Mexico In Grip Of Drug Cartels -State Dept. wants US Troops/Obama backs Executive Privilege for "Fast & Furious" Gun Running

[Count Bobulescu]

This is the story, and the distraction nonsense about "this is all an attack on Obama" coming from the agent, is just reaction to it.

.

Republicans have simply latched on to the death of a single US law enforcement officer and are trying with the help of his family to exploit it for political purposes. They weren’t interested in gun walking when it was happening under the Bush admin.

[riposte]

Anyone could have left that note .

Well it wasn't me.

[C. Flower]

Republicans have simply latched on to the death of a single US law enforcement officer and are trying with the help of his family to exploit it for political purposes. They weren’t interested in gun walking when it was happening under the Bush admin.

The gun running (walking=spin term) by US agents is what is of interesting here, surely?

Republicans being political is "dog bites man" stuff.

[Count Bobulescu]

The gun running (walking=spin term) by US agents is what is of interesting here, surely?

Republicans being political is "dog bites man" stuff.

It's the hypocrisy of the R's that is interesting. Everybody is in agreement that gun running/walking was a bad idea under Bush, and a bad idea under Obama, and Holder put a stop to it, long before the R's began their investigation.

[Count Bobulescu]

House files suit against Holder

Numerous lawmakers said this was the first time a Cabinet official had been held in contempt.
The lawsuit asked that:
—The executive privilege claim by Obama be declared invalid.
—Holder’s objection to the House records subpoena be rejected.
—The attorney general produce all records related to the Justice Department’s incorrect assertion in early 2011 that gun-walking did not take place.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...=al_politics_p

[C. Flower]

House files suit against Holder

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...=al_politics_p

Thanks. This, and Sam Smyth's letter to the IT, have made my day.

[C. Flower]

Very much of its genre, and unlikely to mention US gun-running, "Border Security USA" gives a flavour of what the US/Mexican border is like on the ground.

Started with a family having the **** scared out of them by a heavily armed pounce, because the wife's name and birth date are the same as a fugitive.

[Count Bobulescu]

Very much of its genre, and unlikely to mention US gun-running, "Border Security USA" gives a flavour of what the US/Mexican border is like on the ground.

Started with a family having the **** scared out of them by a heavily armed pounce, because the wife's name and birth date are the same as a fugitive.

I’m kinda at a loss for the point your trying to make. Is it to this 2008 show? If so the gun running walking wasn't public knowledge at that point, so there would unlikely to be any mention.

http://www.nationalterroralert.com/2...-debut-on-abc/

[C. Flower]

16 bodies found dumped in a vehicle in the tourist region near Acapulco, in the state of Guerrero.
Over 55,000 people have died in the last 10 years.

It remains to be seen if a change of government from conservative to centrist will make any difference.

Calderon sent extra reinforcements to Guerrero late last year in an effort to curb the violence blighting Acapulco, and the rate of killing fell during the early months of the operation known as "Guerrero Seguro", or Safe Guerrero.

However, recent weeks have seen a rise in violence again in Guerrero as the centrist Enrique Pena Nieto prepares to succeed the conservative Calderon as president in December.

Pena Nieto has pledged to quickly reduce the violence in Mexico. Killings leapt over the last six years during Calderon's army-led efforts to bring the drug gangs to heel.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...88914Y20120910

[Count Bobulescu]

This won't help the Republicans lawsuit against Holder.

Federal agents and prosecutors in Phoenix ignored public safety concerns and were primarily responsible for the botched effort to infiltrate weapons-smuggling rings in the operation dubbed “Fast and Furious,” according to a report released Wednesday by the Justice Department’s inspector general.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...y.html?hpid=z1

There isn't a shred of evidence to suggest that Attorney General Eric Holder knew about the botched "gun-walking" scandal known as "Fast and Furious" before Congress began asking him about it in early 2011, according to a long-awaited report by the Justice Department's inspector general. However, Holder's subordinate, deputy assistant attorney general Jason Weinstein, is resigning in wake of the report.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/polit...cipline/57031/

[C. Flower]

This won't help the Republicans lawsuit against Holder.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...y.html?hpid=z1

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/polit...cipline/57031/

The genius who invented the term "Gun Walking" should be given a Pulitzer Prize.

[Count Bobulescu]

How the Justice Dept. and Eric Holder Failed Each Other.

In the end, the much-heralded, much-maligned Office of the Inspector General's report on the "Fast and Furious" gun scandal tells us what we already know: Attorney General Eric Holder should resign if President Barack Obama wins another term. Even viewing the documents and investigation in a light most favorable to the current head of the Justice Department, even discounting the conspiracy theories offered by the Administration's most ardent critics, the Inspector General's report tells us that Holder ultimately failed to do what he absolutely had to do at Justice when he succeeded caretaker Attorney General Michael Mukasey in early 2009.

The prime directive -- then and now -- was to restore more professionalism to the Department after years of partisan abuse and misuse by the Bush Administration. It's been five years, and many smart people already have forgotten, but the Justice Department under the reign of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was an outright catastrophe, with episodes including but not limited to the U.S. Attorney scandal. Mukasey began the job of cleaning it up during his brief tenure following Gonzales. But it was Holder's responsibility, when he got the job in January 2009, to ensure that the Department, at a minimum, no longer did anything patently stupid.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/...-other/262661/

[C. Flower]

But it was Holder's responsibility, when he got the job in January 2009, to ensure that the Department, at a minimum, no longer did anything patently stupid.

Like getting caught ?

[C. Flower]

Mexicans are now taking a campaign to the US against US complicity with drug industry and with the so-called "drug war" in which political activists and peasants defending their land are being assassinated.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?...4&jumival=8867

[C. Flower]

There is an exhibition on in Carlow's boom-time palace of culture the fairly amazing "Visual" arts centre of paintings and other work by Brian MacGuire and other artists -

- "An oasis of horror in a desert of boredom"

http://www.visualcarlow.ie/exhibitio...ert-of-boredom

It contains the names and faces of women killed in Mexico in the appalling ongoing massacres involving gun cartels.

It seems to be a comment on the gallery space, too.