The Mexican Taliban

I came across this information while looking into a case of a recent drug bust in the Atlanta area that involved this Mexican drug gang, La Familia Michoacana. I find it intriguing that there is virtually no difference between this group and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

La Familia cartel is sometimes described as quasi-religious since its current leaders, Moreno González and Méndez Vargas, refer to their assassinations and beheadings as "divine justice"[11] and that they may have direct or indirect ties with devotees of the New Jerusalem religious movement, which is noted for its concern for justice issues.[12]

La Familia’s boss and spiritual leader Nazario Moreno González, (a.k.a.: El Más Loco or The Craziest One) has published his own 'bible',[11][13] and a copy seized by Mexican federal agents reveals an ideology that mixes evangelical-style self help with insurgent peasant slogans. Moreno González seems to base most of his doctrine on the work by a Christian writer John Eldredge. The Mexican justice department stated in a report that Gonzalez Moreno has made Eldredge's book Salvaje de Corazón (Wild at Heart) required reading for La Familia gang members and has paid rural teachers and National Development Education (CONAFE) to circulate Eldredge's writings throughout the Michoacán countryside.[14][15] An idea central to Eldredge's message is that every man must have "a battle to fight, a beauty to rescue and an adventure to live." Eldredge quotes from Isaiah 63, which describes God wearing blood-stained clothes, spattered as though he had been treading a wine press. Then he writes: "Talk about Braveheart. This is one fierce, wild, and passionate guy. I have never heard Mister Rogers talk like that. Come to think of it, I never heard anyone in church talk like that, either. But this is the God of heaven and Earth."

La Familia cartel emphasize religion and family values during recruitment and has placed banners in areas of operations claiming that it does not tolerate substance abuse or exploitation of women and children. According to Mexico Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna, it recruits members from drug rehabilitation clinics by helping addicts recover and then forcing them into service for the drug cartel or be killed.[16] Advancement within the organisation depends as much on regular attendance at prayer meetings as on target practice.[6] The cartel gives loans to farmers, businesses, schools and churches,[17] and it advertises its benevolence in local newspapers in order to gain social support.[15]

On July 16, 2009, a man by the name of Servando Gómez Martínez (La Tuta) identified himself as the 'chief of operations' of the cartel. In his TV message, Gómez stated, "La Familia was created to look after the interests of our people and our family. We are a necessary evil," and when asked what La Familia really wanted, Gómez replied, "The only thing we want is peace and tranquility." President Felipe Calderón's government refuses to strike a deal with the cartel and rejected their calls for dialogue.[18][19]

On April 20, 2009, about 400 Federal Police agents raided a christening party for a baby born to a cartel member.[20][21] Among the 44 detained was Rafael Cedeño Hernández (El Cede), the gang’s second in command and in charge of indoctrinating the new recruits in the cartel's religious values, morals and ethics.

So we label this group as a drug cartel and gang and use the full force of law enforcement to interrupt and disrupt their operations but cannot bring ourselves to say the same things about groups like the Taliban. Granted, there are no Taliban enclaves, as far as I know, in this country, but I have to wonder even if there were would law enforcement pursue them with the same zeal that they do the drug lords from south of our border or would they still tippy-toe around out of fear offending the religion of peace.

Discuss amongst yourselves, and in the meantime, try to figure out how the liberal left would handle this. So many ironies for them to wrestle with. How can they defend the Hispanics and legalization of drugs while condemning the Christian aspects without drawing parallels to Muslims?

War On The Border Claims Four More Americans

While all the attention in this country is on the upcoming election, life and death continues on our southern border with Mexico, and it is getting closer everyday.

Chihuahua state prosecutors' spokesman Arturo Sandoval said Edgar Lopez, 35, of El Paso, Texas, was killed Sunday.

On Saturday, a 26-year-old U.S. woman and an American boy were slain shortly after crossing an international bridge from El Paso. Giovanna Herrera and Luis Araiza, 15, were shot to death.

Sandoval said authorities also identified a 24-year-old woman killed Friday inside a tortilla shop as Lorena Izaguirre, a U.S. citizen and El Paso resident.

Men, women, and children, all apparently are fair game to the drug cartels. While California pushes to legalize drug use they are turning a blind eye to the killing of their fellow citizens in Arizona and Texas. The ninth circuit court entertains lawsuits from the Obama DoJ headed by Eric Holder for laws meant to protect the citizens of the state.

Meanwhile, the remains of seven people were found Sunday in a mass grave in Nogales, on the Arizona border. Mayor Jose Angel Hernandez said a family walking near the site noticed what appeared to be part of a body sticking up in a riverbed. Officers recovered six bodies and a severed head in the grave. A seventh headless body was found nearby.

I would hope that some of these so called Hispanic civil rights groups in this country, you know like La Raza which is working so hard to get us to just ignore any law that makes citizenship in this country a privilege worthy of protecting would be rushing to the microphones to condemn these acts.

It is time for the people in power whose job it is to protect us from physical harm to quit tilting at windmills and imaginary enemies like Wall St brokers, Tea Party members, and evil talk radio show hosts and start recognizing who are the real threats to our life and liberty.

Ignore The 55 Bodies

For any real news of the world you have to visit foreign sources since our domestic version of what passes for news reporting is woefully inadequate.

A case in point is a couple of stories making the rounds. In the United States you are going to see a lot about an incident involving a shooting where a Border Patrol agent is accused of shooting a 14 year old Mexican citizen on a bridge in El Paso. Not much is given in the way of details, but we have the obligatory demand from Mexican officials for a full investigation.

A U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and killed a 14-year-old boy after a confrontation at an international bridge near downtown El Paso, Mexican authorities said Tuesday.

Chihuahua State officials released a statement Tuesday demanding a full investigation into the death of the boy, identified as Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereca.

In the meantime Mexico is hardly the one to be pointing accusatory fingers to their neighbors to the north when a visit to the BBC brings forth the story of a mine shaft in which 55 bodies have been recovered so far, all apparent victims of the ongoing drug wars in that failed state.

Mexican police say 55 bodies have been recovered from an abandoned mine that appears to have been used as a mass grave by drugs gangs.

Human remains were first discovered in the silver mine near Taxco in Guerrero state at the end of May.

I known El Presidente Calderone has taken exception with our efforts to keep the drug lords on his side of the border, but we can't let him export this type of violence to our streets and there is no sense in letting the pressure off of him to do something and keep his nose out of our affairs.

The next time you run into some open borders advocates ask them if this is what they want in America.

Somebody infamous once said that one death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic. I don't recall who but I am sure it is one of the icons of the liberal left like Stalin.

UPDATE:

A U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and hit someone on the Mexican side of the border Monday evening, the FBI said.

The shooting occurred after an assault on a Border Patrol agent, FBI Special Agent Andrea Simmons said. The Border Patrol agent shot from El Paso, Texas, across the border into Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

The person was hit by the gunfire, but U.S. officials did not know whether he or she survived, Simmons told CNN. A spokesman for the mayor's office in Ciudad Juarez said Tuesday morning that officials were still investigating and could not say whether the person survived.

If this is the same incident referenced above we have now moved from killing a 14 year old to a gunshot fired in defense that may or may not have hit somebody on the other side. Sort of puts a different slant on the story doesn't it. Bullets don't recognize borders.

Eric Holder Announces Investigation of Brutal Mexico Immigration Laws

Actually, he's ready to challenge Arizona's SB 1070, but what he and the rest of the world should be doing is sending the human rights police down to Mexico.

Arizona's new law directing local police to take a greater role in enforcing immigration rules has brought a lot of criticism from Mexico, the largest source of illegal immigrants in the United States. But, in Mexico, undocumented immigrants say they suffer even worse treatment from corrupt authorities.

"There (in the United States), they'll deport you," Hector Vázquez, an undocumented immigrant from Honduras, said as he rested in a makeshift camp with other migrants under a highway bridge in Tultitlan. "In Mexico, they'll probably let you go, but they'll beat you up and steal everything you've got first."

Then their president will come and lecture Americans while sycophantic Democrats give him a standing ovation.

Mexican authorities have harshly criticized Arizona over Senate Bill 1070, which makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally. It states that an officer engaged in a lawful stop, detention or arrest shall, when practicable, ask about a person's legal status when reasonable suspicion exists that the person is in the U.S. illegally.

"(The law) violates inalienable human rights," the Mexican Foreign Ministry says.

Meanwhile, Mexican police freely engage in racial profiling, harassing Central American migrants while ignoring thousands of American retirees living illegally in Mexico, immigration experts say.

Mexico already has an Arizona-style statute requiring local police to check IDs. That clause has fed an epidemic of kidnappings, rapes and other atrocities against migrants because victims are afraid to talk to police, Mexico's National Human Rights Commission says. A bill eliminating the rule has been stalled in the Mexican Senate since March.

Mexican officials say they've been trying to improve treatment of immigrants by softening some of the most restrictive parts of Mexico's immigration law since 2008.

"We are trying to write a new story (regarding) immigrants, especially coming from Central American countries," Mexican President Felipe Calderón told CNN last week.

But human-rights activists say abuses have continued unabated.

"The Mexican government should probably clean up its own house before looking at someone else's," said Melissa Vertíz, spokeswoman for the Fray Matías de Córdova Human Rights Center in Tapachula, Mexico.

That would be akin to Democrats cleaning up their corrupt party instead of pretending to be honest and ethical.

Dems Applaud Leader of Failed Nacro State

The leader of a failed narco state took full advantage of his time in front of congress today to blast Arizona for their passage of legislation that would deny sanctuary to his drug lords, all to thunderous applause from the Democrats.



I will admit to in the past voting for a Democrat or two, afterall I live in the state that has sent people such as Sam Nunn and Zell Miller, both Democrats, to congress. There used to be decent Democrats at one time in this country, if you can believe it. Those days are gone. The current crop of Democrats are the most anti-American collection of goof balls and social rejects that I have seen in my life.

This display today sent my blood pressure off the charts and I had to calm down considerably before posting this, to allow my anger to subside. I will never, ever, entertain the notion of voting for a Democrat again. No Blue Dog, no pony tailed, no nothing that embraces the Democrat label.

There has been along list of foreign leaders recently who have come to our shores and used the opportunity to blast this country. Most of these events took place at some liberal college or on the floor of the UN, but to go in front of our congress and blast our country and to do so to approving applause is the final straw. I want these people out of office and sent back to whatever communal utopia they think exists so they can spend their time chasing butterflies, unicorns, rainbows or whatever it is they see in their obviously drug damaged brains.

Anybody else who still believes there is such a thing as a good Democrat is deluding themselves, and proclaiming loyalty to the Democrats is certainly an indication of a deeper unsettling mental condition. Perhaps your daddy didn't love you enough or your mommy didn't hug you, but whatever it is, it is an indication of some serious self loathing condition that manifests itself into an outward exhibition of hatred for America.

So this is how liberty dies....

Mexican Drug Gangs Celebrate Cinco de Mayo With Pimped Out Weaponry

I see these folks are all so poor and bedraggled down in Mexico. No wonder they're clamoring to cross the border.

Mexican soldiers have seized an arsenal of gold-plated and diamond-encrusted weapons believed to belong to the Valencia gang, allies of the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel and, it seems, fans of hip-hip excess.

Showing just how flamboyant gang members spend much of their ill-gotten wealth, pictures show how most of the 31 'pimped' pistols found in a raid on a home in western Mexico had gold or silver-plated grips or were glittered with diamonds.
Three of the assault rifles are almost entirely gold-plated and there was even a silencer plated with gold. One particularly image-conscious gangster has made his pistol unique by adding rows of gaudy red and green jewels and a Ferrari logo.

Of course if authorities in Arizona find any of these guns it'll be racist or something.

They're even accessorizing with silver-plated magazines. How stylish!

This one even has diamond settings.

President of Lawless Narco-Terror Country Now Lecturing Arizona

Oh no, he's going to boycott Arizona! Well, pal, boycotts can be a two-way road. Considering your country is pretty much on the brink of collapse, you aren't quite in position to be dictating what we do in our country.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon slammed Arizona's tough new immigration law, saying it "opens the door to intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement."

Calderon vowed to help protect the rights of Mexicans living in the United States, offering lawyers and immigration experts."

"Nobody can sit around with their arms crossed in the face of decisions that so clearly affect our countrymen," he said.

The new state law, which makes it a crime to be an illegal immigrant, is set to take effect this summer.

Tensions are already simmering along the border.

For the first time in 40 years, the Mexican state of Sonora, which borders Arizona, canceled a joint meeting of the Sonora-Arizona Commission in Phoenix.

"This is not about a breaking of relations with Arizona, but rather a way to protest the approval of the law," government officials said.

Some Mexican legislators have urged a trade boycott against Arizona.

"In Congress, we support any trade and transport boycott necessary to reverse this law," said Oscar Martin Arce, a lawmaker from the president's National Action Party.

Is this the kind of intolerance and hate Calderon is referring to?

If Calderon is busy with boycotts, maybe it'll occur to him millions of Americans won't be visiting Mexico any time soon since they're afraid of drug gangs beheading them.

Improving Cross-border Relations

Security Paranoia Defies Logic
This is borderline insanity. The most worrisome U. S. official confronting Canada today is a former Arizona governor who thinks the U. S. northern border, which she's only flown over and never actually crossed on the ground, is a security threat on par with the drug-running, immigrant-smuggling, terrorist-sneaking border wall with Mexico.

And there's simply no comparison between the illegal entry trickle from Canada and the alien immigrant wave and drug smuggling surge pouring into the United States from the south. Of the estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants who enter the United States each year, 57% come from Mexico. Just 6% of those living illegally in the United States are Canadian. Somebody should also warn the Secretary that recent statistics show 500,000 Canadians spent tourist dollars in her Mexican border state in 2006 and that Arizona rates Canada its second-largest trading partner with almost $3-billion in trade.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is moving unapologetically forward on beefed-up border staffing and enhanced documentation requirements that will make Canadians and travelling Americans yearn for the security paranoia of the George W. Bush administration.

Ouch. Methinks someone's a bit pissed that Hopenchange isn't all that it was cracked up to be. On the other hand, maybe it is, you know, cracked up and stuff. So to speak.

Ms. Napolitano's brief interview with the CBC this week was jaw-dropping confirmation we're dealing with an irrational senior U.S. official who can't differentiate between a secure border linking the world's largest trading partners and one that's a giant sucking sound for jobs going south and what's been described as an 'invasion' of desperate Mexicans illegally sneaking north.

Ya think???

She actually invoked the bogeyman of 9/11 terrorists sneaking into the United States from Canada to bolster the case for a crackdown, even though the most elementary research would've told her there's no evidence to support that bogus claim.

When challenged on her concerns, she insisted still-secret data, undoubtedly buried with the aliens at Roswell, justifies her concern. She surely must know that only 12 of the 48 al-Qaeda operatives caught between 1993 and 2001 were illegal immigrants and none of those came from Canada.


The infamous quote from early in her Homeland Security posting was to fret at Mexico's hurt feelings. "If things are being done on the Mexican border, they should also be done on the Canadian border."

What's that precisely? Build another Texas wall? Does she have any concept that this 5,013-kilometre land border bisects towns and villages (heck, it even divides the stage from the seats in one Vermont-Quebec movie theatre)?

"The pattern at the Canadian border has been informality," she went on to say. "The borders are going to be enabled with greater technology, but it's not going to be going back and forth as if there's no border anymore."

Having crossed the border last week, let me assure you there's nothing informal or lacking about it. When friends on an annual golf getaway crossed at the 1,000 Islands, we joined a bunch of others in getting a major passport shakedown by armed American guards casting a very suspicious eyes at our duty-free haul of booze sandwiched between the bags carrying our instruments of fairway destruction.

They called me forward and demanded to know if I'd ever been arrested. Yes, yes, I confessed, there was a minor drug possession charge when I was just 18 (and I still insist it was Bob Green's pot), but it was wiped clean by a judge. It took a long discussion with border guards about the dangers of allowing in somebody never convicted of anything criminal before my born-in-the-U.S.A. birth certificate got me waved across.

I digress, but my point is that technology which can alert guards to a 34-year-old minor arrest that never resulted in a conviction shouldn't have much trouble fingering a known terrorist.

The new Homeland Security boss has a well-known Monty Python fetish. Perhaps she's decided to pattern herself after the black knight of Holy Grail movie fame, who declares "none shall pass," only to have his arms and legs hacked off in a sword fight even while insisting the amputations are ''but a scratch.''

If Janet Napolitano adopts a similarly defiant posture to squeeze her northern border into a business barrier, the United States will be cutting off the arms and legs of its integrated manufacturing base to block an enemy that doesn't exist.

Canuckians, unclench thy fists!

Via The National Post

Wonderful: Hezbollah Smuggling Drugs Through Mexico

Let's see if Mrs. Clinton's smart diplomacy can do anything about this. I wonder if she's even aware of it.

Hezbollah is using the same southern narcotics routes that Mexican drug kingpins do to smuggle drugs and people into the United States, reaping money to finance its operations and threatening U.S. national security, current and former U.S. law enforcement, defense and counterterrorism officials say.

The Iran-backed Lebanese group has long been involved in narcotics and human trafficking in South America's tri-border region of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. Increasingly, however, it is relying on Mexican narcotics syndicates that control access to transit routes into the U.S.

Hezbollah relies on "the same criminal weapons smugglers, document traffickers and transportation experts as the drug cartels," said Michael Braun, who just retired as assistant administrator and chief of operations at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

"They work together," said Mr. Braun. "They rely on the same shadow facilitators. One way or another, they are all connected.

"They'll leverage those relationships to their benefit, to smuggle contraband and humans into the U.S.; in fact, they already are [smuggling]."

His comments were confirmed by six U.S. officials, including law enforcement, defense and counterterrorism specialists. They spoke on the condition that they not be named because of the sensitivity of the topic.

What's so sensitive about it? Will it hurt Obama's outreach efforts with the Iranians?

Still Want That Vacation To Mexico?

Maybe this is why Obama is fleeing to Canada. South of the border a very real civil war is brewing and now we have news of Mexican citizens turning on the Mexican Army, in effect throwing their support behind the drug cartels.

These incidents are not occurring way down country but right across the border from Texas. While we put Border Patrol agents for shooting drug smugglers in the butt and punish a ranch owner for detaining illegals until the proper authorities can arrive, a real conflict is being played out less then 5 miles from the border.

So what happens when it spills over and normal citizens resort to using their Second Amendment rights to protect themselves, their families and their property? Why isn't this getting more coverage in this country? How many people are going to stand around with mouths wide open when news of marauding bands inflict violence upon Americans?

Beck Talks with Rove & Bolton on Mexican Border Problems (VIDEO)

First of all, you gotta love Glenn's intro about his "former" employer, and how they would have made him intro John Bolton and Karl Rove. But even funnier is Rove's "Darth Vader" impression.

After that, Glenn had a real back-and-forth with the both of them on Bush's apparent lack of action regarding Mexico, the narco-terrorists, the border, and illegal immigration. Rove and Bolton appear as apologists for the border failures, but at least hear them out. Hey, I'm not saying forgive them (or Bush for that matter), but they are obviously privy to more info than are we.



I certainly hope we do get something done on the border. It's not getting out of control; it IS out of control!

U.S. Troops To Be Withdrawn From Iraq, Moved to Mexican Border

No, this isn't official policy yet. It's a prediction by someone calling himself the Grand Warlock.

Seriously.

Mexico's self-proclaimed "Grand Warlock" says the United States will pull troops out of Iraq in 2009 and send them to the border with Mexico in an attempt to expand its territory.

The prediction from Antonio Vazquez comes with a word of warning though: his record of projecting the future is spotty at best.

Vazquez has been making predictions since 1980 on events ranging from international events to the private lives of celebrities, based on his reading of tarot cards.

Vazquez erroneously predicted last year that oil prices would be stable and that Cuba's Fidel Castro and singer Britney Spears would die.

Yeah, I think a lot of people had both Castro and Britney in dead pools. Well, we're not really sure Castro is alive, but word is Britney has gotten her sloppy act together.

Occupational Hazard: 'US anti-kidnapping expert kidnapped in Mexico'

Assuming he gets out alive, this should help burnish his resume. On the other hand, he might want to seek a new profession.

A well-known U.S. anti-kidnapping expert has himself fallen victim to Mexico's wave of abductions as unidentified assailants snatched him from a street in the northern city of Saltillo, one of his employers said Monday.

The kidnapping of U.S. security consultant Felix Batista -- who was in Saltillo to offer advice on how to confront abductions for ransom -- showed how bold Mexico's kidnappers have become. Attacks on U.S. anti-crime consultants have largely been the stuff of movies.

"We have notified the FBI and Mexican authorities, and they are working on the case," said Charlie LeBlanc, the president of the Houston, Texas-based security firm ASI Global LLC., where Batista is a consultant. "What we are doing is we're offering our support to the family and hoping for the best."

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City said it would not comment on the case, and LeBlanc would not say whether any ransom demand had been received, saying "I'd rather not talk about it right now."

'Chunky Diapers' Seized at Border

If anyone can figure out why someone would smuggle chorizo in diapers, feel free to hedge a guess. Maybe they had some special filling. Whatever the case, something stinks here.

Customs inspectors scored the makings of a barbecue when a 21-year-old South Texas woman declared several soiled baby diapers at a U.S.-Mexico border crossing.

Suspicious of the chunky diapers, inspectors with U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the international bridge in Hidalgo found several links of spicy pork sausage, or chorizo, inside. The diapers had been folded to look soiled, according to a customs agency statement.

How Many Americans Have to Die Before We Get Serious About Mexico?

Four people believed to be Americans were shot in the head and dumped in a notorious drug-smuggling area in northern Mexico near the border with California, Mexican police said on Monday.

Police in the beach town of Rosarito, across the border from San Diego, said they discovered the bodies of three men and a woman on Sunday in an abandoned car in a remote patch of scrubland near the Pacific coast.

Congress continues to push their amnesty plans forward, the Republican presidential nominee is making overtures to La Raza, and there is very little progress being made on the border fence. Meanwhile, Mexican law enforcement is fleeing across the border surrendering broad swaths of the country to the drug cartels and our citizens are now being outright murdered.

I am not saying these people were innocent, who knows, maybe they went down there intending to make some drug deals and ran afoul of one of the drug lords, but the point is it has crept northward and now poses a real physical threat to innocent citizens living close to the border.

Some 1,300 people have been killed in drug violence across Mexico this year and more than 2,500 died in 2007.

I wonder why we don't see headlines proclaiming the latest grim milestone in this war by the drug lords. Folks, that is only two years, the numbers for the military in the GWOT covers five years.

Viva la Revolucion

It would seem that our news organizations ought to pay a little more attention to the goings on in our own hemisphere in regards to our Latin American neighbors to the south then they do to other less important news like the daily celebrity shenanigans update.

I found this story over at the BBC concerning our good friends the Mexicans. It also seems the Mexican president Felipe Calderon, instead of lobbying the US to allow more Mexican refugees, er, illegal immigrants, into our country he ought to address the problems within his own borders. After reading the story you will see why I used the word refugee.

In the past three years, Mexico has been the setting for a violent confrontation between drug cartels and government forces in which nearly 6,000 people have died.

That's right, more civilians killed by drug cartels in Mexico then service members have been killed in the Global War on Terrorism. They are now attacking the cattle ranchers and I am pretty sure they aren't interested in the cows.

Gunmen have killed at least nine people and injured six more in an attack on a cattle ranch in southern Mexico, authorities have said.

At least 40 people launched the attack outside the home of a prominent cattle breeder in Guerrero state, police said.

It was the second attack to target ranchers in as many days. On Saturday at least seven people died in another shooting in the same state.

I know the BBC takes a lot of heat for their rather biased reporting and I am no fan of theirs either, but when you can't get international news from any US based news agencies that isn't merely a reprint of an AP you have to go somewhere and get it.

So all you open borders folks, it looks like the drug cartels are doing their own cattle drive, but it is people they are herding up and as they get squeezed out of the south. I am sure we can look for an influx of desperate people fleeing the violence. Instead of looking to the US to accommodate the masses how about we put pressure on the Calderon government to clean up his country.

And somewhat related to the growing threat posed by the Mexican drug cartels, cartels which by the way the government of Columbia is actively fighting and beating but who can't get a free trade agreement with us because of the manipulations of Nancy Pelosi and her moonbat ideology, is the story today of the big drug bust at San Diego State University.

Many of the students arrested were members of the Theta Chi and Phi Kappa Psi fraternities. One of the gang members taken into custody allegedly has ties to Mexican drug cartels.

I wonder if he got a tuition break?

Don't They Realize Only the Left Is Allowed to Use Hitler Imagery?

When it comes to disagreeing with leftwingers, it doesn't take much for them to invoke Hitler.

Even the mildest of policy arguments usually descend into Hitler analogies at the drop of a hat.

But, horrors, you dare run an ad linking some leftist stormtroopers to Hitler and look out.

Mexico's top electoral body ordered broadcasters to stop running a controversial TV ad on Monday that compares a firebrand leftist leading a siege of Congress to dictators Hitler and Pinochet.

The TV ad, funded by a Mexican businessman angry at a blockade of Congress by opposition lawmakers trying to derail an oil reform plan, says the antics of protest leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador are endangering democracy.

"The complaints committee decided unanimously to order the withdrawal of the spot from today," a spokesman for the Federal Electoral Institute told Reuters.

Leftists seized Congress podiums on April 10 to block a government proposal to lower barriers to private investment in the oil sector, controlled by the state since 1938. The action has left Congress paralyzed.

"Who shuts congresses? In 1933, Adolf Hitler in Germany. In 1939, Benito Mussolini in Italy. In 1973, Augusto Pinochet of Chile," the ad says, over grainy footage of the Nazi leader, his fascist ally in Italy and Chile's late military dictator.

Well, it may no longer be running on Mexican television, but it's running here.

Canuck Cook Caged in Guadalajara

Here's a little inconvenient fact for folks that constantly go harping on how America treats illegal aliens in this country who actually wind up in a jail cell or constantly whine about Gitmo.

Martin was a chef for Alyn Richard Waage, who was arrested in 2001 and jailed for investment fraud. Five years later, Martin was picked up and detained, although she hasn't been charged with anything, CTV said.

The Martin mentioned is a 51-year-old Canadian woman named Brenda Martin. The prison she is in is in Mexico. So we hold chauffeurs for Bin Laden and Mexico imprisons chefs for investment bankers. So let me see do a little math and she has been held for two years with no charges.

Earlier this week, former Prime Minister Paul Martin visited the woman during an unrelated trip to Mexico. He reportedly talked with prison officials to ask for better conditions for her, as she shares a 9-by-12 foot cell with 11 women.

"Eight of them sleep on the floor so you have to crawl over their heads to get to an outhouse bathroom," she said.

If I was her I would appeal to the Americans and claim ties to the Taliban just to get a transfer to Gitmo.

Thinking Outside The Box

US city plans moat to keep out migrants

· Yuma goes back to basics as hostility to fences grows
· Environmentalists back plan for Mexican border

There have been virtual fences, real fences, increased patrols and night-vision cameras. Now the latest initiative by the US to seal its increasingly porous border with Mexico harks back to one of the oldest approaches: dig a moat. City officials in Yuma, in south-western Arizona, have come up with a scheme to create a "security channel" along the nearby border by reviving a derelict two-mile stretch of the Colorado river.

"The moats that I've seen circled the castle and allowed you to protect yourself, and that's kind of what we're looking at here," Yuma county sheriff Ralph Ogden told the Associated Press. The scheme would see engineers dig out a two-mile stretch of a 180-hectare (440-acre) wetland known as Hunters Hole.

Once a haven to anglers, ducks and the Cocopah Indians, the area is now a thicket of tamarisk, forgotten shoes and old cars providing cover for smugglers and border crossers. But under the plan, all that would change. The banks of the river would be replanted with native cattail, bulrush and mesquite, and wells would supply water to the wetlands as well as to a 20-metre-wide, three-metre-deep channel that would run the length of Hunters Hole.

With the replenished river marking the frontier, would-be border crossers would have to scale a 4.5-metre levee - built with the earth excavated from the riverbed - cross a 120-metre-wide marsh and then ascend another levee on the northern side of the wetlands.

"In order to restore Hunters Hole, we're going to have to secure it," a border patrol agent, Carlos Dominguez, told the High Country News. The moat plan has won broad local backing, unlike other border security schemes which have angered environmentalists and land-owners.

In Texas, more than 100 landowners have resisted government efforts to build a fence across their land. Environmentalists also launched a lawsuit to block fence construction on the border in Naco, in eastern Arizona. However, the department of homeland security is under a strict timetable to build 670 miles of new fencing by the end of the year. With failed efforts to build a virtual or electronic barrier, attention has again focused on a physical barrier.

As well as illegal immigration, the desolation of many border areas has attracted criminal activity. The 23-mile stretch of the Colorado river that runs along the Mexican border near Yuma has seen two murders since 2004 and 250 armed robberies in the last two years. "It's in the United States, but it's become a no-man's-land, an area where bodies were dumped, where people and drugs were smuggled over the border," said Ogden.

Backers of the Yuma plan - more than 30 local groups, including the border patrol and the city's elected officials - hope that Hunters Hole will mimic the model of another local wetland that was rescued from dereliction and crime and now provides bicycle paths and fishing.

"What you are building is a moat, but it's bringing the life and the wildlife back," said Ogden. "It doesn't take much brainpower to build a 12-foot high fence around something, but this is unique."


Via The Guardian

UPDATE: Hot Air links. Thanks!

UPDATE II: The Jawa Report links. Thank you, Dr. Rusty!

Good News: Mexican Drug Kingpin Freed After Arduous Three-Week Stint in U.S. Prison

This one gives new meaning to the term turnstile justice.

On the upside, I guess you could say there's one less Mexican criminal now residing in the United States.

No doubt he's returned to Mexico a reformed man and will now begin leading a productive-law-abiding lifestyle.

Seriously, though, less than a month for a vicious drug kingpin? WTF?

A convicted Mexican drug cartel boss is free and back in Mexico following his release on parole just weeks after he began serving a U.S. prison sentence, U.S. and Mexican officials said on Wednesday.

Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix, 58 and the eldest of a clan of brothers who ran Mexico's Tijuana cartel, was deported on Tuesday and crossed to Mexican soil at Ciudad Juarez, entering from El Paso, Texas.

"He does not have any pending charges in Mexico so he was freed," a source in the Mexican Attorney General's office, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.

Arellano Felix was the boss of the Tijuana cartel when he was arrested in 1993 in Mexico and sentenced to 11 years for drug possession and using illegal weapons.

He remained in prison for two more years while authorities arranged his extradition to the United States, where he was wanted for selling cocaine to an undercover U.S. agent. He was extradited in September 2006 and pleaded guilty to the cocaine charge in June 2007 in San Diego.

He received a six-year sentence, which he began serving in January, and was paroled on Feb. 1, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons said. A U.S. official said Arellano Felix received credit toward his U.S. sentence for time served while awaiting extradition in Mexico. Because his case dates back to 1980, he was eligible for parole under laws that were on the books at that time, the official said. Since then, parole has been eliminated for criminals convicted of federal crimes in the United States.

U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney said Arellano Felix's case "reflects the conclusion of a cooperative effort between the U.S. and Mexico to ensure that he faced justice for crimes he committed on both sides of the border."

Arellano Felix's younger brothers, Francisco Javier and Benjamin, are behind bars in the United States and Mexico, respectively. Another brother, Ramon, was killed in a shootout with police in 2002, and a fifth, Francisco Eduardo, is a fugitive.

The family, notorious for ruthless killings and smuggling millions of dollars of illegal narcotics into the United States, has been weakened by the loss of its top leaders, but authorities say it is still doing business.

Suspected cartel operatives this week fought police in a five-hour shootout in Tijuana, a crime-ridden city across the border from San Diego.

Maybe he can help keep the peace upon his return.

On Tuesday, five youths were tortured, sprayed with bullets and dumped in an empty city lot in Tijuana in what appeared to be the latest grisly drug gang killing.

Curious how his case dates back to 1980, yet his family still controlled the marijuana and cocaine network in the late 1990s.

At its height in the late 1990s, the Arellano Felix network, based in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, controlled the flow of cocaine and marijuana the US, and its operations extended into southern Mexico and Colombia.

The gang is believed to be behind more than 100 drug-related murders in Mexico and the US.