90 Miles From Tyranny

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

How A Mexican Drug Cartel Nearly Triggered War Between The U.S. And Iran

Those dismissive of the danger posed by Mexican drug cartels ought to learn of the time they nearly carried out the worst terrorist attack in America since 9/11 and almost triggered a resulting war with Iran.

The massacre of nine dual-citizen American Mexican Mormons less than 100 miles from the border with the United States serves as a reminder of the dangers the cartels pose and the existence of one of the world’s deadliest wars in America’s own neighborhood.

The Mexican drug war and cartels don’t preoccupy the national security/foreign policy establishment and the media the same way the Syrian civil war and Middle East militants do. But the conflict south of the border isn’t only getting worse, Latin America stands to pose a greater (if not the greatest) national security challenge for the United States in years to come. If policymakers, think tanks, and the media won’t sound the alarm now, they’ll have no choice but to do so later.

That lesson was almost learned the hard way eight years ago, during Barack Obama’s presidency. A drug cartel was nearly responsible for the most devastating terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11, one that could’ve sparked a war with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

How Did This Almost Happen?

On Oct. 11, 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller announced the plot to assassinate Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Adel al-Jubeir had been foiled, and one of the suspects, U.S. citizen Manssor Arbabsiar, had been arrested. The other suspect, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force operative Gholam Shakuri, was never arrested and remains at large to this day.

According to the Department of Justice, Jubeir’s assassination was plotted from spring to October 2011. Throughout the year, Arbabsiar went to Mexico to enlist the services of someone he believed was an associate of a Mexican drug cartel. Only it wasn’t — his contact was actually an informant for...

A Skunk By Any Other Name....

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ICE Attacks Sanctuaries, Claims 90% of Arrests Face Criminal Charges

Facing a widening national sanctuary movement for criminal illegal immigrants, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is aggressively pushing back, claiming that soft-hearted political and community leaders are releasing harden criminals pursuant to their sanctuary policy.

After a county bordering Washington, D.C., joined over 300 sanctuary governments late last week, ICE has released the photos of 66 wanted illegal immigrants held by those jurisdictions to drive home its point that those set free are hardened criminals.

It also knocked down claims that it is targeting illegal immigrants facing no criminal charges, noting that 90% of those arrested are convicts or wanted for alleged criminal acts. ICE said, in its campaign against “non-cooperative jurisdictions:

Nationally, approximately 90% of all people arrested by ICE during fiscal year 2019 either had a criminal conviction, a pending criminal charge, had illegally re-entered the United States after being previously removed (a federal felony), or were an immigration fugitive subject to a final order of removal.

Last week, Prince George’s County, Maryland, joined other D.C. areas in ordering law enforcement to not cooperate with ICE when the agency requests that illegal immigrant criminals in custody be turned over for court action or deportation. ICE decried the move and added that all it wants is to seize criminals and those wanted for crimes.

"The only way a person is subject to an ICE detainer ... is if they are handcuffed and arrested for a crime committed in the local community," said acting ICE Director Matt Albence. In releasing the photos of the 66 wanted in Maryland and North Carolina, ICE said:

The Victims of Race-Focused Liberals Are Blacks

By Walter E. Williams
Former presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke said that racism in America is “foundational” and that people of color were under “mortal threat” from the “white supremacist in the White House.” Pete Buttigieg chimed in to explain that “systemic racism” will “be with us” no matter who is in the White House. Sen. Cory Booker called for “attacking systemic racism” in the “racially biased” criminal justice system.

Let’s follow up by examining Booker’s concern about a “racially biased” criminal justice system. To do that, we can turn to a recent article by Heather Mac Donald, who is a senior fellow at the New York-based Manhattan Institute. She is a contributing editor of City Journal, and a New York Times bestselling author.

Her most recent article, “A Platform of Urban Decline,” which appeared in Manhattan Institute’s publication Eye On The News, addresses race and crime. She reveals government statistics you’ve never read before.

According to leftist rhetoric, whites pose a severe, if not mortal, threat to blacks. Mac Donald says that may have once been true, but it is no longer so today. To make her case, she uses the latest Bureau of Justice Statistics 2018 survey of criminal victimization.

Mac Donald writes:

According to the study, there were 593,598 interracial violent victimizations (excluding homicide) between blacks and whites last year, including white-on-black and black-on-white attacks. Blacks committed 537,204 of those interracial felonies, or 90 percent, and whites committed 56,394 of them, or less than 10 percent.

That ratio is becoming more skewed, despite the Democratic claim of Trump-inspired white violence. In 2012-13, blacks committed 85 percent of all interracial victimizations between blacks and whites; whites committed 15 percent. From 2015 to 2018, the total number of white victims and the incidence of white victimization have grown as well.

There are other stark figures not talked about often. According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting for 2018, of the homicide victims for whom race was known, 53.3% were black, 43.8% were white, and 2.8% were of other races. In cases where the race of the offender was known, 54.9% were black, 42.4% were white, and 2.7% were of other races.

White and black liberals, who claim that blacks face a “mortal threat” from the “white supremacist in the White House” are perpetuating a cruel hoax. The primary victims of that hoax are black people. We face the difficult, and sometimes embarrassing, task of confronting reality.

Mac Donald says that Barack Obama’s 2008 Father’s Day speech in Chicago would be seen today as an “unforgivable outburst of white supremacy.” Here’s what Obama told his predominantly black audience in a South Side church: “If we are honest with ourselves,” too many fathers are “missing—missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men.”

Then-Sen. Obama went on to say, “Children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools, and 20 times more likely to end up in prison.”

White liberals deem that any speaker’s references to personal responsibility brands the speaker as bigoted. Black people cannot afford to buy into the white liberal agenda. White liberals don’t pay the same price. They don’t live in neighborhoods where their children can get shot simply sitting on their...

Price Transparency Rule Will Help Patients Make Better Choices

Last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued one proposed and one finalized rule, both with the aim of providing patients with transparency in prices for health services.

These two rules came as a result of an executive order signed in June by President Donald Trump directing the Department of Health and Human Services to require hospitals and health insurance to communicate their prices in a plain and easily understood manner.

The final rule will take effect on Jan. 1, 2021.

According to the executive order, these rules are intended to enable patients to use this additional information to make better choices for themselves.

Health care in the United States is paid for almost entirely through third parties, whether by insurance companies or by a federal government program such as Medicare or Medicaid. Most prices for health services are thus negotiated out of sight of patients and kept hidden from the public between these third parties.

Many states have their own form of transparency laws, but they generally do poorly in the goal of making actual prices easily accessible and understandable.

Currently, all hospitals do keep what is called a “chargemaster,” which is a complete roster of services provided by the hospital and a listed price for each. But they frequently are difficult to find and more often incomprehensible to anyone but medical billers.

Furthermore, the chargemaster does not reflect actual prices paid; rather, the chargemaster prices are akin to asking prices that insurance companies negotiate down.

By contrast, the new finalized rule requires hospitals to post rates they have negotiated with insurers as well as the discounted cash prices for patients who choose to pay directly. The rule also requires this pricing information to be presented in an easy-to-read, “consumer-friendly list of standard charges for a limited set of shoppable services.”

This latter requirement is intended to make the price information readily accessible in health care apps, electronic health records, and even in a common file format that a patient can find usable without specialized applications (such as XML or CSV.)

Providers also will find this information useful as they often are as ignorant as patients are of the price of the hospital services they order. Having the price information available through an electronic health records system will also enable patients to...

Mahdi Mohamud, 26, today pleaded guilty to three counts of attempted murder
The 26-year-old shouted 'Allahu Akbar' and 'Long Live the Caliphate' in attack
He stabbed Anna Charlton and James Knox at Manchester Victoria Station
He also slashed officer Lee Valentine as he was Tasered and pepper sprayed
Mohamud was found to be in possession of a terror manual titled 'the seven most lethal ways to strike with a knife' and footage of terror preacher Anwar al-Awalaki

Shocking CCTV footage shows the moment a terrorist launched a frenzied attack on train commuters - as the hero police officer who tried to stop the attacker recalls how he 'lunged' at his head with the blade.

Sergeant Lee Valentine, 31, has spoken of the moment he pulled the trigger on his Taser but failed to stop crazed lone wolf Mahdi Mohamud who was armed with a fillet knife.

He was with colleague Pc Tom Wright, 27, on duty at Manchester Victoria railway station when he heard a shocking scream as Mohamud launched the attack.

Sgt Valentine said he felt 'massively' lucky not to be more seriously injured in the attack last New Year's Eve.

CCTV footage shows the moment the knifeman, 26, had walked up behind unsuspecting James Knox, screaming 'Allahu Akbar!' and 'Long live the Caliphate!' as he stabbed his victim repeatedly in the back, shoulders and head.

He then turned the knife on Mr Knox's companion, Anna Charlton, slashing her across the face after the couple, in their 50s, randomly crossed his path heading for a tram platform shortly before 9pm last December 31.

Sgt Valentine said: 'I didn't even get the chance to take the fired cartridge off the top before he just started running towards me.

'He probably closed a seven foot gap in half a second. 'It was just like a dive, he flew, he probably jumped three or four foot off the ground and...