Border Patrol agents seized over 11,314 pounds of marijuana, 78.76 pounds of heroin and 30.70 pounds of pseudoephedrine. Agents arrested 17 criminal aliens and 12 gang members. There were 18 rocking incidents.

Reported on October 1, 2009

San Diego Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested a United States Citizen (USC) near San Diego, California. The subject initially claimed to be an illegal alien from Mexico. Records checks revealed the subject was a USC with an outstanding arrest warrant for homicide and attempted homicide in the State of California.

Tucson Sector - Border Patrol agents arrested an illegal alien from Mexico near Bisbee, Arizona. Records checks revealed the subject had

a prior conviction for unlawful sexual activity with a minor in the State of Utah and had been previously removed from the United States.

La Prensa Grafica (San Salvador, El Salvador) 10/7/09

Homicides in El Salvador

The month of September closed with a daily average of 13 homicides in El Salvador. Now, the National Police reports that there have been 83 homicides in the country during the first five days of October, a daily average of 16. [El Salvador is slightly smaller than Massachusetts]

The following is the first portion of today’s main editorial, titled, “Homicides, a seemingly unstoppable plague”. “The immediate and constant effect of having done nothing really substantial to bring to a halt the wave of homicidal criminality that  flails the country for many years now is that the numbers keep surpassing themselves, in a really chilling scale. Our society suffers an already endemic disease of violent homicides, centered mainly and notoriously in the world of organized crime, which today has gang members as its main tools of execution.

100% Solution for a 15% Problem

MINOT, ND - National statistics indicate that approximately 15 percent of people in America do not carry health insurance. This comes to about 45 million people -- including 12 million to 15 million illegal aliens. Of the rest, approximately half could afford to purchase insurance but chooses not to do so.          

Health insurance premiums have risen at double-digit rates for many years. No one likes it when bills increase. However, politicians see this rise as an opportunity to grow government. With few exceptions, elected officials have jumped on the bandwagon of "health care reform," in short, government control over health care.    

A "New" Dynamic in the Western Hemisphere Security Environment: The Mexican Zetas and Other Private Armies

Strategic Studies Institute United States Army War College

A new and dangerous dynamic has been introduced into the Mexican internal security environment. That new dynamic involves the migration of power from traditional state and nonstate adversaries to nontraditional nonstate private military organizations such as the Zetas, enforcer gangs like the Aztecas, Negros, and Polones, and paramilitary triggermen. Moreover, the actions of these irregular nonstate actors tend to be more political-psychological than military, and further move the threat from hard power to soft power solutions.