Signs That ‘The Elites’ Are Feverishly Preparing For Something Big

Submitted by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

What in the world are the elite up to?  In recent days, we have learned that the New York Fed is moving a lot of operations to Chicago because of concerns about what a “natural disaster” could do, the federal government is buying 62 million rounds of ammunition commonly used in AR-15 semi-automatic rifles for “training” purposes, and NORAD is moving back into Cheyenne Mountain because it is “EMP-hardened”.  In addition, government authorities have scheduled a whole host of unusual “training exercises” all over the nation.  So are the elite doing all of this in order to prepare for something really BIG, or should we just chalk up all of this strange activity to rampant government paranoia?

First, let’s talk about what the New York Fed has been doing.  What kind of natural disaster would be bad enough to completely shut down the operations of the New York Federal Reserve Bank?  It would have to be something very unusual, and apparently the New York Fed is very concerned that such an event could happen.  According to Reuters, the New York Fed has been transferring personnel to Chicago and building up its satellite office there just in case a “natural disaster” makes it impossible for normal operations to continue in New York…

The New York branch of the U.S. Federal Reserve, wary that a natural disaster or other eventuality could shut down its market operations as it approaches an interest rate hike, has added staff and bulked up its satellite office in Chicago.

 

Some market technicians have transferred from New York and others were hired at the office housed in the Chicago Fed, according to several people familiar with the build-out that began about two years ago, after Hurricane Sandy struck Manhattan.

 

Officials believe the Chicago staffers can now handle all of the market operations that are done daily out of the New York Fed, which is the U.S. central bank’s main conduit to Wall Street.

This seems very odd.

In all of U.S. history, there has never been a natural disaster in New York City that would have been bad enough to totally shut down the operations of the New York Fed for an extended period of time.

So why are they so concerned?

Well, I can think of one event that could cause such a disruption…

An east coast tsunami.

This is something that I wrote about in this article.  But other than that, it is hard to imagine a natural disaster which could shut down the New York Fed for an extended period of time.

Another very odd thing that we learned about this week is an absolutely massive purchase by the government of ammunition that is commonly used in AR-15 semi-automatic rifles.  The following comes from an article by Paul Joseph Watson

The Department of Homeland Security is set to purchase over 62 million rounds of ammo typically used in AR-15 semi-automatic rifles, just weeks after the ATF was forced to back down on a ban on M855 bullets.

A posting on FedBizOpps.gov this week reveals that the DHS is looking to contract with a company to provide 12.6 million rounds of .223 Remington ammunition per year for a period of five years – totaling 62.5 million bullets.

The solicitation explains that the purchase is intended, “to achieve price savings over the current .223 Rem duty ammunition.” The bullets will be used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents nationwide for “training” purposes.

Why in the world would U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents nationwide need such a massive amount of ammunition for “training” purposes?

That seems very odd.

Something else that seems very strange is the fact that NORAD is moving back into Cheyenne mountain after all these years…

It shut down nearly ten years ago as the threat from Russia seemed to subside, but this week the Pentagon announced that Cheyenne Mountain will once again be home to the most advanced tracking and communications equipment in the United States military.

 

The shift to the Cheyenne Mountain base in Colorado is designed to safeguard the command’s sensitive sensors and servers from a potential electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack, military officers said.

 

The Pentagon last week announced a $700 million contract with Raytheon Corporation to oversee the work for North American Aerospace Command (NORAD) and US Northern Command.

 

Admiral William Gortney, head of NORAD and Northern Command, said that ‘because of the very nature of the way that Cheyenne Mountain’s built, it’s EMP-hardened.’

So the U.S. military is concerned about an EMP attack all of a sudden?

Have they been reading The Economic Collapse Blog?

Spending 700 million dollars to move back inside a mountain just because it is “EMP-hardened” is a pretty big deal.

Do they know something that we don’t?

On top of everything else, we have been seeing lots of strange “training exercises” being scheduled all over the nation recently.

For example, the following is from a news story about one being held in Iowa

This week you may notice extra emergency vehicles and public safety officers running around in tactical gear, Hazmat suits, and bomb suits. It’s a part of a statewide drill Des Moines is hosting Tuesday and Wednesday to prepare emergency personnel for dealing with weapons of mass destruction.

 

Brian O’Keefe with the Des Moines Fire Department said emergency officials in Iowa need to be prepared for anything.

 

“You know we’re number one seed producer with corn and soy, chicken embryo development, middle of the country heartland. So I’m sure all states access it. But we’re a target like any other large community,” said O’Keefe.

And here is an excerpt form a news story about an exercise known as “Northern Exposure” that is being held in Michigan

The National Guard event is called Northern Exposure, which is taking place across Michigan during the month of June, he said. According to the Michigan National Guard website, Northern Exposure is “a major exercise in Michigan where the military provides defense support to civilian authorities.”

In addition, the U.S. military will be conducting some “unusual” training activity out in Arizona and California

If you see some unusual helicopters overhead in the next couple of days, there’s nothing to worry about.

 

The I Marine Expeditionary Force G-7 will be conducting a Realistic Military Training this week, using the Prescott Municipal Airfield as a helicopter refueling point in order to facilitate a Long Range Raid at Camp Navajo, Arizona.

 

This Certification Exercise (CERTEX) is directed to be conducted from April 8-21, 2015 at various training locations throughout California and Arizona. The training at Prescott will take place on April 15, 16.

All of this is in addition to the exercise that people have really been buzzing about.  It is called “Jade Helm”, and in this particular “unconventional warfare exercise”, the states of Texas and Utah will be designated as “hostile territory”

“Jade Helm is a challenging eight-week joint military and Interagency (IA) Unconventional Warfare (UW) exercise conducted throughout Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado,” according to an unclassified military document announcing the training drill, which runs from July 15 through September 15.

 

Multiple branches of the US military, including Green Berets, Navy Seals, and the 82nd Airborne Division, will participate in the 8-week long exercise, which may result in “increased aircraft in the area at night.”

 

Troops will be tasked with honing advanced skills in “large areas of undeveloped land with low population densities,” and will work alongside “civilians to gain their trust and an understanding of the issues.”

 

The exercise, in which some participants will be “wearing civilian clothes and driving civilian vehicles,” lists Texas and Utah as “hostile” territory.

Should we be alarmed by these exercises?

Some people sure think so.

Another thing that has people scratching their heads are the weird closures of Wal-Mart stores all over the nation for supposed “plumbing problems”…

Not just one, but five Walmart stores across the U.S. are closing their doors due to plumbing problems that, in some cases, will take four to six months to repair.

 

Those closing include locations in Livingston and Midland, Texas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and near Los Angeles.

 

For the Brandon Walmart, I talked to Hillsborough County and Walmart to get answers about why these plumbing repairs will take so long and whether the issues are connected, but local customers are already skeptical.

 

“Why is it just plumbing problems? It’s gonna take them six months to fix up the store?” asked customer John Mambrl.

Yes, is it really going to take them six months to fix the toilets?

Either someone at Wal-Mart is extremely incompetent, or there is something fishy going on here.

In the end, perhaps there is nothing to any of this.

Perhaps all of these examples are just unrelated coincidences.

But then again, perhaps not.

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20 Comments
Iska Waran
Iska Waran
April 17, 2015 8:24 am

It’s just what big government does. If our air defense stuff isn’t already EMP-hardened it should be. The NY Fed is probably more worried about terrorism or a sovereign attack than a natural disaster.

robert h siddell jr
robert h siddell jr
April 17, 2015 9:16 am

Economy may crash by Sept and Tsunami will happen by Jan2017. Besides your linked article, consider: 1) Dr Patrica Green says God told her that His Hand of Judgement will fall on our nation because of and during Obama’s term: Youtube “Tsunami Prophecy”. 2) Youtube: Asteroide causes night Tsunami on Puerto Rico & U.S. East – Efrain Rodriguez 3) Words from Joe Brandt’s vision: “It certainly was not 1937. I saw a newspaper on the corner with a picture of the President. It surely wasn’t Mr. Roosevelt. He was bigger, heavier, big ears.” http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/joebrandt.htm. 4) Words from Edgar Cayce: “when we see noticeable eruptions in the long-quiet volcanoes of Vesuvius or Pelee, then three months later there will be major earthquakes along the southern coast of California that will cause an inundation of the land from the Salt Lake in Utah to the southern portions of Nevada” 5) David Wilkerson saw an earthquake here that was the worst in history. http://www.alamongordo.comvisions_david_wilkerson_usa_japan_earthquakes.htmlin 6) Google: “Credit Crunch Underway: Can Recession Be Far Behind?”

Rise Up
Rise Up
April 17, 2015 9:21 am

Things DO appear to be setting up for some kind of disaster on the east coast. Could be why Jade Helm is setting up out west–making ready for the diaspora of people moving westward. Nuclear false-flag? Tsunami that is somehow known to be forthcoming (or man-caused, a la the Japan quake)? Disease epidemic? Walking dead zombies?

Snyder is right that signs portend something to come.

Rise Up
Rise Up
April 17, 2015 9:47 am

Also both Clif High’s web bot project and Courtney Brown’s farsight.org remote viewers predicted a “global coastal event” for April-June 2013. Of course that didn’t happen, but many times the web bot forecasts come true at a later time, and remote viewing the future is much more difficult than viewing the now/past.

Just sayin’…

Victor
Victor
April 17, 2015 10:40 am

There are so many things that could be addressed about the information in this article, it would be difficult to make a single comment concerning it all so I wish to pose one question I can’t seem to find an answer to in spite of significant time looking for it. Hopefully someone here may know the answer.

Since military ammo -along with the standard AR-15 ammo- is actually 5.56 NATO aka 5.56 x 45 which is different than .223 why is .223 Remington being specified. (chamber dimensions and load pressures are slightly different between the two but they are close enough to be interchanged in most but not all firearms)

Further, since 5.56 NATO is a very standard and international military and LE specification with three different standard loads available as such (actually 5 if you include the two tracer loads) and .223 is a civilian caliber with hundreds of different loadings available ranging form very high velocity light bullet varmint loads to very heavy bullet long range target loads as well as both soft point, hollow point, and ball in each of them -none of which are called “training” loads and none of which would be considered a standard other than SAAMI specs for some of them- exactly what are the specifications being requested for “training” ammo and what firearm(s) is it intended to be used in?

Other than acquiring and removing as much .223 ammo from the civilian market as is possible I see no explanation for this purchase, but perhaps someone else reading this has information that would make other explanations clear.

Anonymous
Anonymous
April 17, 2015 10:46 am

robert h,

Could also be anticipation of a “Red Dawn” style invasion by (the former) Combloc powers.

Southern border and West Coast is the only way that could be pulled off with troops, the Northern border and East Coast allowing too much notice before troops could arrive (missiles would be used for this).

Persnickety
Persnickety
April 17, 2015 1:04 pm

@Victor: the US military uses exclusively 5.56 NATO ammunition, but federal (and state/local) agencies are free to use .223 Remington, and many of them do – the FBI in particular. I don’t know what CBP uses but would not be surprised if it’s a .223 load. The LE agencies generally use expanding or fragmenting type bullets (soft point, soft point bonded, hollow point or tipped hollow point) which are not legal under the “laws of war” (never mind that M193 and M855 do actually fragment – they are supposedly not designed to do so and therefore legal for war). You can buy .223 Rem FBI-contract-overrun on a civilian dealer site right now.

Perhaps more importantly, the quantities listed are not actually all that large for an agency the size of CBP, and training use in that quantity is entirely plausible. The government broadly stockpiles vast quantities of ammo, and it’s not as if they need to place a little special order to be able to opress people under martial law whenever they might be told to do so.

All that said – while I am 100% unconcerned about the ammo purchase, I do find the description, breadth and locations of “Jade Helm” and some other similar exercises to be concerning. It’s not that uncommon that very bad things happen “coincidentally” with a training exercise.

robert h siddell jr
robert h siddell jr
April 17, 2015 1:05 pm

The first German attack of Poland was on 1Sept1933 at Danzig (now Gdańsk) by soldiers hidden in the hold of a ship. China could fill some freighters with troops and unload them at their ports in California.

robert h siddell jr
robert h siddell jr
April 17, 2015 1:10 pm

Oh crap, 1939.

yahsure
yahsure
April 17, 2015 4:26 pm

They are all getting ready for the coming economic collapse.

Overthecliff
Overthecliff
April 17, 2015 6:10 pm

Some of these speculations sound like the musings of Art Bell.

yahsure
yahsure
April 17, 2015 6:33 pm

Well the evening news sure isn’t going to talk anything negative. I passed many a mile away listening to Art Bell. I learned a lot about Ron Paul,He was a guest on Occasion and talked a lot about what is going on.

Rise Up
Rise Up
April 17, 2015 7:27 pm

Overthecliff says: “Some of these speculations sound like the musings of Art Bell.”

Bell is/was pro-government. Never questioned S/11 “official” story. I don’t know of any economic guests on his show–would have to search YouTube. Point me to one if you have any links.

Thanks

Muscovite
Muscovite
April 17, 2015 7:40 pm

The US Military may harden their installations (at taxpayer expense) as much as they like. Today’s warfare is assymetric, and the choice target for any “aggressor” will be your EBT / SNAP system.

The World has already seen the interesting effects of a very local, very short system outage. Now imagine a prolonged Nationwide outage (days, maybe weeks of sustained attack), combined with judicious use of Social Media to spread disinformation (“Astroturfing”).

Solution to every “crisis” – “Call in the Army” – that would be the same Army as might be needed elsewhere (Ukraine for example), and all of a sudden there are two “battlefronts”, one of which is domestic (in a Country that has no living memory of real large-scale “war on your doorstep”).

It may be “challenging” to maintain an effective “united action” overseas when those doing the fighting are very aware that Civil War Mk II is in progress “back home”. . .

Billy
Billy
April 17, 2015 8:44 pm

Perhaps more importantly, the quantities listed are not actually all that large for an agency the size of CBP, and training use in that quantity is entirely plausible.

That amount of ammo would allow Homeland to spend ammo at the rate of Operation Iraqi Freedom – 5.5 million rounds a month – for a solid year.

“We need this for training”…

Uh huh… you’d think if they needed a gigantic pile of ammo, they could just do a lateral transfer from the Army… it’s not like we don’t have any ammo.

Persnickety
Persnickety
April 17, 2015 9:00 pm

“That amount of ammo would allow Homeland to spend ammo at the rate of Operation Iraqi Freedom – 5.5 million rounds a month – for a solid year.”

No, because it’s a 5-year contract, for a measly 12.6M/year. If you figure 10,000 DHS guys training with AR15s, that works out to 1,260 rounds per guy, per year. That’s only two or three days (8-hour days) of typical tactical class or shoothouse style training, without even setting aside any for basic qualification. I shoot more than 1260 rds/year and I’m paying for it myself. It’s not really that much in the grand scheme of things. Army is notorious for not letting soldiers do useful amounts of live-fire training – usually followed by a ridiculous mad-hour of wasting all the remaining ammo at the end of drill week so that it doesn’t have to be put back into inventory with paperwork.

Billy
Billy
April 17, 2015 9:47 pm

Where do you get 10,000 DHS guys? Just pull that number out of your hindquarters?

You can sneer at “a measly 12.6M per year”, but when you add in the 62 million total to the already-purchased pile of over a BILLION they already have, that ain’t no small potatoes…

You can pooh-pooh the whole thing… “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for”… “Nothing to see here”… but I find the whole thing rather disconcerting.

If it’s just for practice – as they say – then why not laterally transfer the ammo from the military? No muss, no fuss, the end. They can use plain old Mil-surp ball for practice, no problem.

Sorry, but I think they’re doing this just to fuck with us. Create yet MORE stress on the ammo supply (which was just starting to return to normal from the Great Ammo Shortage of 2013) and get people freaking the hell out… that’s just at a minimum. The maximum is something I do not want to think about just yet…

Bea Lever
Bea Lever
April 17, 2015 11:29 pm

Billy

Have you seen the new Switchblade Drone that you carry in a backpack? It is bad ass and tells me we are toast if Americans bring guns to a Switchblade fight.

Billy
Billy
April 18, 2015 12:16 pm

Bea,

Good to know it exists and what it’s capable of.

10 minutes flight time with a 40mm grenade equivalent explosive charge on the nose.

Every weapons system has a weakness. And those can be exploited.

Just sayin’…

Bea Lever
Bea Lever
April 18, 2015 12:35 pm

Billy – Problem is, I’m just a average schmuck on wheels who would never get a clue of how to get around the Switchblade before it blew me and my wheels up.