Department of Homeland Security: What is it Good For? by Ron Paul

By Ron Paul - March 02, 2015

Late Friday night, Congress passed legislation funding the Department of Homeland Security for one week. This vote followed weeks of debate over efforts to attach a prohibition on funding President Obama's executive order granting amnesty to certain illegal immigrants to the Homeland Security funding bill.

Despite the heated rhetoric from both sides, no one seriously believes that Congress will allow Homeland Security funding to lapse. Most in Congress believe that, without the Department of Homeland Security, Americans would be left unprotected from terrorists and natural disasters. As with most areas of bipartisan agreement, the truth is the exact opposite of the DC consensus. 

The American people would be much better off if Congress transferred the few constitutional functions performed by Homeland Security to other parts of the government and then shut down the rest of the department.

Many Americans associate Homeland Security with the color-coded terrorist warning system and the "if you see something, say something" public relations campaign. These programs were designed to inspire public confidence in the department, but instead they inspired public ridicule.

Ironically, the best case for shutting down this department is its most well-known component -- the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). More terrorist attacks have been thwarted by airline passengers than by the TSA! The TSA may be ineffective at stopping terrorists, but it is very effective at harassing innocent Americans like Lucy Forck. Three-year-old Lucy, who uses a wheelchair, not only had to endure an intrusive screening from TSA agents, but the agents also took away her beloved stuffed animal.

When not abusing children who use wheelchairs, TSA subjects airline passengers to rules that seem designed to make air travel as unpleasant as possible. For example, TSA recently forced a Campaign for Liberty staffer to throw away a jar of Nutella she had in her carry-on luggage. I am sure all airline passengers feel safe knowing that TSA is protecting them from sandwich spreads.

Ending the TSA would return responsibility for airline security to airports and airlines. Private businesses have a greater incentive than a government bureaucracy to ensure their customers' safety. 

Those conservatives who think this is a radical idea should try to think of one area where they trust government bureaucrats to do a better job than private business owners.

Another agency within Homeland Security that the American people could do without is the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Having spent fifteen years in Congress representing a coastal area subject to hurricanes and floods, I have seen first-hand how FEMA places adherence to bureaucratic rules ahead of aiding victims of a natural disaster. As a result, it is not uncommon for disaster victims to wait months or even years for assistance.

FEMA not only fails to provide effective relief to disaster victims, it also impedes private disaster relief efforts. FEMA even hinders disaster victims' efforts to help themselves. While in Congress, I heard stories of individuals being threatened with fines or even jail time if they returned to their property without FEMA's permission. One individual in my district was threatened with arrest if he removed a tarp that FEMA put on his house -- even though FEMA was supposed to have put it on his neighbor's house!

Ten years after the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, it is clear that this department has failed to protect our security, but has infringed on liberty. If Congress really wanted to enhance our security and our liberty it would shut down this unnecessary, unconstitutional department.

This article contributed courtesy of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

via thedailybell

La Raza's Growing Influence: Gaining clout and tax dollars in all branches of government

Come the resurgence to launch the NAU, La Raza and its political subversives including the Republican Party will be a tremendous tool for the NWO to ensnare the non-thinking citizenship. Afterall, who would oppose "reform"?

CRC Staff | February 23, 2015

By Barbara Joanna Lucas, Organization Trends, February 2015 (PDF here)

Summary: President Obama’s stunning reversal of his own views on deportation policy is only the most prominent example of influence enjoyed by the National Council of La Raza, which calls itself “the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States.” In addition to its sway with the president, the group has seen its government revenues rise with help from a high-level White House staffer and also seen a former member be named to the Supreme Court.

Before President Barack Obama told a prime-time TV audience on Nov. 20, 2014, that he was going to bypass Congress and shield 5 million illegal aliens from deportation, he confided the details of his sweeping plan to Janet Murguía, president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza. “I knew a lot of what he was going to say before he said it,” Murguía bragged in a C-SPAN interview on Dec. 5. “I met with the president that day, that afternoon.”

It’s hardly a surprise that Obama’s address to the nation sounded like something a La Raza staffer might have written, full of emotional appeals and framing the enforcement of immigration law as an inherent cruelty. 

“Are we a nation that accepts the cruelty of ripping children from their parents’ arms? Or are we a nation that values families, and works to keep them together?” Obama said in the speech.

Obama added that the Department of Homeland Security would focus on recent illegal border crossers, criminals, terrorists, and gang members. “Felons, not families, criminals, not children, gang members, not a mother who’s working hard to provide for her kids,” would be targeted, he said.

La Raza demanded that Obama “go big” in his executive actions on immigration because the president had been unable in previous years to push a comprehensive immigration reform bill—which critics deride as “amnesty”—through Congress. Obama went big indeed. In addition to focusing on criminals facing deportation, he expanded the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, raising the age cap to 31 in order to include anyone who came to the United States from 2007 through 2009.

Less than a year before announcing these actions, hecklers at a San Francisco rally demanded that Obama take similar executive actions to stop deportations. “You have the power to end [deportation],” a heckler told Obama on Nov. 25, 2013.

Obama responded, “Actually I don’t,” as other audience members chanted “stop deportations.” Obama added, “I respect the passion of these young people because they feel deeply about the concerns for their families. Now what you need to know, when I’m speaking as President of the United States, and I come to this community, is that if in fact I could solve all these problems without passing laws in Congress, then I would do so.”

This means that a year before the president unveiled his unilateral immigration plan, he recognized that the Constitution purposely created a pesky separation of powers and that Congress serves in more than an advisory role in American governance. So what happened in the intervening year?

La Raza happened.

The Rise of La Raza

The National Council of La Raza was founded in the stormy days of 1968 and has one of the most questionable names in the political realm. La Raza can be translated as “The Race.” (NCLR disputes this translation, saying it is more properly translated as “the people.”) It has gone from a fringe organization that many would view as outright racist to a leading voice on policy making, influential in the Obama administration and corporate America. It has used this clout to claim it speaks for all Hispanic Americans. But that’s not always the case. The politically connected organization claims 300 affiliates in 41 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. Headquartered in the nation’s capital, it has state and regional offices in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Phoenix, and San Antonio, Texas.

La Raza has pushed for immigration amnesty, opposed workplace enforcement, and fought against even the most basic voter integrity and national security proposals. (La Raza was previously profiled in the December 2007 Foundation Watch.)

President Obama, a longtime ally of La Raza, has been taking friendly fire from the group of late, but the drama is left-wing kabuki theater. As President Franklin Roosevelt told his left-wing allies after winning the election in 1932, “I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.”

That’s what La Raza is doing.

A year ago Murguía seemed to turn against the president. “For the president, I think his legacy is at stake here,” Murguía said. “We consider him the deportation president, or the deporter-in-chief” (Politico, March 4, 2014).


“Deporter-in-chief” was an epithet hurled at Obama by amnesty activists throughout the year. The Obama administration frequently touted the speedy clip of enforcement action since 2009, and so the slogan was calculated to shame the president into slowing the pace. 

But it wasn’t true. Deportations have actually fallen under Obama. The administration has manipulated the numbers by changing the definition of “deportation.”
 
“We respectfully disagree with the president on his ability to stop unnecessary deportations,” Murguía continued. “He can stop tearing families apart. He can stop throwing communities and businesses into chaos. 

He can stop turning a blind eye to the harm being done. He does have the power to stop this. Failure to act will be a shameful legacy for his presidency.”


After Obama unveiled his executive action, Murguía decided to walk back the “deporter-in-chief” phrase. 

Janet Murguía, NCLR

“When we had seen the deportations, the number of deportations hit two million—a historic high and much higher than the previous administration under George Bush—there was a lot of frustration and anger in our community, but I actually used that term to really highlight how off-based Speaker [John] Boehner was when he said that the reason he couldn’t move a bill forward on comprehensive immigration reform is because he couldn’t trust President Obama to enforce the laws when in fact, and the fact is, at least two million people have been deported in this fifth year of the Obama presidency,” she said.

Brian Bennett of the Los Angeles Times debunked the left-wing claim that Obama is keen on deporting illegal aliens in an April 1, 2014 article:

“Expulsions of people who are settled and working in the United States have fallen steadily since his first year in office, and are down more than 40% since 2009. On the other side of the ledger, the number of people deported at or near the border has gone up – primarily as a result of changing who gets counted in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s deportation statistics. The vast majority of those borders crossers would not have been treated as formal deportations under most previous administrations. If all removals were tallied, the total sent back to Mexico each year would have been far higher under those previous administrations than it is now.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) publishes an annual Yearbook of Immigration Statistics. Jessica Vaughn of the nonpartisan Center for Immigration Studies wrote in a December 2013 report that “because the Obama administration has blurred the lines of which agencies can take credit for deportations, the only fair way to assess their performance is to count all deportations done by all the DHS agencies.” The DHS Yearbook showed at the time that Bill Clinton’s administration holds the record for deportations. In the Clinton years, an average of 1,536,363 deportations were carried out.

Vaughn writes that “the total number of aliens ‘sent back’ under [the] first four years of the Obama administration is just over 3.2 million.” This represents an annual average of 800,863 deportations. During the presidency of George W. Bush, there were a total of 10,328,850 deportations, which works out to an average of 1,291,106 deportations per year.

Obama is clearly not hellbent on deporting illegal aliens, but the imagery is politically useful, which is why La Raza and its allies promote it.
 
Murguía herself was long active in Democratic politics before becoming head of La Raza in 2005. She worked in Bill Clinton’s White House, eventually serving as deputy assistant to the president. Murguía went on to be the deputy campaign manager and director of constituency outreach for the Al Gore presidential campaign in 2000.
 
From there, she became vice chancellor for university relations at the University of Kansas in 2001. She was an activist in 2004 against the voter-approved Proposition 200 in Arizona, which required residents to prove citizenship before registering to vote or legal immigration status before applying for public benefits.
 
Murguía does well for herself at La Raza. Her salary alone was $330,513 for the year ended Sept. 30, 2013, and she also received an additional $81,112 in other compensation from La Raza and its related entities. That lands Murguía well into the ranks of the much-maligned 1 percent.
 
Under her tenure at La Raza, the organization has advocated for speech restrictions. The organization led a campaign in 2008 against advocates of immigration law enforcement, urging that they be taken off of cable TV news networks. A “We Can Stop the Hate” campaign was initiated by La Raza, Center for American Progress, Media Matters, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF). It targeted amnesty opponents, who were described as “hate groups, nativists, and vigilantes” (Discover the Networks).
 
Borrowing a page from Marxist theoretician Herbert Marcuse, Murguía has also “argued that hate speech should not be tolerated, even if such censorship were a violation of First Amendment rights,” according to a New York Times report of a speech she gave at the National Press Club (Feb. 1, 2008).
 
Murguía hopes to continue to have the same sway with the next president, and expects Obama’s executive actions to continue in force. “I believe that the next president of the United States will have to come right through the Latino community to get to the White House, and they have to be very thoughtful of how they position themselves on immigration, and I think they have to stay away from this executive order and not try to undo it if they want to be president,” Murguía said during the December C-SPAN interview.
 
The historic Republican victory in 2014 congressional elections came without the GOP taking any clearly discernible position on comprehensive immigration reform. Still, Murguía said the party wouldn’t win the presidency without supporting amnesty, claiming that in 2016, “the demographics of the Electoral College will come home to roost for Republicans.”
 
“If they continue on this trajectory, Republicans will have elected their last president for the foreseeable future. Latino voter priorities must be reflected in Republican policy priorities,” Murguía said (Breitbart, Nov. 6, 2014).
 
Murguía cited the questionable Latino Decisions poll after the 2014 election that said immigration was the top issue with 45 percent of Hispanic voters, ahead of the economy, which registered just 34 percent.
 
“This is a call to action for both parties,” Murguía said after the Republican tsunami. “We fully expect the president to act boldly, but that action should spur Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform at long last. It’s not an either/or situation. For the good of the nation, we need both the president and Congress to act now. Latinos will expect the GOP to use its majority position to not only make inroads with our community but, most importantly, do what’s in the best interest of our country.” (TheBlaze, Nov. 11, 2014)
 
La Raza takes part in sophisticated get-out-the-vote operations. Part of that voter-mobilization has come through the “ya es hora ¡VE Y VOTA!” (“It’s Time, Go Vote!”) project, which describes itself as “an historic non-partisan Latino civic participation campaign launched as the Latino community’s action-oriented follow-up to the immigrant mobilizations of 2006.  The campaign represents the largest and most comprehensive effort to incorporate Latinos as full participants in the American political process.  Unlike past approaches which focused on one component of civic engagement, this multi-layered campaign takes a comprehensive approach that links naturalization to voter participation and Census enumeration under a single message: ‘it’s time.’”
 
This project is the child of multiple “national Latino organizations including Mi Familia Vota, the NALEO [National Association of Latino Elected and appointed Officials] Educational Fund, the National Council of La Raza and Spanish language media companies Entravision Communications, ImpreMedia and Univision Communications.”
 
In January 2014, La Raza teamed with the Mi Familia Vota Education Fund for the “Mobilize to Vote 2014” campaign. The goal was to register more than 250,000 new Hispanic voters by mail for that year’s midterm elections. The effort involved three targets: 
18-year-olds, registered voters who moved, and the broader Hispanic voting-age public in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Florida, and California (Discover the Networks).
As it turned out, this didn’t help Democrats stay in power. In many cases, Republicans did well with Latino voters. But La Raza’s influence lies in bending policymakers on Capitol Hill and—especially—the White House.
 
Capital Research Center reached out to National Council of La Raza providing the group opportunities to respond to this article. At press time no response had been received.
 
Conservatives may not be enthusiastic about La Raza’s political activities, but supporters say it does perform some good works. In a July 23, 2013 speech at La Raza’s annual conference, First Lady Michelle Obama called La Raza a “great American organization” that for more than four decades “has served as a powerful voice on the most important issues of our time — from voting rights to health care, from education to immigration. 

Because of all of you, your steadfast work, we have seen such great progress for the Latino community and for our country.”
 
NCLR boasts that it “conducts applied research, policy analysis, and advocacy, providing a Latino perspective in five key areas — assets/investments, civil rights/immigration, education, employment and economic status, and health. In addition, it provides capacity-building assistance to its Affiliates who work at the state and local level to advance opportunities for individuals and families.”
 

Finances and Organizational StructureRead more

Has Your State taken any Steps to Reclaim Your State Sovereign Land from the Federal Government? Why not?

1st published by CV on 11.03.2011

This method is preferred first before parading with "secessionist fervor" which is far more easily debunked by our enemies. Besides, any resolution voting secession would likely be rigged.

We first posted this alert in November 2011. You can see now how much of the western states are being assumed by the fedgov in the spreadsheet below, namely the BLM. Be courageous, do the lawful thing. You've got a lot more behind you now than we did in 1860!

Would you tolerate complete strangers squatting on your front lawn? No? Then... brush-up on your spelling of N-S-A., now add B-L-M.


States Must Reclaim their Sovereign Lands From the Federal Government ~

We put up the commentary below last November. Although we have no idea how Montanans made out with HR 1505, it's an object lesson for states and how to reclaim their sovereign property from the fedgov. 

National ID Card Nears Full Implementation

Written by: Daniel Jennings  February 6, 2015 



The days when your state-issued driver’s license will be a federally mandated national ID card are closer than you think – and in fact it’s already taking hold in some locations.

About 20 states are now fully in compliance with the Real ID Act of 2005, which requires that state driver’s licenses meet rigid standards set by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Persons without Real ID compliant driver’s licenses will not be able to fly on airplanes in 2016 and already are prohibited from entering some federal facilities. Instead, such people will have to bring another form of ID, such as a passport.

“Having a Real ID-compliant card is optional,” Kevin Malone of the Nevada Motor Vehicles Department told The Las Vegas Review Journal. “But eventually, you’re going to need one if you use your driver’s license as an ID when you fly.”

Nevada residents will need such a card because their state’s current driver’s license is not in compliance with Real ID. Residents of Idaho using a license as an ID are already barred from the Idaho National Laboratory, a nuclear research facility, TV station KTVB 7 reported.

Critics have warned that law that mandated the ID is open to abuse. That’s because in its list of locations where an acceptable driver’s license is required, the law’s text says it “includes but is not limited to” federal buildings, aircraft and nuclear plants “and any other purposes” that the Department of Homeland Security secretary requires. In essence, DHS could require the use of the ID just about anywhere.

Learn How To Become Invisible In Today’s Surveillance State!
Additionally, as more and more states place RFID chips in their licenses – such chips are not required under the law but four states already have them – the tracking of citizens becomes even easier.

“A national ID can be used in times of crisis for really, really horrible things,” Jim Harper of The Cato Institute told Off The Grid Radio.

(Listen to Off The Grid Radio’s in-depth interview with Harper about the Real ID Act here.)

Story continues below the video:

What is Real ID?

Real ID was a federal law passed by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush in 2005. The ID behind it was to make it harder for terrorists and criminals to get driver’s licenses in the United States. It:

• Sets standards for driver’s licenses and other ID cards issued by state governments.
• Requires states to ask driver’s license applicants and persons renewing their licenses for proof of citizenship or legal residence in the USA.
• Makes driver’s licenses more difficult to forge.
• Requires states to share all driver’s license data with other states.
• Mandates digital photos for use with facial recognition software.

The Associated Press reported that only 460,000 of the 5.4 million driver’s licenses issued by the state of Washington meet Real ID’s standards.


“Nobody has ever done this before … so enforcing this law is going to be a major challenge,” Brian Zimmer, the president of the Coalition for a Secure Driver’s License, told USA Today.

Zimmer helped write the Real ID Act as a congressional staffer, but since then the law has been a tough sell to states. Around 17 state legislatures passed laws trying to ban compliance with real ID.

“Years of study have shown that this does not do much for security,” Harper told Off The Grid Radio. “Should we spend as a society millions of dollars, should we threaten our own liberties … just so we can cause a minor inconvenience to a future terrorist? I don’t think we should.”

The ACLU opposes it.

“It is impossible to imagine DHS keeping the citizens of any of those states off of airplanes,” ACLU attorney Chris Calabrese told USA Today. “I don’t see that most of these states are going to have a whole lot more incentive than they have ever had to do this, which is to say, none.”

 via offthegrid

The CIA Double-Dip: Drugs, Fraud, & the JFK Assassination

We must have missed the follow-up stories on the justice trials how the DEA, Homeland Security, CIA, etc. criminals got the punishment the American people deserved. Guess we weren't paying close enough attention.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Posted on August 19, 2014 by Daniel Hopsicker

A six-year long investigation into the drug trafficking operation in St Petersburg Florida that was exposed when two planes were busted in the Yucatan carrying a total of 10 tons of cocaine revealed the planes had all been “parked,” or “sheep-dipped,” in the names of straw owners to conceal the CIA’s involvement.

 
The composition of this group of straw owners, composed of a fascinating collection of people with often interlocking connections through various other enterprises, says a lot about the circles the CIA runs in.

Among the few who lent their names to the registration of more than one of these CIA planes is the granddaughter of Texas oil tycoon H.L. Hunt, who back in the 1930’s was known as the richest man in America. Hunt’s other singular distinction is having been accused by Russian newspaper Pravda of being behind the JFK assassination.

A disquieting discovery

The investigation uncovered incontrovertible, if unsurprising, proof of involvement in the operation by the Mob (in this case, the Chicago Outfit) by Texas oil interests, Saudi financiers,  and, of course, the CIA.

But unearthing new evidence about the CIA’s role in the drug trade for the past 50 years no longer provides much grist for the gossip mill. Time marches on. Gary Webb was right. Everybody knows it.
One sign of the times is that where once there was outrage over CIA involvement in drug trafficking, today many seem glad to see the Agency developing outside interests that don’t require access to a dungeon.

What is eye-opening however is the disquieting discovery that those involved in the enterprise,  like Adnan Khashoggi and his lieutenant Ramy El-Batrawi, both of whom have long histories in past CIA operations, also used their ability to operate with impunity—their get out of jail free card—to act like the worst sort of double-dealing flimflam men, bunco artists and grifters.
 
They were doing the CIA “double-dip.” Keeping one eye on incoming flights at St Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport for news of  a drug plane’s safe return to Florida, and one eye on the fine print in SEC filings.

Khashoggi and El-Batrawi used a slick financial stock scheme to game the system, and plunder hundreds of millions of dollars from investors and taxpayers in what became known as Stockwalk, which led to what was then (2004-2005) the largest brokerage bankruptcy since the Great Depression.

Khashoggi and El-Batrawi participated in the wide-spread looting  of the American economy. But they were far from acting alone.

Was the plundering systematic?

The sheer number of clearly CIA-connected entities engaged in massive financial fraud, for example, by stripping companies of their assets and using bankruptcy laws to walk away, that I encountered while pursuing links to drug trafficking in St. Petersburg was astonishing. A big question today: Was the plundering systematic?

But first,today, a brief explanation of the overt role in the drug trafficking operation played by the two Saudi men. Khashoggi lieutenant Ramy El-Batrawi supplied one of SkyWay’s twin DC-9’s.

Once I’d obtained the FAA registration records for the two DC-9’s, N900SA and N12ONE, it soon became obvious that both planes had been sheep-dipped through a number of owners of convenience to hide the identity of their true owners, the CIA.

Start here: Sometime in June of 2003 someone made the decision that SkyWay’s fleet of planes needed beefing up with a second DC-9.  

Khashoggi and El-Batrawi had one. But there was a problem. Given the controversy over the massive fraud involved in the bankrupting of Khashoggi and El-Batrawi’s GenesisIntermedia, by 2003 El-Batrawi’s aviation company, Genesis Aviation, was not exactly the CIA’s most discreet aviation front company.

How can you tell if a plane’s been sheep-dipped by the CIA?

READ MUCH MORE 

Plus our: ▶ How Crack Funded CIA War: Gary Webb Interview on Contras and Ronald Reagan (1996) - *vid*   

What do you know about your own "STATE DEFENSE FORCE" ?

As it's becoming apparent our country is being overrun, it's time for state governors to adorn a mantel of responsibility for the safety of their citizens. Order home the national guards from foreign deployment, establish operational relationships as well with their respective State Defense Force. Expel federal troops, ICE, Homeland, and nuisance agencies from state sovereign land.  

Nullification is the people's tool - use it! Afterall, if the federal government is incapable, or criminally deliberate in disrupting our society, culture, sovereignty and economics, let the people participate in their own defense!

The Georgia State Defense Force’s rich heritage dates back to England. Under the direction of General James Edward Oglethorpe, Sergeants of the Guard trained future colonists in militia tactics. Georgia settlers arriving in 1733 became members of General Oglethorpe’s militia. These militia forces later joined General George Washington to secure American Independence.

The volunteer militia remained in continuous service throughout the 1700’s and 1800’s. During the War Between the States Georgia responded with over 100 volunteer regiments, battalions, and batteries. This volunteer commitment was second only in number to the State of Virginia.

During World War II, the 8,000 members of the volunteer militia force guarded war plants, critical communications facilities, utilities, reservoirs, and transportation facilities. Although not officially disorganized until 1951, the Georgia State Guard began its retirement in July 1946. The Georgia State Defense Force was re-authorized in 1973.

Today, the Georgia State Defense Force is authorized under the Official Code of Georgia, Title 38. The Georgia Department of Defense is comprised of the Army National Guard, the Air Guard and the State Defense Force, all of whom serve under the direction of the Adjutant General of Georgia. Source

---

State Defense Force

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about defense forces of individual states of the United States of America. For defense forces of states countries and nations, see military.

State defense forces: army
units highlighted in red, naval
units in blue, those with both
in green, inactive in purple.

State defense forces (SDF) (also known as state guards, state military reserves, or state militias) in the United States are military units that operate under the sole authority of a state government; they are partially regulated by the National Guard Bureau but they are not a part of the Army National Guard of the United States.^[1] State defense forces are authorized by state and federal law and are under the command of the governor of each state.

State defense forces are distinct from their state's National Guard in that they cannot become federal entities (all state National Guard personnel can be federalized under the National Defense Act of 1933 with the creation of the National Guard of the United States).^[2] The federal government recognizes state defense forces under 32 U.S.C. § 109 which provides that state defense forces as a whole may not be called, ordered, or drafted into the armed forces of the United States, thus preserving their separation from the National Guard. However, under the same law, individual members serving in the state defense force are not exempt from service in the armed forces (i.e., they are not excluded from the draft). Under 32 USC § 109(e), "A person may not become a member of a defense force . . . if he is a member of a reserve component of the armed forces."

Nearly every state has laws authorizing state defense forces, and 22 states, plus Puerto Rico, have active SDFs with different levels of activity, support, and strength. State defense forces generally operate with emergency management and homeland security missions. Most SDFs are organized as army units, but air and naval units also exist.^[3][4]

Origins

From its founding until the early 1900s, the United States maintained only a minimal army and relied on state militias to supply the majority of its troops.^[5] As a result of the Spanish-American War, Congress was called upon to reform and regulate the training and qualification of state militias. In 1903, with passage of the Dick Act, the predecessor to the modern-day National Guard was formed. It required the states to divide their militias into two sections. The law recommended the title "National Guard" for the first section, known as the organized militia, and "Reserve Militia" for all others.^[6]

During World War I, Congress authorized the states to maintain Home Guards, which were reserve forces outside the National Guards being deployed by the Federal Government. The Secretary of War was authorized to furnish these units with rifles, ammunition, and supplies.^[7]

In 1933, Congress finalized the split between the National Guard and the traditional state militias by mandating that all federally funded soldiers take a dual enlistment/commission and thus enter both the state National Guard and the newly created National Guard of the United States, a federal reserve force. In 1940, with the onset of World War II and as a result of its federalizing the National Guard, Congress amended the National Defense Act of 1916, and authorized the states to maintain "military forces other than National Guard."^[8] This law authorized the War Department to train and arm the new military forces that would come to be known as State Guards. Many states took advantage of this law and maintained distinct state military forces throughout the war to defend their own territories, shorelines, and airspaces.

​.. read more​

Check out your own state below. If not listed, go here. (If you're a vet, I bet they'd appreciate your interest):

Alaska
Alaska State Defense Force


California
California State Military Reserve

Connecticut
Connecticut - Governor's Foot and Horse Guard Units

Georgia
Georgia State Defense Force


Indiana
Indiana Guard Reserve


Louisiana
Louisiana State Guard (Louisiana State Military Department)

Maryland
Maryland State Defense Force

Massachusetts
Massachusetts State Defense Force

Michigan
Michigan Volunteer Defense Force

Mississippi
Mississippi State Guard

New Mexico
New Mexico State Guard

New York
New York Guard
 
Ohio
Ohio Military Reserve
Ohio Naval Militia

Oregon Oregon State Defense Force

Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico State Guard

South Carolina
South Carolina State Guard

Tennessee
  Tennessee State Guard

Texas
  Texas State Guard


Vermont
Vermont State Guard


Virginia
Virginia State Defense Force

Washington
Washington State Guard

How the Local Police State is Caused by the Federal Government

With the sight of cops in Ferguson, Missouri and Boston resembling totalitarian warriors out of a stereotypical dystopian novel, many Americans have become alarmed at the apparent transition of law enforcement to a role as an occupation force.

They also wonder where the police got the money to pay for it.

According the Center for Investigative Reporting, the answer is that most of it comes from the federal government. In the past decade alone, police departments throughout the country have received a total of $34 billion in federal grants.

Police getting new toys on the fed’s taxpayer’s dime is nothing new. Ever since the War on Drugs was declared in the 1970s, the feds have offered equipment and resources to local law enforcement agencies to help enforce their unconstitutional laws.

SWAT-team methods converged with the drug war.

Enter the SWAT teams, once a rare sight, usually in an urban city rife with crime or civil unrest, now a staple in every community. In 1983, only 13 percent of cities with populations of 25,000-50,000 had a SWAT team. By 2005, it had reached 80 percent.

At the same time, the U.S. saw a massive increase in no-knock raids, from negligible in the early 1970’s to 70,000 in 2010. The current rate is about 150 such raids every day.

The War on Terror has only increased the flow of money, with billions of dollars since 9/11 going from the feds to local police in the form of Homeland Security grants. In 2011, the Pentagon gave away $500 million as part of a program for improving law enforcement capabilities.

Mind you, this was just one program.

DHS grants allow police in small rural towns, with virtually no crime, to obtain equipment, weapons, and vehicles more fitting for a battlefield than Main Street.

In Fargo, N.D., the police received a $256,643 armored truck with a rotating turret, kevlar helmets and assault rifles they carry with them as they patrol the streets in their squad cars.

The rationale? They needed to be prepared for a terrorist attack. Operating from a “what-if?” premise, police inevitably seek out more advanced vehicles, weaponry, and gear for what they perceive as a necessity to respond to any potential attack, no matter how unlikely it is to occur.

In fact, most of the equipment goes unused. When it is, it’s used for incidents for which they are totally unnecessary, such as a raid on an Amish farmer’s property by a SWAT team from the Food and Drug Administration property for the seemingly horrendous crime of selling raw milk.

These grants are also used to carry out surveillance. Earlier this year, the Santa Monica Police Department received nearly $800,000 from DHS to purchase an automated license plate reading system and equipment in the event of an urban riot.

Most disturbingly, the police are using the equipment to target political dissidents. Last year, Concord, N.H. police filed an application to DHS asking for over $250,000 to purchase a BearCat, an armored personnel carrier. What made it all the more disturbing was the police chief’s motives, claiming they needed it due to the perceived threat of “domestic terrorists” such as the Free State Project and Constitutionalists. Though the DHS approved the application, application was withdrawn after it was published and public outrage grew.

Then there’s the growing use of StingRays, a phone tracker that tricks a cell tower into providing information about a cell phone user. This, too, is paid for mostly by DHS grant money.

While many Americans see police militarization as a local problem, it is merely a symptom. A combination of unconstitutional laws, flawed foreign policy, and corrupt use of taxpayer dollars is the real root-cause.

While the police departments are to blame for their individual actions, one has to ask what would occur if they stopped receiving these billions of dollars from the feds. Left to local resources, the police would be at the mercy of the taxpayers who suffer the consequences when they get out of line. 

People ultimately obey those who pay them, and as long as it’s the feds funding the police, we can’t expect them to listen to us.

If we are to stop the militarization, then we have to cut off the flow of funds enabling them to amass such power. This will only happen when the money spigot in D.C. is turned off. And that will only happen when state and local governments twist the handle.

via 10thACenter

DHS Sex Scandal Widens; ICE Chief Goes on Leave

Where did this government smut story from last year end up - - the cast aside bin?  Was Big Sis just permitted to walk away from it?

1st posted Jul 12, 2013

Meet Suzanne Barr, Chief of
Staff at the Immigration and
Customs Enforcement
agency. She’s on leave right
now.

Meet Dora Schriro. She used
to work at the DHS under
Janet Napolitano. She currently
oversees prisons in Michael
Bloomberg’s New York.

Both Barr and Schriro are named offenders in the growing sex scandal within Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security. DHS has gone from angrily denying that it has a sex scandal, to putting government workers on “voluntary” leave.

The top Homeland Security official accused of cultivating a “frat-house”-style work environment has “voluntarily placed herself on leave” amid an internal review, the department told FoxNews.com late Tuesday evening — just hours after FoxNews.com contacted the agency about new allegations against her.

The official, Suzanne Barr, is chief of staff for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Two more ICE employees came forward this week to complain about “lewd” conduct inside the agency, submitting sworn affidavits that depict graphic comments made by two top officials working under DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano.

The affidavits were given as part of a discrimination and retaliation suit filed earlier this year by James T. Hayes Jr., the head of the New York office for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Dora Schriro was allegedly hired and promoted because of her personal relationship with the DHS secretary.

While Napolitano is named as the sole defendant, Hayes’ suit focuses on Barr and Dora Schriro, who joined DHS in February 2009, five months after Hayes was promoted to director of ICE Detention and Removal Operations.

Hayes claims Schriro, who was brought on as a special adviser to Napolitano, was not qualified for the job because she lacked law enforcement experience. Hayes maintained Schriro enjoyed a “long-standing relationship” with Napolitano, and soon pushed him aside “because of this relationship (with Napolitano) and because he was not female,” the suit says.

A look at Schriro’s official bio shows that she does indeed have no real law enforcement experience. She has headed prison systems, and done her best, again according to her own bio, to benefit unions.

She has also co-led sentencing seminars at the law schools of St. Louis University and Arizona State University, spearheaded passage of the nation’s first Restorative Justice legislation and established offices of crime victim services and labor relations in the State correctional systems in Missouri and Arizona. Her efforts on behalf of the workforce yielded appreciable pay increases and increased representation. (emphases added)

The unions involved are the AFSCME and AFGE, both of which are part of the AFL-CIO universe. AFGE is the union that’s bringing Big Labor into the Transportation Security Administration. The unionization of the airport gropers is happening despite Democrat promises to never unionize that agency, at the time of said agency’s creation. It has been said before but is worth mentioning again, unionization of all government workers should be banned, and Democrat promises should always be understood to be insincere and come with expiration dates. Schriro is but one of many examples of Democrats using their government positions to assist Big Labor, which in turn puts money into Democrat party coffers. In any other setting such actions would be flagged for conflict of interest and would be considered corrupt.

But I digress. Let’s take a look at Suzanne Barr. According to the widening scandal, she has an aggressive streak.

In the newly emerging affidavits, one of the employees claimed that in October 2009, while in a discussion about Halloween plans, the individual witnessed Barr turn to a senior ICE employee and say: “You a sexy” (expletive deleted).

“She then looked at his crotch and asked, ‘How long is it anyway?’” according to the affidavit.
—
The account said Parmer and Barr were “drinking heavily” at the house of the deputy chief of mission for the U.S. Embassy there. It said Parmer took the BlackBerry of another employee, Peter Vincent, and sent “lewd messages” to Barr.

The affidavit went on to say: “During this party, Suzanne Barr approached me and offered to” perform oral sex.

How did Suzanne Barr get to the top of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement administration? She worked for Napolitano in Arizona. But not in any law enforcement capacity.

Ms. Barr came to ICE in January 2009. Before becoming chief of staff, she served in then-Governor Janet Napolitano’s office, working as deputy director and director of legislative affairs. As director of legislative affairs, Ms. Barr was responsible for the governor’s legislative agenda and oversaw the legislative proposals of all state agencies. She also served as the governor’s policy advisor on law enforcement issues, overseeing all state law enforcement agencies.

Basically, she did whatever Napolitano told her to do. That landed her the job that, among other things, is supposed to oversee our border security, enforce immigration law, fight terrorism, fight smuggling, and so forth. No experience necessary, apparently.
Feel secure?

Source:  The PJ Tatler » DHS Sex Scandal Widens; ICE Chief Goes on Leave

US Coast Guard and DHS raid investigative journalist unlawfully; seize confidential list of whistleblowers *vid*

This episode is shameful, and a black stain on the proud history of the USCG and the service members. One can now understand why placing the USCG under the DHS was preferable to retain it with the DOT or Treasury! Can you identify the Constitutional Amendments that were violated in just this one intrusion?  [see below how to make your feelings known to the USCG. Please include your congressman as well for lacking Oversight!]
"I never in my wildest dreams thought something like that could happen in this country."


Posted on October 5, 2014

CGI

Flag of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
(Source: Bill Koplitz/FEMA)

MARYLAND — Federal agents staged a pre-dawn raid on the home of an award-winning investigative journalist, and walked away with hundreds of documents — including a top-secret list of government whistleblowers.


* * * * *
Reporter Audrey Hudson, 50, has spent a career in journalism, once working for the Washington Times, then guiding her career into freelance reporting. The disturbing raid that she endured “shook her to the core” and made her question the security of Americans’ rights and freedoms under its current brand of government.

The first thing she remembers hearing on the morning of August 6th, 2013, was the sound of her dogs barking. It was approximately 4:30 a.m., it was dark outside, and she had been sleeping. Moments later, approximately seven gun-wielding men wearing body armor entered her home and began searching the personal belongings contained within.

Audrey Hudson (Source: Fox News)

Ostensibly, the federal investigators and Maryland State Police were raiding the home to determine if Hudson’s husband, Paul Flanagan, owned any weapons. Mr. Flanagan cannot legally be armed, as he has a record from the mid-1980s of breaking gun control laws; subsequently placing him among the growing list of Americans suffering under lifelong infringement of their inalienable rights. Police justified the 2013 raid by claiming that they suspected that he might have owned a “potato gun.”

No guns were recovered from the home, and Mr. Flanagan was not charged with any crimes. Yet investigators took their time to examine his wife’s personal documents.

Since Mr. Flanagan was an employee of the U.S. Coast Guard, that agency — under the Department of Homeland Security — was present during the raid. 


One federal agent, USCG investigator Miguel Bosch, began asking whether Ms. Hudson was the same “Audrey Hudson” who had written “the Air Marshal stories” for The Washington Times. The stories he was remembering was a series of articles that Ms. Hudson wrote in the mid-2000s exposing holes in the Air Marshal program. Of course, Mr. Bosch — a former Air Marshal — surely knew whose home he had conspired to enter.

“I now know why he [Miguel Bosch] was spending so much time in my upstairs office,” Ms. Hudson later remembered. “They had pulled out every box from my closet.”

Following the raid, it became clear that the agents were rooting through her private files related to her journalism work. Among the boxes were handwritten notes and lists explicitly naming the whistleblowers who had helped her expose problems in the federal government. These individuals had spoke under conditions of anonymity to protect themselves from retaliation. Yet, using a warrant that expressly stated “guns” as the reason for the search, Ms. Hudson’s private documents were carted away and placed into the hands of the federal government.

Judging from the way investigators conducted the search, the documents seemed to have been more important to them than the guns that they supposedly sought.

Some of Audrey Hudson’s personal 
documents confiscated by DHS. 
(Source: Daily Caller)

“They tore my office apart more than any other room in my house,” she told the Washington Times.

“Horrified doesn’t even begin to describe — but this shook me to my core, I was almost paralyzed,” Hudson told The Blaze. “I never in my wildest dreams thought something like that could happen in this country.”

Ms. Hudson expressed fear that this type of government tactic could place a chilling effect on those who might come forward in the future to expose government corruption.

“I feel sick to my stomach everyday since the incident,” Hudson said. “It’s not just about what happened to me – it’s about our nation, our rights and freedom. How can we be the watchdogs when our government has now crossed the line. Who’s going to trust us when we can’t protect our sources?”

“They came into my house, they stole my notes, they’ve exposed my sources,” she explained. “It was clearly intimidation. We can’t just have the government coming into your house on a minor warrant and walking out with whatever files they please.”
* * * * *

FOLLOW-UP:
Audrey Hudson went on to sue the federal government over the improper seizure of her documents — “confidential notes, draft articles, and other newsgathering materials.”

In late September, 2014, she walked away with a victory of sorts. The Department of Homeland Security agreed to pay her a paltry $50,000 and promised not to do it again. The agency also paid $25,000 to the Washington Times.

The settlement payments “cover just a fraction of the legal bills we accrued,” said Larry Beasley, the president and CEO of the Washington Times.

While it was an economic loss for the plaintiffs, Ms. Hudson and the Times view it as a victory for journalists. After all, DHS promised that it would review the Privacy Protection Act. And she was assured that agents did not make any copies of her whistleblower information.

However, the settlement was so small — less than the annual salary of one agent — that it would not even be noticeable to the behemoth agency. And its promises are hollow.

There have been no reports of any accountability on the part of the agents that participated in the criminal behavior. Special Agent Miguel Bosch remains employed with the Coast Guard Investigative Service and neither he, nor any of his cohorts in the raid, have been fired or criminally charged after stealing Ms. Hudson’s documents.

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---

Accountability Check
Call for the firing and prosecution of Special Agent Miguel Bosch.
United States Coast Guard — Contact Form


http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/audrey-hudson/