TYSON HAS LONG BEEN IDENTIFED WITH THE DEMOCRAT PARTY FOR OBVIOUS REASONS.
Tyson Foods Faces Boycott After Firing 1,200 Americans, ‘Would Like to Employ’ 42,000 Migrants - AND BIDEN - MAYORKAS - SCHUMER HAVE USHERED OVER THE BORDER 15 MILLION TO PICK FROM.
For the sake of this argument, let's divide the population into three groups. The first group consists of children, dependents, retirees, and those who manage to live off government handouts like disability, food stamps, etc. This group does not earn enough income to contribute to income taxes.
The second group consists of people with regular employment, either with employers or in their own businesses. They earn enough income to pay taxes, but they generally compete for interchangeable jobs in a transparent, free job market. As a result, individually, they do not have a lot of influence over the level of income their jobs generate. Also, due to their large number, if they manage to increase income through collective bargaining, any increases are immediately absorbed by inflation in the prices of the goods and services they purchase from each other.
The third group consists of people with a specialized skill or education. These individuals can more or less set their own income: when you ask a Harrison Ford or a Hillary Clinton what you need to pay her to do some work for you, she is not easily replaced, and she does not need to know what the prevailing wage is for the job.
This is where the dirty secret comes in: people in the third group typically set an expectation for themselves of how much money they want to take home. Then they add taxes to that and set the result as the price of their services. They do not really "pay" any taxes from an "income" that is limited in some way. Their taxes are paid by their customers, and they merely "pass them along" to government, exactly as a retailer does with sales taxes.
This is true also of the people in the second group: their taxes are included in the level of their income and are paid by their employers or their customers. But the people in the second group do not have the flexibility to decide how much they want to take home. If they do that, they run a high risk of losing the job to somebody else who is willing to work for the income offered.
It is useless to try to get the "rich to pay their fair share" through progressive taxes. If we doubled the highest federal income tax bracket from 39.6% to 79%, Mr. Ford would merely charge $34.9 million per movie instead of $25 million. He would still take home the same $15 million, but now middle-class theatergoers, DVD buyers, and movie streamers would be charged an additional $9.9 million to see him in action. With movie stars and celebrity politicians, at least we have a choice: to buy their services or not. But what of the surgeon you need to save your life or the accountant you need to make sure you file your taxes correctly so you don't go to jail?
The bottom line is that all income taxes are paid (deducted from an inflexible income) only by the people in the second group, or the "middle class." Any tax increase is ultimately paid by them only, in the hard day-to-day facts of higher taxes and higher prices. Government handouts eventually rise with inflation. The third group can charge what it wants to.
But what of the other taxes, you say? Sales taxes, property taxes, capital gains taxes, estate taxes? What if we limit their tax deductions? The third group can easily factor those things into their prices as well: if Mr. Ford needs a new helicopter, that cost is what he'll charge for his next movie. If there are sales taxes, they are easily included. A new home for Mrs. Clinton with new real estate taxes? Included in the fee for the next speech about the need for higher taxes.
So isn't there anything we can do about this? Yes, we can implement schemes like the new proposed "single-payer health care system" (Senate Bill 562) in California. If we make it illegal for all those third-group professionals to set their own prices, then we can surely get them to work for less, can't we? History shows us what we would have to do to maintain such a system: Communist countries, where everything is essentially single-payer, have to imprison, torture, and murder on average 20% of their population to get the others to cooperate for the "greater good of the workers."
No, the only things proven to contain third-group prices are increased competition and increased free-market transparency. Stock brokers used to belong to the third group. Now their income is fiercely competitive.
Here is an idea: each year, we take the amount that our politicians spend, add any budget overruns from prior years, and divide it by the value of everything that has changed ownership that year. Then we get the banks to deduct the tax for each dollar that changes hands equally. Now everybody (and every corporation) pays "his equal share" of the policies, defense, and handouts we vote for. The three groups still operate the same way, but at least the middle class no longer penalizes itself for its class envy.
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SOMEDAY IS HERE TODAY…
but now it’s too late!
How America surrendered
to Mexico’s invasion, occupation and looting.
The Mexican drug cartels
now control most of America’s southern borders as LA RAZA “The Race” fascist
party expands Mexico’s anchor baby welfare state from border to open border.
Let's
get back to that rather depressing subject of violence south of the border.
We learned today thatMay was a horrible month, indeed:
Mexico registered a record number of murders last month,
officials said, underlining the country's struggles to deal with the horrific
violence surrounding the multi-billion-dollar narcotics trade.
There were 2,186 homicides in May, said a report from the
National Public Safety System – the highest figure since the country began
keeping track 20 years ago.
The deadliest state was Guerrero, in the south, a hotspot
in Mexico's war on drugs where 216 people were killed.
In the western state of Sinaloa – where rival factions have
been battling for control of the Sinaloa drug cartel since its kingpin, Joaquin
"El Chapo" Guzman, was extradited to the United States in January –
154 people were killed, the highest number in six years.
Since Mexico first sent the military to fight drug
trafficking in 2006, a wave of bloodshed has left more than 200,000 people dead
or missing, as rival cartels wage war on each other and the army.
Depressing,
indeed. By the way, the resort of Acapulco is in the aforementioned state
of Guerrero.
It's
interesting to see how Mexico has dropped from the news radar in recent weeks.
It has been replaced by North Korea, Syria, Russia, and our own fanatical
and ridiculous obsession with the Trump-Russia collusion. Yet I submit
that Mexico is undergoing a critical time, and we need to sit down and find
ways of helping each other.
What
can we do? There aren't many options, but we can start by expanding The
Merida Initiative (aka Plan Mexico) that President Bush approved in
2007. It provided the Mexican armed forces with up-to-date technology to
fight the cartels. The bad news is that the cartels have the best of
weapons. The good news is that the Mexican Army is willing to fight them,
as they've been doing since late 2006.
We
must also take Central America into consideration. El Salvador is a
killing field at the moment, and people are leaving to make it to the U.S.
We
should discuss how our drug consumption is killing our young people and funding
these cartels.
It's
complicated and very depressing, what's going on south of the border. I
was fortunate to live and work in Mexico years ago. Mexico had problems
then, but nothing like what we see every day on the front pages of newspapers.
The daily killings are tearing up the country.
The cartel violence in Mexico appears pushed “official” crime statistics to their highest levels in decades. Statistics indicate Mexico is undergoing one of the deadliest seasons recent history–yet they only account for crimes acknowledged by Mexican authorities and overlook the thousands incinerated or “disappeared” by drug cartels.
A new report by Mexico’s National Public Security System (SESNSP) reports that from January to May 2017, state officials recorded more than 18,880 homicides, 586 kidnappings, and 2,480 cases of extortion. The new statistics mark May as the deadliest month in recent history with 2,186 official murders, resulting in 3,998 victims. The statistics only date back to the late 1990s, but provide a glimpse into how violence appears to be surpassing all previously recorded years.
The statistics help dispel the myth of “No Pasa Nada”, or “nothing bad is happening” that is routinely pushed by Mexican officials at all levels. However, the statistics do not paint a complete picture of the raging cartel violence that continues to take hold throughout Mexican border cities and key cartel trafficking areas. As Breitbart Texas reported, in Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, Veracruz, and others, many of the crimes are not reported since residents do not trust the Mexican law enforcement due to a long history of corruption.
The statistics compiled by the SESNSP only take into account crimes acknowledged by attorneys general offices in the 32 states. The numbers, however, do not take into account the victims of cartel kidnapping and murder. The statistics also do not include the murders of cartel gunmen whose bodies are collected by allies or rivals.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.
Brandon Darby is managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and Stephen K. Bannon. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.
Tony Aranda contributed to this report.
Barack Obama’s 8 year sabotage of Homeland Security: His Crony Banksters, La Raza Drug Cartels and MS-13 are right behind his sabotage of U.S. borders!
"The American Southwest seems to be slowly returning to the jurisdiction of Mexico without firing a single shot." -- - EXCELSIOR --- national newspaper of Mexico
HOW MANY ILLEGAL CRIMINALS IN YOUR COMMUNITY…. ARE THEY REGISTERED TO VOTE DEMOCRAT?
IMMANENT COLLAPSE THE PENA-NIETO REGIME AND FALL TO THE LA RAZA DRUG CARTELS ON AMERICAN OPEN AND UNDEFENDED BORDERS.
More significant still, a former Mexican official, Jorge Castañeda, threatened to unleash Mexican cartels onto the U.S. to retaliate for deportations of illegal immigrants and the construction of a border wall.
US hospital visits due to opioid issues top one million a year
By Genevieve Leigh 21 June 2017
A report issued Tuesday by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) shows that there were 1.27 million emergency room visits or inpatient stays for opioid-related issues in 2014, the latest year for which there is sufficient data. This represents a 64 percent increase for inpatient care and a 99 percent hike in emergency room treatment compared to figures from 2005.
Aside from the overall skyrocketing of hospital visits, the report found that the previous discrepancy between males and females in the rate of opioid-related inpatient stays in 2005 has disappeared. The rate of female hospital visits has now caught up to that of males.
Another significant finding is that from 2005 to 2014, the age groups with the highest rate of opioid-related inpatient stays nationally were 25–44 and 45–64 years—in other words, adults in their prime working years, not adolescents. The highest rate of opioid-related Emergency Department (ED) visits was among those aged 25–44 years.
This mirrors another recent report, which found that death rates have risen among the same age group, 25–44, in every racial and ethnic group and almost all states since 2010, likely driven in part by the opioid epidemic.
Using a patient’s area code to estimate the income range of people affected, the researchers were also able to report on differences between the rich and the poor. The results showed that rates of hospital admission or emergency room visits were higher in poorer neighborhoods, but that the increases were uniform, between 75 percent and 85 percent over the 10-year period, across all income ranges.
At the top of the national list for inpatient opioid care is Maryland, which recorded nearly 404 admissions per 100,000 residents. The state, which has been rocked by the epidemic in recent years largely due to the spread of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, has seen a quadrupling of opioid-related deaths since 2010. Baltimore City alone saw 694 deaths from drug and alcohol-related overdoses in 2016—nearly two a day.
Following Maryland, the top 10 states with the highest rate of opioid-related hospital admissions in 2014 were Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, West Virginia, Connecticut, Washington, Oregon, Illinois and Maine.
There was substantial state-to-state variation in the findings. States such as Texas, Nebraska and Iowa, for example, are reporting substantially lower rates of hospital admissions than others, which coincides with the unevenness between states in the number of overdose deaths in 2016.
This unevenness may reflect, in part, the ways in which the more potent opioid, fentanyl, has spread throughout the country. The historical divide in the nation’s heroin market between powdered heroin in the East and black tar heroin from Mexico in the West means that fentanyl has been somewhat restricted to certain areas, particularly in the Appalachian and Northeast region.
This does not mean that the opioid epidemic is less severe in the areas with lower hospital visits and deaths rates, only perhaps less deadly. If drug production and distribution makes a shift in the West from black tar to powdered heroin, there will likely be a rise in the use of fentanyl along with it, and consequently the death toll would rise to East Coast levels.
Additionally, the lower rate of hospital visits in rural areas is often due to a lack of access to medical care. Rural areas have even fewer resources to deal with the drug epidemic than their urban neighbors.
Katherine, who works for a nonprofit effort in rural Michigan relating to substance abuse, spoke to WSWS reporters about the unique challenges that face rural areas: “I work in a small rural community with quite a significant opiate crisis just as it is in urban areas. In our county, we don’t have any treatment options. We have one clinic that is limited in what they can do, and it is always at capacity. They [addicts] have to go out of county for treatment, which is about 90 miles away, and there is typically a wait list in these places that are all in major cities. Every place is pretty much running at max capacity all the time.”
If users decide they need help in a rural town it is very likely they will have to wait 72 hours or more before they can get a bed in a rehab, or in a detox facility. Katherine commented on the further challenges that this poses to addicts seeking recovery help: “Around here, if they [a user] are at a point when they are ready—which is a big step and where they often feel very vulnerable—they are basically told to continue using at their regular dosage until something opens up. ... To be told something like that I think makes them lose hope that there is a way out of addiction.”
The obstacles facing workers in the cities are different, but no less severe. Laura, who works in an adult intensive care unit (ICU) in Boston, told the WSWS: “Honestly, one of the hardest things is, even when patients bring themselves in, they have a tendency while detoxing to become verbally or psychologically abusive out of desperation. A detox that ends up in the ICU, which is usually alcoholics because the DTs are life-threatening, is a lot of work. With understaffing in hospitals being what it is, it’s kind of a nightmare.”
Drug users who voluntarily enter the emergency room are almost always looking for a safe place to detox, an extraordinarily painful and traumatic process. Patients going through withdrawal from opioids experience vomiting, uncontrollable shaking, sweating, cramping, diarrhea, insomnia, anxiety, intense cravings, etc.
Most hospitals do not have options for patients who wish to detox. Some doctors are actually authorized to prescribe patients an additional drug called suboxone to help with the symptoms. However, without support and supervision this treatment option often proves to be a futile and even dangerous one. Reports of suboxone abuse, and even overdoses, have spiked significantly since the onset of the crisis.
Laura explained the limitations that exist even for hospitals that provide resources for detox: “We have a detox unit. But it can’t do much for patients who are acutely withdrawing. If they score over a certain number on the scales that we use, they get transferred to the regular hospital units. And we don’t have addiction training. … Addicts are a underserved and vulnerable population.”
Health care workers in both rural and urban areas express frustration over the seemingly endless crisis. The sheer breadth of the opioid epidemic is astounding. It has bled into nearly every major social challenge of the day, putting a strain not only on hospital and emergency workers, but also on social welfare programs, the education system, mental health facilities, child care workers and more. This creates a situation where the drug epidemic, itself the product of a diseased social order, becomes a major contributor to its further decay.
The capitalist system as a whole is the source of the drug abuse epidemic, as any combination of the various strands of social ills affecting an individual could lead to substance abuse and addiction. The scope of the crisis represents a very complex manifestation of the problems created by a society in which every aspect of life is subjugated to private profit and where only an infinitesimal fraction of the resources available are directed to meet social need.
Katherine in Michigan touched on this reality in her comments to the WSWS: “I think that there are so many people who are suffering, experiencing poverty and extreme hardship, or who are encountering prejudice and oppression, and these factors are all compounding to create the basis for the drug epidemic to flourish. It is such a multifaceted issue. People are feeling extremely helpless watching the events in society and the political situation, and it is almost like a building up of unrest underneath the surface.”
SOMEDAY IS HERE TODAY… but now it’s too late!
How America surrendered to Mexico’s invasion, occupation
and looting.
The Mexican drug cartels now control most of America’s
southern borders as LA RAZA “The Race” fascist party expands Mexico’s anchor
baby welfare state from border to open border.
More significant still, a
former Mexican official, Jorge Castañeda, threatened to unleash
Mexican cartels onto the U.S. to retaliate for deportations of illegal
immigrants and the construction of a border wall.
The LA RAZA drug cartels haul back $100 BILLION from
heroin sales.
More significant still, a
former Mexican official, Jorge Castañeda, threatened to unleash
Mexican cartels onto the U.S. to retaliate for deportations of illegal
immigrants and the construction of a border wall.
AMERICA: NO LEGAL
NEED APPLY!
“The percentage of foreign-born workers in the U.S. labor
force has more than tripled over the last four decades and while the U.S.
represents just 5 percent of the world’s population it attracts 20 percent of
the world’s immigrants, according to a new report.”
Open the floodgates of our welfare state to the uneducated,
impoverished, and unskilled masses of the world and in a generation or three
America, as we know it, will be gone.
Those most impacted are middle class and lower middle class. It is
they whose jobs are taken, whose raises are postponed, whose schools are filled
with non-English speaking children that absorb precious resources for remedial
English, whose public parks are trashed and whose emergency rooms serve as the
local clinic for the illegal underground.
GRAPHIC: 74 Killed in
Weeks-Long Cartel War near Texas Border
REYNOSA, Tamaulipas — The raging cartel war for control of
this city resulted in at least 74 officially-counted murders. Many more victims
have been incinerated just south of the Texas border.
In early May, Breitbart Texas began reporting on rival factions of
the Gulf Cartelfightingfor
control of this border city. The continuing conflicts resulted in convoys of
cartel gunmen roaming the streets looking for their rivals.
Overnight, cartel gunmen dumped a bloodied corpse with a
posterboard where one cartel factions threatened their rivals. Bodies withwarningshad
not been seen previously in Reynosa. However, they are commonplace in Ciudad
Victoria and in the border state of Nuevo Leon where Breitbart Texas has
been reporting Los Zetas and other cartels are also carrying out massacres.
The violence spiked in early May, shortly after Mexican
authorities killed former Gulf Cartel boss Juan Manuel “Toro” Loiza Salinas in
late April. His death led to a power vacuum where his former allies are trying
to fight off the another faction that appears to be favored by other cartel
leaders.The ongoing fighting has led to
a spike in highway robberies, armed robberies, kidnappings, and extortions as
cartel commanders continue to look for ways to fund their ongoing war.
The raging violence by the Gulf Cartel immediately south of the
Texas border led to the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) issuing an alert
to agents that they represent regarding the cartel war just south of the
border, Breitbart Texasreported. The NBPC warned federal agents about
the constant gun battles and the possibility of spillover violence or stray
rounds fired in Mexico landing in Texas.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of
Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to
risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The
writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that
operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym
were not used. Breitbart Texas’
Cartel Chronicles are published in both
English and in their original Spanish.
This article was written by “A.C. Del Angel” from Reynosa, Tamaulipas.
MANHUNT: Previously Deported MS-13 Gang Member Allegedly
Murdered Girlfriend
HOUSTON, Texas —
Law enforcement officials in the Houston area are searching for a previously
deported MS-13 gang member wanted in connection with the murder of his female
companion. The murder victim is also the mother of the suspect’s child.
The suspect, 26-year-old Carlos Gonzalez, bragged about killing
people and being a member of the hyper-violentMS-13
gang. Just two weeks earlier, the girlfriend’s sister saw the man
“playing” with or “handling” an assault rifle that she said she thought was an
AR-15, according to a criminal complaint obtained by Breitbart Texas. The
preliminary autopsy report indicates she died from a wound to the
head consistent with a rifle round.
Law enforcement officials
stated that Gonzalez had been deported in the past. The victim’s mother said he
was from El Salvador. El Salvador is the home of the MS-13 transnational
criminal gang.
Maritza Blanca Lopez
sustained a shot to her left front forehead near the hairline.
“The amount of extensive
damage it caused to the skull, and the trail of fragments and jacketing in the
skull was consistent with a rifle round,” reported the doctor who performed the
autopsy at the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences in Houston.
Law enforcement officials
discovered Lopez’ partially nude body after dispatchers received a 911 call
from an unknown male “who stated that his girlfriend was either playing with a
gun or checking the gun and accidentally shot herself.” The man immediately
hung up the phone.
Harris County Dispatch called
the phone number back, and the unknown caller said he did not know the exact
address but gave them an intersection in northwest Harris County. He also said
he left to take his baby to the hospital but then decided to take the child to
his aunt’s house. He hung up the phone and did not subsequently answer the
phone or call authorities back.
Patrol deputies went to the
scene and found a residence with the door unlocked. A deputy found an adult
Hispanic female in the closet of the bedroom. She was wearing only panties and
a bra. Blood and brain matter was splattered on hanging clothes, and the walls
and the fuse box in the closet. No weapon, spent-casing, or projectile was
found in the closet according to court documents.
After an investigation,
officials determined that Lopez and Gonzalez were the listed residents on the
apartment. A neighbor told officers that she heard yelling and screaming from
two voices in the apartment and then a “loud boom.”
The murdered woman’s mother,
Blanca Garcia said Maritza Lopez was involved in a domestic disturbance with
her daughter the previous night and has been violent towards Lopez in the past.
She said Gonzalez is the father of her granddaughter and an MS-13 gang
member.
Investigators found bloody
footprints on the floors and a balled-up men’s collared shirt on the floor with
a lot of blood stains on it.
Lopez first started dating
Gonzalez when she was 14-years-old said her sister, Jessica Lopez. She also
told officials that the family had encouraged her sister to leave Gonzalez.
The dead woman’s sister said
her sister told her that the couple had a fight and she had kicked out Gonzalez
and was planning to leave the apartment. She decided to stay.
Anyone with information about the 5’10” 170 lb. Gonzalez should
callCrime Stoppers Houstonat 713-222-TIPS. Officials issued a
warrant, but Gonzalez has not been arrested. There is a $200,000 bond.
Court records obtained from
the Harris County District Clerk’s Officer revealed Gonzalez has a 2010 felony
conviction in Harris County for burglary of a habitation. He also has two
pending felony charges for endangering a child from June 3.
Sheriff’s Office offials and
officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed Gonzalez has not
been in custody since his release from prison on the burglary charge.
In March, two MS-13 gang members appeared in a Harris County courtroom laughing and
waving at news cameras after being charged with the kidnapping and rape of one
14-year-old girl, and the kidnapping, rape, and murder of another young girl in
Jersey Village – a city within the Houston metropolitan area. The murdered girl
was allegedly killed as part of a satanic ritual.
Last Tuesday, William F. Sweeney, Jr., the assistant director in
charge of the FBI in New York told the House Homeland Security Committee
Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, “MS-13 is not the largest
street gang in the United States; it is increasingly the most violent and
well-organized,” reported Breitbart Texas.
The FBI assistant director
added that MS-13 members are “typically much younger than those connected to
other street gangs.” They take “cues from the gang instead of relying on a
productive family structure. Also, those emigrating from El Salvador to the
United States are known to be exposed and desensitized to extreme violence at
an early age.” MS-13 members frequently recruit children who are illegal
immigrants.
Breitbart Texas reported that the State of Texas considers the
MS-13 gang to be a Tier 1 level or the “most significant” threat level. The
rise of horrific violence from the gang based in El Salvador and Honduras has also decidedly affected crime levels in the
fourth-largest city in the United States. Houston is one of the five cities
that the FBI has identified to have a large MS-13 presence. Despite the threat
of MS-13 in Houston and Dallas, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings have joined other Democrat mayors in
Texas in trying to get the law blocked.
Wednesday evening, President Donald Trump told the crowd gathered in Iowa that MS-13 was
like al-Qaida and stressed again his commitment to building a border wall, reportedThe Daily Caller.
In late AprilBreitbart
Newsreported that President Trump tweeted, “The
Democrats don’t want money from budget going to border wall despite the fact
that it will stop drugs and very bad MS 13 gang members.”
Bob Priceserves as associate editor and senior
political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the
Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter@BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.
............. you really want the borders wide open?
Barrio 18: Meet the terrifying gang with 50,000 foot-soldiers across the US and so unashamedly violent it rivals MS-13
US has vowed to crack down on ultra-violent transnational gang MS-13
But MS-13's arch-rival gang Barrio 18 has a sickening reputation
Founded in Los Angeles and spread throughout Mexico and Central America
Believed to have 30,000 to 50,000 members across 20 US states
Allied with the Mexican Mafia gang but sworn rivals to MS-13
MS-13 isn't the only gang sowing violence and terror from Central America to the US: meet Barrio 18.
Arch-rivals to MS-13, Barrio 18 has an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 members across 20 US states and is linked to drugs, murder, kidnappings and other violent crime from Central America to Canada.
'With thousands of members across hundreds of kilometers, and interests in a number of different illicit activities, Barrio 18 is one of the more significant emerging criminal threats in the region,' write analysts for the think-tank InSight Crime.
Last week, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions visited his counterpart in El Salvador to discuss ways to crack down on transnational gangs - MS-13 and Barrio 18 chief among them.
But if history is any guide, eradicating Barrio 18 will be easier said than done.
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Barrio 18 is a terrifying gang that spreads from the US to Central America, rivals to MS-13
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A Barrio 18 member displays his tattoos, including 'Brown Pride' and XVIII, on the gang's turf in Los Angeles. The gang has a reported presence in 20 US states
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The gang is also known as the 18th Street Gang. Pictured: Members in the Quezaltepeque jail outside of San Salvador in El Salvador
Also known as 18th Street, the gang has its roots in Los Angeles of the 1960s, where it was originally composed of Mexican immigrants.
WHAT IS BARRIO 18?
The gang was founded in Los Angeles decades ago, and has spread across the US and Central America.
Members: Estimated 30,000 to 50,000 in the US
Colors: Blue and black
Allied with: Mexican Mafia
Enemies of: MS-13
Activities: Drug dealing, burglary, assault, extortion, prostitution, human trafficking, homicide
Over the decades, though, Barrio 18 threw open its recruitment to members from Central America as well, often targeting the elementary and middle-school children of immigrants.
As the gang's ranks grew, it became the target of FBI and police crackdowns, sending many of its veteran members to prison.
But time behind bars just gave Barrio 18's shot-callers a fertile new recruiting ground, and it quickly swelled its ranks in federal prisons.
Stepped up deportations also had an unintended effect, spreading the gang's reach to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras as hardened members were shipped back to their native countries, where they have battled brutally with MS-13.
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A Barrio 18 member is seen in the 'gang cage' in El Salvador. His tattoos include BEST (for 'Barrio Eighteenth Street'), 666 (for 6+6+6=18) and X8, which stands for absolute gang loyalty
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The Barrio 18 gang was founded in Los Angeles and was initially ethnically Mexican, but has grown enormously in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatamala. Pictured: Members in El Salvador
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The gang is notorious for enforcing strict rules and absolute obedience among its ranks
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Barrio 18 members are seen in a transfer to the San Francisco Gotera penitentiary in 2015. The El Salvadoran government transferred 1,177 members to the US in an effort to curb the gang
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Loosely coordinated between cells or 'cliques' even at the local level, Barrio 18 isn't believed to have a 'godfather'-style leader
Loosely coordinated between cells or 'cliques' even at the local level, Barrio 18 isn't believed to have a 'godfather'-style leader.
That's made it difficult to target under racketeering laws, the tactic that brought down many Mafia families.
BARRIO 18 TATTOOS
18, XVIII or XV3
666 or 99 (for 6+6+6=18 or 9+9=18)
BEST (for 'Barrio Eighteenth Street')
8P (for having killed a police officer)
X8 (total loyalty to the gang)
The gang is nevertheless notorious for enforcing strict rules and absolute obedience among its ranks, and failure to show proper respect can bring severe punishment, including execution.
Barrio 18 cliques have been linked to the international drug trade, and the gang is closely allied with the Mexican Mafia, another Hispanic organized crime ring with its origins in US prisons.
Their colors, blue and black, even pay tribute to the Mexican Mafia: blue for the allied gang, and black for Barrio 18's original color.
Barrio 18 tattoos can include: 18, XVIII, XV3, BEST (for 'Barrio Eighteenth Street) and 8P (stands for killing a police officer).
Another tattoo, X8, stands for absolute loyalty to the gang.
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Members of the Barrio 18 gang are presented to the media after a police raid in San Salvador
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The gang has sown terror from its origin in Los Angeles throughout Central America. Pictured: A grandmother and her grandson walk past Barrio 18 graffiti in San Salvador
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Barrio 18 and MS-13 have waged a bloody gang war with each other spanning several countries
Barrio 18 members are the sworn enemies of MS-13, another gang with its origins in California that has since spread in Central American countries with weakened governments.
'These two gangs have turned the Central American northern triangle into the area with the highest homicide rate in the world,' the US Justice Department wrote in a 2013 report.
Like MS-13, the decentralized structure of Barrio 18 has made it incredibly resistant to decades of efforts to eradicate it.
'They're worse than a cancer,' gang expert Gabriel Kovnator told the Los Angeles Times all the way back in 1996.
'A cancer you can kill. These guys keep growing.'
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BARRIO 18 GANG RULES
For its members, Barrio 18 enforces absolute obedience to the following rules:
Respect and attend meetings
Speak the truth at the meetings
Respect the 'palabreros' (veteran members at the top of the gang hierarchy)
Be a good example to the recently initiated members
Don't walk around drunk or sleep in the streets
Respect relatives of the gang members, including their girlfriends
No crack, including the type coated in paint thinner
Fight with the enemy, not amongst yourselves
Don't mention 'the letters' (rival gang MS-13)
Don't use a red bandanna or red hat (rival gang colors)
Search out weapons for the gang
Take revenge for the members who have died for the cause
Don't leave any members behind
Don't graffiti in red
Don't talk about gang business around outsiders
Ask permission before tattooing your face
You must carry out a 'mission' before getting initiated (getting beaten up for 18 seconds by four members while another counts)