Friday, July 18, 2014

Salvadoran immigrant jailed in traffic stop identifed as MS-13 gang member

7/18/2014


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La Grulla police detain an undocumented immigrant confirmed as a MS-13 gang member during a traffic stop.
It happened about two weeks ago.
La Grulla police told Action 4 News that an officer pulled over a driver of a green GMC Yukon on FM 2360 just south of Military Road in La Grulla.
The officer observed three passengers inside the vehicle that appeared sweaty, dehydrated and were wearing muddy clothing.
One of the passengers had MS-13 tattooed on his elbow.
MS-13, short for Mara Salvatrucha, is one of the most violent transnational gangs and is the reason many undocumented immigrants from Central America say they are fleeing their home countries.
The officer asked the immigrant to lift his shirt and observed more MS-13 tattoos.
The Salvadorian immigrant admitted to the officer that he is an MS-13 gang member.
The immigrant was added to the police department added the man’s identification to a gang database.
The driver and the three suspected undocumented immigrants were handed over to Border Patrol.

Name That Party: Identities released of six accused in voter fraud case

7/18/2014


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Six women are facing multiple charges in connection to a voter fraud investigation headed by the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
Tomasa Chavez, Facunda Garcia, Bernice Garcia, Vicenta Verino, Sara Virginia Perales and Margarita Ozuna were booked into the Cameron County Jail on multiple charges.
The six arrested were booked into the Cameron County Jail on Wednesday, July 16th.
The arrests were made by the Attorney General’s Office.
The alleged voter fraud took place during the July 2012 Democratic primary runoff election in Cameron County, according to the elections department.
Charges including unlicensed assistance to voter, violations of method of returned market ballot, carrier envelope action by person other than the voter and the method of returning a marked ballot.
The Cameron County Elections Office provided information to the Texas AG’s office amid the voter fraud investigation.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office said they are working in conjunction with the FBI.

Militia arrives in the Rio Grande Valley hoping to secure border

7/18/2014


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The Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office confirmed a militia group is in the Rio Grande Valley.
Action4 News learned that several men minutemen from a militia group out of state have made their way down to the valley to help with secure the border.
We were told by Pharr police and the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office that they were posted up at Pharr Port of Entry Wednesday.
However, we do not have the exact number of men that are down here and we are told there could possibly be more people on the way.
"The initial reports were about six men along the river in the Pharr area and they were armed with long arms,” said Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office Commander Joel Rivera.
Commander Rivera said he has not spoken to this particular militia group, but said others have reached out to their agency in the past. The sheriff’s office is not encouraging citizens to take matters into their own hands.
"The orders of the Sheriff are to all of our deputies is that we will respect their second amendment rights as long as they fall within the state laws of Texas," he said.
Which according to Cmdr. Rivera, means that when in public, the minutemen carrying long-arms, must do so in a non-threatening manner.
Rivera said, "As far as them going to private property, obviously, we need for them to respect the wishes of the private land owners."
Action4 News did go out to searching for the militia by the Pharr bridge, but the minutemen were nowhere in sight. We spoke with people living along the river to find out how they felt about having armed men provide border security. While many did not want to speak on camera, they did tell us its concerning.
One property owner told us that the group asked permission to set up on the property. However, the individual denied their request because of the potential liability in the event that someone were to get hurt.
The owner explained that Border Patrol agents have been doing a good job securing the area and Commander Rivera agrees.
“The department has created the partnerships with the state and federal agencies and through a cooperative effort, we feel we have been providing the necessary protections for our citizens,” stated Rivera.
Action4 reached out and contacted one member from the militia group, but at this time, they are not releasing the name of their organization, details of how many boots are on the ground, but they tell us that they will provide more information in the near future.
The group adds they do want to be transparent and keep the community informed on issues relating to border security.

Federal Judge rules Death Penalty Unconstitutional, Unwittingly calls for firing squad at sundown

7/18/2014

Federal Judge Rules California Death Penalty Unconstitutional

WASHINGTON – A federal judge in Los Angeles has declared the death penalty in the state of California to be unconstitutional, arguing that the lengthy and unpredictable delays in carrying it out result in arbitrary factors determining the execution of a convict.

Of the more than 900 people sentenced to death in California since 1978, only 13 have been executed, U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney pointed out.

“For the rest, the dysfunctional administration of California’s death penalty system has resulted, and will continue to result, in an inordinate and unpredictable period of delay preceding their actual execution,” he wrote in his decision.

Delays have created a “system in which arbitrary factors, rather than legitimate ones like the nature of the crime or the date of the death sentence, determine whether an individual will actually be executed,” according to the judge.

With Wednesday’s ruling, the judge overturned the death penalty against Ernest Dewayne Jones, who was convicted on April 7, 1995, of the 1992 rape and murder of a 50-year-old accountant.

“Allowing this system to continue to threaten Mr. Jones with the slight possibility of death, almost a generation after he was first sentenced, violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment,” Carney wrote.

Carney’s decision may be appealed to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The ruling comes after another judge in California determined that the system of lethal injections needs to be revised because there exists a substantial risk that an inmate will experience extreme pain during the injection.

Lethal injection has been the object of heavy criticism in recent months after the complications that occurred during the execution of a prisoner in Oklahoma who died of a heart attack more than 40 minutes after receiving the supposedly almost instantly fatal injection.

Is Obama Waging Jihad?

7/18/2014


Not a week goes by that I'm not called or emailed by hundreds of fans who believe we have a foreigner and Muslim in the White House. I've disagreed for six years now. We have to take our President at his word. He says he is a Christian, he attends church, so he is a Christian. So let's throw that theory away.


But I've met quite a few Christians who are both Marxists and radical Muslim sympathizers. It’s now clear that Obama is one of them. Why hide from it? It’s no crime. Obama should embrace the truth. Is he afraid Americans can't take the truth?
Let's start with the Marxist part. What defines a Marxist? Someone who believes in government control over the people. Someone whose obsession is income redistribution. Someone who dedicates his life to taxes, spending, debt, regulations and bureaucracy. Since Obama is the biggest spender in history, the biggest taxer in history, the biggest debt creator in history, and the biggest creator of regulations in history, it’s safe to say Obama is a Marxist. I go into much greater detail in my new book, The Murder of the Middle Class.

Now let’s deal with the Muslim sympathizer part. Obama's policies have led to crisis and chaos throughout the Middle East. His policies led to the Arab Spring. His policies have certainly hurt our friend and ally Israel. His approval rating in Israel at times has been close to zero. His policies have emboldened our enemies. His premature pullout from Iraq has led to the creation of a radical Islamic state. He is certainly overly sympathetic to Muslim causes. He rushes to defend Islam, yet never says a peep in defense of Christianity or Christians being persecuted around the world.

Obama himself may not be foreign, but his thinking is foreign to the average America.

My blue-collar butcher father taught me, "Don't listen to a man's words, watch his actions." Americans are starting to wake up to this reality. A recent NBC poll showed Americans find Obama less trustworthy than Bush post-Hurricane Katrina.

So let's look at a few of Obama's actions as President.

A recent global study reports that the most persecuted, oppressed, and intimidated religious group in the world today is Christians. Obama said nothing.

In Egypt, seventy churches were burned and many Christians killed by the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013. Obama said nothing.

This past February, in Libya seven Christians were pulled from their homes and murdered execution style. Obama said nothing.

An American Christian is being imprisoned in Iran. Obama says nothing.
Every week, there are new reports of Christian churches being burned and Christians murdered in Muslim countries around the world. Obama says nothing.

Yet, Obama was mortified when radical Muslims murdered other radical Muslims in Syria and lectured us all on not being prejudiced against Muslims. He wanted desperately to put US troops in harm's way to fight in this civil war that is none of our business.

During this past Christmas season, VA hospitals banned carolers from singing Christmas songs, banned gifts if the wrapping paper contained the words “Merry Christmas”, and refused to accept delivery of handmade Christmas cards from local school children because the cards included the phrases “Merry Christmas” or “God Bless you."

Christian prayers have been banned at some military funerals. Christian military chaplains have been harassed and banned from praying in Jesus’s name or reciting passages from the Bible.

The Obama administration has forbidden religious ministers from participating in prayer services on federal property. Christian minister Franklin Graham believes the military’s effort to ban him and other Christian leaders from the National Day of Prayer observance at the Pentagon “is nothing short of an effort to stamp out Christianity from the military.”

Cadets at the Air Force Academy had Bible verses they wrote on their own personal dorm room whiteboards forcibly erased. Military lawyers claim the First Amendment does not include the right of religious expression.

In February of this year, the Obama administration allowed a radical Muslim cleric entrance into the USA for a seventeen-city hate tour at U.S. mosques. This cleric is on record as calling for the death penalty for gays . . . suicide bombings against Israel . . . and “holy war against Westerners and Jews.”

Then there’s the crisis at our Southern border. 50,000 illegal immigrants have poured over the border since last Fall. Obama’s desire for amnesty led to this unprecedented crisis (some would call it an invasion). But the worst part is that if 10-year-old children have figured out they can just walk across the border, then so have terrorists. Radical Muslim terrorists may already be in America because Obama chose not to secure the border.

Yes, my fellow Americans, Obama is destroying America from within by murdering the middle class. But is there something even more insidious going on? Is the core of this plan to destroy America and murder the middle class, to first destroy our faith in God, Judeo-Christian values and America's greatness? I’ll let you decide.

I’ve always assumed Obama is an American-born Christian. I’ve never made any accusation otherwise. But his thinking is as foreign as it gets. We all feel it. We all know it in the pit of our stomachs. Something is very wrong. Everything we believe in…everything America stands for is under attack.

It sure feels like we have someone waging Jihad from inside the White House.
Not a week goes by that I'm not called or emailed by hundreds of fans who believe we have a foreigner and Muslim in the White House. I've disagreed for six years now. We have to take our President at his word. He says he is a Christian, he attends church, so he is a Christian. So let's throw that theory away.

But I've met quite a few Christians who are both Marxists and radical Muslim sympathizers. It’s now clear that Obama is one of them. Why hide from it? It’s no crime. Obama should embrace the truth. Is he afraid Americans can't take the truth?
Let's start with the Marxist part. What defines a Marxist? Someone who believes in government control over the people. Someone whose obsession is income redistribution. Someone who dedicates his life to taxes, spending, debt, regulations and bureaucracy. Since Obama is the biggest spender in history, the biggest taxer in history, the biggest debt creator in history, and the biggest creator of regulations in history, it’s safe to say Obama is a Marxist. I go into much greater detail in my new book, The Murder of the Middle Class.

Now let’s deal with the Muslim sympathizer part. Obama's policies have led to crisis and chaos throughout the Middle East. His policies led to the Arab Spring. His policies have certainly hurt our friend and ally Israel. His approval rating in Israel at times has been close to zero. His policies have emboldened our enemies. His premature pullout from Iraq has led to the creation of a radical Islamic state. He is certainly overly sympathetic to Muslim causes. He rushes to defend Islam, yet never says a peep in defense of Christianity or Christians being persecuted around the world.

Obama himself may not be foreign, but his thinking is foreign to the average America.

My blue-collar butcher father taught me, "Don't listen to a man's words, watch his actions." Americans are starting to wake up to this reality. A recent NBC poll showed Americans find Obama less trustworthy than Bush post-Hurricane Katrina.
 So let's look at a few of Obama's actions as President.

A recent global study reports that the most persecuted, oppressed, and intimidated religious group in the world today is Christians. Obama said nothing.

In Egypt, seventy churches were burned and many Christians killed by the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013. Obama said nothing.

This past February, in Libya seven Christians were pulled from their homes and murdered execution style. Obama said nothing.

An American Christian is being imprisoned in Iran. Obama says nothing.
Every week, there are new reports of Christian churches being burned and Christians murdered in Muslim countries around the world. Obama says nothing.
Yet, Obama was mortified when radical Muslims murdered other radical Muslims in Syria and lectured us all on not being prejudiced against Muslims. He wanted desperately to put US troops in harm's way to fight in this civil war that is none of our business.

During this past Christmas season, VA hospitals banned carolers from singing Christmas songs, banned gifts if the wrapping paper contained the words “Merry Christmas”, and refused to accept delivery of handmade Christmas cards from local school children because the cards included the phrases “Merry Christmas” or “God Bless you."

Christian prayers have been banned at some military funerals. Christian military chaplains have been harassed and banned from praying in Jesus’s name or reciting passages from the Bible.

The Obama administration has forbidden religious ministers from participating in prayer services on federal property. Christian minister Franklin Graham believes the military’s effort to ban him and other Christian leaders from the National Day of Prayer observance at the Pentagon “is nothing short of an effort to stamp out Christianity from the military.”

Cadets at the Air Force Academy had Bible verses they wrote on their own personal dorm room whiteboards forcibly erased. Military lawyers claim the First Amendment does not include the right of religious expression.

In February of this year, the Obama administration allowed a radical Muslim cleric entrance into the USA for a seventeen-city hate tour at U.S. mosques. This cleric is on record as calling for the death penalty for gays . . . suicide bombings against Israel . . . and “holy war against Westerners and Jews.”

Then there’s the crisis at our Southern border. 50,000 illegal immigrants have poured over the border since last Fall. Obama’s desire for amnesty led to this unprecedented crisis (some would call it an invasion). But the worst part is that if 10-year-old children have figured out they can just walk across the border, then so have terrorists. Radical Muslim terrorists may already be in America because Obama chose not to secure the border.

Yes, my fellow Americans, Obama is destroying America from within by murdering the middle class. But is there something even more insidious going on? Is the core of this plan to destroy America and murder the middle class, to first destroy our faith in God, Judeo-Christian values and America's greatness? I’ll let you decide.

I’ve always assumed Obama is an American-born Christian. I’ve never made any accusation otherwise. But his thinking is as foreign as it gets. We all feel it. We all know it in the pit of our stomachs. Something is very wrong. Everything we believe in…everything America stands for is under attack.

It sure feels like we have someone waging Jihad from inside the White House.

source

Microsoft decided to extort Windows 7 users too

7/18/2014


Opinion: Pay us more or lose any semblance of security


2012 Microsoft Logo 87x31 Microsoft decided to extort Windows 7 users tooNot content to blow both feet off with a shotgun, Microsoft is going for the kneecaps now by blackmailing it’s customers. If you are still dumb enough to use Windows, you are about have your wallet shaken down by Microsoft in a familiar yet still unwelcome way.
We don’t feel the need to sugarcoat this much because the company’s behavior is so blatant and uncaring it is almost staggering. Worse yet the victims, that would be almost all Windows users, have only themselves to blame because the pattern has been well laid out for years now. Microsoft has been unapologetically blackmailing users for years, anyone who bought one of their products in the last few years should have known better.
What are we talking about? Windows 7, Windows 8, and security. Microsoft has been putting out OSes that are both unsecurable and known vulnerable because it makes them more money. Fixing their security problems would cost them quite a bit of sales so they simply do not make the attempt to fix any of the gaping systemic design problems with security in their offerings, instead they just redefine security and cut out any press that dares question their approach. Ad money works wonders here, just go look at the initial glowing reviews for Windows 8 if you don’t believe me.
No I am not joking. Microsoft knowingly launched Windows 7 with security holes in place, they knew about the problems and still launched it unpatched. Vista launched with a host of, “this time it is different again” security promises too. Microsoft didn’t even bother patching known vulnerabilities for Windows 8 before shipping either. Worse yet once 8 shipped, they didn’t retroactively apply security fixes for known vulnerabilities to Windows 7, users of that OS were left unprotected. Stop and think about this for a minute, they knew there was a problem, had a fix, and did not apply it to the OS they were no longer selling while urging users to upgrade. That is extortion, minor extortion but still extortion.
After Windows 8 shipped and died in the market, Microsoft decided to unilaterally deny security patches to most XP customers, note the word most. They wanted you to upgrade and for most users the upgrade was a functional downgrade, not to mention a costly one. People weren’t upgrading mainly because Windows 8 was and is fundamentally awful. To fix this little revenue generation roadblock, Microsoft decided to make their bestselling OS insecure to threaten users. Please note they still made and still do make new patches for XP, they just won’t give them to you anymore unless you pay them a lot of money. Again extortion and according to Net Applications, about 25% of the net is being denied these vital fixes by Microsoft.
 Microsoft decided to extort Windows 7 users too
25% of the net is being extorted Microsoft now
With Windows 8.1 they did it again, if you didn’t upgrade from 8 to 8.1, you were cut off from security patches almost immediately. Please note that this includes those customers who bought tablets and other doorstop form factors that were precluded from upgrading because of their OEM, problems with the upgrade itself, or many other assorted hiccups. Not upgrading is inconvenient to Microsoft so they made the PCs of those users insecure to force them to change. Even if your problems were directly their fault, one of the many known issues or not, they cut off your access to security patches. That is quite simply extortion.
Corporate customer are starting to take notice however but due to Redmond’s rather aggressive sales tactics they tend not to be very public about their concerns. Anyone want a surprise BSA audit? If not you had better toe the Microsoft line in public, loudly too. The only one to speak out so far about Microsoft’s unacceptable security extortion behavior was surprisingly the Chinese government. Yes they banned Windows 8 purchases because Microsoft extorted the country and about 70% of its computer users in order to force an upgrade. Strangely the Chinese government did not appreciate the idea of being forced to pay tens of billions of dollars for licenses and uncountable billions more in upgrade costs because Microsoft felt the need for more revenue.
A vendor puts out an unacceptably awful product that is an expensive regression from the status quo, extorts those who don’t upgrade, then the victim decides to break the abuse cycle. Isn’t that kind of an odd conclusion for a company or government to come to? If you ask any sane person what they think, they will probably wonder what took you so long. Microsoft on the other hand sees this type of behavior as an unacceptable affront and went on another massive astroturfing campaign behind the scenes to vilify the Chinese government over it. No I am not joking.
This is where the footgun came in. Microsoft blew off both feet earlier, one with thesheer awfulness of Windows 8, the other with extorting users into upgrading by withholding XP security patches. Redmond knew what they were doing was wrong in both cases but since doing the right thing would cost them income, they just screwed customers. Not satisfied with cratering the entire PC business, driving millions of customers away for good, and making their intentions crystal clear to enterprise buyers, they are doing it again.
Yes you heard that right, after losing the consumer compute market for good, Microsoft is about to screw over their one remaining stronghold, enterprise. How? Windows 7 EOL. If you are not familiar with enterprise IT, you might not understand exactly how bad Windows 8 is for the enterprise. It is completely unsuited for business use, from lack of touchscreens, forced upgrade cycles, user training, software incompatibilities, cost, and just plain employee backlash, 8 is a non-starter. The promised fix called 8.1 didn’t even rise to the level of window dressing for consumers and was less useful for enterprise.
Some may counter that Windows 9 is coming and it will fix all of the problems, exactly what they said about 8.1. It didn’t. “You’ll get used to the UI” they said. Nope. 8.x is a corporate nightmare and promises from Redmond starting out with XP being secure to the next version fixing everything are worth their weight in electrons. In short no one believes Microsoft’s BS anymore, from the consumer to enterprise, no one will risk their careers on Redmond’s promises anymore.
When Windows 9 arrives and if it fixes the problems it may be considered by those who haven’t already gotten off that train. In the mean time nearly the entire Microsoft corporate customer base has avoided Windows 8.x. Microsoft is quick to point out that the sales of the OS are doing quite well, a technically true statement. This however is because Microsoft won’t sell you anything else anymore, if you want Windows 7 you need to buy an 8 license and ‘downgrade’. If you look at the actual usage numbers above, 8 and 8.1 combined are still not half of the Windows XP user base but 7 makes up more than half of all PCs out there.
So how does Redmond use this to make up for their lack of revenue growth? The only trick in the corporate handbook is extortion so extortion it is. Again. After all it worked well enough to squeeze money out of many XP users, just don’t bring up that 25% who still can’t or won’t upgrade. Those victims are likely seen as a lost cause by Microsoft but the 50%+ on Windows 7 are an untapped revenue opportunity. That is who Microsoft is trying to extort this time.
Microsoft 7 blackmail 617x267 Microsoft decided to extort Windows 7 users too
Add Windows 7 users to the victim list soon
Yes you see that right, if you are on Windows 7 you have six months from yesterday before Microsoft unilaterally cuts off your access to security patches. You know, those holes that they are responsible for, the ones you pay them to not put in products in the first place, the ones they promised wouldn’t happen in this version, or the last, or the one before that. On January 13, 2015 you can’t get patches anymore unless you pay Microsoft a lot of money. Once again they will be making the patches until January 14, 2020 but they won’t let you have access to these vital security patches. Also note the subtle hint about paying up in the last column too, still don’t think this is extortion?
The fix to this extortion is, wait for it, to upgrade! Yes you need to upgrade to a newer version of Windows. Windows 8.x has been roundly rejected by consumers, found to be unacceptable by corporate users, and loved by just about no one. So that leaves Windows 9, you know the one that will fix everything from UI woes to security. Again. Users can go from 7 directly to 9, right?
Nope, Windows 9 is set for release in, “mid-2015″, roughly six months after the Windows 7 EOL and security extortion date. Even if it was released on the day that the Microsoft 7 extortion started there is no way any sane corporation could evaluate it and deploy it in time. Even Windows 8.x does not have enough time for most corporate evaluation and upgrade cycles at this point.
By now you probably have the right idea in your head, if you have a PC that is relatively new but lacks a touch screen or isn’t compatible with 8.x, you are screwed. If you are a company that has an application that is incompatible with 8.x, you are screwed. If you are a home user that doesn’t want to spend several hundred dollars to upgrade, you are screwed. If you are just about any PC user that doesn’t love Windows 8, you are screwed. To paraphrase a modern slogan, they are the 99%.
Luckily Microsoft doesn’t care. Windows 8 cratered sales and drove away users for good. The early PR lies from the company about it being the economy rather than the quality of their product fell flat when tablet sales continued to boom. The rejection of the platform by corporate users and the increasing move to cloud apps, just not Microsoft’s cloud apps if the statistics are to be believed, is purely coincidental according to the company. Microsoft blew off both feet with these two stunts and now they are reloading the gun. They still have knees left and so Windows 7 users are going to be extorted. Just like with the Surface debacle, they are going to pretend to be surprised when the backlash hits this time too. You shouldn’t be, but if you are still on Windows, enjoy the extortion.