Sinaloa Leader Escape Prison, 2nd Time Fast and Furious

Posted on July 12, 2015July 13, 2015 by Denise Simon

From testimony, reported by The Blaze: A high-ranking Mexican drug cartel operative currently in U.S. custody is making startling allegations that the failed federal gun-walking operation known as “Fast and Furious” isn’t what you think it is.

It wasn’t about tracking guns, it was about supplying them — all part of an elaborate agreement between the U.S. government and Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa Cartel to take down rival cartels.

The explosive allegations are being made by Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla, known as the Sinaloa Cartel’s “logistics coordinator.” He was extradited to the Chicago last year to face federal drug charges. More here.

The DEA went rogue and made a deal with the Sinaloa cartel to rat out other rival cartels to stem the violence in Mexico. Court testimony is found here.

From the BusinessInsider: Sinaloa, led by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, supplies 80% of the drugs entering the Chicago area and has a presence in cities across the U.S.

Mexico’s president Nieto said Guzman will never escape again, yet today it is reported that El Chapo Guzman did just that through a tunnel in his cell bathroom. Nieto was in route to a visit to France as this escaped occurred.

NBC left out a few details but here is some background on El Chapo

Who Is ‘El Chapo?’: A Look at the Master of the Underground Tunnel

He’s known as “Shorty,” but perhaps “The Mole” would be more accurate.

That’s because Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman lives by his underground tunnels, frustrating all those who try to catch him.

The secretive and barely literate Mexican drug lord oversaw the explosion of subterranean networks used to smuggle massive amounts of narcotics across the U.S. border. After escaping prison in a laundry cart in 2001, the head of the Sinaloa cartel outfitted many his safe houses with secret doors that opened to tunnels leading to municipal sewer systems. He used one of them, accessed through the bottom of a bathtub, to escape authorities in February 2014.

Guzman was caught a few days later, an arrest that was hailed as a major victory in the international war on drugs. He ended up in a maximum security federal prison in southern Mexico, where he began plotting another underground escape.

On Saturday, he disappeared underneath the prison through an elaborate tunnel that must have taken months to build. Equipped with ventilation ducts, stairs and a motorbike on rails, the tunnel was about the same height as Guzman, who stands 5 feet 8 inches tall, and ran for 1,600 yards, emerging in a house under construction in a nearby neighborhood.

Guzman, believed to be about 60, has made a living of dodging death and evading capture while building the multibillion-dollar Sinaloa cartel into the world’s most powerful — and ruthless — drug trafficking organization. Tales of his avoiding bullets and handcuffs burnished a legend that is chronicled in folk song. Young people in his impoverished home state rally in support of him, despite his being responsible for the murders of thousands of Mexicans, including police officers and innocent civilians.

The son of a poor farmer, Guzman was born in Sinaloa and entered the local drug economy in the 1970s, after dropping out of school. He rose gradually within the Sinaloa cartel, and in the early 1990s took control.

In 1993, Guzman was arrested in Guatemala, and extradited to Mexico, where he was put in a maximum security prison. He continued to run the organization behind bars while maintaining a comfortable lifestyle, surrounded by associates and paid-off guards. In January 2001, some of them helped him slip out of the prison while hidden in a laundry cart.

As one of the world’s most sought-after fugitives, Guzman amassed even more power, taking over trade routes in South America and across the globe. He protected himself within a network of loyal workers, paid-off informers and corrupt officials. Despite his secrecy, however, Guzman enjoyed living the high life, including lavish dinners and a coterie of mistresses and prostitutes. He’s reportedly been married multiple times, his current wife being a former teenage beauty queen with American citizenship.

In addition to being wanted for his original 20-year prison sentence, Guzman is under federal indictment for drug trafficking in San Diego, Brooklyn, N.Y., El Paso, Miami and Chicago, which named him the city'[s first “public enemy No. 1” since Al Capone. The DEA announced a $5 million reward for his capture in 2005.

“The U.S. government stands ready to work with our Mexican partners to provide any assistance that may help support his swift recapture,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement Sunday after his escape.

As his power grew, Guzman relied on increasingly ingenious tactics to stay ahead of authorities. That included the use of trains, submarines, and tunnels.

By several accounts, including an examination by The New Yorker, Guzman helped invent the drug tunnel, commissioning his personal architect, Felipe de Jesus Corona-Verbera, to design several that burrowed beneath the U.S. border and emerged in warehouses on the other side. Together, they built dozens, some equipped with mini rail cars.

For years, American investigators tracked Guzman through wiretaps, and fed that information to Mexican officials. But Guzman always slipped their grasp at the last minute, including the Feburary 2014 escape from a home in the Sinaloan town of Culiacan. But authorities tracked him to another home, where they arrested him a few days later.

At the time, authorities boasted that the arrest was a milestone in the cross-border drug war. Then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called Guzman’s capture “a landmark achievement, and a victory for the citizens of both Mexico and the United States.”

Federal prosecutors in several cities said they wanted to have Guzman extradited to the United States to stand trial. But Mexican officials said they were confident they could keep him imprisoned at home.

Now, he’s gone. Again.

IRS Mafia Tactics Proven in Wisconsin Against Gov. Walker

Posted on July 12, 2015July 12, 2015 by Denise Simon

It begins with something in Wisconsin called the ‘Wisconsin Government Accountability Board’….what is in a name after all. How bad can it be?

Fire all of them and then prosecute all of them.

Alright, start here with the lawsuit against GAB and Kevin Kennedy.

From The Watchdog: Kevin Kennedy, the director of Wisconsin’s speech regulator integrally tied to the probe into dozens of conservative organizations, is a longtime “professional friend” of former IRS tax-exempt director Lois Lerner.

Lerner led the Obama administration’s IRS division accused of targeting conservative groups seeking 501(c)(4) nonprofit status. The Senate Finance Committee is looking into more than 6,000 emails from Lerner once thought to be lost.

The Wall Street Journal opinion piece published Thursday and headlined “Wisconsin’s friend at the IRS” reveals that Lerner and Wisconsin Government Accountability Board’s Kennedy were in contact between 2011 and 2013 — when the GAB assisted partisan prosecutors in investigating scores of conservatives and in raiding several of their homes.

“Emails we’ve seen show that between 2011 and 2013 the two were in contact on multiple occasions, sharing articles on topics including greater donor disclosure and Wisconsin’s recall elections,” the op-ed notes.

“The emails indicate the two were also personal friends who met for dinner and kept in professional touch. ‘Are you available for the 25th?’ Ms. Lerner wrote in January 2012. ‘If so, perhaps we could work two nights in a row.’”

Kennedy’s GAB is Wisconsin’s political speech regulator. It oversees elections, campaign finance and lobbying laws.

It is also the subject of a state lawsuit that claims the agency manipulated state campaign finance laws and regulations in advising Democrat Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, his assistants and other prosecutors in their political probe.

The multi-year, multi-county investigation included pre-dawn, paramilitary-style raids at the homes of John Doe targets, including a raid that, according to a recent story in National Review, victimized a 16-year-old boy who was home alone at the time.

As Wisconsin Watchdog has reported, John Doe prosecutors conducted an extensive spying operation on conservatives described by one target as worse than the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program. Affidavits reviewed by Wisconsin Watchdog show prosecutors seeking and receiving warrants and subpoenas to tap into conservatives’ Internet service providers, some of whom still don’t know they were targets of the investigation.

The probe followed the partisan recall campaigns by unions and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin against Republican Gov. Scott Walker and several state senators. Walker and most of the senators survived.

But the secret John Doe investigation would drag Walker and his conservative allies through the political mud for years to come, thanks to many, many leaks.

POLITICAL SPEECH COP: Kevin Kennedy and the GAB are the subject of a state lawsuit alleging the agency manipulated campaign finance laws in an abusive investigation at taxpayers expense. Sources say top GAB officials have been deposed in the lawsuit.

Prosecutors confiscated more than 3 million records — a conservative count in a Wisconsin Watchdog analysis — of targets. The investigation has been based on the idea the groups illegally coordinated with Walker’s campaign during the recall campaigns. Multiple courts have rejected that theory, including the John Doe presiding judge, who tossed out several subpoenas because they had failed to show evidence a campaign finance crime had been committed.

While all of this was going on, the IRS was increasing its harassment of conservative nonprofits.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Lerner’s lawyer declined to comment. Kennedy, in an email, told the newspaper “Ms. Lerner is a professional friend who I have known for 20 years.” He declined to say more.

The opinion piece notes:

“In an email exchange in July 2011, Mr. Kennedy sent Ms. Lerner an article in the Racine Journal-Times on the declining relevance of public campaign financing amid more private and ‘special interest’ money. ‘Note the last paragraph where the paper supports more transparency,’ Mr. Kennedy writes to Ms. Lerner. ‘The Legislature has killed our corporate disclosure rules.’”

John Doe investigators asked the IRS to look into a conservative group that was a primary target of the probe, sources told the Journal.

“The IRS doesn’t appear to have followed up, but the request shows Wisconsin prosecutors saw their pursuit of independent groups as part of a common agenda with national Democrats,” the op-ed states.

That’s the point, the Wall Street Journal contends. John Doe transcends Wisconsin, with interconnections revealing “the use of tax and campaign laws to limit political speech was part of a larger and systematic Democratic campaign.”

President Obama laid it all out at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2010 when he blasted the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

“Thanks to a recent Supreme Court decision, (Republicans) are being helped along this year, as I said, by special interest groups that are allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money on attack ads. They don’t even have to disclose who’s behind the ads,” Obama said.

“Conservative nonprofits like the Wisconsin Club for Growth and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce were later subpoenaed and bound by secrecy orders as their fundraising all but ceased,” the opinion piece notes.

“Liberals worked together to turn the IRS and the GAB into partisan political weapons.”

Earlier this week, Judicial Watch reported that newly discovered Department of Justice and IRS documents show there was “an October 2010 meeting between Lois Lerner, DOJ officials and the FBI to plan for the possible criminal prosecution of targeted nonprofit organizations for alleged illegal political activity.”

Eric O’Keefe, director of the Wisconsin Club for Growth, told Wisconsin Watchdog the Wall Street Journal has “exposed a whole new dimension of government abuse.”

“The permanent government does not believe that we, the people, are capable of governing ourselves. They want to control everything,” said O’Keefe, who is suing the GAB for its costly investigation.

Part 217 of 218 in the series Wisconsin’s Secret War

Many more details here. Consider: collusion, fraud, RICO, financial terror, targeting, who gave the orders and where it all leads. Imagine that the IRS got with the FBI and the DoJ to investigate and prosecute conservatives too. These are White House mafia tactics…..there is no dispute.

Illegal Criminal Numbers Obama Goes to Court

Posted on July 10, 2015July 10, 2015 by Denise Simon

Unpacking The Numbers

From Center for Immigration Studies: In 2013, a sample statistic is ICE is carrying a case load of 1.8 million aliens who are either in removal proceedings or have already been ordered removed. Less than two percent are in detention, which is the only proven way to ensure departure.

Most Wanted

Taking a walk over to the FBI’s 10 most wanted list has 7 foreign national criminals whose rap sheets are so extensive that rewards are offered for their captures.

Illegal Sentencing Statistics

Washington Examiner: Of the more than 2,200 people who received federal sentences for drug possession in fiscal year 2014, almost three-quarters of them were illegal immigrants, according to new data from the United States Sentencing Commission.

Illegal immigrants also made up more than one-third of all federal sentences, that data said.

The commission’s data showed a slight decline in the total number of illegal alien sentences from 2013 to 2014, but still showed that the illegal population is a major contributor to federal crimes in America.

In 2013, illegal immigrants were responsible for 38.6 percent of all federal sentencing, and that dropped to 36.7 percent in 2014.

But the sentencing of illegal immigrants for drug possession jumped significantly. In 2013, 1,123 illegal immigrants were sentenced on convictions of simple possession, and made up 55.8 percent of those cases.

In 2014, 1,681 illegal aliens were sentenced, and they made up 74.1 percent of the total. Illegal immigrants were also 16.9 percent of all federal drug trafficking sentences.

The data became public just as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has pushed for tougher immigration laws, and has cited last week’s shooting death of a California woman at the hands of an illegal immigrant as the latest example of the need for more enforcement.

Illegal immigrants were 20 percent of the kidnapping/hostage taking sentences in 2014, 12 percent of the murder sentences, and 19.4 percent of national-defense related sentences.

As expected, illegal immigrants made up vast majority of sentences for immigration-related crimes — 91.6 percent.

Overall, 27,505 illegal immigrants were sentenced in federal court in 2014, down from 30,144 the prior year.

All the non-citizens are combined — including legal and illegal aliens, extradited aliens and those with unknown status — contributed to 42 percent of all federal sentencing in 2014.

The commission’s statistics only include primary federal offenses, and don’t include local convictions or sentences, which is where most rape and murder cases would appear.

Obama Administration Goes to Court

From The Hill:

The Obama administration faces an uphill battle on Friday when it seeks to convince a panel of federal judges to let the president’s executive actions on immigration take effect.

The same two Republican-appointed judges who denied an earlier administration attempt to lift a hold on Obama’s immigration actions will hear arguments at the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

Court watchers expect an unfavorable ruling for Obama from the three-judge panel, which sits on the most conservative circuit in the country.

“It’s likely to be a similar result,” said Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. “It’s unlikely that [the two judges] will change their views.”

The White House is encountering legal roadblocks on immigration after two recent Supreme Court victories on same-sex marriage and healthcare, which gave the president a jolt of momentum late in his second term.

With just 18 months left in Obama’s presidency, the court battle has put his programs in peril. Experts believe the case will eventually end up before the Supreme Court, which could rule on the case as late as June 2016.

If the White House eventually wins, it could leave just a few months to implement the program. But if it loses, it would strip away a major promise Obama made to Latino groups in the run up to the 2014 midterm elections.

The atmosphere surrounding the hearing is certain to be charged. Reps. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) and Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), as well as immigrant-rights advocates, plan to demonstrate outside the courthouse to call on the judges to allow Obama’s programs to go into place.

It will also take place against the backdrop of a recent fatal shooting of a California woman, allegedly by an undocumented immigrant, and amid fallout from incendiary remarks on immigration from Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump — both of which have further roiled the debate nationwide.

After Congress failed to pass a sweeping immigration overhaul last year, Obama issued executive orders in November allowing certain immigrants who are parents of U.S. citizen or legal resident children to apply for deportation reprieves and work permits.

They also expanded a 2012 program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), providing similar relief to immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. The orders, if fully enacted, could affect as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants.

Led by Texas, 26 mostly Republican-led states sued the administration, arguing the moves overstepped Obama’s executive authority.

They also claimed the programs would harm the states by imposing added costs related to drivers licenses for people who receive deportation referrals.

The White House has steadfastly maintained that the president acted within the law by using “prosecutorial discretion” to exempt non-criminal immigrants from deportation. They also say the states ignored economic benefits, such as added tax revenue.

U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen, a George W. Bush appointee, sided with the states in February, handing down an injunction blocking the programs from taking effect while the court considers the lawsuit.

In May, circuit Judges Jennifer Elrod and Jerry Smith rejected an emergency request from the Department of Justice to allow the actions to proceed.

They argued the states made a compelling case they would suffer harm if the program was let to move forward, and that the administration’s appeal was unlikely to succeed on the broader legal issues.

The administration also contended the 26 states that brought the suit don’t have standing, though the two judges appeared skeptical of that argument as well.

On Friday, Smith and Elrod will again hear arguments from Obama administration lawyers and attorneys representing the states — this time focusing on whether the Texas judge’s order was legal.

“The two judges were convinced that Texas was likely to prevail on the merits,” said Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law, who helped file a legal brief backing the lawsuit against Obama’s programs.

Joining them on the panel will be Judge Carolyn King, who was appointed by Democratic President Jimmy Carter.

King in April ruled in favor of the Obama administration on a separate lawsuit challenging his 2012 immigration action, and advocates hope she will side with the president again.

Obama was set to huddle with Attorney General Loretta Lynch at the White House Thursday afternoon, one day before the arguments.

“The administration continues to have a lot of confidence in the power of [our] legal arguments,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Tuesday.

Immigrant rights advocates, meanwhile, have expressed frustration at the delay. While they continue to press for the programs to go into effect, some advocates are turning their attention to other efforts as the lawsuit works its way through the courts.

“I think there is a realization the delay is longer than we have hoped for,” said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center.

Four different advocacy groups are convening a strategy session in New Orleans to raise awareness of other immigration actions not affected by the lawsuit, Hincapié said, including new guidelines that seek to reduce deportations of immigrants who are not deemed to pose a threat to public safety.

Advocates remain confident the orders will eventually go into place. But until then, they intend to punish Republicans for supporting the lawsuit.

The executive actions are popular with Hispanic voters, who will play an influential role in the 2016 elections. Candidates such as Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) want to end Obama’s programs.

House Republicans introduced a bill this week that would cut off funding for the initiatives if they take effect.

“This might be short term victory for the GOP. But a year from now, they are going to be looking at a much bigger lawsuit before the Supreme Court, which will be magnified by the fact it will take place in an election year,” said David Leopold, former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and a backer of Obama’s programs. “In the long term, they are going to be the big losers.”

A victory in court, however, could embolden Republicans who have accused Obama of abusing his executive powers.

“It is inconsistent with the law,” Cruz said during a recent interview with Jorge Ramos. “What Barack Obama is doing is what dictators in other nations have done.”

AQAP new Threat and the U.S. Attorney in Minnesota

Posted on July 9, 2015July 9, 2015 by Denise Simon

It was just June of 2015 that the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was killed in a drone strike in Yemen. The next top military leader of AQAP has now assumed control and called for attacks on the United States.

AQAP is one of the most dangerous branches of the jihadist network.

Prior to his current position, al-Rimi was the group’s military chief.

“Qasm al-Rimi was considered the brains of the operation,” CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank said when news of al-Wuhayshi’s death broke. “For more than a decade, he’s really been at the helm of the military side of things for AQAP but also planning their large international operations.”

The FBI investigated Abdullahi Yusuf and Abdi Nur in Minneapolis in 2011. In 2014, the criminal complaint was filed.

In April, Newsweek reported:

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) – U.S. authorities have charged six Somali-American young men from Minnesota with planning to join Islamic State and fight for the militant group in Syria, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota said on Monday.

The six, all U.S. citizens, were part of a larger group of friends and relatives that had been conspiring for the past 10 months, many trying multiple times to leave the country, U.S. prosecutors alleged.

They were arrested Sunday as part of a yearlong FBI investigation into young men from the area trying to travel to join Islamic State and there is no evidence they had plans to conduct an attack inside the United States, prosecutors said.

“They are not confused young men; they were not easily influenced,” Luger said. “These were focused men who were intent on joining a terrorist organization by any means possible.”

They received advice and encouragement from another group member, Abdi Nur, who has stayed in contact with them since he left the United States last year and joined the Islamic State in Syria, prosecutors said. Nur was charged in November. The full story is here.

This brings us to the work performed leading up to the Independence Day, 2015, the FBI has been aggressive and assertive in their efforts, led by Director James Comey. 200 known people from the United States have been proven to have traveled to jihad in the Middle East.

Comey’s testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is here.

From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. authorities foiled attacks planned around the Fourth of July, arresting more than 10 people in the month before the holiday who were inspired by Islamic State online recruitment, FBI Director James Comey said on Thursday.

“I do believe our work disrupted efforts to kill people likely in connection with July 4th,” Comey told reporters at the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He did not detail the number of plots uncovered or their targets.

Separately, a national security source said multiple overseas plots by Islamic State sympathizers had also been halted in recent days.

The FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had warned local law enforcement to be on alert for attacks around the July 4 holiday celebrating the 1776 U.S. Declaration of Independence. No such attacks occurred.

Authorities’ concern heightened around the holiday as Islamic State leaders called for followers to do what they could wherever they could to carry out violence on behalf of the militant group.

Comey described the tactic as “crowd sourcing terrorism” and said the FBI had accepted the heightened state as the “new normal.”

Some of those arrested were communicating with Islamic State via encrypted data, a second U.S. security source said.

The FBI has pressured tech companies to remove encryption that gives users privacy protections that cannot be broken by law enforcement.

Comey estimated that dozens of people influenced by Islamic State have “gone dark” and disappeared from the FBI’s watch because of encrypted data.

The United States is engaged in a military campaign with allies in the Middle East to fight Islamic State militants who have taken over parts of Iraq and Syria and created cells in other countries racked by conflict in the region.

When Ignoring the Enforcement of Law Becomes a Wider Threat

Posted on July 9, 2015July 9, 2015 by Denise Simon

There are an estimated 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States and some you would never imagine existed. For a sampling click here.

Further, click here for the evidence of organizations, missions and the functional manuals all justice and enforcement components.

If you would like to understand justice and enforcement statistics, click here. Indeed, there is a great argument that should happen that there are too many laws to be enforced much less those that are not prosecuted. All the while, when those that are omitted or discretion is used, the damage which speaks to the psyche of the criminal has yet to be fully understood as a threat to security and lawlessness.

Enter Victor Davis Hanson, where he authored a cogent piece on the threat of more lawlessness and anarchy.

Why disregard of law is America’s greatest threat

Citizens may ask why they should obey the rules when illegals go scot-free

Barbarians at the gate usually don’t bring down once-successful civilizations. Nor does climate change. Even mass epidemics like the plague that decimated sixth-century Byzantium do not necessarily destroy a culture.

Far more dangerous are institutionalized corruption, a lack of transparency and creeping neglect of existing laws. All the German euros in the world will not save Greece if Greeks continue to dodge taxes, featherbed government and see corruption as a business model.

Even obeying so-called minor laws counts. It is no coincidence that a country where drivers routinely flout traffic laws and throw trash out the window is also a country that cooks its books and lies to its creditors. Everything from littering to speeding seems negotiable in Athens in a way not true of Munich, Zurich or London.

Mexico is a naturally richer country than Greece. It is blessed with oil, precious minerals, fertile soils, long coastlines and warm weather. Hundreds of thousands of Mexican citizens should not be voting with their feet to reject their homeland for the United States.

But Mexico also continues to be a mess because police expect bribes, property rights are iffy, and government works only for those who pay kickbacks. The result is that only north, not south, of the U.S.-Mexico border can people expect upward mobility, clean water, adequate public safety and reliable power.

In much of the Middle East and Africa, tribalism and bribery, not meritocracy, determine who gets hired and fired, wins or loses a contract, or receives or goes without public services.

Americans, too, should worry about these age-old symptoms of internal decay.

The frightening thing about disgraced Internal Revenue Service bureaucrat Lois Lerner’s knowledge of selective audits of groups on the basis of their politics is not just that she seemed to ignore it, but that she seemingly assumed no one would find out, or perhaps even mind. And she may well have been right. So far, no one at the IRS has shown much remorse for corrupting an honor-based system of tax compliance.

Illegal immigration has been a prominent subject in the news lately, between Donald Trump’s politically incorrect, imprecise and crass stereotyping of illegal immigrants and the shocking murder of a young San Francisco woman gratuitously gunned down in public by a Mexican citizen who had been convicted of seven felonies in the United States and had been deported five times. But the subject of illegal immigration is, above all, a matter of law enforcement.

Ultimately, no nation can continue to thrive if its government refuses to enforce its own laws. Liberal “sanctuary cities” such as San Francisco choose to ignore immigration laws. Imagine the outcry if a town in Utah or Montana arbitrarily declared that federal affirmative action or gay marriage laws were null and void within its municipal borders.

Once an immigrant has successfully broken the law by entering and residing in the United States illegally, there is little incentive for him to obey other laws. Increasing percentages of unnaturalized immigrants are not showing up for their immigration hearings — and those percentages are higher still for foreign nationals who have been charged with crimes.

The general public wonders why some are selectively exempt from following the law, but others are not. If federal immigration law does not apply to foreign nationals, why should building codes, zoning laws or traffic statutes apply to U.S. citizens?

Consider the immigration activists’ argument that immigration authorities should focus only on known felons and not those who only broke immigration law. This is akin to arguing that the IRS shouldn’t worry about whether everyday Americans pay their income taxes and should enforce the tax laws only against those with past instances of tax avoidance.

But why single out the poor and foreign-born? Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton once pocketed a $100,000 cattle-futures profit from a $1,000 investment, with help from an insider crony. A group of economists calculated the odds of such an unlikely return at one in 31 trillion. Mrs. Clinton then trumped that windfall by failing to fully pay taxes on her commodities profits, only addressing that oversight years later.

Why did Mrs. Clinton, during her tenure as secretary of state, snub government protocols by using a private email account and a private server, and then permanently deleting any emails she felt were not government-related? Mrs. Clinton long ago concluded that laws in her case were to be negotiated, not obeyed.

President Obama called for higher taxes on the wealthy. But before doing so, could he at least have asked his frequent adviser on racial matters, Al Sharpton, to pay millions in back taxes and penalties?

Might the government ask that its own employees pay the more than $3 billion in collective federal back taxes they owe, since they expect other taxpayers to keep paying their salaries?

Civilizations unwind insidiously not with a loud, explosive bang, but with a lawless whimper.