Almost a Quarter of U.S. Homeowners Are Underwater

By Daniel Taub

May 6 (Bloomberg) -- A growing number of U.S. homeowners owe more than their properties are worth after prices extended their two-year decline in the first quarter, Zillow.com said.

About 21.8 percent of all owners were underwater as of March 31, the Seattle-based real estate data service said in a report today. At the end of the fourth quarter, 17.6 percent of homeowners owed more than their original mortgage, while 14.3 percent had negative equity three months earlier.

Property values dropped 14 percent from a year earlier in the first quarter, reducing the median value of U.S. single- family homes, condominiums and cooperatives to $182,378, Zillow said. The decline has left about 20.4 million of the U.S.’s 93 million houses, condos and co-ops with loans higher than the properties are worth. The gain in underwater homeowners will lead to more bank repossessions, Zillow said.

Many owners “would be more willing to bear the financial consequences of bankruptcy or foreclosure,” Stan Humphries, Zillow’s vice president of data and analytics, said in an interview. “You are going to continue to see home prices fall for the rest of this year and some portion of next year.”

The recession cut home values by $2.4 trillion last year, First American CoreLogic said in a March 4 report. More than 8.3 million U.S. mortgage holders owed more than their properties were worth and an additional 2.2 million borrowers will be underwater if prices decline another 5 percent, the Santa Ana, California-based seller of mortgage and economic data, said in the report.

Unemployment Rising

The data demonstrates the challenges facing Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and the Obama administration as they seek to spark a housing recovery. The Fed has pushed 30-year fixed home loan rates to a record low by purchasing mortgage- backed securities. The jobless rate jumped to 8.9 percent last month from 8.5 percent in March and employers cut at least 600,000 workers from payrolls for a fifth straight time, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey ahead of a May 8 Labor Department report.

The U.S. market with the biggest drop in home values in the first quarter was Salinas, California, where the median price fell 37 percent to $301,793 from year earlier, Zillow said.

About 32 percent of all homes there were worth less than what’s owed on them, Zillow said. Among the worst-performing markets, Salinas was followed by Redding, Stockton, Madera, and Vallejo-Fairfield, all in California. The company estimates values for homes, whether or not they are sold in the period tracked, in 161 metropolitan areas.

Foreclosures Dominate

In 85 of the markets tracked, the annualized home-value change over the past five years was negative or little changed. About 20 percent of all home transactions in the past 12 months were foreclosures, and short sales made up about 12 percent. A short sale is when a home is sold for less than the outstanding mortgage balance.

The data for Zillow’s study dates to 1996 and comes from public records, the closely held company said. Its mortgage figures come from information filed with individual counties.

The decline in values is holding potential sellers back from putting their properties on the market, the company said. In a separate survey of homeowner sentiment, 31 percent of homeowners said they would be at least “somewhat likely” to put their property up for sale in the next 12 months should they see signs of a recovery.

Harris Interactive surveyed 2,123 adults, 1,266 of whom were homeowners, on line last month, Zillow said.

Talk Show Host Banned From UK For Political Opinions

American talk show host Michael Savage has been banned from entering the UK by the Home Secretary because of his political opinions and opposition to illegal immigration, which is considered “hate speech” in airstrip one.

“Home Secretary Jacqui Smith (pictured) said she decided to make public the names so others could better understand what sort of behaviour Britain was not prepared to tolerate,” according to an ITN report.

The list of 16 “unwelcome” individuals includes Neo-Nazis, former Ku Klux Klan members, racist skinhead groups and Islamic preachers supposedly linked to terrorist groups.

Alongside these appears the name of Savage, who is a conservative talk show host in the mould of Rush Limbaugh who has consistently opposed illegal immigration and the declining stature of U.S. sovereignty.

“Coming to this country is a privilege. If you can’t live by the rules that we live by, the standards and the values that we live by, we should exclude you from this country and, what’s more, now we will make public those people that we have excluded,” said Smith.

Apparently the ‘rules that people live by’ in the UK do not include the right to free speech and political opinions considered unpalatable by what whistleblowers have described as a “Stalinist cabal of control freaks” currently in power in Britain.

As we have previously reported, people are mandated by government threats, peer pressure and cultural bullying to “tolerate” all kinds of minority groups and for the most part we do exactly that. The problem lies in the fact that the very same crowd that preaches “tolerance” is totally intolerant of anyone who dares utter a word against them.

The government in the UK defines “tolerance” as being banned from uttering a negative word against any minority group, and hate speech laws have codified the illegality of expressing an opinion which may be considered “offensive” to a minority.

Decrees of political correctness and the doctrines of illiberal mind control, which fronts as being liberally progressive when it is in fact fascistic, have swamped Europe to the point where Christian ministers are being arrested for reading Bible passages. It is also an illegal offence in Britain to criticize homosexuality. Television presenter Robin Page was arrested by police after he said in a speech that farmers should enjoy the same rights as Muslims and gays. Police traveled from 200 miles away to question Page, before detaining him in a prison cell with dried feces on the wall and later charging him with incitement to racial hatred.

- In 2001, Gloucestershire Police set up ‘Operation Napkin’ in which senior police officers were sent to ‘ethnic restaurants’ to eat four-course dinners and at the same time listen out for “racist hate speech.” Arrests were made as a result of the program.

- In January 2006 a student who called a mounted policeman’s horse “gay” was arrested under section 5 of the Public Order Act for making homophobic remarks and taken to court.

- Also in 2006, a 14-year-old school girl was arrested in Manchester England for making a “racist comment,” after she refused to work with a group of Asians during a science tutorial because none of them spoke English.

- Reports of “hate crime raids” where PC subversives are rounded up like terrorists by police are commonplace in the UK.

- In the U.S., members of the Repent America organization were arrested and criminally charged, with prosecutors attempting to secure 47-year prison sentences, for the crime of reading Bible passages on the street during Philadelphia’s 2004 “Outfest” gay pride march.

It seems that the only remaining sectors of society it is permissible to lambaste or make fun of is pedophiles and Christians - question any other minority, sexuality, race, gender or religion and the thought police are on your back in an instant. The sheep herd the rest of the sheep and no one is allowed to step outside of the pen.

New hate speech laws are now being passed in the United States - such legislation masquerades as being for the purpose of protecting minorities when in reality it is solely aimed at crushing the free speech of all citizens.

Though we have fundamentally disagreed with several of Michael Savage’s views in the past, the fact that he has been banned from entering the UK, a country that poses as a haven of free speech, once again proves that free speech considered politically incorrect by the government has been all but outlawed.

Call to “Rock YouTube” for Taking Down the Alex Jones Channel

There is One Type of Total Gun Ban that We Need, Jefferson Would Agree, and It’s the Key to Bringing Back 1776

What I have to say in this article may deeply anger or enrage many who read it. But what I have to say is no more than a rewording of this miraculous passage from Thomas Jefferson:

“[E]very able-bodied freeman, between the ages of sixteen and fifty, is enrolled in the militia… The law requires every militia-man to provide himself with the arms usual in the regular service.”

-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, Quivery IX

I think that very few Americans have thought deeply about this passage, what it’s really saying, and thus very few understand the ramifications of this passage—even those in the heart of the Truth Movement may not have thought about this passage deeply enough to really see that this passage may be the key to everything.

	Thomas Jefferson

How is it the key to everything? You might think it is by the way this passage promotes Second Amendment issues. That is true, but that is not what I am getting at here. We already all know that. What this passage really involves is actually a far bigger issue, one that I think very few of us have noticed, amazingly.

Jefferson says that it is the ordinary citizens who are the militia. Jefferson does not say that it is certain government-VIP groups, or any other government groups, who are members of the militia. (These VIP groups are the police and military, which are “standing armies”, if armed or maybe even if unarmed, when they are amassed on US soil; and they are groups like the FDA or USGS or NSA. These are groups that are given elevated status over the level of citizen by big government. From what I can tell, this basic issue is anti-Jeffersonian and/or unconstitutional.) That is the key: it is the citizens, and definitely not any (unconstitutional) government-favored special groups, who are the militia: who are the real homeland security.

Jefferson’s passage at the start of this article clearly lays this out, and it requires that almost all of us rearrange our thinking in order to get back to a 1776 mental framework. I sense that even listeners of the Alex Jones Show may have this thesis I am presenting here hit them with a shock, like a ton of bricks, as if it’s a radical thesis. But that just shows us how far we’ve come from 1776, and how subtly we’re all still under the trickery of the New World Order, even if we think we are so enlightened since we are Alex Jones listeners, guns owners, and members of the Patriot movement. Ok, with the thesis laid out, now let’s see how this Jeffersonian vision works…

So, what does this all mean? What would it mean if we had a total weapon and total gun ban for on-duty police and for military and post-Constitutional government entities? What would really happen in such a scenario? Well, it must be something quite good for the people that happens, since governments worldwide fight against this sort of a scenario almost more than they fight against anything. But more specifically, it means that it is against the law, against the Founders, and against 1776, for on-duty police, military, and for the aforementioned post-Constitutional government entities (FDA, CIA, EPA, Dept. of Education, etc.) to possess firearms (including any projectile weapon, such as non-lethal weapons [tasers, etc.] or crossbows or longbows, microwave guns, etc.), since these big-government-favored groups are not part of the militia. That’s the key issue, and this is all very important; so let’s get this down pat in more detail.

How are on-duty police, military, and for the aforementioned post-Constitutional government entities (FDA, CIA, EPA, Dept. of Education, etc.) not part of the militia, in Jefferson’s philosophy? Here’s how:

These big-government-favored groups are elevated in power above the status of being an ordinary citizen, but Jefferson says it’s only those of the status of ordinary citizen who are party of the militia (who are gun owners), thus if you fall outside of this ordinary citizen group you are breaking the law if you own a weapon!

That is what Jefferson’s comments lead to, and if we explore the ramifications of this (as I am going to next), you will perhaps agree that this is Jefferson’s greatest, largest, and most critical issue for preservation of the Constitutional Republic. So let’s figure out why this issue—gun ban for on-duty police and for military and non-Constitutional government entities—is really the single issue we should focus on perhaps more than any other.

There are so many issues we members of the Truth and Patriot movements have to grapple with. If we want our country back, if we want back what Jefferson, Washington, Adams, Henry, and the rest of the Founders set up for us, where on earth do we start when we are in such an incredible quagmire today, where we have strayed so unimaginably far from the Founders’ Republic? We have to deal with pandemic hoaxes, GM food plagues, FEMA holocaust, secret government, false flag terror, government robot weapons, attempts by big government to destroy inalienable rights, vaccine holocausts, depleted uranium, and all the rest that infowars.com patriots are all too familiar with. It is perhaps a daunting task when we consider how much we have to deal with. But what if we could reduce all these issues down to one, single issue—an issue that’s power-source of all the others—wherein we could focus in on that one issue, obliterate it, and ipso facto, 1776 would be restored? That is precisely what is at stake in the aforementioned issue of pushing for a gun ban for on-duty police and for military and non-Constitutional government entities. This is a simple issue, a clearly definable issue, one that could easily get huge amounts of support since already 70 percent (or more) of Americans are pro-Second Amendment (and this is growing fast). So, let’s see why if we won that single battle of removing weaponry from government, military, and on-duty police, that all other things would fall into place.

Yes, that’s right, we need one type of gun control. We need gun control for on-duty police and any military and government officials who are on US soil (excluding Congress, the President, and perhaps the members of the Supreme Court, since they may be members of the militia, in Jefferson’s vision). This would include any group that even loosely resembled a standing army (such as privatized military forces like Blackwater) since they are unconstitutional, except for the one Constitutional standing army: the militia. In other words, on-duty police should banned from possessing guns, as should any government people in the military, FDA, CIA, and any of the other post-Constitutional monstrosities that we Americans have permitted to come into existence and control every aspect of us down to our consciousness. The way this would happen peacefully is if members of these big-government-favored groups deprogrammed from their brainwashing and voluntarily put down their arms in order to join this Second Amendment Jeffersonian revolution. I think getting this to happen is doable.

What will be the net effect of this? It would have such tremendous ramifications that it would bring us right back to the America that the Founders established for us. Consider how this works.

If we had unarmed police and military, we would have police and military that would be no threat to any gun-owner (“one man with a gun can control a hundred without one”). I cannot underestimate the importance of this. Eventually the balance of power would shift to such a degree that government would be under the control of the gun owners (of the Jeffersonian militia). Why? Because anyone out there who is in any way fired up about the Second Amendment knows that the feeling of owning a gun, carrying a gun, is so safe, secure, and free, that the joy it brings just blossoms within you in such a way that you glue on to that feeling of freedom almost as tightly as you hug your child. So, in other words, the gun owners would thrive and unite in their euphoria of freedom and Constitutionalism, by the feelings they have inside from carrying the gun. I can see this in a lower-level form when I am at the shooting range, at the gun shop. I can see it in the eyes, feel it in the hearts, of my fellow pro-Second Amendment friends, and there are a lot of them. As Alex Jones has said, protecting our Second Amendment is the one thing that millions will lay down everything and fight for right now. This is because the gun owner knows, feels, how the peace-of-mind of holding the gun is the key to freedom, as Jefferson and many of the Founders did too. Jefferson describes the issue most clearly:

As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body, and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun, therefore, be the constant companion of your walks. Never think of taking a book with you. The object of walking is to relax the mind. You should therefore not permit yourself even to think while you walk; but divert yourself by the objects surrounding you. Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far. –Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785

It is the gun, the Second Amendment, that gives freedom. Without it we are slaves; with it we can be like Jefferson on his walks, with a mind clear and liberated, unworried and free to philosophize. The feelings of freedom that gun owners employ would overflow if there was a gun ban for on-duty police and for military and non-Constitutional government entities. This is because it would instantly be the case that

1. The citizens would not have a powerful military or police force to fall back on and be dependent upon, and thus they would have to assume those responsibilities for themselves, and they would become the police and military, they would assume those roles: fathers would become protectors instead of TV-watchers, grandfathers would again take their grandchildren to the range, women would again recognize the urgency to carry a pistol wherever they go, and women would walk through parking lots at night without a shred of fear (a woman empowered, without fear: a feminism the fake feminists will never know). Again, in the current state of TV-addicted-America, this sounds odd to many who think dialing 911 is the key to safety, but again, I am just rewording what Jefferson has already said when he told that what I am writing about in this article is real homeland security: “…our attention should be fixed on the safety of our country. For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia [citizens] is their best security.” –Jefferson, Eight Annual Message, Nov. 8, 1888.

2. Without the illusion of “security” from the big government police and military forces, the citizens would not have a powerful military or police force to fall back on and be dependent upon, and thus they would feel that they have no protection—as if they are “naked in the wilderness”—citizens would in this case do what people always do: they would seek out protection, and the best protection, they would find, is the gun. There is already so much pro-gun fervor in America, that quickly after a disarming of on-duty police and of military and non-Constitutional government entities, there would be an overpowering zeitgeist in the air that the best protection is the gun (this zeitgeist already exists in America at a lower level, as it it’s just waiting to overflow). Consequently, those who are gun owners would amplify their devotion to their art, and those who are not would become passionate gun owners by the millions. We would quickly change from a helpless nation to a nation empowered.

Now, what I have described so far in this article is a blueprint for how we completely disempower the government, and radically empower the citizenry. And this all occurred from one little issue: institute a gun ban for on-duty police and for military and non-Constitutional government entities.

Notice: this is a single issue, not many issues. This is one issue that can solve all other issues. This is not like trying to do many things: it is not trying to reign in GM food, vaccines, and the Fed all at once. It’s a much simpler task: you just do one thing, which is disarm the big-government-favored groups. And if we all focused our energy on this one issue, we could get it done, and the rest of the 1776 cards would fall into place.

And here’s why this issue of disarming the big-government-favored groups is the issue that allows everything else about the New World Order to fall away, from vaccines to draft, to carbon tax, to ID chip. Here’s what America would look like with disarmed big-government-favored groups:

A. On the one hand, there would be the armed, patriotic America, which would consist of a mass of wide-eyed, passionate, happy gun owners (sort of like a vaster version of what I already see at a much smaller scale at the shooting range every Saturday), with confidence, character, and inner peace (as Jefferson described in a passage above), which would number in the hundreds of millions

B. And then on the other hand, there would be a completely unarmed government, numbering only a tiny fraction of those described in a.

The power is with A. And what about B? Well… B is, well, rather pathetic, isn’t it. We are, at any moment, incredibly close to this sort of a scenario, since there is only one thing we need to do to put this sort of a world in place: disarm on-duty police, disarm military on US soil (or maybe all military, at least for a time), and any other big-government-favored groups.

Just from this disarmament, A and B fall into place. Do you see what happens then, if A and B are in place? Government has no authority; gun owners are authority—they are government!

What do you think would happen if B tried to tell A that they can’t have a garden because they might plant pot in it? Yeah, I am laughing too! What do you think would happen if B told A that there was a draft, or that there were mandatory vaccinations for swine flu, or that Congress is being lobbied to “pass” a “bill” that robs the citizens blind (“bank bailout”)? Yeah, it’s a pretty funny scenario; almost like a zebra herd walking up to the lion prides to tell the lions to please stop eating them–or, almost like an American in the current situation, where the current American tries to “write their Congressman”. Even non-gun-owning (i.e., non-Constitutional) members of America are not really citizens, in this scheme of this article, and of Jefferson’s lawmaking, and they are at the wretched, disempowered level of B, more than they are of A.

So, in summary, there are so many issues we have to fight for, and we need to get more and more aware of all that is going on, but amid everything else we Truthers and Patriots are doing, we may want to think about launching a campaign, with more energy and persistence and passion than anything we have ever done, to fight for this one single issue: a gun ban for on-duty police and for military and non-Constitutional government entities, in order to have the chain of events outlined in this Jeffersonian treatise carry out. This is a doable project, since it is a single project, a clear and easy-to-understand project that will make all people feel as empowered as one of the Patriots in the Revolutionary War. Looking at our plight with this issue above all others can give us a means to win this victory against the satanic New World Order, and can give us hope, inspiration, drive, and rebirth, resembling the Minutemen of the Republic.

Using Shock to Control Society

Alex Jones Calls the White House

Massive Checkpoint Operation in Tennessee Violated Posse Comitatus, Fourth Amendment

On April 3, Infowars reported on the decision of the Tennessee Governor’s office to call off an illegal seat belt checkpoint operation that was scheduled to be conducted by the Whiteville police with DHS and military participation on April 4.

Earlier today on the Alex Jones Show, Tennessee Representative Johhny Shaw admitted he was unaware of the planned operation. He also said Governor Phil Bredesen did not know the DHS and military planned to collaborate with local police in Shaw’s district in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.

Alex talks with Tennessee Representative Johhny Shaw

Shaw’s admission state government was unaware of the scheduled checkpoint is more evidence the feds are contacting local police agencies directly without going through the state or informing them of operations that are in violation of the law.

	Arnold Air Force Base Police Officer Jason Layne and Astrid check a truck for explosives. Photo by Daimon Duggar.

It appears this is not the case in regard to another illegal operation. Last month, DHS, federal and state agencies, the Air Force, and local law enforcement worked together to violate the law in Tennessee.

On March 31, 2009, the Marion County News reported on a truck checkpoint set-up by the Tennessee Highway Patrol, Homeland Security, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the Tennessee Department of Health, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, the Tennessee Department of Transportation, the Tennessee Department of Revenue, the Marion County Sheriff’s Department, the Monteagle Police Department, the Tennessee National Guard, the Arnold Air Force Base Police, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, the Department of Commerce and Insurance and the FBI.

“Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers led explosive and drug sniffing dogs around the bases of trucks while National Guardsmen circled overseas containers with explosive and radiation detecting hand held devices in a scene reminiscent of ‘24’. Dozens of law enforcement vehicles, lights flashing, lined the brake inspection station, as trucks, both private and commercial, queued in the far right lane of 24 for what seemed like miles,” reports a Marion County News reporter.

According to a Tennessee Department of Safety press release, the object if the Homeland Security type checkpoints is to stop, evaluate and inspect as many commercial vehicles as possible, focusing in commercial vehicles, rental trucks and cargo tanks. Furthermore, these checkpoints will be held randomly throughout the year.

“The object (of the checkpoint) is to look at as many trucks as possible. I want to find something,” Sergeant John Harmon told law enforcement officials during the pre-checkpoint briefing. “I want to prevent something from happening.”

Harmon didn’t discover anything one might find in an episode of 24. However, over a span of ten hours, cops issued dozens of tickets on 285 eastbound for everything from safety defects to DUI.

Posse Comitatus was violated during the massive operation held on March 24 due to the fact the Arnold Air Force Base Police participated.

As noted above, DHS and the military intend to participate in additional sweeps — not simply in violation of Posse Comitatus but also the Fourth Amendment — randomly throughout the year. Tennessee residents need to contact local and state officials and demand the Constitution and Posse Comitatus be respected.

New Legislation Authorizes FEMA Camps In U.S.

A new bill introduced in Congress authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to set up a network of FEMA camp facilities to be used to house U.S. citizens in the event of a national emergency.

The National Emergency Centers Act or HR 645 mandates the establishment of “national emergency centers” to be located on military installations for the purpose of to providing “temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster,” according to the bill.

The legislation also states that the camps will be used to “provide centralized locations to improve the coordination of preparedness, response, and recovery efforts of government, private, and not-for-profit entities and faith-based organizations”.

Ominously, the bill also states that the camps can be used to “meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security,” an open ended mandate which many fear could mean the forced detention of American citizens in the event of widespread rioting after a national emergency or total economic collapse.

Many credible forecasters have predicted riots and rebellions in America that will dwarf those already witnessed in countries like Iceland and Greece.

With active duty military personnel already being stationed inside the U.S. under Northcom, partly for purposes of “crowd control,” fears that Americans could be incarcerated in detainment camps are all too real.

The bill mandates that six separate facilities be established in different Federal Emergency Management Agency Regions (FEMA) throughout the country.

The camps will double up as “command and control” centers that will also house a “24/7 operations watch center” as well as training facilities for Federal, State, and local first responders.

The bill also contains language that will authorize camps to be established within closed or already operating military bases around the country.

As we have previously highlighted, in early 2006 Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root was awarded a $385 million dollar contract by Homeland Security to construct detention and processing facilities in the event of a national emergency.

The language of the preamble to the agreement veils the program with talk of temporary migrant holding centers, but it is made clear that the camps would also be used “as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency.”

As far back as 2002, FEMA sought bids from major real estate and engineering firms to construct giant internment facilities in the case of a chemical, biological or nuclear attack or a natural disaster.

A much discussed and circulated report, the Pentagon’s Civilian Inmate Labor Program, was more recently updated and the revision details a “template for developing agreements” between the Army and corrections facilities for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations.”

Alex Jones has attended numerous military urban warfare training drills across the US where role players were used to simulate arresting American citizens and taking them to internment camps.

Read the new legislation in full below.

————————————————————————

National Emergency Centers Establishment Act (Introduced in House)

HR 645 IH

111th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. R. 645
To direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish national emergency centers on military installations.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

January 22, 2009
Mr. HASTINGS of Florida introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and in addition to the Committee on Armed Services, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

——————————————————————————–

A BILL
To direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish national emergency centers on military installations.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `National Emergency Centers Establishment Act’.

SEC. 2. ESTABLISHMENT OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY CENTERS.

(a) In General- In accordance with the requirements of this Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall establish not fewer than 6 national emergency centers on military installations.

(b) Purpose of National Emergency Centers- The purpose of a national emergency center shall be to use existing infrastructure–

(1) to provide temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster;

(2) to provide centralized locations for the purposes of training and ensuring the coordination of Federal, State, and local first responders;

(3) to provide centralized locations to improve the coordination of preparedness, response, and recovery efforts of government, private, and not-for-profit entities and faith-based organizations; and

(4) to meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security.

SEC. 3. DESIGNATION OF MILITARY INSTALLATIONS AS NATIONAL EMERGENCY CENTERS.

(a) In General- Not later than 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, shall designate not fewer than 6 military installations as sites for the establishment of national emergency centers.

(b) Minimum Requirements- A site designated as a national emergency center shall be–

(1) capable of meeting for an extended period of time the housing, health, transportation, education, public works, humanitarian and other transition needs of a large number of individuals affected by an emergency or major disaster;

(2) environmentally safe and shall not pose a health risk to individuals who may use the center;

(3) capable of being scaled up or down to accommodate major disaster preparedness and response drills, operations, and procedures;

(4) capable of housing existing permanent structures necessary to meet training and first responders coordination requirements during nondisaster periods;

(5) capable of hosting the infrastructure necessary to rapidly adjust to temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance needs;

(6) required to consist of a complete operations command center, including 2 state-of-the art command and control centers that will comprise a 24/7 operations watch center as follows:

(A) one of the command and control centers shall be in full ready mode; and

(B) the other shall be used daily for training; and

(7) easily accessible at all times and be able to facilitate handicapped and medical facilities, including during an emergency or major disaster.

(c) Location of National Emergency Centers- There shall be established not fewer than one national emergency center in each of the following areas:

(1) The area consisting of Federal Emergency Management Agency Regions I, II, and III.

(2) The area consisting of Federal Emergency Management Agency Region IV.

(3) The area consisting of Federal Emergency Management Agency Regions V and VII.

(4) The area consisting of Federal Emergency Management Agency Region VI.

(5) The area consisting of Federal Emergency Management Agency Regions VIII and X.

(6) The area consisting of Federal Emergency Management Agency Region IX.

(d) Preference for Designation of Closed Military Installations- Wherever possible, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, shall designate a closed military installation as a site for a national emergency center. If the Secretaries of Homeland Security and Defense jointly determine that there is not a sufficient number of closed military installations that meet the requirements of subsections (b) and (c), the Secretaries shall jointly designate portions of existing military installations other than closed military installations as national emergency centers.

(e) Transfer of Control of Closed Military Installations- If a closed military installation is designated as a national emergency center, not later than 180 days after the date of designation, the Secretary of Defense shall transfer to the Secretary of Homeland Security administrative jurisdiction over such closed military installation.

(f) Cooperative Agreement for Joint Use of Existing Military Installations- If an existing military installation other than a closed military installation is designated as a national emergency center, not later than 180 days after the date of designation, the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Secretary of Defense shall enter into a cooperative agreement to provide for the establishment of the national emergency center.

(g) Reports-

(1) PRELIMINARY REPORT- Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security, acting jointly with the Secretary of Defense, shall submit to Congress a report that contains for each designated site–

(A) an outline of the reasons why the site was selected;

(B) an outline of the need to construct, repair, or update any existing infrastructure at the site;

(C) an outline of the need to conduct any necessary environmental clean-up at the site;

(D) an outline of preliminary plans for the transfer of control of the site from the Secretary of Defense to the Secretary of Homeland Security, if necessary under subsection (e); and

(E) an outline of preliminary plans for entering into a cooperative agreement for the establishment of a national emergency center at the site, if necessary under subsection (f).

(2) UPDATE REPORT- Not later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security, acting jointly with the Secretary of Defense, shall submit to Congress a report that contains for each designated site–

(A) an update on the information contained in the report as required by paragraph (1);

(B) an outline of the progress made toward the transfer of control of the site, if necessary under subsection (e);

(C) an outline of the progress made toward entering a cooperative agreement for the establishment of a national emergency center at the site, if necessary under subsection (f); and

(D) recommendations regarding any authorizations and appropriations that may be necessary to provide for the establishment of a national emergency center at the site.

(3) FINAL REPORT- Not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security, acting jointly with the Secretary of Defense, shall submit to Congress a report that contains for each designated site–

(A) finalized information detailing the transfer of control of the site, if necessary under subsection (e);

(B) the finalized cooperative agreement for the establishment of a national emergency center at the site, if necessary under subsection (f); and

(C) any additional information pertinent to the establishment of a national emergency center at the site.

(4) ADDITIONAL REPORTS- The Secretary of Homeland Security, acting jointly with the Secretary of Defense, may submit to Congress additional reports as necessary to provide updates on steps being taken to meet the requirements of this Act.

SEC. 4. LIMITATIONS ON STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION.

This Act does not affect–

(1) the authority of the Federal Government to provide emergency or major disaster assistance or to implement any disaster mitigation and response program, including any program authorized by the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5121 et seq.); or

(2) the authority of a State or local government to respond to an emergency.

SEC. 5. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

There is authorized to be appropriated $180,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2009 and 2010 to carry out this Act. Such funds shall remain available until expended.

SEC. 6. DEFINITIONS.

In this Act, the following definitions apply:

(1) CLOSED MILITARY INSTALLATION- The term `closed military installation’ means a military installation, or portion thereof, approved for closure or realignment under the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Act of 1990 (part A of title XXIX of Public Law 101-510; 10 U.S.C. 2687 note) that meet all, or 2 out of the 3 following requirements:

(A) Is located in close proximity to a transportation corridor.

(B) Is located in a State with a high level or threat of disaster related activities.

(C) Is located near a major metropolitan center.

(2) EMERGENCY- The term `emergency’ has the meaning given such term in section 102 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5122).

(3) MAJOR DISASTER- The term `major disaster’ has the meaning given such term in section 102 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5122).

(4) MILITARY INSTALLATION- The term `military installation’ has the meaning given such term in section 2910 of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Act of 1990 (part A of title XXIX of Public Law 101-510; 10 U.S.C. 2687 note).

Research related articles:

1. Rangel To Push Universal Military Draft Legislation Once More
2. FEMA sources confirm coming martial law
3. The failure of the NIST WTC 7 report to address concerns raised in Appendix C of the 2002 FEMA Building Performance Study
4. Treasury Sends to Congress Legislation to Buy Troubled Assets
5. Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security
6. Hurricane Gustav: National Emergency Environment Sets the Stage for the McCain Election Campaign
7. NIST Concludes “Fire” Caused WTC 7 “Collapse” when FEMA Report Concluded Fuel Tank Explosion had “low probability” of Knocking Down Tower
8. Military Examines Role In Domestic Defense
9. Torture Camps Minutes From Olympic Sites
10. U.S. troops may be deployed in Arizona, Southwest U.S.
11. List of Labor Camps Released to International Journalists in China
12. There Might Be a Financial Crisis, But the World’s Arms Dealers Are Doing Just Fine