This is getting harder to adequately explain with stupidity.

Graft does remain an excellent second choice, but malice is looking like number one with a bullet here, so to speak. Department of Homeland Security buys 2,700 armored vehicles. 

Picture this blocking your street. That's a really special response!

This is getting a little creepy.
According to one estimate, since last year the Department of Homeland Security has stockpiled more than 1.6 billion bullets, mainly .40 caliber and 9mm.
DHS also purchased 2,700 Mine Resistant Armor Protected Vehicles (MRAP).
Modern Survival Blog reported:
The Department of Homeland Security (through the U.S. Army Forces Command) recently retrofitted 2,717 of these 'Mine Resistant Protected' vehicles for service on the streets of the United States.
Although I've seen and read several online blurbs about this vehicle of late, I decided to dig slightly deeper and discover more about the vehicle itself.
The new DHS sanctioned 'Street Sweeper' (my own slang due to the gun ports) is built by Navistar Defense (NavistarDefense.com), a division within the Navistar organization.

Its basically an armored truck with special land-mine resistant armor on the undercarriage, presently used in Afghanistan and Iran by US forces because the terroristas keep blowing up trucks. Just the thing for the Homeland Security Safety Patrol to roll up to your house with when they come to check your regulation firearm storage locker is shipshape and Bristol fashion. The gun ports are a nice touch.

Then there's this gem here:

Homeland Security's specifications for its drones, built by San Diego-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, say they "shall be capable of identifying a standing human being at night as likely armed or not," meaning carrying a shotgun or rifle. They also specify "signals interception" technology that can capture communications in the frequency ranges used by mobile phones, and "direction finding" technology that can identify the locations of mobile devices or two-way radios.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center obtained a partially redacted copy of Homeland Security's requirements for its drone fleet through the Freedom of Information Act and published it this week. CNET unearthed an unredacted copy of the requirements that provides additional information about the aircraft's surveillance capabilities.

It can tell if that's a gun in your pocket or you're just happy to see it.

To sum up, the Dept. of Homeland Security has enough ammo on hand to shoot everybody in the USA five or six times. Including each other, I suppose. They have, or will soon have, unmanned Predator B drone aircraft that can track you by cellphone emission, see you in the dark, and tell if you're carrying a gun or not. Then they can send an armored car full of guys over to your place if they don't like what you're doing. Or they can just blow you to hell by remote control, since the Predator B can mount two Hellfire air-to-ground missiles. Barry has been using them to blow stuff up overseas, I see no reason to doubt that they'll be at least able to do the same thing back home.

On a personal note, I met one of these DHS dudes at Ikea of all places, in Phoenix. They issued this guy the worst Sad Sack looking uniform I've ever seen. Like a cross between US Marine greens and Puff Diddy oversize coat with baggy ass pants, and a huge 3"x 5" velcro DHS patch on both shoulders. There's not a man or woman alive who wouldn't look a total prat in that outfit. I guess Americans should get used to seeing them though, because there are a lot of them. DHS currently employs almost as many people as the entire Canadian government according to one estimate I've seen someplace.

You put all that together and you come up with a picture of a police agency that is preparing to operate in a seriously hostile environment. This is like the city cop in Podunk Nebraska handing out parking tickets while kitted out for a no-knock SWAT raid on the biggest crack house in Chicago. It appears the DHS are planning on operating without the consent of the governed for a considerable period of time.

Now, Conservatives say that this could be the end of the US Constitution, and that DHS is going to coming out to get Farmer Joe's shotgun with tanks and air cover. That's certainly one explanation, and there's support for that view out there.

If I may offer a slightly different idea, I'd say its equally likely that DHS is arming up for the day, possibly soon to come, when the welfare checks start to bounce in large Eastern cities like New York and Chicago.

Either way, my previous explanation that this is all just graft and stupidity is starting to look a bit weak. They could still just be burning the money on a bunch of fancy stuff that'll never be out of a garage... but man, that's a whole lot of fancy stuff! Somebody someplace is going to be just dying to take all that for a spin, right?

The Phantom