39 Pics with messages

Food for thought and prayer

                                        39 Pics with messages

 

 

Sequestration hit on Friday and John Kerry announced $250 million in aid for Egypt on Sunday. LIKE if you agree Obama’s priorities are screwed up!

If the government had LESS power, would it make public service less attractive to the pathological personalities that corrupt it?

 

‎"laws" that violate the constitution, are not Law at all.

http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/principlesof98

On Monday March 11, 2013, Congress is reportedly beginning impeachment proceedings against Barack Obama.

Members of Congress are reportedly beginning impeachm...ent against Barack Obama based on the grounds of unauthorized military use in Libya and Syria. Congress is also looking at his involvement in Fast and Furious.

According to Congressional representatives Barack Obama has violated the rules set that clearly state that the President must seek Congressional approval before using military force. Now he says it was OK because he had international support. But how does that make it okay? They aren’t our Congress. They don’t determine what is right or wrong for us.

Sources close to aides in Congress say the law clearly states “any use of military force by Obama without explicit consent and authorization of Congress constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, Section 4 of the Constitution.”

The Republicans want to know how President Obama was able to use military force in Libya last year.

Republicans are pushing a resolution through Congress, which has been highly underreported by mainstream media, to look into further actions to be taken upon the President. Since it explicitly states in the Constitution that the President must ask permission from Congress to use military forces in another country, sources say there is clear cause for impeachment.

While an impeachment can be a strain on our country and may not be necessary in an election year – Republicans are still moving ahead with it.

“The days of Czars and Executive orders in order to sidestep Congress should end and if it takes an impeachment to do that it is something I and many other Americans would support,” said a prominent Republican Congressman.

“We have a President who believes our Constitution is just a ‘historical document’ that is not fit to determine how our country is ran anymore,” said the Congressman.

Democrats, obviously, are opposing the impeachment effort by sources close to Republican leaders say that they are “moving full speed ahead” because “we need something to keep us busy until the election.”

Stay tuned…

Take notice of the nurse's belt buckle who escorted the queen from hospital today. The Masonic symbol and a pentagramm! WTF?

‎50 REASONS NOT TO VACCINATE YOUR CHILDREN!

http://worldtruth.tv/50-reasons-not-to-vaccinate-your-children

ALL WARS ARE STARTED BY BANKERS

http://www.secretsofthefed.com/all-wars-are-started-by-bankers/

Monsanto blocks research on GMO safety - By Jeremy Bloom
Like us? www.facebook.com/Citizens.Action.Network

Monsanto has been systematically blocking researche...rs from using its patented gene modified (GMO) seeds to learn if there are problems with them, according to an explosive op-ed in the LA Times by Doug Gurian-Sherman of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

This doesn’t come as a huge surprise, but it’s encouraging that it’s hitting the mainstream media.

Soybeans, corn, cotton and canola — most of the acres planted in these crops in the United States are genetically altered. “Transgenic” seeds can save farmers time and reduce the use of some insecticides, but herbicide use is higher, and respected experts argue that some genetically engineered crops may also pose serious health and environmental risks. Also, the benefits of genetically engineered crops may be overstated.

We don’t have the complete picture. That’s no accident. Multibillion-dollar agricultural corporations, including Monsanto and Syngenta, have restricted independent research on their genetically engineered crops. They have often refused to provide independent scientists with seeds, or they’ve set restrictive conditions that severely limit research options.

When Monsanto won a Supreme Court case a couple years ago allowing deregulation of their GMO Alfalfa, David Snively, Monsanto’s senior vice president and general counsel, called the decision “important for every American farmer, not just alfalfa growers.”

“All growers can rely on the expertise of USDA and trust that future challenges to biotech approvals must now be based on scientific facts, not speculation,” said Snively.

But how can we get accurate science if Monsanto blocks access? Now it looks like scientists are starting to speak out… at least behind closed doors. Here’s Gurian-Sherman again:

Whatever the reasons, the results are clear: Public sector research has been blocked. In 2009, 26 university entomologists — bug scientists — wrote a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency protesting restricted access to seeds. The letter went public, but not most of the writers’ identities. They were afraid of retaliation from the companies that might further hamper their research.

“No truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions involving these crops,” they wrote. Christian Krupke, a Purdue University entomologist who signed the letter, put it more succinctly to a reporter for a scientific journal. “Industry is completely driving the bus,” he said.

…This is not how science should operate. Agricultural companies are still the gatekeepers, choosing who gets to do research and what topics are studied. To ensure that agricultural science serves the public, Congress should change patent law and create a clear exemption for agricultural research.

…The companies that produce the seeds claim that genetically engineered crops are safe and are better than traditional crops in a range of ways. It’s time for these companies to back up their rhetoric. The only way to test their grand assertions is to let independent science take its course.

Read more at http://redgreenandblue.org/2011/02/14/monsanto-blocks-research-on-gmo-safety/#bbubUWUcKvy8ICDV.99See More

Your vitamins could be sourced from GMO corn, like the Nature Made product in the picture. You can find a list of safe vitamins here: http://www.nongmoshoppingguide.com/brands/vitamins-and-supplements.html
What supplements do you take? Do they say non-GMO on the package?

 

Like crack addicts addicted to wasting money: Less than 48 hours after the sequester took effect, the Obama regime sent $250 million of American taxpayers' mone...y to the Muslim Brotherhood.

http://m.sodahead.com/united-states/obama-gives-250-million-to-muslim-brotherhood/question-3559001/

 

 

 

 

NEWS: Gold and Silver Approved as Legal Tender by Arizona Senate

REPORT AND ACTION ITEMS: http://bit.ly/15pHqTy

 

I am old enough to remember when this prophesy was made....it seemed ridiculous to most Americans at the time...

 

 

As Americans face $85 billion in cuts to vital services, AIPAC is in Washington,DC-- RIGHT NOW--demanding that unconditional aid to Israel be exempt from ANY cu...t, despite Israel's continued refusal to abide by international law. TAKE ACTION NOW: Tell Congress and the world: AIPAC doesn't speak for us!

 

   

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The people of New York are taking a SERIOUS stand against the federal gun grabbers!   

 

                                                               

         

Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of beings,
but contemplate their return.
Each separate being in the Universe
... returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity.

~Lao Tsu~
Tao Te Ching

27 pictures with messages

More food for thought and prayer

27 pictures with messages

A man was accused of selling raw milk, had his farm raided, was arrested, and went to trial. Luckily this jury was informed about the process of jury nullificat...ion, and their legal right to rule in favor of the accused for breaking unjust laws.

If the law is unjust, never convict!! Be a fully-informed juror and understand your rights.

http://aotmr.com/raw-milk-co-op-farmer-acquitted-through-jury-nullification

Occupy Goldman Sachs ~ Occupy Chase ~ Occupy Barclays ~ Occupy Trinity ~ Occupy Bloomberg ~ Occupy Fox News ~ Occupy 9/11 ~ International Citizens Tribunal ~ End Apartheid ~ The Anti-Media

While Hurricane Sandy victims are still living under tarps, in broken homes in the cold. This is an outrage.

Do you agree with this?

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_KERRY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-03-03-14-30-49

UN tanks 500 feet from I 70 outside of Charleston WVA.

The Biggest Moneymaker of all Time: Cancer, and Why the Profiteers Don’t Want a Cure
By Dr. Dennis Antoine, Guest Writer for Wake Up World
Follow us www.faceboo...k.com/Citizens.Action.Network

People wail, cry, and question why him /her, how could this happen to a child? Immeasurable grief.

Yet the answers are quite clear: humans are unknowingly exposed to far too many chemicals on their food, in their water, their clothes – even when buying a new car. That new car smell? Major cancer causing chemicals that have been used to treat the new leather and the rugs in that new car. And people get in and snort it like they smelled a bouquet of flowers.

Food sprayed with chemicals to make them last? Preservatives. At one time, you could not patent food. Yet we now have a patented soybean. Just so Monsanto can profit. This fooling around and injecting chemicals in food has got to stop!

This is why you must demand that food be labeled GMO!

Even new clothing has been treated with chemicals that can seep into the body and wreak havoc especially in young children. Not to mention the pesticides that are used on your food. What is very interesting is how many people from Monsanto wind up working for the FDA. The FDA is supposed to protect US citizens from poisons, right? Do enough of your own research and the more you learn the more outraged you will become. This is what is meant by the wolf guarding the henhouse. They eat healthy, sure. And you can bet the ranch they don’t eat the food they sell.

Dr Max Gerson, who in 1938 made a startling discovery that his safe natural treatment for cancer patients held enormous promise. He was getting people well by using something that could not be patented – vegetables. At this time in history, a bill was appropriated for 100 million dollars to anyone who could show promise and results in treating cancer. Dr Gerson in 1946 presented 5 terminal cases and 5 additional patients’ records showing his effective treatment and cure of all of these cases. Well, guess what? The Pepper-Neely bill was defeated by four senators who were medical doctors.

Also of note, radio announcer Raymond Gram Swing who was in the room, was as astonished as any of the others and made a broadcast that night detailing these events and Gerson’s effective treatment. Two 2 weeks later, Swing was fired from his job.

I see in him one of the most eminent geniuses in the history of medicine. Many of his basic ideas have been adopted without having his name connected with them. Yet, he has achieved more than seemed possible under adverse conditions. He leaves a legacy which commands attention and which will assure him his due place. Those whom he has cured will now attest to the truth of his ideas.

Dozens of treatments have come and gone and have just as quickly been termed “not effective”. When an individual encounters a pathogen (virus, bacteria, fungus) their immunomodulators in their brain kick in to use and many different self-preservation events occur. One of the first is a fever. Almost all pathogens function best at 98.6, or normal body temperature.

The aspirin companies have convinced the public that a fever is bad. “We’ve got to break the fever” “if it gets too high we could cause brain damage”. And so this is drilled into caring parents’ minds and they immediately freak and start giving aspirin.

The body knows what it is doing and we interfere. Because we have a degree from a prestigious school and a stethoscope around our neck-we know better. But the fever is designed to make a poor quality environment for the germ, and eventually kill it off.

Instead, the aspirin, or Tylenol, does lower the temperature in some cases and the pathogen can now flourish.

The following was written by a medical doctor and comes from The Cancer Prevention Coalition: The verdict is unassailable. The American Cancer Society bears a major responsibility for losing the winnable war against cancer. Reforming the ACS is, in principle, relatively easy and directly achievable. Boycott the ACS. Instead, give your charitable contributions to public interest and environmental groups involved in cancer prevention. Such a boycott is well overdue and will send the only message this “charity” can no longer ignore. The Cancer Prevention Coalition (chaired by the author) in April 1999 formally announced a nationwide campaign for an economic boycott of the ACS .

Mammography

The American Cancer Society has close connections to the mammography industry. Five radiologists have served as ACS presidents, and in its every move, the ACS reflects the interests of the major manufacturers of mammogram machines and films, including Siemens, DuPont, General Electric, Eastman Kodak, and Piker. In fact, if every woman were to follow ACS and NCI mammography guidelines, the annual revenue to health care facilities would be a staggering $5 billion, including at least $2.5 billion for premenopausal women. Promotions of the ACS continue to lure women of all ages into mammography centers, leading them to believe that mammography is their best hope against breast cancer. A leading Massachusetts newspaper featured a photograph of two women in their twenties in an ACS advertisement that promised early detection results in a cure “nearly 100 percent of the time.” An ACS communications director, questioned by journalist Kate Dempsey, responded in an article published by the Massachusetts Women’s Community’s journal Cancer:

The ad isn’t based on a study. When you make an advertisement, you just say what you can to get women in the door. You exaggerate a point. . . . Mammography today is a lucrative [and] highly competitive business.

The way women are treated when they have a mammography is deplorable. The tender, sensitive breast is jostled around, roughly handled and placed in the device to obtain the x-ray. The already angry area (angry with cancer cells) is now irritated further, enhancing the probability and possibility of cells spreading to other parts of the body.

Not only that, the tumor has a capsule around it. All the rough movement of the breast only helps to disrupt this capsule and enhance spreading or metastasis. Want a little more irritation? Let’s biopsy the area. A needle is stuck into the balloon and cells removed. Don’t you know there will be some leakage of the cells contained in that capsule?

Lung cancer and esophageal cancers too, are extraordinarily lucrative. It is one of the more difficult cancers to treat. There are miraculous stories about using Hydrogen Peroxide in the proper form to treat the body with oxygen.

Madison Cavanaugh has written a book called The One Minute Cure detailing the effectiveness of Hydrogen Peroxide on various health problems. Get the book.

To be clear, Hydrogen Peroxide must be Food Grade, meaning NOT WHAT YOU BUY IN THE SUPERMARKET. You must find food grade at 35% and then dilute it to 3%. What they sell in the brown bottle has preservatives in it and is not meant for internal use.

Cancer despises oxygen. It also loves 98.6. And it loves fatty tissue. It’s nirvana for the cancer cells. Cancer also has a unique capability to do what is called angiogenesis - it makes it’s own blood vessels to bring more blood and more food to feed it’s crazy appetite. It has this appetite because it is making cells at such a rapid pace.

Sugar is perfect fuel for cancer. High fructose corn syrup is a form of sugar that is ideal, as the high mitotic rate (cell division and tumor growth) calls for energy.

So here we have the “perfect storm”- you take a body, make it overweight – eat low quality food with all kinds of chemicals in the food and expose that person to fluoride in water, or vaccinations (additional cancer causing chemicals), air pollution, barbecued food (additional carcinogens) nitrates and nitrites, second hand smoke, etc and voila! You have a good potential to develop cancer.

Not everyone takes the cheese of standard treatment however, because there are alternatives to treating even difficult esophageal cancer as evidenced by this next video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdlA7kjK-4o&feature=player_embedded

Tumors – Let’s pretend you were away and when you came home your home was extremely hot. You go to the thermostat an turn on the air conditioner. Nothing happens.

Would you then rip the thermostat out of the wall, thinking, “Well that should fix it”?

Of course not. This is what we do when we cut out a tumor. The tumors purpose just may be a “thermostat” a way to measure the presence of sickness. What if the tumor was only an indicator and not a sign of imminent death?

In so many cases, when treated successfully, there are reports of tumors shrinking and disappearing.

So what we do in America, we cut the tumor out. And the wonderful surgeon tells the family “I think we got it all”. Since cells are so vastly small, how could anyone, even with a microscope know for sure that they “got it all?” There is not a physician on the planet that could know for 100% sure they were able to “get it all”.

As a matter of fact, what if the tumors actually served a purpose and acted as indicators to tell us whether improvement is taking place? After all, unless the tumor is pressing on an airway or blood vessel, why take a chance and cut a person open who is already in a challenged state? And leave them susceptible to infection. Many people die from secondary infections due to the immunosuppresion of their bodies brought on by the side effects of chemotherapy. The radiation kills healthy cells. Cancer does not make hair fall out; radiation does that. And poor appetite causing poor nourishment? Caused by the drugs. So how can a body stay healthy if they are not getting proper nourishment?

This does not have to be. This is exactly where Dr Gerson was going. Take away the irritants (bad food, poor quality fluoridated water, fats, and sugars) and introduce ingredients the body can use to fight with-clean water-a healthy liver-vegetables-nutrients, and proper health can be restored.

This is a small sampling of incredible alternatives to fight cancer. The reason hemp is outlawed? Henry Ford many years ago said we should be using hemp for almost anything you can imagine – more and better use than cutting down all the trees and insulting the earth with mining. Greed is why hemp is outlawed. It is a very powerful solution to a number of health problems.

Rick Simpson in his video Run From the Cure discusses his very effective treatment for cancer-hemp oil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvosdIXyjWM&feature=player_embedded

The suppression of this information is criminal.

Please read Death By Medicine. Gary Null PhD, Carolyn Dean MD ND Martin Feldman MD, Debora Rasio MD, Dorothy Smith PhD

This is not about bad mouthing anyone. There are better things to do with time. It is about exposing the truth. There are many fine, caring physicians. When a person experiences a trauma from an accident, a severe laceration, by all means, of course you require medical treatment. Let’s not mix compassion with profit. Medicine started out based on compassion. First, do no harm, right? We should prevent what we treat? Where are we now? Big Pharma sends their beautiful reps to doctors’ offices to convince them of how they should be getting more people on this drug or that one, despite side effects. It’s for profit and it is deplorable and sad.

Be aware of your rights; don’t be badgered or scared into doing what “everyone else is doing” only to wind up a statistic. Do your research now while you’re healthy. Don’t wait until you are in a crisis mode. Stay healthy. Grow your own vegetables. Drink purified water. Take nutrients. Question authority. And by all means Wake Up World!

Dr. Dennis Antoine

http://wakeup-world.com/2012/09/17/the-biggest-moneymaker-of-all-time-cancer-and-why-the-profiteers-dont-want-a-cure/

Making Soil Blocks For Seed Starting – Gardening.

http://thehomesteadsurvival.com/making-soil-blocks-seed-starting-gardening/#.UTKVkFc72Sl

How to Decalcify Your Pineal Gland (3rd EYE) [VIDEO]

http://www.secretsofthefed.com/how-to-decalcify-your-pineal-gland-3rd-eye-video

DIY GOODNESS HERE: http://pinterest.com/pin/245024035948354567/

The Best All Natural Homemade Floor Cleaner...
http://www.herbsandoilsworld.com/the-best-all-natural-homemade-floor-cleaner/

This natural floor cleaner will leave your floors clean, shiny and streak-free!

Click the link to find out how to make this simple cleaner

Illuminati Exposed (This is the resistance)

While Most of Americans Keep Sleeping the US Moves It's Pieces on the Global Chess Board in Preparation of WW3

With a large scale conflict with Russia and China seeming more and more inevitable and the world threatening collapse of the US dollar, a perfect storm nightmare scenario is starting to take shape for US citizens. Who will come to your aid if the economy collapses and all the American Troops are deployed to other countries fighting a massive war? The Department of Homeland Security? FEMA? The UN?

Slowly, but surely, steps are being taken that show the US Government is preparing for the United States to become a War Zone. The increase in Drone Zones, the purchase of massive amounts of ammunition by the DHS, the attempt to remove as many "Assault Weapons" from the hands of the people as possible, the ability of the President to assassinate US citizens on US soil without charge or oversight, the ability to arrest and indefinitely detain a...nyone who disagrees with the government without charge; none of this bodes well for the immediate future of US citizens.

The United States People are the biggest threat to the Illuminati. The United States was founded on principles that combat a ruling elite on every front of the war on tyranny and those principles have been passed down through the generations. For the Illuminati to win the end game, it must show to the world that democracy doesn't work, that an armed public means the death of children, that your neighbors can't be trusted, that the entire world is in chaos and "you need them to save you"; save you from a situation they themselves orchestrated.

The pieces are being moved, preparations are being made, lines in the sand are being drawn, several countries leaders confirm with public statements that escalation will lead to global nuclear war, and still the people sleep. The US is building it's military forces in key resource regions, Russia has moved nuclear missiles to Cuba, China is conducting nuclear weapon "practice runs" simulating an nuclear attack on the United States, Israel is attacking Syrian assets in an attempt to force retaliation and kick start the coming world war, and still the people sleep.

Will enough people wake up in time to stop a global conflict, or will they just hit the snooze button one more time to return to their dream that "everything's fine"?

4:30 Min Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs5ggOWo_4I&feature=share&list=UUEHsSWvrGVSIA63OV3J6vhA

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ACLU Launches Nationwide Police Militarization Investigation

ACLU Launches Nationwide Police Militarization Investigation

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Jean

by Radley Balko
Source: Huffington Post
Posted: 03/06/2013 8:38 am EST
Updated: 03/06/2013 9:20 am EST|
Thanks to M, whose comment when alerting me to this post serves to remind us all that a similar investigation by the ACLU in the late 1950’s led to the deconstruction of Jim Crow.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has launched a nationwide campaign to assess police militarization in the United States. Starting Wednesday, ACLU affiliates in 23 states are sending open records requests to hundreds of state and local police agencies requesting information about their SWAT teams, such as how often and for what reasons they’re deployed, what types of weapons they use, how often citizens are injured during SWAT raids, and how they’re funded. More affiliates may join the effort in the coming weeks.

Additionally, the affiliates will ask for information about drones, GPS tracking devices, how much military equipment the police agencies have obtained through programs run through the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, and how often and for what purpose state National Guards are participating in enforcement of drug laws.
“We’ve known for a while now that American neighborhoods are increasingly being policed by cops armed with the weapons and tactics of war,” said Kara Dansky, senior counsel at the ACLU’s Center for Justice, which is coordinating the investigation. “The aim of this investigation is to find out just how pervasive this is, and to what extent federal funding is incentivizing this trend.”
The militarization of America’s police forces has been going on for about a generation now. Former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates first conceived the idea of the SWAT team in the late 1960s, in response to the Watts riots and a few mass shooting incidents for which he thought the police were unprepared. Gates wanted an elite team of specialized cops similar to groups like the Army Rangers or Navy SEALs that could respond to riots, barricades, shootouts, or hostage-takings with more skill and precision than everyday patrol officers.
The concept caught on, particularly after a couple of high-profile, televised confrontations between Gates’ SWAT team and a Black Panther holdout in 1969, and then with the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1973. Given the rioting, protests, and general social unrest of the time, Gates’ idea quickly grew popular in law enforcement circles, particularly in cities worried about rioting and domestic terrorism.
From Gates’ lone team in LA, according to a New York Times investigation, the number of SWAT teams in the U.S. grew to 500 by 1975. By 1982, nearly 60 percent of American cities with 50,000 or more people had a SWAT team.
Throughout those early years, SWAT teams were generally used as Gates had intended. They deployed when there was a suspect, gunman or escaped fugitive who posed an immediate threat to the public, using force to defuse an already violent situation.
By 1995, however, nearly 90 percent of cities with 50,000 or more people had a SWAT team — and many had several, according to Peter Kraska, a criminologist at Eastern Kentucky University, who in the late 1990s conducted two highly publicized surveys of police departments across the country, and a follow-up survey several years later. Even in smaller towns — municipalities with 25,000 to 50,000 people — Kraska found that the number of SWAT teams increased by more than 300 percent between 1984 and 1995. By 2000, 75 percent of those towns also had their own SWAT team.
Kraska estimates that total number of SWAT raids in America jumped from just a few hundred per year in the 1970s, to a few thousand by the early 1980s, to around 50,000 by the mid-2000s.
The vast majority of those raids are to serve warrants on people suspected of nonviolent drug crimes. Police forces were no longer reserving SWAT teams and paramilitary tactics for events that presented an immediate threat to the public. They were now using them mostly as an investigative tool in drug cases, creating violent confrontations with people suspected of nonviolent, consensual crimes.
It was during the Reagan administration that the SWAT-ification of America really began to accelerate. Reagan (and a compliant Congress) passed policies encouraging cooperation and mutual training between the military and police agencies. The president set up joint task forces in which domestic cops and soldiers worked together on anti-drug operations. And, with some help from Congress, he nudged the Pentagon to start loaning or even giving surplus military gear to law enforcement agencies. Subsequent administrations continued all of these policies — and a number of new ones.
After Reagan, new federal policies provided yet more incentive for militarization. In 1988, Congress created the Byrne grant program, which gives money to local police departments and prosecutors for a number of different criminal justice purposes. But a large portion of Byrne grant money over the years has been earmarked for anti-drug policing. Competition among police agencies for the pool of cash has made anti-drug policing a high priority. And once there was federal cash available for drug busts, drug raids became more common.

Byrne grants also created and funded anti-narcotics multi-jurisdictional task forces. These roving teams of drug cops are often entirely funded with grants and through asset forfeiture, and usually don’t report to any single police agency. The poor incentives and lack of real accountability have produced some catastrophic results, like the mass drug raid debacles in Tulia and Hearne, Texas, in the late 1990s.

But politicians love the Byrne grant program. Congressmen get to put out press releases announcing the new half-million dollar grant they’ve just helped secure for the hometown police department. And everyone gets to look tough on crime.
During the Clinton administration, Congress passed what’s now known as the “1033 Program,” which formalized and streamlined the Reagan administration’s directive to the Pentagon to share surplus military gear with domestic police agencies. Since then, millions of pieces of military equipment designed for use on a battlefield have been transferred to local cops — SWAT teams and others — including machine guns, tanks, armored personnel carriers, helicopters, bayonets, and weapons that shoot .50-caliber ammunition. Clinton also created the “Troops to Cops” program, which offered grants to police departments who hired soldiers returning from battle, contributing even further to the militarization of the police force.
Even programs with noble aims have gone awry. Clinton also created the Community-Oriented Policing Services program (COPS), the aim of which was to promote a less confrontational style of policing. But subsequent investigations by publications in Portland, Ore., and Madison, Wis., showed that those grants often went to start or fund SWAT teams. In fact, in interviews with police chiefs as part of his study, Kraska found that many of them believed SWAT raids and militarized policing were perfectly consistent with a community policing approach to crime control.
There hasn’t been a major effort to quantify the militarization trend since Kraska’s studies in the late 1990s. That’s what the ACLU is hoping to do with this investigation.
“You may remember the story from late last year about Pargould, Arkansas, where the mayor and police chief announced that they were going to send the SWAT team out on routine patrols in ‘problem neighborhoods’ to stop and harass the people who lived in them. After the story made national news, they changed that policy. But how many places is this happening where it isn’t making news? That’s one of the things we’re hoping to find out,” Dansky said.
One problem the ACLU may run into is a lack of cooperation from the police agencies it’s investigating. Kraska said that when he conducted his surveys in the 1990s, police departments were forthcoming, and even boastful about their SWAT teams. “We had a really high response rate,” he said. “But when the reports came out and were critical, and the press coverage was critical, they stopped cooperating.” Kraska said the response rate for his follow-up survey dropped off, and that police agencies haven’t cooperated with subsequent similar efforts by other criminologists.

In 2009, Maryland passed a SWAT transparency law. It requires every police agency in the state with a SWAT team to provide data twice per year on the number of times the SWAT team is deployed, the reason for the deployment, whether any shots were fired, and whether the raid resulted in criminal charges. The effort to get the law passed was led by Cheye Calvo, the mayor of Berwyn Heights, Md., who was the victim of a highly publicized mistaken raid on his home in which a Prince George’s County SWAT team shot and killed his two black Labradors. The bill puts no restrictions on SWAT teams or how they’re used. Its only purpose is transparency. Still, it was vigorously opposed by every police agency in the state.

“This is one of the most intrusive things a government can do,” Calvo said. “These are government agents, breaking down your door, invading your home. And yet it’s all done in secret. In most cases, no one knows what criteria police are using when they decide how to serve a search warrant. There’s no transparency, there’s no oversight.”
“After the law was passed,” he continued, “we found out that there are ZIP codes in Maryland where every search warrant is served by a SWAT team. I mean, even if you don’t care about civil liberties, in some places less than half of these raids result in so much as a single arrest. So you’re conducting these dangerous, volatile raids, you’re terrifying people and putting them at risk, and you’re serving no law enforcement purpose.”
Neither Kraska nor Calvo are optimistic that the ACLU will get much cooperation. “I’d imagine they’ll mostly be declined,” Calvo said.
“My experience is that they’ll have a very difficult time getting comprehensive, forthright information,” Kraska said. “If the goal here is to impose some transparency, you have to understand, that’s not what the SWAT industry wants.”
Dansky said the ACLU is prepared to go to court to get access to the information it’s seeking. “We don’t expect we’ll need to for information on the equipment these police agencies have received from the Defense Department or Homeland Security,” she said. “But if we need to challenge these departments on the information about their SWAT teams, we’ll do that. And if these police agencies do refuse to release this public information to our affiliates, that in itself is something the public should know.”
The National Sheriffs Association and the National Association of Chiefs of Police did not respond to HuffPost requests for comment. But Mark Lomax, executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association — a trade association and lobbying group for SWAT teams — said he has no problem with releasing the information the ACLU is requesting.
“There’s nothing to hide here,” Lomax said. “The only stipulations I’d add is that I’d oppose releasing information about the specific tactics a police department uses. There also might be legal reasons for not releasing information — if cases are in litigation, for example. I’d also be concerned about how the data is used. You can make information like that say whatever you want it to. But in general I wouldn’t have a problem with making it available.”
It’s almost certain that if the police agencies cooperate, the ACLU will find that the militarization trend has accelerated since Kraska’s studies more than a decade ago. All of the policies, incentives and funding mechanisms that were driving the trend then are still in effect now. And most of them have grown in size and scope.
The George W. Bush administration actually began scaling down the Byrne and COPS programs in the early 2000s, part of a general strategy of leaving law enforcement to states and localities. But the Obama administration has since resurrected both programs. The Byrne program got a $2 billion surge in funding as part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, by far the largest budget in the program’s 25-year history. Obama also gave the COPS program $1.55 billion that same year, a 250 percent increase over its 2008 budget, and again the largest budget in the program’s history. Vice President Joe Biden had championed both programs during his time in the Senate.
The Pentagon’s 1033 program has also exploded under Obama. In the program’s monthly newsletter (Motto: “From Warfighter to Crimefighter”), its director announced in October 2011 that his office had given away a record $500 million in military gear in fiscal year 2011, which he noted, “passes the previous mark by several hundred million dollars.” He added, “I believe we can exceed that in FY 12.”

Then there are the Department of Homeland Security’s anti-terrorism grants. The Center for Investigative Reporting found in a 2011 investigation that since 2001, DHS has given out more than $34 billion in grants to police departments across the country, many of which have been used to purchase military-grade guns, tanks, armor, and armored personnel carriers. The grants have gone to such unlikely terrorism targets as Fargo, N.D.; Canyon County, Idaho; and Tuscaloosa, Ala.

In the tiny town of Keene, N.H.,, the citizens protested plans to purchase a Lenco Bearcat armored personnel carrier with a DHS grant. One resident told HuffPost last year, “Keene is a beautiful place. It’s gorgeous, and it’s safe, and we love it here. We just don’t want to live in the kind of place where there’s an armored personnel carrier parked outside of City Hall … It’s just not who we are.”

They succeeded only in delaying the purchase by a few months. Keene now has a Bearcat. To town officials, it was a no-brainer. Keene was getting a $400,000 vehicle from the federal government, essentially for free. Why wouldn’t it accept?
“From all indications, I would think the DHS grants and increased federal funding could only speed up the militarization process,” Kraska said. “And now you have an entire industry that has sprung up just to take advantage of those grants — and to lobby to make sure they keep coming.”
Like the Maryland law, the ACLU program is really only seeking information. Once it gets the information, Dansky said the organization will analyze the figures and recommend policies to minimize the effects of police militarization on civil liberties. “We’re also concerned that these tactics are disproportionately used against poor people, and in communities of color,” Dansky said. “And SWAT is really only part of it. The effects of militarization also happen beyond and outside of just an increase in SWAT deployments.”
Of course, you can always gather information showing a troubling rise in the use of military weapons and tactics among domestic police agencies, make sensible recommendations for reform, and get no interest at all from politicians and policymakers. Kraska’s studies in the late 1990s, and subsequent media reports, did nothing to stem the increased militarization of the police.
And in Maryland, the transparency law has shown that police departments in the state are using SWAT tactics in precisely the ways critics have claimed: to break into homes to serve warrants on people suspected of low-level drug crimes. Many times, they’re not even finding enough contraband to make an arrest. Yet there haven’t been any calls in the state to reform the way SWAT teams are used.

“I wish the ACLU success,” Calvo said. “And I suspect that once they force the police agencies to cooperate, they’ll find that this problem is even more dramatic and pronounced than most people know. But then the question is, now what? Even if you can show that people are being victimized and terrorized by these tactics — and to no good end — if no one cares, then what does it matter?”

My sense of this story is that people are going to care —and care a lot. . . ~J

HuffPost investigative reporter Radley Balko is author of the forthcoming bookRise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces.

https://jhaines6.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/aclu-launches-nationwide-police-militarization-investigation/