ARMY SURPLUS IN NEENAH, WI

WHO'S WATCHING THE POLICE STATE

http://franklincenterhq.org/10312/watching-police-state/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=franklin_26

Earlier this month, the New York Times ran a story with the unsettling headline: “War Gear Flows to Police Departments.”

With a dateline from the small Wisconsin town of Neenah, the story explained how local police departments are acquiring former combat equipment like M-16s, grenade launchers, silencers, and mine-resistant armored vehicles – often with little public notice. These tools are bolstering forces that already look a lot like military units as their SWAT teams see more and more action for increasingly tame situations.

It makes you wonder - why in the world do police in small, quiet towns of just a few thousand people need the same weapons used to fight the Taliban?

That’s a question we’ve been asking for some time now. Indeed, before mainstream outlets became widely aware of this trend, Watchdog.org was on the ground telling the story as the shift began to occur.

Months earlier, in April, New Mexico Watchdog journalist Rob Nikolewski reported on a commercial by the Hobbs Police Department that played up law enforcement’s military tactics, featuring cops shooting guns, helmeted officers bursting into rooms, and armored vehicles. The story was picked up by the Drudge Report, and civil-liberty advocates raised concerns over whether this was the sort of message police should be sending to new recruits.

Nikolewski suspected that other small-town police departments were acting the same way (Hobbs has a population of only 35,000), and he was right. The next week, he reported in a follow-up story that the small, relatively peaceful cities of Newport Beach, California and Springdale, Arkansas had produced similar commercials.

Watchdog.org reporter Dustin Hurst similarly found the police state pressing forward in Preston, Idaho, of all places. The police force for this city of only 5,000 people had recently acquired an MRAP, a military-grade vehicle previously used on the streets of Iraq and Afghanistan designed to protect soldiers from roadside bombs.

“The city’s crime checks in far below the U.S. average,” Hurst noted, “and there hasn’t been a murder there since 2006. The city’s not exactly a crime-ridden hell hole where police might need an ambush-resistant and bomb-proof troop carrier.”

Subsequent Watchdog.org stories only confirmed this trend. In Minnesota, reporter Tom Seward found that as America scales down military action abroad, all sorts of military equipment is essentially there for the taking by local law enforcement. He cited a Department of Public Safety video that ticks off the list: armored vehicles, helicopters, handcuffs, riot shields, cranes, fuel tankers, rifles, pickups, holsters, bayonets and grenade launchers.

Militarization, Seward noted, is already well underway in Minnesota. Nearly 2,000 M-16 rifles and more than 600 M-14 rifles have been acquired by local law enforcement over the past two decades, along with 24 armored trucks, seven mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles and seven Humvee utility trucks, which will be used by SWAT teams and for rescues and other emergency operations.

Meanwhile, back in New Mexico, Watchdog.org filed a public records request and learned that nearly 20 law enforcement agencies across the state — from the biggest city to some of the smallest — have received MRAPs. Perhaps most absurd of all, that list of agencies included the campus police department at New Mexico State University!

It isn’t just with military-grade equipment that local police are ramping up their capabilities. Watchdog.org technology reporter Josh Peterson has found that they are also adopting the latest surveillance technologies. Police in Florida, for instance, can track the location of a suspect’s cell phone without a warrant.

We have no intention of letting this story fall by the wayside. When civil liberties are threatened by government pushing the limits of its powers, Watchdog.org will be there to give citizens the facts about what is happening – before it’s too late.

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

POLICE PENSIONS PAID BY FURLOUGH DAYS

Walker’s Act 10 Police Protection Costs Taxpayers Big

http://watchdog.org/67895/walkers-act-10-protects-police-costs-taxpayers-big/

Wisconsin Reporter – M. D. Kittle – 1/31/2013

Including firefighters in special districts, the analysis projected the state would miss out on at least $62.7 million in savings. That’s money that could have gone to put more first responders on the street, perhaps making furloughs and job cuts unnecessary. Or the money could go back to the taxpayer.

Barrett, in a heated exchange with Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke about the sheriff’s controversial public service announcement advising citizens to consider arming themselves in these tight budgetary times, acknowledged that the city has to take police off the street to help meet a nearly $30 million contribution to the police pension fund.

“We have three furlough days so that we can make a pension payment of ($29.95 million) for our police and have no layoffs,” Barrett told Morgan.

Clarke’s department, forced to cut dozens of law enforcement position due to fiscal pressures, is served by deputies who also are not required to contribute 5.8 percent to their pensions.

“I had to lay off 42 officers last year,” Clarke told Morgan. “On top of that, there was an increasing demand of 911 calls of service going unanswered, not through any fault of the street officers but because they don’t have the proper amount of resources.”

But their pensions are paid.

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country - northwoodspatriotscomm@gmail.com

FUSION CENTERS – PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO CHALLENGE THE STATUS QUO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qvv1_2VELo
Jesse Ventura and Alex Jones in a 45-minute video

Homeland Security Fusion FEMA (prison) camps may become the future home of Americans who exercise their First Amendment Rights.

Laws put in place by unsuspecting legislators and former Presidents, have made us less safe. Presidents have already signed executive orders:

http://rense.com/general81/shadowgovt.htm
Bush Replaced REX84 With New Martial Law EO
Once In Control - Martial Law Will Stay

By Ted Twietmeyer, 4-14-8

In May 2007, Bush signed executive new orders NSDP51 and HSDP20 to replace REX84. The older order REX84 was an older directive to establish martial law in the event of a national emergency. Everything done in government is done for a reason, and these two new orders are no exception.

Dr. Stephen Lutzer wrote "When a Nation Forgets God - Seven Lessons We Must Learn From Nazi Germany".

The book description describes it best: "Bread Over Freedom? Years ago, a cartoon appeared in a Russian newspaper picturing a fork in the road. One path was labeled freedom; the other path was labeled sausage. As we might guess, the path to freedom had few takers; the path to sausage was crowded with footprints.

When given a choice people will choose bread and sausage above the free market and individual liberties. The promise of bread gets votes, even if the bread is at the expense of freedom. The people of Nazi Germany weren’t any more barbaric, uncivilized, or depraved than any other Western nation of the early Twentieth Century, yet the Nazi regime will forever serve as an example of brutality and extreme racism run amok. What led so many people to such extreme ends?

According to Dr. Lutzer, the German people’s progression from civility to barbarity was not extraordinary, and more than a few benchmarks from their transition can be observed in present day American society:

 
-         The Church is silenced
-         The economy is king
-         The lawmakers determine behaviors
-         The media controls beliefs
-         The Gospel and nationalism become inextricably tied to each other
-         And yet, heroes still have power

This short, manageable book does not suggest the United States is definitely marching toward authoritarian oblivion, but that we — especially we believers — must be vigilant in our stand for truth, justice, and righteousness. We must take note of these lessons from history. The parallels are real, but the conclusion is not a foregone one."

Are black plastic boxes really coffins for a coffin?
http://io9.com/5860519/are-coffins-being-stored-in-atlanta-for-a-high-casualty-event

State and Major Urban Area Fusion Centers
http://www.dhs.gov/state-and-major-urban-area-fusion-centers

Fusion Center Center Locations and Contact Information
http://www.dhs.gov/fusion-center-locations-and-contact-information

Fusion Centers expand criteria to identify militia members
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/23/fusion-centers-expand-criteria-identify-militia-members/
Fox News -- 3/23/2009

Fusion Centers -- U.S. Map with Fusion Center Locations
http://www.nfcausa.org/(X(1)S(gw3rav55qzm55f55rtpnd3iq))/default.aspx?MenuItemID=117&MenuGroup=Home+New&&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
 

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country - northwoodspatriotscomm@gmail.com