the end product of a diseased mindset that has overtaken the U.S. government. It’s a calculating mindset that views American citizens as economic units on a profit-and-loss ledger. And it’s a manipulative mindset that foments wars abroad (and in our own communities) in order to advance its own ambitions.
Whatever Mateen’s issue—whether he was “radicalized on the internet,” as the government suggests, or mentally ill or homophobic or conflicted about his own sexuality—he was also a victim of a government that has been at war with its own citizens for decades.
Mateen was a 29-year-old American citizen, born in New York and raised in Florida.
He was employed by the military industrial complex. Since 2007, he worked for G4S, one of the world’s largest private security firms, which contracts with the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. G4S operates security centers, prisons and court cells and provides security to college campuses such as the University of Virginia.
As a security guard, Mateen was licensed to carry a firearm.
He was placed on the FBI’s terrorist watch list twice because of inflammatory remarks shared with a coworker and a brief association with an American suicide bomber. After twice being investigated and interviewed by the FBI, Mateen had his case file closed and was removed from the agency’s watch list.
And here’s where things get particularly interesting: what role, if any, did the FBI play in Mateen’s so-called radicalization?
Was the agency so busy amassing power, pursuing non-terrorists and inventing terrorists that it failed to recognize a “lone wolf” terrorist in its midst? Or was this another case of the FBI planting the seeds of terrorism in an impressionable mind?
Neither scenario is beyond the realm of possibility.
It could be that the FBI dropped the ball.
How many times in the wake of a bombing or shooting have we discovered that the alleged terrorist was known to the FBI and yet still managed to slip through their radar?
How is it that most people who get on the FBI’s terrorist watch list—even mistakenly—rarely if ever get off, while 29-year-old Omar Mateen was taken off the watch list, despite having been investigated for making inflammatory statements, interrogated by government agents on two different occasions, and having connections to a suicide bomber (two criteria for being watchlisted)?
As The Guardian notes:
Some of the most serious terrorist attacks carried out in the US since 9/11 have revolved around “lone wolf” actions, not the sort of conspiracy plots the FBI have been striving to combat. The 2010 Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, only came to light after his car bomb failed to go off properly. The Fort Hood killer Nidal Malik Hasan, who shot dead 13 people on a Texas army base in 2009, was only discovered after he started firing. Both evaded the radar of an FBI expending resources setting up fictional crimes and then prosecuting those involved.
Then again, it could be that this is yet another terrorist of the FBI’s own making.
The FBI has a long, sordid history of inventing crimes, breeding criminals and helping to hatch and then foil terrorist plots in order to advance its own sordid agenda: namely, amassing greater powers under the guise of fighting the war on terrorism.
Investigative journalist Trevor Aaronson argues convincingly that “the FBI is much better at creating terrorists than it is at catching terrorists.” According to Aaronson’s calculations, the FBI is responsible for more terrorism plots in the United States than al Qaeda, al Shabaab and the Islamic State combined.
One method to the agency’s madness involves radicalizing impressionable young men in order to create and then “catch” terrorists. Under the guise of rooting out terrorists before they strike, the FBI targets mentally ill or impressionable individuals (many of whom are young and have no prior connection to terrorism), indoctrinates them with anti-American propaganda, pays criminals $100,000 per case to act as informants and help these would-be terrorists formulate terror plots against American targets, provides them with weapons and training, and then arrests them for being would-be terrorists. This is entrapment, plain and simple, or what former FBI director Robert Mueller referred to as a policy of “forward leaning – preventative – prosecutions.”
Whether or not the crisis of the moment—in this case, the mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub—is a legitimate act of terrorism or manufactured by some government agency or other, it’s hard not to feel as if we’re being manipulated and maneuvered by entities that know exactly which buttons to push to ensure our compliance and complaisance.
Already the politicians are talking about the next steps.
President Obama wants to restrict gun sales to American citizens. Of course, the U.S. government will continue to increase its production of and sales of weapons worldwide. What this means, as we’ve seen in Afghanistan and Iraq and most recently with ISIS, is that U.S. weapons will find their way to enemy hands and be used against our own soldiers.
Citing the need for an intelligence surge, Hillary Clinton wants to pressure technology companies to help the government conduct expanded online surveillance of potential extremist attackers. Of course, we already know how the government defines a potential extremist: as anyone—right-wing or left-wing—who disagrees with government policies and challenges government authority.
Meanwhile FBI Director James Comey is urging Americans to report anything they see that may be “suspicious.” There’s also been a lot of talk about individuals who are “radicalized through the internet.” This comes on the heels of efforts by the Obama administration to allow the FBI to access a person’s Internet browser history and other electronic data without a warrant.
This is the same agency that is rapidly hoovering up as much biometric data as it can (DNA, iris scans, facial scans, tattoos) in order to create a massive database that identifies each citizen, tracks their movements, connects them to relatives and associates, and assigns them threat assessments based on their potential to become anti-government troublemakers, “extremists” or terrorists of any kind.
Suddenly it’s all starting to make a lot more sense, isn’t it?
As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, what we’re witnessing is the case being made for the government to shift even more aggressively into the business of pre-crime: monitoring all Americans, identifying which individuals could become potentially “anti-government,” and eliminating the danger before it can pose a threat to the powers-that-be.
In this way, whether fabricated or real, these attacks serve a larger purpose, which is to give the government even greater powers to wage war, spy on its citizens, and expand the size and reach of the government.
The 9/11 attacks delivered up a gift-wrapped Patriot Act to the nation’s law enforcement agencies. As Chalmers Johnson recounted:
The people in Washington who run our government believe that they can now get all the things they wanted before the trade towers came down: more money for the military, ballistic missile defenses, more freedom for the intelligence services and removal of the last modest restrictions (no assassinations, less domestic snooping, fewer lists given to “friendly” foreign police of people we want executed) that the Vietnam era placed on our leaders.
The Orlando attacks may well do away with what little Fourth Amendment protections remain to us in the face of aggressive government surveillance.
Thus, whether you’re talking about a mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub, a bombing at the Boston Marathon, or hijacked planes being flown into the World Trade Center, the government’s spin machine is still operating from the same playbook they used post-9/11. Just invoke the specter of terrorism, trot out the right bogeyman (extremist Muslims, homophobes, racists, etc.), sentimentalize the victims enough, and most Americans will fall in line and patriotically support the government in its fight against the “enemy.”
Likewise, the government’s response to each crisis follows the same tune: a) the terrorists did it, b) the government is hard at work fighting the war on terror, and c) Americans need to “help” the government by relinquishing some of their freedoms.
So where does that leave us?
Chalmers Johnson, who died in 2010, believed that the answer is to bring our rampant militarism under control. As he concluded in an essay for The Nation:
From George Washington’s “farewell address” to Dwight Eisenhower’s invention of the phrase “military-industrial complex,” American leaders have warned about the dangers of a bloated, permanent, expensive military establishment that has lost its relationship to the country because service in it is no longer an obligation of citizenship. Our military operates the biggest arms sales operation on earth; it rapes girls, women and schoolchildren in Okinawa; it cuts ski-lift cables in Italy, killing twenty vacationers, and dismisses what its insubordinate pilots have done as a “training accident”; it allows its nuclear attack submarines to be used for joy rides for wealthy civilian supporters and then covers up the negligence that caused the sinking of a Japanese high school training ship; it propagandizes the nation with Hollywood films glorifying military service (Pearl Harbor); and it manipulates the political process to get more carrier task forces, antimissile missiles, nuclear weapons, stealth bombers and other expensive gadgets for which we have no conceivable use. Two of the most influential federal institutions are not in Washington but on the south side of the Potomac River–the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. Given their influence today, one must conclude that the government outlined in the Constitution of 1787 no longer bears much relationship to the government that actually rules from Washington. Until that is corrected, we should probably stop talking about “democracy” and “human rights.”
- "When The Dragon Roars" – ASEAN Officials Unleash Statement Critical Of China… Then Immediately Retract
"We expressed our serious concerns over recent and ongoing developments, which have eroded trust and confidence, increased tensions and which may have the potential to undermine peace, security and stability in the South China Sea." That is what was said in a statement issued by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)… before it was immediately retracted.
Following a China-ASEAN meeting in the southern Chinese city of Yuxi, an ASEAN statement was issued by Malaysia's Foreign Ministry that expressed deep concerns over tensions in the South China Sea, however just hours later the statement was mysteriously retracted.
The original statement included comments that took some not so subtle shots at China's activity in the region, and given the fact that the statement was immediately retracted, it is clear that China wasted no time in explaining to to everyone involved who was in charge.
Here are some of the comments that were in the initial statement upon release, per AP.
"We expressed our serious concerns over recent and ongoing developments, which have eroded trust and confidence, increased tensions and which may have the potential to undermine peace, security and stability in the South China Sea"
"We emphasized the importance of non-militarization and self-restraint in the conduct of all activities, including land reclamation, which may raise tensions in the South China Sea"
"[The Group] cannot ignore what is happening in the South China Sea as it is an important issue in the relations and cooperation between ASEAN and China"
According to TIME, it takes consensus of all 10 members for ASEAN to issue any statement, and one senior regional diplomat said that in the minutes after the ASEAN statement went out, Beijing lobbied to have the statement retracted.
"When the dragon roars, the little countries need to stay away from the fire coming out of its mouth. We have no choice but to acknowledge this political reality." said the diplomat.
Perhaps the countries initially had an extra shot of courage after US Defense Secretary Ash Carter's visit to Singapore earlier this month, where Carter said that the US would remain the most powerful military and main underwriter of security in the region. Whatever the case, Carter was not in that meeting, and the little countries ran out of resolve when the big dragon roared. The US may want to tread very lightly in its assumption that the region will support its role in the South China Sea, because whether it is factual or not, China knows it can twist enough arms for that not to be the case if ever push really came to shove – which is on its way – and if the region unifies against the US being involved, it will be very difficult to justify still being there. Not that it has ever stopped them before.
- How Will You Cope With A Lower Standard Of Living?
Submitted by Tom Chatham via Project Chesapeake,
The forces are mounting that will eventually overwhelm most Americans and send their standard of living to unknown depths. Americans that have only known the post WWII prosperity are ill equipped and educated to deal with depression level living. Easy credit and instant gratification have created a nation of whining, self absorbed, entitlement minded people with no moral or mental toughness.
Doug Casey believes we are headed for what he calls a super depression created by the ending of a debt super cycle. The bigger the debt cycle the bigger the depression that follows. That’s how reality works and most people are not prepared for reality.
When this depression, which has already started, gets momentum, it will overwhelm the plans of a society that is expecting to get things like social security, pensions and payouts from retirement plans they have paid into for many years. All of those things will disappear almost overnight and leave society gasping and stupefied over what to do. Their reactions will be to yell and scream and try to identify who to blame but the only person they should blame is the one in the mirror.
Many very smart people have raised the alarm and done their best to warn the sleeping public, but those slumbering masses have ignored the warnings and hit the snooze button one more time. The masses do not understand economics, do not want to understand economics and they will pay dearly for that ignorance in the coming days.
When the real unemployment rate becomes common knowledge as it increases substantially, people will be left to survive on what resources they have saved up outside the banking system that cannot be stolen by the politicians and bankers. That is a key point here. The assets you have outside the system that cannot be stolen from you with a few key strokes on some computer.
Those hoping for some miraculous event that will send the U.S. back to the days of manufacturing might and jobs for all will never see it happen. Those days are gone. The west line theory tells us our economy will slow down and become more modest as the shipping center of the world moves west to the next powerhouse region which is Asia. This is what history teaches us.
When people suddenly wake up one morning and they have no job, their retirement is gone and they need to care for their family, what will they do? When government services have collapsed and they suddenly realize they are now living in a third world country with few government services, what will they do? When the banks are closed and only a select few connected people have any type of money or access to goods, what will they do?
This is the reality that many people will face in the future and they have no idea how bad it can get. They refuse to contemplate the harsh reality they will be living in and take steps to mitigate the effects. To do so would be to acknowledge it could happen and they are taking personal responsibility. Personal responsibility is a dirty phrase in today’s entitlement society. To see some of the effects one only has to look at the collapse of society in Venezuela today to see what awaits.
When it happens it will all fall back to you to take responsibility for your family and take care of them for the duration. To do that you need to plan now for that eventuality and build up the resources you will need to provide food, shelter, clothing and security when the system fails to do it for you. You need to be Noah on his ark not the people watching as he floated away.
Having resources stored up is a must but it may not get you all the way through if the situation lasts for many years. That is why you need some type of plan to replace those resources as time goes by and have some way to generate some type of income or at least items to trade. Usable goods are for the short term and things like gold ,silver and production equipment are for the long term to help you get through the crisis with the least amount of pain.
Even with proper planning the days ahead will not be easy as the standard of living of society will fall substantially to levels only seen in failed third world countries or old pictures. The assets actually owned by people today is very small compared to how they live. They will default on their home loan, their car loan, and their credit card debt leaving them with very few real possessions and few ways to move what they have left even if they have some place to go. Ultimately these people will become the new serfs to the wealthy class that will take possession of anything of value. Feudalism will once again rule.
The lack of planning by society will make this a reality if it is allowed. What will you do when everything you have worked a lifetime for is suddenly taken away? Do you have a plan to keep what you have? Do you have a plan to make money when you cannot find a job? Do you have a way to take care of your family until things stabilize? Do you have a home you will not lose if the whole system breaks down? What will you do if electricity or fuel is too expensive to buy or not available to the general population? These are the questions you should be asking yourself now and you better have a good answer because your family will be asking them when the greater depression sets in.
- Homeland Security Issues Terrorism Advisory Alert
Just days after the State Department issued a travel alert for European visitors (due to the threat of terrorism), it appears the Orlando massacre has pushed The Department of Homeland Security to do the same domestically. For the next five months, DHS warns "we are particularly concerned about homegrown violent extremists who could strike with little or no notice," adding that "increased public vigilance and awareness continue to be of utmost importance."
Via The Department of Homeland Security…
National Terrorism Alert System Bulletin
Date Issued: Wednesday, June 15, 2016
View as PDF: National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin – June 15, 2016 (pdf, 1 page, 876.65KB)Summary
In December, we described a new phase in the global threat environment, which has implications on the homeland. This basic assessment has not changed. In this environment, we are particularly concerned about homegrown violent extremists who could strike with little or no notice. The tragic events of Orlando several days ago reinforce this. Accordingly, increased public vigilance and awareness continue to be of utmost importance. This bulletin has a five-month duration and will expire just before the holiday season. We will reassess the threats of terrorism at that time.
Duration
Issued: June 15, 2016
Expires: November 15, 2016Details
- Since issuing the first Bulletin in December, our concerns that violent extremists could be inspired to conduct attacks inside the U.S. have not diminished.
- Though we know of no intelligence that is both specific and credible at this time of a plot by terrorist organizations to attack the homeland, the reality is terrorist-inspired individuals have conducted, or attempted to conduct, attacks in the United States.
- DHS is especially concerned that terrorist-inspired individuals and homegrown violent extremists may be encouraged or inspired to target public events or places.
- As we saw in the attacks in San Bernardino, Paris, Brussels, and, most recently, Orlando, terrorists will consider a diverse and wide selection of targets for attacks.
- Terrorist use of the Internet to inspire individuals to violence or join their ranks remains a major source of concern.
- In the current environment, DHS is also concerned about threats and violence directed at particular communities and individuals across the country, based on perceived religion, ethnicity, nationality or sexual orientation.
U.S. Government Counterterrorism Efforts
- DHS and the FBI continue to provide guidance to state and local partners on increased security measures. The public may observe an increased law enforcement and security presence across communities, in public places and at events in the months ahead. This may include additional restrictions and searches on bags, more K-9 teams, and the use of screening technologies.
- The FBI is investigating potential terrorism-related activities associated with this broad threat throughout the United States. Federal, state, and local authorities are coordinating numerous law enforcement actions and conducting community outreach to address this evolving threat.
How You Can Help
- Report suspicious activity to local law enforcement or public safety officials who are best positioned to respond and offer specific details on terroristic indicators.
- Suspicious activity or information about a threat may also be reported to Fusion Centers and the FBI’s Field Offices – part of the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative.
- Learn how to recognize signs of pre-operational planning associated with terrorism or other criminal activity.
Be Prepared
- Be prepared for increased security and plan ahead to anticipate delays and restricted/prohibited items.
- In populated places, be responsible for your personal safety. Make a mental note of emergency exits and locations of the nearest security personnel. Keep cell phones in your pockets instead of bags or on tables so you don’t lose them during an incident. Carry emergency contact details and any special needs information with you at all times. For more visit Ready.
Stay Informed
- The U.S. Government will provide additional information about any emerging threat as additional information is identified. The public is encouraged to listen to local law enforcement and public safety officials.
- We urge Americans to continue to travel, attend public events, and freely associate with others but remain vigilant and aware of surroundings.
- The Department of State issues international travel alerts and warnings.
If You See Something, Say Something™. Report suspicious activity to local law enforcement or call 911.
* * *
It's time to panic and quake in fear, hand over your guns and allow yourself to be 100% surveilled… or the terrorists win!
- “Islamic Refugee” With Gas Pipeline Plans Arrested In New Mexico Border County
“Islamic Refugee” With Gas Pipeline Plans Arrested In New Mexico Border County
Police in a U.S. town bordering Mexico have apprehended an undocumented, Middle Eastern woman in possession of the region’s gas pipeline plans, law enforcement sources tell Judicial Watch. Authorities describe the woman as an “Islamic refugee” pulled over during a traffic stop by a deputy sheriff in Luna County, New Mexico which shares a 54-mile border with Mexico. County authorities alerted the U.S. Border Patrol and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) has been deployed to the area to investigate, sources with firsthand knowledge of the probe confirm.
The gas pipeline plans in the woman’s possession include the Deming region, law enforcement sources say. Deming is a Luna County city situated about 35 miles north of the Mexican border and 60 miles west of Las Cruces. It has a population of about 15,000. Last year one local publication listed Deming No. 1 on a list of the “ten worst places” to live in New Mexico due to high unemployment, poverty, crime and a horrible public education system. The entire region is a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), according to the Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center due to the large amounts of methamphetamines, heroin, cocaine and marijuana smuggled through the state by Mexican traffickers. Specifically, the renowned Juárez and Sinaloa cartels operate in the area, the feds affirm in a report.
Judicial Watch has broken a number of stories in the last few years about Mexican drug traffickers smuggling Islamic terrorists into the United States through the porous southern border. Last summer high-level sources on both sides of the Mexico-U.S. border offered alarming details about an operation in which cartels smuggle foreigners from countries with terrorist links into a small Texas rural town near El Paso. Classified as Special Interest Aliens (SIA) by the U.S. government, the foreigners get transported to stash areas in Acala, a rural crossroads located around 54 miles from El Paso on a state road – Highway 20. Once in the U.S., the SIAs wait for pick-up in the area’s sand hills just across Highway 20.
A few months ago Judicial Watch reported that members of a cell of Islamic terrorists stationed in Mexico cross into the U.S. to explore targets for future attacks with the help of Mexican drug traffickers. Among the jihadists that travel back and forth through the porous southern border is a Kuwaiti named Shaykh Mahmood Omar Khabir, an ISIS operative who lives in the Mexican state of Chihuahua not far from El Paso, Texas. Khabir trained hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen and has lived in Mexico for more than a year, according to Judicial Watch’s high-level Homeland Security sources. Now Khabir trains thousands of men—mostly Syrians and Yemenis—to fight in an ISIS base situated in the Mexico-U.S. border region near Ciudad Juárez. Khabir actually brags in a European newspaper article about how easy it is to stake out American targets because the border region is wide open. In the same story Foreign Affairs Secretary Claudia Ruiz, Mexico’s top diplomat, says she doesn’t understand why the Obama administration and the U.S. media are “culpably neglecting this phenomenon,” adding that “this new wave of fundamentalism could have nasty surprises in store for the United States.”
This recent New Mexico incident brings to mind a story Judicial Watch broke less than a year ago involving five young Middle Eastern men apprehended by Border Patrol in an Arizona town (Amado) situated about 30 miles from the Mexican border. Two of the Middle Eastern men were carrying stainless steel cylinders in backpacks, alarming Border Patrol officials enough to call the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for backup. A multitude of federal agents descended on the property and the two men carrying the cylinders were believed to be taken into custody by the FBI. Only three of the men’s names were entered in the Border Patrol’s E3 reporting system, which is used by the agency to track apprehensions, detention hearings and removals of illegal immigrants. E3 also collects and transmits biographic and biometric data including fingerprints for identification and verification of individuals encountered at the border. The other two men were listed as “unknown subjects,” which is unheard of. “In all my years I’ve never seen that before,” a veteran federal law enforcement agent told Judicial Watch.
- Currency-nado: Yen, Yuan Surge; Gold Tops $1300; Bitcoin Spikes To 28-Month Highs
The US Dollar continues to slide (after bouncing off Fed statement plunge lows), as it appears a rush to other 'currencies' is under way. USDJPY is plumbing new depths beyond Oct 2014's lows (before the end of QE3 and start of QQE2), offshore Yuan is rallying (back below 6.60), gold just hit $1300 (pushing May highs back to Jan 2015 highs), and finally Bitcoin is spiking as China opens once more (now above $700), its highest since Feb 2014. Japanese bonds are at new record low yields (and Treasuries are pushing lower with 10Y at 1.55% near Feb's flash-crash lows).
JGB yields are plumbing record lows…
With 2s5s now inverted!!
And the 10Y Treasury is near flash-crash lows…
As money flows into Yen…
And Yuan…
And it seems its not just 'normal' currencies, market participants are running from fiat in general…
As Bitcoin soars over $730 – 28 month highs….
And Gold tops $1300 once again…
Charts: Bloomberg
- What The First 100 Days After Brexit Would Look Like
When it comes to “Plan B” Europe is funny: it never has one.
The best example is, of course, Greece most notably from an April 2013 press conference, when Mario Draghi responded to a question from Zero Hedge readers about a worst case scenario for Greece. This was the exchange that took place:
Scott Solano, DPA: Mr Draghi, I’ve got a couple of question from the viewers at Zero Hedge, and one of them goes like this: say the situation in Greece or Spain deteriorates even further, and they want to or are forced to step out of the Eurozone, is there a plan in place so that the markets don’t basically collapse? Is there some kind of structural system, structural safety net, especially in the area of derivatives? And the second questions is: you spoke earlier about the Emergency Liquidity Assistance, and what would have happened to the ELA in Cyprus, the approximately €10 billion, if the country had decided to leave the Eurozone?
Mario Draghi, ECB: Well you really are asking questions that are so hypothetical that I don’t have an answer to them. Well, I may have a partial answer. These questions are formulated by people who vastly underestimate what the Euro means for the Europeans, for the Euro area. They vastly underestimate the amount of political capital that has been invested in the Euro. And so they keep on asking questions like: “If the Euro breaks down, and if a country leaves the Euro, it’s not like a sliding door. It’s a very important thing. It’s a project in the European Union. That’s why you have a very hard time asking people like me “what would happened if.” No Plan B.
To be sure, we learned just one year later that Mario Draghi was lying, when thanks to a series of FT articles, we learned that Europe did indeed have a Plan B, only it was called a “Plan Z.” However, we also learned that when it comes to worst case scenarios, Europe’s unelected bureaucrats and central bankers pretend – purely for public optics and “confidence-boosting” reasons – that any scenario that is anything less than the desired one, is so inconceivable, they choose to stick their head in the sand instead of even evaluating its impact.
Fast forward three years when Europe finds itself in the same situation, only this time not with Grexit but with Brexit staring Europe in the face just one week from today.
And just like last time, Bloomberg reports that “there’s no road map for European authorities facing the prospect of a British exit from their 28-nation union — by design.”
Incidentally that’s not true: as the CIO of JPM Private Bank reminded us today, “The Lisbon Treaty includes Article 50 which does contemplate the departure of an EU member. As messy as it might be, a Brexit would be managed by the parties involved, and be a far cry from dissolving a monetary and fiscal union to which member states had “pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor”.“
But let’s assume Bloomberg is right, because it is more dramatic that way because according to its sources, “officials in Brussels are under orders not to commit any scenarios to paper to avoid alarmist leaks, according to a senior official from one European government tasked with making preparations.”
Wait, “to avoid alamist leaks?”
The IIF, which earlier today said a Brexit would be a bigger threat to the global economy than Lehman, must not have gotten the memo. And certainly not David Cameron and his merry scaremongering men: after all did the PM not say that Brexit would lead to world war?
Ironically, Europe itself appears to have ignored what Europe’s directive are: “Given the potential political and financial shockwaves surrounding a Brexit vote, it’s not clear a map would do much good. Global markets are already sputtering as anxiety mounts about the impact on the world economy. EU President Donald Tusk goes so far as to say that it could spell the end of “western political civilization itself.”
Sounds just a little alarmist to us.
But we get it: scare the crap out of people to avoid the outcome that nobody in Europe actually has any idea how it would play out:
Tusk’s exaggeration highlights the task in self-preservation awaiting European officials as they confront the potential departure of a country from the EU — something that was inconceivable when the union was established. The mechanism for an exit was only written into law in 2009.
So now that the inconceivale is all too conceivable, and in fact, donwright realistic, here is a thought experiment conducted by Bloomberg, looking at what the first 100 days after a Brexit vote would look like.
But before we get there, the first 24 hours.
Before dawn on June 24, if an exit vote becomes clear, the EU’s top brass from Berlin to Brussels will be forced into damage control. In echoes of the Greek debt crisis, euro-area finance ministers may hold an emergency meeting as soon as that evening. Wild swings in the pound, more aggressive interventions by the Swiss National Bank and a ratcheting up of global instability rank as likely market reactions.
Currency markets haven’t priced in the U.K.’s exit from the EU, so if it happens, “a crash is pretty likely,” Lothar Mentel, chief executive officer of Tatton Investment Management in London, said on Bloomberg Television. “We would have to brace ourselves for quite a rough awakening on that Friday.”
The political fallout may be even more fraught. Europe’s traditional counterweights, France and Germany, whose enmity the EU was set up to banish, will seek to gain some of the initiative. They are planning a response as early as June 24 that could include a commitment to deeper euro-area integration as well as a declaration that the EU dream remains alive, according to three people familiar with the plans.
“The European Union will need to have a credible strategy,” said Guntram Wolff, of the Brussels-based policy group Bruegel. “To avoid a gradual disintegration of the EU, political leaders will need to strengthen the attractiveness of the EU and especially the Franco-German alliance.”
Then the first week:
As the weekend begins and the reality dawns in the U.K. that it has voted to leave the world’s largest trading bloc, the rest of Europe will have their own questions to answer. Amid fears that a “Leave” vote could further fuel populist and anti-establishment sentiment throughout Europe, the EU’s leaders could choose to take the unprecedented step of calling an emergency summit without British representation as early as Saturday, June 25.
The reason would be two-fold: send a message to Spanish voters who go to the polls June 26 that the EU remains strong; and to work out what to offer — or, more likely, what not to offer — the U.K. in areas such as free movement of people and access to the EU’s single market.
There will be divisions to overcome even without the British. In France, where opinion polls say the euroskeptic National Front may make it through to the runoff in next year’s presidential elections, President Francois Hollande will have cause to show the electorate that leaving the bloc carries negative consequences. Other leaders, such as those of the Netherlands and Denmark, where anti-EU feeling is also growing, may consider it more politically beneficial to offer support to Britain, their traditional ally.
Nations outside the euro area, especially those where anti-EU sentiment has been on the rise, such as Hungary, Poland and Sweden, could form a group of countries resisting any French and German attempts to move the EU in a more integrationist direction. With Britain’s exit, non-euro countries would lose their crucial partner — they would represent only 14 percent of the EU’s gross domestic product. David Cameron is scheduled to meet the other 27 EU leaders at a summit in Brussels the following week. It’s at this gathering that the prime minister is likely to trigger the EU’s Article 50 — the never-before-used law that catapults nations out of the club.
That would set a deadline of two years — until the end of June 2018, during which time the U.K. would have to negotiate its exit. Will Cameron want the U.K. to become like Norway or Iceland and maintain a close working relationship with the bloc as part of the European Economic Area? Or could there be another set-up that means the U.K. would have to trade with the EU under the World Trade Organization framework?
Finally the first 100 days.
EU chiefs fear the referendum will spark similar demands across the continent. With elections due in the Netherlands, France and Germany in 2017, there’s reason to discourage others from following the U.K.’s course, and this could weaken Britain’s hand in negotiations. It could also divert the EU’s attention away from other issues, including Greek finances, the refugee crisis and tackling instability in Ukraine, according to Michael Leigh, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund.
By this time, the political mist in the U.K. may be clearing. The EU could find itself dealing with another prime minister — someone like former London Mayor Boris Johnson, who supported Brexit and whom bookmakers have installed as the favorite to lead the Conservative Party. Whoever it is, the new British leader would probably have to extricate the U.K. from the EU while facing the prospect of a further referendum, on Scottish independence.
The U.K. would start talks to renegotiate EU agreements in areas as diverse as fishing quotas, financial-services legislation and health and safety standards established over more than 50 years, simultaneously having to start negotiating its own trade deals with the rest of the world. Talks would also have to begin on the relocation of EU bodies headquartered in the U.K., such as the European Banking Authority. Each step of the way must be agreed upon by the EU’s other members and the European Parliament, a process lasting at least seven years and with no guarantee of success, EU President Tusk told Germany’s Bild newspaper.
“No one can predict the long-term consequences,” Tusk said in the interview. “I fear that Brexit could be the beginning of the end not only of the EU, but of the entire western political civilization.”
Why stop there and not look at the second 100 days? Because after Brexit, for the European “Union” there most likely will not be a second 100 days. And it all may start one week from tomorrow.
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