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Showing posts with label Mexico. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mexico. Show all posts
A really surprisingly sympathetic piece on guns from NPR

A really surprisingly sympathetic piece on guns from NPR

What do you do when you can't depend on the police for protection? NPR addresses this question in a piece on Mexico's gun control laws, though it does bring in some digs on gun ownership.

In Mexico, where criminals are armed to the teeth with high-powered weapons smuggled from the United States, it may come as a surprise that the country has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the world.

Law-abiding Mexicans who want a gun to defend themselves have no good options. Either they fight government red tape to get a legal permit, or they buy one on the black market.

After an outbreak of violence, one embattled community in northern Mexico called Colonia LeBaron has begun to ask if it's time for the country to address its gun laws. . . .

The cold-blooded murders of Benjamin LeBaron and Luis Widmar galvanized the community, Julian LeBaron says. It prompted them to take a stance that is familiar to Second Amendment advocates in the U.S., but one that is taboo in Mexico.

"I think there would be less violence if there were more guns, in the sense that I could barge in here and do whatever I want, knowing that this guy doesn't have a gun," says Jose Widmar, the brother of slain Luis.

Today, if the gangsters return, the LeBaron colony is locked and loaded. . . .


Thanks to Ajit Pai for this link.
One explanation for Mexico's high crime rates: Prison really isn't prison

One explanation for Mexico's high crime rates: Prison really isn't prison

I suppose that I had some inkling of this, but it is a much bigger problem than I realized. From the BBC:

A surprise inspection in a prison in Mexico has revealed the presence of 19 prostitutes, 100 plasma televisions, two sacks of marijuana, and 100 cockerels for cock fighting.
The discovery in the prison in Acapulco came as police prepared to transfer the inmates to a maximum security jail.
The officers also found six female inmates living in the male section of the prison and two peacocks.
Mexican jails are notorious for overcrowding, corruption and rioting. . . .
In July, prisoners in a jail in Sonora state were found to be running a lottery to raffle off a luxury cell they'd equipped with a fridge, DVD player and air conditioning.
An inspector from the State Commission for the Defence of Human Rights, Hipolito Lugo Cortes, recently denounced conditions in five prisons in Guerrero state, among them the one in Acapulco.
He said inmates were running affairs at these penitentiaries according to their own laws and customs, with little or no control by prison authorities.
Finally, after all these months, a political appointee in the Obama Justice Department admits that he knew about the Gunwalker program

Finally, after all these months, a political appointee in the Obama Justice Department admits that he knew about the Gunwalker program

The Obama administration is trying to do what it can to obscure the "Gunwalker" or "Fast & Furious" cases with the "Wide Receiver" case. The “Wider Receiver” program gave direct notice to the Mexican authorities so that they could try to track the guns when they went to the Mexican side of the boarder. "Fast and Furious" made no such attempt to notify the Mexican authorities in anyway. "Fast and Furious" made no serious attempt to actually trace the guns and what is worse they knew that the guns weren't being traced. The Bush officials might have learned that Mexican police weren't up to tracing the guns, but at least they had a plan to try to have the guns followed. "Fast and Furious" gave out the guns, but agents and middle level people complained that the guns weren't being traced. From Fox News:

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer became the first high-ranking official Tuesday to admit that he knew U.S. agents were letting thousands of guns sold in the U.S. fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.
But Breuer says the controversial “gun walking” tactics he learned about in April 2010 weren't part of “Operation Fast and Furious,” but rather a previous investigation during the Bush administration called “Wider Receiver.” . . .
Some lawmakers find Breuer’s story implausible because he learned about Wider Receiver at the same time as Fast and Furious, run by the same agents and the same U.S. attorney’s office.
“He was asking questions about Wide Receiver at the very same time Fast and Furious was going on and it was going on in the same division within the Justice Department, so why wouldn’t they be asking questions about Fast and Furious the same way as they were about Wide Receiver?” Grassley told Fox News. . . .
As the Fast and Furious investigation enters its 10th month, the blame game grows more intense. . . .
“Lanny Breuer’s statement said he told the attorney general in January or February so that doesn’t jive,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. “So we’ve just got some massive contradictions here.” . . .

On Gunwalker case: "They won't quite answer the questions. They still haven't provided all the documents."



Laura Ingraham, host: "So they were literally screaming at you?"

Sharyl Attkisson, CBS News: "Yes. Well the DOJ woman was just yelling at me. The guy from the White House on Friday night literally screamed at me and cussed at me."

Ingraham: "Who was the person? Who was the person at Justice screaming?"

Attkisson: "Eric Schultz. Oh, the person screaming was [DOJ spokeswoman] Tracy Schmaler, she was yelling not screaming. And the person who screamed at me was Eric Schultz at the White House.......They say the Washington Post, the LA Times is reasonable, the New York Times is reasonable. I'm the only one who thinks this is a story, and they think I'm unfair and biased by pursuing it. My side of the story is I never knew where this story was going when I talked to those whistleblowers back in January and February, and I didn't care where it went. I'm just sort of digging away and going where it leads, but I'm sure they take it very personally because they have very important implications." . . .


Here she is on the O'Reilly show talking about Eric Schultz.



She discusses what she calls "pretty incredible developments." It is pretty amazing how much of these memos have been redacted.

So when did Eric Holder know about the "Gunwalker" case?

So when did Eric Holder know about the "Gunwalker" case?

William Lajeunesse is breaking yet another story on the Gunwalker case.

For the first time, documents appear to show Attorney General Eric Holder was made aware of the Operation Fast and Furious earlier than he claimed -- up to 9 nine months earlier.
The documents seem to contradict what Holder told a House Judiciary Committee on May 3, when he said he could not recall the exact date, but he'd "probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks."
However, in a July 2010 memo, Michael Walther, director of the National Drug Intelligence Center, told Holder straw buyers in the Operation Fast and Furious case "are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to the Mexican drug trafficking cartels."
Also, on October 18, 2010, one of Holder's chief deputies, Lanny Breuer, chief of the department's Criminal Division, told Holder in a memo that prosecutors were ready to issue indictments in Operation Fast and Furious.
Documents also show, contrary to earlier reports, the Justice Department was aware that ATF agents under the department's direction were involved in the controversial practice known as "gun walking" . . . The department has said it did not allow guns to "walk." . . .
However, in an October 17, 2010 memo, Deputy Attorney General Jason Weinstein asks another attorney in the Criminal Division if Breuer should do a press conference when Fast and Furious is announced, but says, "It's a tricky case, given the number of guns that have walked."
His associate, James Trusty writes back, "It's not going to be any big surprise that a bunch of US guns are being used in MX (Mexico), so I’m not sure how much grief we'll get for 'gun walking.'"
Until now, there's been an attempt to portray Operation Fast and Furious as a rogue operation by ATF agents in Phoenix and the Arizona U.S. Attorney's Office. But insiders claim these documents show the Department of Justice in Washington was intimately aware of the case almost from the beginning. . . .
Is the "Gunwalker" case as big as Watergate?: No one died in Watergate, "blatant lying" by the Justice Department?

Is the "Gunwalker" case as big as Watergate?: No one died in Watergate, "blatant lying" by the Justice Department?

Fox News has this:

The idea behind Fast and Furious, hatched in the ATF's Phoenix office, was to let so-called straw buyers purchase guns in the United States so they could be traced to big-time gunrunners in Mexico. But documents and testimony now show that U.S. officials lost track of thousands of guns, some of which later were found at the scenes of violent crimes, including the murder of a U.S. border agent.
On Friday, National Rifle Association President Wayne LaPierre accused Holder of stonewalling Congress.
"This is the biggest cover-up since Watergate, and it's time to ask the Watergate question. Who authorized Fast and Furious, and how high up does it go?" LaPierre asked during a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando.
According to a source close to the investigation, despite numerous subpoenas and demands for potentially thousands of pages of records, the Justice Department has turned over just 12 documents. Unless the House Oversight Committee can cut lose more incriminating documents from the Justice Department or additional whistleblowers come forward, the investigation could stall, said a person familiar with the situation.
So far, the scandal has produced headlines but only one resignation, that of the U.S. attorney in Arizona.
The paper trail however has revealed blatant lying by the Justice Department, which originally told Sen. Charles Grassley the ATF did not "walk" guns. That position conflicts with agent testimony and pages of internal emails.
A document obtained Friday by Foxnews shows the following agencies all had some hand in Operation Fast and Furious: ATF, IRS, DEA, ICE, the U.S. Marshall's Service, Phoenix police and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The operation allowed members of the Sinaloa Cartel to buy in excess of 1,900 weapons for more than $1.25 million dollars over a one-year period beginning October 2009, according to a briefing paper dated last January. . . .
An ATF whistleblower agent told Fox News the agency made "absolutely no attempt to follow the weapons." . . .
CBS: "Secret recordings raise new questions in ATF 'Gunwalker' operation"

CBS: "Secret recordings raise new questions in ATF 'Gunwalker' operation"

Has the Obama administration been caught hiding evidence in the "Gunwalker" case? From CBS:

CBS News has obtained secretly recorded conversations that raise questions as to whether some evidence is being withheld in the murder of a Border Patrol agent.
(Scroll down to listen to the audio)
The tapes were recorded approximately mid-March 2011 by the primary gun dealer cooperating with ATF in its "Fast and Furious" operation: Andre Howard, owner of Lone Wolf Trading Company in Glendale, Arizona. He's talking with the lead case ATF case agent Hope MacAllister.
The tapes have been turned over to Congressional investigators and the Inspector General.

As CBS News first reported last February, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allegedly allowed thousands of weapons to "walk" onto the streets without interdiction into the hands of suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels in its operation "Fast and Furious."

The conversations refer to a third weapon recovered at the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

Agent: I was ordered to let guns into Mexico

Court records have previously only mentioned two weapons: Romanian WASR "AK-47 type" assault rifles. Both were allegedly sold to suspects who were under ATF's watch as part of Fast and Furious.

Also, a ballistics report turned over to Congressional investigators only mentions the two WASR rifles. The ballistics report says it's inconclusive as to whether either of the WASR rifles fired the bullet that killed Terry. . . .
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