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"I learned that in extreme situations when human lives and dignity are at state, neutrality is a sin. It helps the killers, not the victims." Elie Wiesel, Holocaust Survivor who lost his family in the Holocaust - Nobel Prize Author
Socialism - Liberalism Quotation
"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened." – Norman Thomas
This took my breath away. Marisol Valles Garcia, a 20-year-old criminology student has been named the Mayor of Guadalupe, a violent Mexican border town where a former Mayor was murdered in June.
Marisol Valles Garcia
Valles is in school in Ciudad Juarez, about 35 miles from Guadalupe. Along with the death of the town's mayor, police and security officers have been killed and some beheaded. Just last week in Guadalupe, a high-traffic crossing point for drugs into the U.S., eight were killed. The city is the second most violent city after Juarez according to this account.
When a local newspaper asked the student if she feared for her life, she had this to say (as translated by The Upshot): Afraid? Everyone is afraid and it's very natural. What motivates me here is that the project [to make the community safer] is very good and can do a lot for my town. I know that we are going to change and remove this.
I think of my son when he was 20 and can't begin to understand what Marisol's family must be feeling.
"The weapons we have are principles and values, which are the best weapons for prevention," she told CNN. "Our work will be pure prevention. We are not going to be doing anything else other than prevention." It's possible that she's just accepting the limitations of her post: She only has 13 officers, one police car, three rifles and one pistol at her disposal. But it does seem that she is intentionally bringing a new ethos to the department. "I'm not going after the 'malos' (bad ones); that's the federal police and soldiers' responsibility," she said. "We're going after the good ones, like children, parents, men and women who we have to organize so they don't fall prey to the temptation of crime, drugs and easy money."
"I took the risk because I want my son to live in a different community to the one we have today."
Last week the news was all about Tiffany and David Hartley and their ill-fated venture on Lake Falcon, into Mexican waters on jet skis. David Hartley, 30, is believed to have died in Mexican waters of a gun shot to the head. Yesterday, Rolando Armando Flores Villegas, a Mexican Homicide Investigator left his home to search for David. He did not return. Today his head was found in a suitcase outside a military compound in Miguel Aleman, Mexico.
Tiffany and David Hartley
According to Mrs. Hartley, the couple were chased by Mexicans in boats, who were shooting at them. David Hartley was trying to shield his wife and was shot in the head. Mrs. Hartley tried to get him on her jet ski but could not and eventually made it back to the Texas shore, where a man who actually saw the boats chasing her, called 911.
The U.S. and the Hartley family was upset that Mexico maybe did not believe Mrs. Hartley, and it seemed a search was not happening at all. Some on both sides of the border hinted that Tiffany's story might not be true.
After a police video showed the Hartley's pulling their jet skis on the way to Falcon Lake, and with the man who called 911 speaking out, Mexico began to search. They also named two brothers, members of the "Zeta drug cartel, as suspects.
On Monday, Tamaulipas state officials continued to deny U.S. and Mexican news reports over the weekend that a Tamaulipas official — one of Flores' subordinates — had identified two brothers as the men responsible for Hartley’s death.
The Associated Press reported that Tamaulipas State Police unit chief Juan Carlos Ballesteros said investigators believe brothers Juan Pedro and Jose Manuel Saldivar Farias may have killed Hartley as he snapped photos of a partiall submerged church from his personal watercraft at Old Guerrero.
Today came the news that Rolando Armando Flores Villegas, the head of border city of Ciudad Miguel Aleman, with the title of State Police Commandant, lost his life and his head. A spokesman in the area's Attorney General's office said the murder of Villegas "had nothing to do with the Hartley probe."
Mexican authorities want Tiffany Hartley to file a complaint in the Mexican city of Miguel Aleman. I have to believe entering a border town in Mexico is the last thing she wants to do. If the State Police Commandant is not safe, why would Mrs. Hartley believe the could protect her?
Avastin is a drug therapy for "advanced" Stage IV breast cancer patients. Approximately 17,500 women in the U.S. are on Avastin. Being brutally honest here, the FDA believes the drug is too expensive to be dispensed to women who will die anyway, and are considering rescinding it from their drug approval list. The medical community is divided on the effectiveness of the drug. Some believe the toxicity is not worth the results, others see good results in their patients. A look around the InterWeb shows that some insurance companies have already stopped the treatment, and I also see patients who have been on the drug for two years and are doing extremely well. Read a patient's statement below.
Savings, Emanuel writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others" (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).
ObamaKare is gearing up. Where can the FDA and insurers find savings? By de-certifying drugs for patients considered to be on a terminal list, or soon to be. Who is making these decisions. Well, that's easy, people with "influence," of course, also know as a Death Panel:
The Food and Drug Administration is reviewing the recommendation of influential scientific advisers to revoke authorization of the drug to treat metastatic breast cancer. Contrary to initial research, new studies indicate that the benefits of the drug, which costs $8,000 a month, do not outweigh its risks, the advisory panel concluded.
Avastin is not only prescribed for treating breast cancer. It has proved to be effective for other cancers. Look at this odd statement:
Avastin is approved for use in treating several cancers, including those of the colon, lung, kidney and brain. So doctors could continue to write prescriptions for it for breast cancer, as an "off-label" use.
But in addition to prompting insurers including Medicare to stop paying for Avastin, an FDA revocation of approval for its use in breast cancer treatment might mean that breast cancer patients would lose eligibility for a program in which Genentech caps the annual cost of the drug at $57,000 for women with annual incomes of less than $100,000.
Does this mean people suffering from of the other cancer can continue to receive Avastin, and only breast cancer patients would be denied? The answer is 'yes.' Apparently, the toxicity does not affect cancers other than breast cancer. Do we really believe that? This is a death panel issue. Mentioned above is the idea of making Avastin available for breast cancer treatment for "off-label use," meaning you can get have it you can pay for it.
Medical sources are divided on the success rendered versus the harm caused. Some believe the drug should have never been approved. Here is one success story, and Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute stand behind the drug's good performance:
"I'm very upset," said Leslie Twohig, 48, of Lothian, Md., who has been taking Avastin for eight months and credits the drug with helping her survive. "How long will I be able to stay on Avastin? Are they going to take it away? I know it's working for me. Right now I am able to enjoy my life. Every morning I wake up and wonder how long it's going to go on."
"I am very concerned about people who are receiving the drug and may feel threatened that they may not be able to receive it," said the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's Winer, who is also chief scientific officer for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a breast cancer patient advocacy group. "This is not a worthless drug by any means. There is almost certainly a group of women who get a big benefit. "
Some members of Congress have written protest letters to the FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services. Senator David Vitter (R-LA) says he fears this is the beginning of "a slippery slope leading to more and more rationing under the government takeover of health care that is being forced on the American people."
Wealthier patients who can pay the $4000-$10,000 per month for the drug will probably live longer and have far less pain than the patient without an option for Avastin .
Remember the story of the two Texas ranches that were taken over by Los Zetas cartel? The story broke on July 24th. We were told the ranchers got away, and the cartel got the ranch. After a few days, with no police confirmation, we began to believe it was a hoax. Today we learn perhaps the story is true. If it is true, it raises some important questions...do police have the right or authority to lie to citizens about violence inside the country? I think not.
On the original story, Police were mum, but a San Diego Minuteman, Jeff Schwilk was tipping The Cypress Times, and Kimberly Dvorack with The Examiner was reporting it. Today Dvorak says a "police blotter confirms story is not a hoax." In her report she says a "law enforcement officer on the scene also confirmed the incident in fact happened and officers on the ground said they"considered this an act of war."
After 16 days of denials by Laredo law enforcement and local officials regarding a Mexican drug cartel takeover of a Laredo area ranch, a Texas police blotter proves the alleged incident did in fact happen and that multiple agencies responded to the scene of a seized U.S. ranch....
The police blotter tells the story of the events that unfolded on July 23rd;
“On Friday 7-23-10 Laredo Webb informed that their county SWAT Team is conducting an operation in the Mines Rd. area. According to LT. Garcia with LSO (Laredo Sheriff Office) received a call from a ranch owner stating that the Zetas had taken over his ranch. As per the 17 (reporting person) he informed them that they stated La Compania (area business) was taking the ranch and no one was permitted on the ranch without permission. SO (Sheriff Office) will have an unmarked green Ford Taurus with two officers stationed at Los Compadres and a white Chevy Tahoe with two officers stationed at Mineral Rd. The LSO (Laredo Sheriff Office) will maintain surveillance in the area and advise if action is taken...Read more at The Examiner.
The Los Zetas Cartel is a violent drug organization, originally formed by Mexican Army deserters, turned assassins. They are considered among the most violent paramilitary enforcement organization in Mexico. They have captured U.S. tourists and held them for ransom. In 2009, Texas governor, Rick Perry organized a special squad to guard the border in the event Los Zetas carried through on their threats to the U.S.
Los Zetas are involved in myriad criminal activities. They have branched out into kidnappings, murder-for-hire, assassinations, extortion, money-laundering, and human smuggling. At the right price, these bloodthirsty mercenaries could move into terrorism focused on vulnerable targets in Texas and throughout the Southwest. With or without the Merida Initiative, authorities on both sides of the border should concentrate on curbing the growth of these lethal paramilitaries.
Where is the rest of the story? What happened to the cartel invaders who took over the property, assuming they did? What happened to the property owners? Why is media unwilling to report the story
In October 2009 I wrote "the Swiss get it" as they agreed to extradite Roman Polanski back to the U.S. to face charges of sodomy, rape and drugging a 13 year old girl in 1977. The extradition would come after the the U.S. provided requested paperwork, which eventually included records from a January 2010 hearing in Los Angeles.
Roman Polanski
Polanski's attorneys argued that in 1977 an L.A. judge ruled that Polanski's 42 days in a psychiatric unit in a California prison fulfilled the entire sentencing of the child rapist, who jumped bail and fled the country the night before sentencing. The original judge in the case, Laurence J. Rittenband, died in 1993. The January 2010 hearing was to examine the Judge's words and intentions. The U.S. refused to provide those sealed records, so Romanski, who has been living in a beautiful Swiss chalet under electronic monitoring, is now free.
Last week a burst of gunfire from Mexico crossed the U.S. Texas border smashing into El Paso's City Hall. According to Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, the 7 shots fired from Juarez, Mexico that hit the building, killing and wounding no one, was not the result of effective border control, but mere luck.
El Paso City Hall
The photo above by Vanessa Monsisvais for El Paso Times, shows a large-caliber bullet which entered a west-facing wall at the 9th floor office of Assistant City Manager Pat Adauto....A rod was placed in the bullet hole to mark where the bullet entered.
Police said the bullet flew through the window, then through an interior wall before hitting a picture frame and stopping.
The shocking reality of cross border gunfire proves the cold reality: American lives are at risk. As the attached news article notes: "More than 1,300 people have been murdered in Juárez this year as a war continues relentlessly between the Juárez and Sinaloa drug cartels." Americans must be protected as this deadly war bulges at our border.
Law enforcement officials with the Texas Department of Public Safety and your own U.S. Customs and Border Protection will reveal the hard truth. Our state is under constant assault from illegal activity threatening a porous border.
The time for talk has passed. The time for action is now. The need is urgent. Each day that passes increases the likelihood that an American life will be lost because of the federal government's failure to secure the border.
This threat demands immediate and effective action by your Administration to secure our border. As the Attorney General of Texas, I urge you to make border security your top priority so that no more innocent lives are lost to border violence.
This area near Hermosillo, Mexico is a "prime corridor for immigrant and drug smuggling," and was the scene of a "massive gun battle between rival drug and migrant-trafficking gangs near the border," - in fact, only 12 miles from the US border just south of Tucson. Twenty-one are dead, six wounded and nine are in police custody.
Drug cartels are both calling and firing the shots in Nogales, Arizona. Police are threatened by Mexican drug cartel snipers practically in their own backyards. Off-duty officers, through informants, have been directly advised to mind their own business or face a bullet. See the video:
Drug Cartels Calling and Firing the Shots in Nogales, AZ (video)
Finally some news about one of the most despicable child sexual predators in history. Frank M. Lombard, the Duke University employee who adopted a child, drugged him, sodomized him, and performed other lewd and lascivious acts on camera for the benefit of another pedophile in prison, has been sentenced to 27 years and 3 months in prison. Lombard's sentence came from one charge of producing child pornography.
Frank M. Lombard - Pedophile Adoptive Father
Lombard, and his partner Ken Shipp, also a Duke University employee, adopted two black boys - or perhaps Lombard was the only adopter. The youngest son, who was 5 years old at the time Lombard was caught, was repeatedly abused by his father. After the crime was reported, everything...all information about Lombard was shutdown, and a thinking person just couldn't help but think the silence was because this was about gay adoption.
This report says that the sentence is for "producing child pornography." What about child endangerment, what about rape, what about assault, what about dereliction of parental obligation, what about drugging a child, time after time, and what about offering his son for sex to another man. I cannot understand only the one charge. I assume there was a plea deal, but justice was not done for this little boy.
Lombard was arrested in June 2009 after an FBI sting. He pleaded guilty in December. A news report says Lombard "was charged to a federal child sex charge." He was also sentenced to lifetime supervision after leaving prison. Wonderful. We know how well "supervision" works - not well usually. These predators end up wherever they want to be. Parole officers don't have a clue. John Couey, the kidnapper, raper and murderer of little Jessica Lunsford shows the folly of thinking these beasts can live among decent people.
In recommending the sentence, U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen, Jr. wrote, "The defendant betrayed the trust of his adopted child in the most deplorable way imaginable. His child became nothing more than a pawn in his persistent attempts to gratify himself by sexually molesting him and chatting online with as many other pedophiles as possible.
Frank M. Lombard served as an associate director of the center for Health Policy at Duke. The university terminated his employment. According to early reports, his partner Ken Shipp did not know about the rapes, the drugging, the molestations, or the child pornography in his own home.
Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) released today a comprehensive list of tax hikes (penalties) in the Senate's health care bill. Undocumented Immigrants (who have not "immigrated") will not see their taxes go up. Salaries for Health Insurance Executives will be capped, and a reporting requirement for small businesses that ATR says is a "huge compliance burden for small employers."
Health Care Taxes
ATR lays out excise taxes on Cadillac health care plans, a Medicine Cabinet Tax, a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) tax, a tax on Medical Device manufacturers, and a tax on health reimbursement pre-tax dollars to purchase non-prescription, and over the counter medicines.
There is a 'haircut" for itemized medical deductions from 7.5% to 10%
"Currently, those facing high medical expenses are allowed a deduction if the total cost of the expenses reduces the filer's income by 7.5% The new provision would impose a threashold of 10%. Waived for 65+ taxpayers in 20103-2016 only."
There are taxes on Blue Cross/Blue Shield, but not AARP's Hartford.
There are taxes on Charitable hospitals, like Cleveland Clinic treating Natoma Canfield, President Obama's latest spotlight for government insurance. According to the Clinic, Ms. Canfield is a candidate for Medicaid, and contrary to Obama's claims, Cleveland Clinic says it is not true that Canfield must choose between her health and home, and they have no intentions of putting a lien on Canfield's home, or letting their billing process interfere with her newly diagnosed leukemia treatments.
There are taxes on Innovator Drug Companies - those who pioneer treatments for diseases plaguing Ms. Canfield will be penalized for doing so.
In 2014, families with 3 or more persons will see their taxes hiked $1,485 per family, if you choose not to buy one of the government's qualified, mandated policies. The tax is the government's penalty for your failure to do as they tell you to do.
Families of 2 persons will be assessed a penalty of $990 in 2014.
A single person not choosing one of the government's qualified, mandated policies will be penalized $495.
Along with "undocumented immigrants," others exempted are "religious objectors," prisoners, those earning less than the poverty line, members of Indian tribes, and hardship cases. If you are in the camp believing illegals pay their fair share in social security taxes and sales taxes, please read this (skip down two paragraphs.)
If you are an employer, here are your penalties:
If an employer does not offer health coverage, and at least one employee qualifies for a health tax credit, the employer must pay and additional non-deductible tax of $750 for all full-time employees. Applies to all employers with 50 or more employees.
If the employer requires a waiting period to enroll in coverage of 3-6- days, there is a $400 tax per employee ($600 if the period is 60 day or longer).
Be assured that all taxes supposedly not coming due until 2014 will be hiked by the time we get there, and we can count on all taxes hiking, probably annually. Read the full article at ATR
"There's no question premiums are still going to keep going up," said Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a research clearinghouse on the health care system. "There are pieces of reform that will hopefully keep them from going up as fast. But it would be miraculous if premiums actually went down relative to where they are today."
The statistics Obama based his claims on come from two sources. In both cases, the caveats got left out.
We hear this week that Mexican drug cartels have infiltrated Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection along the Mexico-U.S. border. We heard that a Mexican Military helicopter "hovered" over Texas homes, apparently with no consequences from our government. Today we learn that two Americans, a consultate staff member and her husband, were murdered by "drug gang hitmen." President Obama is "outraged" at the murders, as well he should be, but let's face it, if these people can "infiltrate" Homeland Security they can do anything they want.
The attack on the U.S. couple began with a car chase and ended in front of the main border crossing into El Paso, Texas, an area heavily patrolled by soldiers...." the couple's baby girl survived the attack.
Beheadings in Mexico?
A burst of drug gang clashes killed at least 27 people -- including four who were beheaded -- this weekend in or near the Pacific resort of Acapulco, one of many popular with spring breakers.
Beheadings are not new. An organization known as La Familia Michoacana:
...burst into the limelight on September 6, 2006, when 20 masked desperados stormed into scruffy Sol y Sombra night spot in Uruapan, Michoacan, fired shots into the air, ran up to the second floor from where they tossed five human heads on the black and white dance floor.
They left behind a message, written on cardboard: "The family doesn't kill for money. It doesn't kill women. It doesn't kill innocent people, only those who deserve to die. Know that this is divine justice."
LaFamilia Michoacana is described as a "pseudo-evangelical cult," who uses writings from former Focus on the Family'sJohn Eldredge, who now heads Ransomed Heart Ministries and authored Wild at Heart: Discovering the Passionate Soul - one of the best-selling Christian books in the "Christian Living" category, of all times. From Thump and Whip:
Eldredge claims that if Christian men are going to change from a pitiful bunch of "really nice guys" to men who are made in the image of God they must re-examine their false presumptions about god's character to recover their true, God-given, male identity as wild hearts.
I know you're not letting your high-schoolers go to Mexico for Spring Break. Right?
Earlier this week I reported on a Mexican military helicopter that hovered over the homes of Texas residents near the Texas border with Mexico. While I thought that was the story, it turned out not to be the whole story. Shocking to think that another country's military aircraft would "hover" over the homes of Americans. Right? But more shocking to me was the news that our Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Control (CBP) have been infiltrated by drug cartels.
As violence continued Thursday with a highway shootout in Tamaulipas, a Senate subcommittee in Washington heard testimony that drug cartels are trying to infiltrate U.S. agencies along the border, with corruption cases among Homeland Security personnel on the rise.
Some 576 corruption investigations were launched into (CBP) officers and border patrol last year. The agency says they are beginning to combate the incursions with more thorough background investigations and polygraph tests. What's wrong with this picture? Not using the most stringent background checks, possible, from the beginning of the formation of these agencies is what's wrong.
It struck me last week that no one is talking about Homeland Security and Border Patrol being compromised. Where's the chat about this? So far, I haven't found a peep from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano about the invasion of our sovereignty or the criminal infiltration of the agency formed to keep the U.S. safe.
A Mexican helicopter, believed to be Mexican military, hovered above the homes of Texas residents. With drug murders and mayhem just across the border of the Rio Grande, Border agencies, including Customs and Border Protection, are allegedly being infiltrated by drug cartels, and Homeland Security's corruption cases are on the rise. I don't know about you, but just one case of Homeland Security corruption or infiltration, of any kind, is unthinkable.
Zapata County, Texas
Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said there have been other "incursions" into the U.S. by Mexican Military. The Sheriff indicated the Mexican Military could not have made a mistake...the Rio Grande River is a clear border.
Gonzalez says he cannot confirm reports, presumably from Mexico, that the helicopter "was scoping out the home of a drug criminal, in a "neighborhood populated by many U.S. Customs officers who work at border crossing...."
There is a Zapata County, Texas and a Zapata County, Mexico in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. What good is Homeland Security if they cannot ferret-out infiltrators, before they infiltrate?
Operation Moshtarak still continues slowly according to all reports out of Afghanistan's Helmand Province, with half of the Taliban either dead or gone. See video below.
Marines - Helmand Province
According to the NYT-Asia Pacific, on the third day of Moshtarak, Taliban fighters in the area have dropped by about half. At one time, it was thought as many as 1,000 Taliban might be in the village of Marja at the start of the Operation last Saturday, but today's estimate is 400, with about one-fourth of them now dead and one-fourth fleeing the area - to unknown parts.
Among the Taliban fighters still in Marja, American and Afghan
officials said, morale appears to be eroding fast, in part because the
holdouts feel abandoned by their leaders and by local Afghans who are
refusing to shelter them.
“They cannot feed themselves, they
cannot sustain themselves — that is what we are hearing,” Col. Scott
Hartsell told a group of senior officers at a briefing near Marja that
included Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of NATO forces; and Abdul Rahim Wardak, the Afghan minister of defense. “They are calling for help, and they are not getting any.”
Commanders believe the combat phase of the Operation will wind-up with three or four days.
It has been obvious since word of the coming Operation was purposefully leaked, that many in Marja welcomed the NATO forces, but they also feared for their lives at the hands of the Taliban:
A Marja tribal elder, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said
that a local shura — or council — had assigned 10 local Afghans to
assist American and Afghan military units.
“They are here to
help us, and it’s our duty to help them,” a tribal elder said in a
telephone interview, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “They
might kill me for telling you this.”
A missile strike recently, inside Marja, killed eleven civilians. There is confusion about the strike as Military struggles to figure out what happened. First, American military said the rocket was designated for the house next the one actually hit. Yesterday, military sources said the rocket hit the house it was supposed to hit, but they were unaware that civilians were inside. The Marines on the ground, however, say they were "startled" by the missile strike, which a Company Commander requested earlier in the day, but permission was denied.
In the photo above, you can see the difficult terrain in Helmand Province. The series of canals and bridges were originally built by the U.S. military in the hopes of bringing agriculture to the area, which can also support livestock, fishing, forestry and horticulture. Instead, Afghans chose to grow poppies - from which 90% of the world's opium, used to make heroin is harvested, and provides 60% of Afghanistan's economy. An Afghan farmer, growing products to make cereals, makes only a pittance compared to a crop of poppies.
Here is a look from July 2009, at what it is like when the U.S. Marines show up in the Helmand - this time in the village of Nawa:
Before a battalion of U.S. Marines swooped into this dusty farming
community along the Helmand River in early July, almost every stall in
the bazaar had been padlocked, as had the school and the health clinic.
Thousands of residents had fled. Government officials and municipal
services were nonexistent. Taliban fighters swaggered about with
impunity, setting up checkpoints and seeding the roads with bombs.
In the three months since the Marines arrived, the school has reopened,
the district governor is on the job and the market is bustling. The
insurgents have demonstrated far less resistance than U.S. commanders
expected. Many of the residents who left are returning home, their
possessions piled onto rickety trailers, and the Marines deem the
central part of the town so secure that they routinely walk around
without body armor and helmets.
"Nawa has returned from the dead," said the district administrator, Mohammed Khan.
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