‘We will not obey’: Civil disobedience if Supreme Court legalizes gay marriage

“We will not obey.”

That’s the blunt warning a group of prominent religious leaders is sending to the Supreme Court of the United States as they consider same-sex marriage.

“We respectfully warn the Supreme Court not to cross that line,” read a document titled, Pledge in Solidarity to Defend Marriage. “We stand united together in defense of marriage. Make no mistake about our resolve.”

“While there are many things we can endure, redefining marriage is so fundamental to the natural order and the common good that this is the line we must draw and one we cannot and will not cross,” the pledge states.

The signees are a who’s who of religious leaders including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, National Religious Broadcasters president Jerry Johnson, Pastor John Hagee, and Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse.


The pledge was co-drafted by Deacon Keith Fournier, a Catholic deacon, and Mat Staver, the founder of Liberty Counsel. Also involved in the document were Rick Scarborough, the president of Vision America Action and James Dobson, the founder of Family Talk Radio.

“We’re sending a warning to the Supreme Court and frankly any court that crosses the line on the issue of marriage,” Staver told me.

He said that once same-sex marriage is elevated to the level of protected status – it will transform the face of society and will result in the “beginning of the end of Western Civilization.”

“You are essentially saying that boys and girls don’t need moms and dads – that moms and dads are irrelevant,” Staver said. “Gender becomes pointless when government adopts same-sex marriage. It creates a genderless relationship out of a very gender-specific relationship. It says that it doesn’t matter and that two moms or two dads are absolutely equivalent to a mom and a dad.”

Dobson said the legalization of same-sex marriage could fracture the nation.

“The institution of marriage is fundamental and it must be defended,” he told me. “It’s the foundation for the entire culture. It’s been in existence for 5,000 years. If you weaken it or if you undermine it – the entire superstructure can come down. We see it as that important.”

And that means the possibility of Christians – people of faith – engaging in acts of civil disobedience.

“Yes, I’m talking about civil disobedience,” Staver said. “I’m talking about resistance and I’m talking about peaceful resistance against unjust laws and unjust rulings.”

That’s quite a shocking statement. So I asked Mr. Staver to clarify his remarks.

“I’m calling for people to not recognize the legitimacy of that ruling because it’s not grounded in the Rule of Law,” he told me. “They need to resist that ruling in every way possible. In a peaceful way – they need to resist it as much as Martin Luther King, Jr. resisted unjust laws in his time.”

Scarborough said the pledge was meant to be forthright and clear.

“We’re facing a real Constitutional crisis if the Supreme Court rules adversely from our perspective on same-sex marriage,” he told me. For me there’s no option. I’m going to choose to serve the Lord. And I think that thousands of other pastors will take that position and hundreds of thousands – if not millions of Christians.”

Scarborough is urging pastors across the nation to sign the pledge.

He referenced the “outrageous penalties” being assessed against people of faith simply because they don’t want to participate in a same-sex union.

An Oregon bakery is facing a $135,000 fine for refusing to make a cake for a lesbian wedding and a Washington State florist faces fines for refusing to participate in a gay wedding.

“Christians are being declared the lawbreakers when we are simply living by what we have always believed, and by a set of laws that the culture historically has agreed to,” he said. “Right now the courts are changing the playing field and declaring that what the natural eye can see and natural law reveals is not truth. ... What will we do, and how will we respond?”

Dobson said there’s no doubt that LGBT activists are targeting Christian business owners.

“For about 50 years the homosexual community has had as its goal to change the culture, to change the ideology and if necessary – to force people who don’t agree by use of the courts,” Dobson told me. “I think there’s a collision here and we can all see it and where it’s going to go is anybody’s guess – but it is serious.”

To be clear – the men and women who courageously signed this pledge did so knowing the hell storm that is about to be unleashed on them – and their families.

“We have no choice,” Staver told me. “We cannot compromise our clear biblical convictions, our religious convictions.

Credit to Foxnews

We Are Moving Rapidly Toward the Criminalization of Christianity

The persecution of Christians because of their moral opposition to homosexual behavior and so-called gay marriage is on the rise in America, to the point where “Christian convictions are under attack as never before” and “we are moving rapidly toward the criminalization of Christianity,” said former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who is also an ordained Southern Baptist minister.

During an Apr. 23 conference call with conservative pastors arranged by the Family Research Council (FRC), Gov. Huckabee and FRC President Tony Perkins talked about persecution of Christians in the U.S. military, in the business world, and how homosexuality as a “civil right” and same-sex marriage are affecting the social and legal climate.

“I think it’s fair to say that Christian convictions are under attack as never before, not just in our lifetime, but never before in the history of this great republic,” said Huckabee, who was governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007.

“We are moving rapidly toward the criminalization of Christianity – where it’s not simply going to be that a church’s tax-exempt status is threatened,” he said. “But, more importantly, where criminal charges for a person who defies a new government norm, a new legal norm and that is a homosexual orientation becomes a protected class.”






(AP Photo)



“I want to say that across the country there are numerous cases, whether it’s the chaplains in the military being told to put their Bibles away, to no longer pray in Jesus’ name,” said Huckabee. “Not to counsel people who are in a homosexual lifestyle. Not to counsel them to try to seek assistance for that but rather to have affirmed that lifestyle as being normal and appropriate.”


In addition, many judges and lawmakers, including “conservative office holders” are ducking the issue, he said.


“We’re continually seeing the courts overturn marriage amendments in states, which is very disturbing because, a lot of the time, elected officials are capitulating immediately when a court makes a decision,” said Huckabee. “And we’re seeing many people, including many politicians, simply surrender and just wave the white flag because I’m convinced that there are many people who just don’t want to take this issue on.”


“It makes you, in essence, a pariah within the culture of the ruling class,” said Huckabee. “And for politicians, I can assure you that it makes you a pariah among the donor class. And even, supposedly, conservative donors and conservative office holders are running away from the issue.”






Melissa and Aaron Klein, who are Christians and ran their own bakery business in Oregon, Sweet Cakes, were found guilty of discrimination for declining to make a cake for a homosexual wedding, which violated their religious beliefs, and then were fined $135,000 for their crime. They closed their business and private donors are contributing to help them pay the steep fine. (Photo: Samaritan's Purse.)



But while civil leaders may be weak and are running form the battle, Christian pastors cannot retreat, said the governor, because biblical marriage between one man and one woman was established by God. It cannot be compromised or redefined.


“But the last backstop to stand for biblical marriage has to be the pastors in our pulpits,” said Huckabee. “It has to be those who say we cannot capitulate on this issue because it’s not our issue. It’s God’s issue. We didn’t come up with the design of marriage, God did. It’s biblical.”


He continued, “We can negotiate many things that are clearly political and don’t have biblical authority behind them, but I know that I feel very strongly – not just as a believer but also as someone who’s held public office – that when there is a clash between one’s biblical convictions and principles and the law, one has to go along with the biblical principle because they’re going to outlast a human-made law that may, in fact, get overturned.”


Credit to CNS

Antarctica’s creepy ‘Blood Falls’

The McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica are some of the most extreme desert regions on the planet. But new research indicates that the region may actually be full of salty, extremely cold groundwater. The water may even connect surrounding lakes into a massive network, and it probably hosts extreme microbial life.

The findings were reported Tuesday in Nature Communications.

Despite McMurdo's apparent dryness on the surface, it's always hinted at something more: The region is home to the magnificently creepy Blood Falls, a red ooze that shines bright against the otherwise desolate surface. For a while scientists believed that red algae gave this mysterious, bloody ooze its vibrant color. But even though iron oxide is responsible for the hue, analysis has shown that the feature does contain strange bacterial life.

Blood Falls seeps from the end of the Taylor Glacier into Lake Bonney. The tent at theleft provides a sense of scale for just how big the phenomenon is. (Peter Rejcek, National Science Foundation)

Credit to Washington Post

What They Won't Tell You About Baltimore Riots

THE DUAL PURPOSE OF JADE HELM IS REVEALED

Sometimes life just hands us the answer that we are looking for. We might call this a word of knowledge, a prophecy or a sudden moment of insight. Regardless of what we call the event, the message that we receive is so very overwhelming that we have inner awareness that this is the truth. I recently had my moment of sudden clarity and with all the information that I have collected on Jade Helm, I instantly understood why and where these events are taking us unless we have divine intervention.

Rick Joyner’s Prophetic Dream

Back in August of 2014, Rick Joyner shared a prophetic dream and he shared the content of that dream on his broadcast. Joyner told of ISIS flooding across the U.S. border wreaking mayhem and devastation. ISIS committed the same types of ISIS atrocities as we have seen in Syria and Iraq, only worse. Joyner stated that it is was clear that the federal government was responsible for the unfolding holocaust in the Southwest because of this administration’s nonexistent border policies. As a result, the dream foretold how the people of the United States will come to look at the federal government as being complicit for what was happening to American citizens at the hands of ISIS and its allies.

Joyner shared that the people of the country formed militias in order to fight back. In a stunning development, Joyner saw how the people wanted to hunt down employees from the federal government and perform the same atrocities to them as what was happening to Americans at the hands of ISIS.

The American People and the States vs. ISIS and Friends

Joyner shared that the states will refuse to cooperate with the federal government and hold them accountable and that the states and citizen militias will be in open rebellion against this federal tyranny.

It will not be safe to be a federal official during this time, according to Joyner. He clearly stated that government officials will begin to go into hiding. This is exactly what we see with the reopening of Cheyenne Mountain where the elite have a place to run to. The Bush family, almost a decade ago purchased a large piece of property in Paraguay. What do they know that most of us do not yet know? Even state officials are becoming leery. Sounding like the weak excuses given for closing Walmarts from around the country. Governor Fallin of Oklahoma is vacating the Governor’s mansion. Will this make it harder for angry Americans to find her in response to her cooperation with the federal government? In the upcoming weeks, I look for this propensity for public officials to be less accessible to increase to the point where it will be obvious to all.

Hell on Earth

Rick Joyner believes that the bowels of hell have opened up. He stated that ISIS was not acting alone. This is very consistent with what we know about ISIS as they are aligned with the Mexican drug cartels who, in turn are aligned with Hamas, Hezbollah,  the Sanchez Peredes Cartel, the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda. Since Hamas and Hezbollah run guns for the Russians, I am beginning to suspect that the Russians are playing their hand in this as well. Back in August of 2014, Joyner had no way of knowing how accurate this would prove to be.

Joyner’s Description of the ISIS Threat Is Stunning In Its Accuracy

ISIS base camp near El Paso.

I am awestruck by Joyner’s description of the ISIS threat given what we know about the ISIS base camp 8 miles from El Paso, TX and this fact was unknown to him at the time of the publication. Recently, the SGT Report interviewed  Garcia from Judicial Watch. Judicial Watch identifed an ISIS base camp. The documentation is overwhelming and double sourced. How many other camps are there? They are poised and awaiting the right moment.

When Joyner published this video, featured below, Jade Helm was unknown to all of us. However, if we look at the original premises behind Jade Helm 15, this is what I would expect a federal government to do when they are fighting for survival as Jade Helm is preparing to do the following:

1. Declare certain states to hostile states (i.e. Texas, Utah and part of Southern California).

2. The extraction of potential dissident leadership. Hence, we see the practicing of infiltration techniques, extraction drills and transport to a detention facility (Ft. Lauderdale, FL. on March 27, 2015).

3. Possess the ability to isolate certain communities. This would be the role of the 82nd Airborne. This is also why we are witnessing the movement of massive amounts of military equipment. Further, the Canadians and the Amercians are drilling along the Canadian border in preparation for the roll-out of Jade Helm.

4. The Walmarts are being seized and set up to impose forced detention

Seven States?

Here is Rich Joyner’s video presentation of his dream.

If this did not send chills up and down your spine, nothing will.

Lightening Strikes Twice

The Jade Helm logo clearly means something significant as to the purpose of the drill. There have been many guesses but nothing resonated with me until I watched this video. Jade Helm is about establishing concentration camps on American soil.

I was watching the following video as I was waiting for my son in a parking lot and did not expect there to be any significant information coming from the video. About half way through the presentation, the hair on the back of my neck stood up as the narrator showed wooden shoes worn by the Jews in the concentration camps. The wooden shoes were given to the Jews assigned to slave labor…. By this point, I was having a physical reaction to what I was watching because Executive Order 13603 calls for the use of slave labor in which the conscripts are called “consultants” and consultants are not paid. The video brought this all together when the faint image of the shoe, on the Jade Helm logo was a precise match to the old wooden shoes given to the enslaved Jews working as slave laborers.

Here is the video from Nathan Leal:

When I write articles, I like to overwhelm the reader with documentation which demonstrates the true nature of an event, the character of a person, or the trend curve for what we are presently observing. Today’s article is not a reflection of any of these approaches. I believe that I was given a word of knowledge which will assist me in my future investigations and I am sharing this with my readers.

 Conclusion

Over the course of the past month, I have uncovered massive amounts of information regarding Jade Helm. I am still uncovering information which I willbe  revealing tomorrow. However, in a period of one hour, it was revealed to me what is coming and what the true purpose of Jade Helm truly is.

I have concluded that ISIS will await a moment of opportunity and then wreak havoc across the Southwest and points beyond. The moment of opportunity will either be an economic collapse or a series of false flag events. I fear that this time is almost upon us. I have also concluded that the Jade Helm logo as deciphered in the above video speaks to the absolute enslavement of the American people as Jade Helm is a proactive attempt by the elite to head off a civil war which would occur in response to the aiding and abetting that the federal government has committed against the American people on behalf of an ISIS incursion.

Now that we know what is coming, what are we going to do about it? Before deciding, you may wish to read my future article on the Midland Walmart and what we are learning. These findings.

Credit to Common Sense

Race Riots Will be Used To Bring In Martial Law

12 Unanswered Questions About The Baltimore Riots That They Don’t Want Us To Ask

Why did the Baltimore riots seem like they were perfectly staged to be a television event?  Images of police vehicles burning made for great television all over the planet, but why were there abandoned police vehicles sitting right in the middle of the riot zones without any police officers around them in the first place?  Why was the decision made ahead of time to set a curfew for Tuesday night and not for Monday night?  And why are Baltimore police officers claiming that they were ordered to “stand down” and not intervene as dozens of shops, businesses and homes went up in flames?  Yes, the anger over the death of Freddie Gray is very real.  Police brutality has been a major problem in Baltimore and much of the rest of the nation for many years.  But could it be possible that the anger that the people of Baltimore are feeling is being channeled and manipulated for other purposes?  The following are 12 unanswered questions about the Baltimore riots that they don’t want us to ask…

#1 Why are dozens of social media accounts that were linked to violence in Ferguson now trying to stir up violence in Baltimore?…

The data mining firm that found between 20 and 50 social media accounts in Baltimore linked to the violence in Ferguson, Mo. is now reporting a spike in message traffic in Washington D.C., Philadelphia and New York City, with “protesters” trying to get rides to Baltimore for Tuesday night.

The firm, which asked to remain anonymous because it does government work, said some of the suspect social media accounts in Baltimore are sending messages to incite violence. While it is possible to spoof an account, to make it look like someone is one place and really is in another, that does not fully explain the high numbers.

#2 Who was behind the aggressive social media campaign to organize a “purge” that would start at the Mondawmin Mall at precisely 3 PM on Monday afternoon?…

The spark that ignited Monday’s pandemonium probably started with high school students on social media, who were discussing a “purge” — a reference to a film in which laws are suspended.

Many people knew “very early on” that there was “a lot of energy behind this purge movement,” Baltimore City Councilman Nick Mosby told CNN on Tuesday. “It was a metaphor for, ‘Let’s go out and make trouble.'”

#3 Even though authorities had “credible intelligence” that gangs would be specifically targeting police officers on Monday, why weren’t they more prepared?  On Tuesday, the captain of the Baltimore police tried to make us believe that they weren’t prepared because they were only anticipating a confrontation with “high schoolers”…

Police Capt. John Kowalczyk said the relatively light initial police presence was because authorities were preparing for a protest of high schoolers. A heavy police presence and automatic weapons would not have been appropriate, he said. Kowalczyk said police made more than 200 arrests — only 34 of them juveniles.

#4 Where were the Baltimore police on Monday afternoon when the riots exploded?  During the rioting, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said that the “disappearance of the police for hours this afternoon is something that is going to haunt this city for decades”.

#5 Why are police officers in Baltimore claiming that they were instructed to “stand down” during the rioting on Monday afternoon?…

Police officers in Baltimore reportedly told journalists that they were ordered by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake not to stop looters during yesterday’s riots.

Rawlings-Blake, who waited 5 hours before even making a statement on the unrest, was already under intense critcism for saying that violent mobs were provided with “space” to “destroy” during riots which took place on Saturday.

One Baltimore shopkeeper said that he actually called the police 50 times asking for help and never got any assistance at all.  Other business owners reported similar results.  This is so similar to what we saw back during the Ferguson riots.

#6 Why was the decision made ahead of time to set a curfew on Tuesday night but not on Monday night?

#7 Why were so many police vehicles conveniently parked along the street in areas where the worst violence happened?  After the destruction of a number of police vehicles on Saturday night, the Baltimore police had to know that they were prime targets.  So why were there even more police vehicles available for rioters to destroy on Monday?  And where were the cops that should have been protecting those vehicles?

#8 Why is an organization funded by George Soros stirring up emotions against the police in Baltimore?

#9 Why is CNN bringing on “commentators” that are promoting violence in Baltimore?…

Marc Lamont Hill, a Morehouse College professor and regular CNN commentator, embraced radical violence in the streets during an interview Monday on CNN.

“There shouldn’t be calm tonight,” Hill told CNN host Don Lemon as riots raged in the streets of Baltimore.

“Black people are dying in the streets. We’ve been dying in the streets for months, years, decades, centuries. I think there can be resistance to oppression.”

#10 Why did Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake initially tell reporters that a decision was made on Saturday to give “those who wished to destroy space to do that”?

#11 Why were rioters given hours to cause mayhem before a state of emergency was finally declared on Monday?  Maryland Governor Larry Hogan seems to think that Mayor Rawlings-Blake waited far too long to declare a state of emergency.  Just check out what he told one reporter…

I‘ve been in daily communication with the mayor and others in the city and our entire team has been involved from day one. Frankly, this was a Baltimore city situation. Baltimore city was in charge. When the mayor called me, which quite frankly we were glad that she finally did, instantly we signed the executive order. We already had our entire team prepared.

We were all in a command center and second floor of the state house in constant communication and we were trying to get in touch with the mayor for quite some time. She finally made that call and we immediately took action. 

#12 Does the fact that the mayor of Baltimore has very close ties to the Obama administration have anything to do with how events unfolded during the riots?  The following is from Infowars.com…

Rawlings-Blake was one of three mayors who provided broad input into President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, which advocates the federalization of police departments across the country by forcing them to adhere to stricter federal requirements when they receive funding.

“The federal government can be a strong partner in our efforts in build better relationships between the police and community,” she said inwritten testimony before the task force.

That would explain her inaction to stop the rioting when it began: by allowing it to spiral out of control, the mayor and her friends at the Justice Dept. could use the unrest to justify the expansion of federal power into local law enforcement, which would also allow her to receive more funding.

And why did it take Barack Obama several days to publicly condemn the violence in Baltimore?  Why didn’t he stand up and say something on Monday when the riots were at their peak?

Something doesn’t smell right about all of this.  Much of the violence could have been prevented if things had been handled differently.

In the end, who is going to get hurt the most by all of this?  It will be the African-American communities in the heart of Baltimore that are already suffering with extremely high levels of unemployment and poverty.

I wish that we could all just learn to come together and love one another.  Over the past few days, I have seen a whole lot of “us vs. them” talk coming from all quarters.  This kind of talk is only going to reinforce the cycle of mistrust and violence.

Sadly, I believe that this is just the beginning of what is coming to America.  The following are some tweets that show the mayhem and destruction that we have been witnessing in Baltimore the past few days…

So what do you think about what has been going on in Baltimore? Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below…

Credit to Economic Collapse

Texas Gov. To Send State Guard To Monitor Jade Helm Exercise

Finland fires warning shots at 'foreign submarine' near Helsinki

Finland has fired warning shots at a suspected foreign submarine off the coast of Helsinki in the early hours of Tuesday morning, amid growing military tensions with neighbouring Russia.

Carl Haglund, Finland's defence minister, did not say whether Russia was involved, but the incident was reminiscent of a Swedish hunt for a foreign submarine in its waters last October that many thought to be Russian.

Mr Haglund told Finnish media that the target has likely left the area, adding that Finland has rarely used such warning charges.

"We strongly suspect that there has been underwater activity that does not belong there. Of course it is always serious if our territorial waters have been violated," Mr Haglund told Finnish news agency STT.

"The bombs are not intended to damage the target, the purpose is to let the target know that it has been noticed," Commodore Olavi Jantunen told Helsingin Sanomat newspaper.

The navy said it noticed an underwater target on Monday and again on Tuesday morning and dropped depth charges the size of grenades.

"During surveillance of [Finland's] territorial integrity, the navy detected a possible underwater object at midday (0900 GMT) on April 27, 2015, within Finland's territorial waters close to the border outside Helsinki," the defence ministry said in a statement.

A second sighting was made during the night and "a warning was given with light depth charges at three in the morning," the ministry added.

No further sightings were reported after the warning shots and no details have been given of the type of vessel that was detected.

The incident comes during an spike in Russian military activity in the Baltic which has prompted non-aligned Finland to announce closer military cooperation with its Nordic neighbours - including Nato members Norway and Denmark.

Regional tensions were reflected earlier in April after an unprecedented hawkish joint statement by Nordic countries - Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Iceland - that directly cited the Russian "challenge" as grounds to increase defence cooperation.

Moscow retorted immediately, saying moves by Finland and Sweden towards closer ties with NATO were of "special concern".

Finland shares a 830-mile border with Russia, and has aimed to maintain good relations with its powerful neighbour since the end of World War II.

In October, Sweden's armed forces hunted unsuccessfully for a week for what they believed to be a foreign submarine in waters close to the capital Stockholm, after several observations were made.

Credit to The Telegraph

BALTIMORE RIOTS: What You Need to Know

Turning America Into A Battlefield: A Blueprint For Locking Down The Nation

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961

A standing army - something that propelled the early colonists into revolution - strips the American people of any vestige of freedom. How can there be any semblance of freedom when there are tanks in the streets, military encampments in cities, Blackhawk helicopters and armed drones patrolling overhead?

It was for this reason that those who established America vested control of the military in a civilian government, with a civilian commander-in-chief. They did not want a military government, ruled by force. Rather, they opted for a republic bound by the rule of law: the U.S. Constitution.

Unfortunately, with the Constitution under constant attack, the military’s power, influence and authority have grown dramatically. Even the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which makes it a crime for the government to use the military to carry out arrests, searches, seizure of evidence and other activities normally handled by a civilian police force, has been weakened by both Barack Obama and George W. Bush, who ushered in exemptions allowing troops to deploy domestically and arrest civilians in the wake of alleged terrorist acts.

Now we find ourselves struggling to retain some semblance of freedom in the face of police and law enforcement agencies that look and act like the military and have just as little regard for the Fourth Amendment, laws such as the NDAA that allow the military to arrest and indefinitely detain American citizens, and military drills that acclimate the American people to the sight of armored tanks in the streets, military encampments in cities, and combat aircraft patrolling overhead.

Making matters worse, we find out that the military plans to use southwestern states as staging grounds for guerilla warfare drills in which highly-trained military troops equipped with all manner of weapons turn American towns and cities in quasi-battlefields. Why? As they tell us, it’s so that special operations forces can get “realistic military training” in “hostile” territory.

They’ve even got a name for the exercise: Jade Helm 15.

Whether or not Americans have anything to fear from Jade Helm 15, a covert, multi-agency, multi-state, eight-week military training exercise set to take place this summer from July 15 through Sept. 15, remains to be seen.

Insisting that there’s nothing to be alarmed about, the Washington Posttook great pains to point out that these military exercises on American soil are nothing new. For instance, there was Operation Bold Alligator, in which in which thousands of Marines and sailors carried out amphibious exercises against “insurgent” forces in Georgia and Florida. Operation Robin Sage had Green Beret soldiers engaging in guerrilla warfare in North Carolina. And Operation Derna Bridge sends Marine special forces into parts of South Carolina and the National Forest.

Yet if Americans are uneasy about this summer’s planned Jade Helm 15 military exercises, they have every right to be.

After all, haven’t we been urged time and time again to just “trust” the government to respect our rights and abide by the rule of law only to find that, in fact, our rights were being plundered and the Constitution disregarded at every turn?

Let’s assume, for the moment, that Jade Helm 15 is not a thinly veiled military plot to take over the country lifted straight out of director John Frankenheimer’s 1964 political thriller Seven Days in May, as some fear, but is merely a “routine” exercise for troops, albeit a blatantly intimidating flexing of the military’s muscles.

The problem arises when you start to add Jade Helm onto the list of other troubling developments that have taken place over the past 30 years or more: the expansion of the military industrial complex and its influence in Washington DC, the rampant surveillance, the corporate-funded elections and revolving door between lobbyists and elected officials, the militarized police, the loss of our freedoms, the injustice of the courts, the privatized prisons, the school lockdowns, the roadside strip searches, the military drills on domestic soil, the fusion centers and the simultaneous fusing of every branch of law enforcement (federal, state and local), the stockpiling of ammunition by various government agencies, the active shooter drills that are indistinguishable from actual crises, the economy flirting with near collapse, etc.

Suddenly, the overall picture seems that much more sinister.Clearly, as I point out in my new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, there’s a larger agenda at work here.

Seven years ago, the U.S. Army War College issued a report calling on the military to be prepared should they need to put down civil unrest within the country. Summarizing the report, investigative journalist Chris Hedges declared, “The military must be prepared, the document warned, for a ‘violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States,’ which could be provoked by ‘unforeseen economic collapse,’ ‘purposeful domestic resistance,’ ‘pervasive public health emergencies’ or ‘loss of functioning political and legal order.’ The ‘widespread civil violence,’ the document said, ‘would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security.’”

At what point will all of the government’s carefully drawn plans for dealing with civil unrest, “homegrown” terrorism and targeting pre-crime become a unified blueprint for locking down the nation?

For instance, what’s the rationale behind turning government agencies into military outposts? There has been a notable buildup in recent years of SWAT teams within non-security-related federal agencies such as Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Education Department. As of 2008, “73 federal law enforcement agencies… [employ] approximately 120,000 armed full-time on-duty officers with arrest authority.” Four-fifths of those officers are under the command of either the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or the Department of Justice.

What’s with all of the government agencies stockpiling hollow point bullets? For example, why does the Department of Agriculture need .40 caliber semiautomatic submachine guns and 320,000 rounds of hollow point bullets? For that matter, why do its agents need ballistic vests and body armor?

Why does the Postal Service need “assorted small arms ammunition”? Why did the DHS purchase “1.6 billion rounds of hollow-point ammunition, along with 7,000 fully-automatic 5.56x45mm NATO ‘personal defense weapons’ plus a huge stash of 30-round high-capacity magazines”? That’s in addition to the FBI’s request for 100 million hollow-point rounds. The Department of Education,IRS, the Social Security Administration, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the National Weather Service, are also among the federal agencies which have taken to purchasing ammunition and weaponry in bulk.

Why is the federal government distributing obscene amounts of military equipment, weapons and ammunition to police departments around the country? And why is DHS acquiring more than 2,500 Mine-Resistant Armored Protection (MRAP) vehicles, only to pass them around to local police departments across the country? According to the New York Times:

[A]s President Obama ushers in the end of what he called America’s “long season of war,” the former tools of combat — M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers and more — areending up in local police departments, often with little public notice. During the Obama administration, according to Pentagon data, police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft. The equipment has been added to the armories of police departments that already look and act like military units.

Why is the military partnering with local police to conduct training drills around the country? And what exactly are they training for? In Richland, South Carolina, for instance, U.S. army special forces participated in joint and secretive exercises and training with local deputies. The public was disallowed from obtaining any information about the purpose of the drills, other than being told that they might be loud and to not be alarmed. The Army and DHS also carried out similar drills and maneuvers involving Black Hawk helicopters in Texas, Florida, and other locations throughout the U.S., ostensibly in order to provide local police with “realistic” urban training.

What is being done to protect the American populace from the threat of military arms and forces, including unarmed drones, being used against them? Policy analysts point to Directive No. 3025.18, “Defense Support of Civil Authorities” (issued on Dec. 29, 2010), as justification for the government’s use of military force to put down civil unrest within the United States.

Why is FEMA stockpiling massive quantities of emergency supplies? On January 10, 2014, FEMA made a statement enlisting the service of contractors who could “supply medical biohazard disposal capabilities and 40 yard dumpsters to 1,000 tent hospitals across the United States; all required on 24-48 hour notice.” This coincides with other medical requests seeking massive amounts of supplies, such as “31,000,000 flu vaccinations,” “100,000 each of winter shirts and pants and the same for summer” and other goods and services requests as well like tarps, manufactured housing units, and beverages. And why does the TSA need $21,000 worth of potassium chlorate, a chemical compound often used in explosives?

Why is the Pentagon continuing to purchase mass amounts of ammunition while at the same time preparing to destroy more than $1 billion worth of bullets and missilesthat are still viable?

Moreover, what is really being done to hold the Pentagon accountable for its doctored ledgers, fraud, waste and mismanagement, which has cost the taxpayer trillions of dollars? According to Reuters, “The Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not complied with a law that requires annual audits of all government departments. That means that the $8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996, the first year it was supposed to be audited, has never been accounted for. That sum exceeds the value of China's economic output.”

Given the similarities between the government’s Live Active Shooter Drill training exercises, carried out at schools, in shopping malls, and on public transit, which can and do fool law enforcement officials, students, teachers and bystanders into thinking it’s a real crisis, how much of what is being passed off as real is, in fact, being staged by DHS for the “benefit” of training law enforcement, leaving us none the wiser? These training exercises come complete with their own set ofprofessionally trained Crisis Actors playing the parts of shooters, bystanders and victims in order to help schools and first responders create realistic drills, full-scale exercises, high-fidelity simulations, and interactive 3D films.

Given that Americans are 110 times more likely to die of foodborne illness than in a terrorist attack, why is the government spending trillions of dollars on “national security”? How exactly is the $75 billion given to various intelligence agencies annually to keep us “safe” being spent? And why is the DHS giving away millions of dollars’ worth of federal security grants to states that federal intelligence agencies ruled have “no specific foreign or domestic terrorism threat”?

Why is the government amassing names and information on Americans considered to be threats to the nation, and what criteria is the government using for this database? Keep in mind that this personal information is being acquired and kept without warrant or court order. It’s been suggested that in the event of nuclear war, the destruction of the U.S. Government, and the declaration of martial law, this Main Core database, which as of 2008 contained some 8 million names of Americans, would be used by military officials to locate and round up Americans seen as threats to national security, a program to be carried about by the Army and FEMA.

Taken individually, these questions are alarming enough. But put them together and they add up to the kind of trouble that the American founding fathers not only warned against but from which they fought to free themselves.

Indeed, when viewed collectively, they leave one wondering what exactly the U.S. government is preparing for and whether American citizens shouldn’t be preparing, as well, for that eventuality when our so-called “government of the people, by the people, for the people” is no longer answerable to “we the people.”

Credit to Zero Hedge