90 Miles From Tyranny

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Somali Smuggler Brought at Least 50 Migrants to the TX, CA Borders

Takeaways from the latest ICE effort to shut down bridges that connect Muslim-majority nations to the U.S. Southwest border.

The first border-crossing migrant to allegedly conduct an ISIS-inspired attack in North America was a Somali named Abdulahi Hasan Sharif, who somehow first made his way to Tijuana and across the California border, as I recently detailed. Sharif went on to carry an ISIS flag while conducting two September 30, 2017, vehicle-ramming attacks in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, that injured five people. Among the questions I identified as unasked and unanswered, was: How did Sharif get all the way to Tijuana? Knowing how he and other Somalis get to our border serves the tactical purpose of helping border security agencies interdict more migrants coming from such terrorist-harboring countries so that they can assess character and intentions. But the ongoing smuggling of non-Mexican migrants symbolized by the Sharif attack case also should serve to remind policy-makers, homeland security leaders, and the general public, as they contemplate immigration reform, that illegal immigration enforcement is often also straight counterterrorism with a priority national security purpose. Any change to immigration enforcement should be handled with the inclusion of this fundamental strategic understanding.

One reliable way to learn how Sharif and others from the Horn of Africa get to our border is to pay close attention to what ICE's Homeland Security Investigations division is up to. You wouldn't know it from all the talk about disbanding ICE, but its HSI division is the tip of the spear going after the smugglers of "special interest aliens"(SIAs) and potentially ill-intentioned extremists among them trying to reach the U.S. southern border from countries that harbor Islamist terrorists. As I wrote recently in describing the prosecutions of a Brazil-based Pakistani SIA smuggler and of a Jordanian one based in Mexico, these unsung ICE-HSI counterterrorism operations provide rare footage, so to speak, of a largely unseen corner in America's war on terror right where it blends with illegal immigration enforcement.

The latest ICE-HSI smuggling case, a rare and valuable instrument of public knowledge, is now partially unveiled (I can only count 22 such prosecutions since 9/11). An August 8, 2018, criminal probable-cause complaint shows not only how an accused Somali ISIS attacker like Sharif might have gotten to California, but also how many dozens of others from East Africa actually did. The glimpse comes in the matter of United States v. Mohamed Abdi Siyad, aka "Hassan" in the Southern District of California. Investigating HSI Special Agent David Whitacre describes how Hassan, from his base in São Paulo, Brazil, provided the connecting bridge by which many dozens of Somalis and other Horn of Africa migrants — extremists potentially among them — traveled from the African continent through Latin America and on to...

Not As Soft And Full Of Shit...

Our Sun Went Blank For Most Of 2018: Expect A Very Cold Winter

Global warming alarmists will not welcome winter’s potential deep freeze in 2018, but predictably, they will figure out a way to blame it on global warming anyway. No amount of evidence to the contrary will change their mind, which proves that they have turned their position into a religion. ⁃ TN Editor

Scientists are reporting that the sun has been free of sunspots for a total of 133 days this year.

With only 241 days of 2018 passing, that means the sun has been blank for the majority of the year.

Experts warn this is a sign that the solar minimum is on its way.

Website Space Weather says: “The sun is spotless again. For the 133rd day this year, the face of the sun is blank.

“To find a year with fewer sunspots, you have to go back to 2009 when the sun was experiencing the deepest solar minimum in a century.

“Solar minimum has returned, bringing extra cosmic rays, long-lasting holes in the sun’s atmosphere, and strangely pink auroras.”

The sun follows cycles of roughly 11 years where it reaches a solar maximum and then a solar minimum.

During a solar maximum, the sun gives off more heat and is littered with sunspots. Less heat in a solar minimum is due to a decrease in magnetic waves.

The sun was not expected to head into a solar minimum until around 2020, but it appears to be heading in early which could prove to be bad news.

The last time there was a prolonged solar minimum, it led to a ‘mini ice-age’, scientifically known as the Maunder minimum – which lasted for 70 years.

The Maunder minimum, which saw seven decades of freezing weather, began in 1645 and lasted through to 1715, and happened when sunspots were exceedingly rare.

During this period, temperatures dropped globally by 1.3 degrees Celsius leading to...

Fox News host Tucker Carlson went after NBC News for allegedly quashing Ronan Farrow’s story detailing Harvey Weinstein’s rampant sexual abuse on his show Tuesday night.

“In a long memo released last night, NBC chairman Andy Lack spent 11 pages claiming that his network couldn’t air the investigation of Weinstein, the same piece that later ran in the New Yorker and won a Pulitzer Prize. There just wasn’t enough evidence, Lack said. There weren’t any on the record allegations against Harvey Weinstein. Well, that is false and now we can prove it is. On her NBC show this morning, Megyn Kelly bravely pointed out because she still works there, that there was in fact and on the record source against Harvey Weinstein, it was Rose McGowan,” Carlson began.

He continued, “NBC knew this because McGowan’s claim was included in a script that made it to the very top of the company. That included the general counsel of the company. We spoke to a source by phone who read us the pertinent line from the script. Here it is ‘In later conversations with NBC news, she, Rose McGowan, specifically named Weinstein.’”

This came to light when former producer Rich McHugh told the New York Times that the very highest levels of NBC tried to stop Ronan Farrow’s reporting.

“NBC also had videotape shot by police in New York of Harvey Weinstein himself confessing to abuse on camera. So they had the whole thing nailed. And they suppressed it and it protected Weinstein. Now they are lying about...

It sure was nice to turn on the “Sunday shows” and finally get away from all the politics of this weekend’s funerals.

Listening to failed politicians hijack the funerals of two such respected American heroes as John McCain and Aretha Franklin so they could smear the sitting president really tells you all you need to know about those washed-up has-beens.

It was particularly strange to listen to all these rabid enemies of McCain in life heaping praise on him in death.
McCain was a rare genuine battle hero in American politics; but American politics treated him badly. During his presidential campaign against then-Sen. Barack Obama, McCain was slimed as a racist. During his campaign against then-Gov. George W. Bush, he endured sneaky robocalls accusing him of having an illegitimate black child.

Hard to see how both could be possible. But when it comes to low-down, dirty, dishonest gutter politics in America, nothing is out of bounds.

Somehow these people are shocked — SHOCKED! — by the harsh rhetoric of President Trump.

Give me a break.

And now these people are lining up to smear yet another good person dragged into the sewer of American politics.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota Democrat, went on one of the Sunday shows to shred the good name of Mr. Trump’s latest nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh. (I will not say the name of the program because, honestly, I am embarrassed to have wasted precious moments of the Sabbath on such...

Everything you need to know: Headquarters Located In San Francisco...

Levi Strauss & Co. has expanded their original mission beyond the manufacture of blue jeans. This “values driven company” now feels a responsibility to “the communities where we live and work” and will now engage with other gun control groups to fight for “gun violence prevention.”

Chip Berg, CEO of Levi Strauss, wrote an open letter to his customers asking them not to bring firearms onto the premises of their stores, offices or other facilities. For him, it was a matter of safety. Of course, law enforcement was exempt from that request.

“It boils down to this: you shouldn’t have to be concerned about your safety while shopping for clothes or trying on a pair of jeans. Simply put, firearms don’t belong in either of those settings. In the end, I believe we have an obligation to our employees and customers to ensure a safe environment and keeping firearms out of our stores and offices will get us one step closer to achieving that reality.”

So, it’s clear Berg doesn’t subscribe to the theory that the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

Berg took it a step farther today with an op-ed in Fortune. He explained that as a leader in business “with power in the public and political arenas” he felt the responsibility to break the silence that threatens “the very fabric of the communities where we live and work.”

“So today, on top of our previous actions, Levi Strauss & Co. is lending its support for gun violence prevention in three new areas.”

The company has developed a site that outlines its gun violence prevention strategy complete with mission statements and donation match programs.

Their Safer Tomorrow Fund will direct more than $1 million dollars from Levi Strauss & Co. over four years to youth activist and nonprofit organizations who share the same goals of ending gun violence in America.

Berg announced the company is partnering with various executives and Michael Bloomberg to join forces with Every Town Business Leaders for Gun Safety.

This coalition of like minded executives “has a critical role to play in and a moral obligation to do something about the gun violence epidemic in this country. I encourage every CEO and business leader reading this to consider the impact we could make if we stood together alongside the broad coalition of concerned parents, youth, elders, veterans, and community and faith leaders who are committed to shaping a safer path forward.”

He doesn’t explain any particular plan of action for the Every Town organization other than to infer there may be some think-tank like discussions on how to end gun violence.

And the third leg of the stool involves employee participation. Levi Strauss is doubling its employee donation match to any organizations aligned with...