90 Miles From Tyranny

Friday, October 2, 2015

Wilmington, NC – On Monday, Alberto Lucero, 45, pleaded guilty in New Hanover County Superior Court to one count each of the rape of a child and taking indecent liberties with a child.

He was originally charged with multiple counts of child sexual assault, but those were dropped in exchange for his guilty pleas.

WECT reported:

Not only did DNA evidence tie Lucero to the crimes, but he also admitted to detectives that he sexually assaulted the victim multiple times.

The girl was raped repeatedly over a period of several years, according to investigators.

Lucero was sentenced to between 41 to 59 years in prison.

View this suspect’s booking info…

District Attorney Ben David spoke with representatives from the citizens’ advocacy group known as NCFIRE, and disclosed that the evidence revealed that Lucero had, in fact, impregnated both his wife and young daughter on the very same day, but that his office had withheld this information from...

Girls With Guns

4 Highlights From Obama’s Ridiculous Cyber Agreement With China

Last week, the White House announced that the U.S. and China had agreed to stop cyber economic espionage and work together to stop cybercrime.

Well, that was easy, wasn’t it? Too easy.

The reality is that the president has just made another paper agreement that will do little to change the behavior of bad actors.

While it will certainly make some feel good for having “solved” a problem through only talking, it has deprived us of an opportunity to change China’s behavior through the application of sanctions in the face of their blatant cyber actions.

The White House press release is filled with worrisome conclusions, indicating that this agreement ignores the seriousness of this problem and kicks the can down the road.

Here are some of the highlights:

1. [T]he United States and China…agree to cooperate…with requests to investigate cybercrimes, collect electronic evidence, and mitigate malicious cyber activity emanating from their territory.
Great, but think about the implications. The Chinese will request that the U.S. help it stop all sorts of dissident hackers and activists. The U.S. lives up to its agreements so it will dutifully help the Chinese even as oppressed individuals are jailed for cybercrimes, such as “jeopardizing Internet security” or accessing “illegal and harmful information,”—i.e., anything the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t like.

Then what stops the Chinese from stonewalling to protect their hackers? Will the Chinese help the U.S. investigate the five Chinese military officers that the U.S. charged with cybercrimes last year? Doubtful.

2. The United States and China agree that neither country’s government will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information, with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies or commercial sectors.
The U.S. does not engage in economic espionage because it goes against U.S. principles of rule of law and property rights. However, while everyone knows that the Chinese engage in ...

Girls With Guns

Obama Puts Positive Spin on Disastrous Foreign Policy in UN Speech

President Obama’s seventh speech to the United Nations was well-received on Monday.

This is hardly surprising, as his policies have been a broad embrace of priorities and tactics that have long been championed by the majority of the world’s governments.

As stated by Peter Wittig, Germany’s ambassador to the United States and formerly Germany’s permanent representative to the United Nations:

The foreign policy of the Obama administration [on issues like renewed Cuba relations and the Iran nuclear deal] is — if I may say so — very European, and therefore we applaud it. We are really singing from the same song sheet… late in the day, in the fourth quarter, turned out to be a real leader on climate change. He brought China along, and that has served as a catalyst for other emerging economies.

Unfortunately, while popular in Europe and elsewhere, those policies are a triumph of image over reality. As admitted by supporters, even if Iran abides by the terms of the deal, it will have billions of dollars in freed funds to support terrorism, and its nuclear program will be legitimized.

Renewed diplomatic relations with Cuba have...