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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2009/04/02/myth-percent-guns-mexico-fraction-number-claimed/

The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S.
While 90 percent of the guns traced to the U.S. actually originated in the United States, the percent traced to the U.S. is only about 17 percent of the total number of guns reaching Mexico.

By William La Jeunesse and Maxim Lott

FOXNews.com

Thursday, April 02, 2009
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You've heard this shocking "fact" before -- on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.

-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.

-- CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.

-- California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors … come from the United States."

-- William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."

There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:

It's just not true.

In fact, it's not even close. By all accounts, it's probably around 17 percent.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_11770847

Homeland Security official affirms Mexican drug cartel violence has spilled over into Texas
By Brandi Grissom / Austin Bureau
Posted: 02/24/2009 12:00:00 AM MST

AUSTIN -- Violence from Mexican drug cartels has spilled over into Texas, state Homeland Security Director Steve McCraw said Monday.

"Yes, absolutely it has occurred; there's no question about it," McCraw said after a hearing before the House Committee on Border and International Affairs.

McCraw answered lawmakers' questions about Gov. Rick Perry's request for another $135 million for border security operations on the same day Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott asked lawmakers for a new tool to help bring down transnational gangs that threaten border communities.

During the border committee meeting, state Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, asked McCraw whether some incidents that have been reported in the El Paso area would be considered elements of spillover violence from Mexican drug cartels.

Moody asked, among other things, if threats against American citizens, individuals seeking treatment at U.S. hospital for injuries sustained in Juárez and Mexican nationals seeking asylum would be evidence of spillover.

McCraw said yes.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/18/rancher-cleared-in-rights-case/

A federal jury in Tucson ruled Tuesday that an Arizona rancher did not violate the civil rights of 16 Mexican nationals he stopped after they sneaked illegally into the United States, but awarded $78,000 in actual and punitive damages on claims of assault and the infliction of emotional distress.

The jury of four men and four women returned the verdict Tuesday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Tucson after a day and a half of deliberation. The jury, after a nine-day trial, also threw out charges of false imprisonment, battery and conspiracy against Douglas, Ariz., rancher Roger Barnett.

In a case that generated national outrage over the ability of Americans to stop illegal immigrants, most of the award - about $60,000 - was for punitive damages.

I do not understand why people do not label the War in Mexico as a Civil War and not as random violence. Mexico needs to declare this a war and treat it as such this will allow them to round up Prisoners of War who can be processed and held indefinitely. It would be a way to get these criminals off the streets and into prisons.

I advise all my friends to avoid Mexico at all costs. It is not safe any more. Not that it has been that great.

We need to seal the border to keep this from overwhelming our country!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,493784,00.html

TABASCO, Mexico --

Gunmen killed a state police officer and 10 members of his family, including five children, during a violent weekend that left at least a dozen Mexicans dead in separate events.

The shooting late Saturday also killed a street vendor in front of the house of state police officer Carlos Reyes, said Tabasco deputy prosecutor Alex Alvarez. Among the five children killed was a 2-year-old boy.

Reyes was a member of a special unit of high-level officers who investigated organized crime and kidnappings, the Latin American Herald Tribune reported.

Police hadn't determined a motive for the attack but Reyes directed a car chase and raids on two homes on Wednesday that led to the death of three suspected gang members and the arrest of seven others, Alvarez said.

"It is confirmed that [the assailants] wanted to kill the state police officer but they killed his whole family," Alvarez said.

At least a dozen gunmen in three SUVs sprayed the house with bullets, leaving police to find 11 bodies scattered inside three houses, the Latin American Herald Tribune reported.

An official from the Tabasco Attorney General's Office told the newspaper the killers "had no mercy" and were taken by complete surprise.

http://www.officer.com/web/online/Top-News-Stories/Mexican-Drug-Violence-Spills-Over-into-US/1$45324

Just as government officials had feared, the drug violence raging in Mexico is spilling over into the United States.

U.S. authorities are reporting a spike in killings, kidnappings and home invasions connected to Mexico's murderous cartels. And to some policymakers' surprise, much of the violence is happening not in towns along the border, where it was assumed the bloodshed would spread, but a considerable distance away, in places such as Phoenix and Atlanta.

Investigators fear the violence could erupt elsewhere around the country because the Mexican cartels are believed to have set up drug-dealing operations all over the U.S., in such far-flung places as Anchorage, Alaska; Boston; and Sioux Falls, S.D.

"The violence follows the drugs," said David Cuthbertson, agent in charge of El Paso's FBI office.

If you get on my property and take a dump, I expect the police to handle this. If the police can not get there to, or will not get there, then I will hold the scum until police can get there. What is wrong with that?

I think that this judge is a racist who is biased against white people. He seems to think that white people are automatically racists who hate the criminals for the color of their skin and not the crimes they commit.

I have to admit that I have a real dislike for my ex, who is Mexican and Cherokee, but it is not her skin color that makes that! It was her actions that irritated me.

What a crock this is. If this rancher loses, even with all the evidence that he has about illegal activities taking place on his property, then the system is more broken then even I think. It might be better for him to just kill and bury the trespassers in that case.

http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=87988

16 illegals sue rancher who catches them on his land
Aliens claim American violated civil rights, inflicted emotional distress
Posted: February 05, 2009
12:00 am Eastern

By Chelsea Schilling
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

A group of 16 illegal aliens is suing an Arizona rancher, claiming he violated their civil rights, falsely imprisoned them and inflicted emotional distress by holding them at gunpoint on his property along the border.

Roger Barnett (photo: Southern Poverty Law Center)

The federal lawsuit against Douglas, Ariz., rancher Roger Barnett, his wife, Barbara, and his brother, Donald, is taking place before Judge John Roll in U.S. District Court and will run through Feb. 13. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF, is representing the five female and 11 male illegals.

Al Garza, National Executive Director for Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, attended the first day of hearings on Monday. While the plaintiffs allege that Barnett attacked them because he is racist, Garza, an American of Mexican descent, said Barnett has never shown any hostility toward him.

"There is no racist agenda here, or I wouldn't be a part of it because I am and American of Hispanic descent," Garza said. "We don't hate anyone from any particular country. We just want our laws enforced. This is not about color."

Many of the aliens are residents of Michoacan, Mexico. Four live in Illinois, one resides in Georgia and another in Michigan. All of the plaintiffs currently living in the U.S. listed pseudonyms in the lawsuit due to "fear of adverse action based on immigration status."

According to the complaint, Barnett, a resident of Douglas who owns 22,000 acres along the border in southeastern Arizona, approached the group of illegals on an all-terrain vehicle on March 7, 2004. He allegedly began yelling at them in English and broken Spanish while aiming his gun at the group. While Barnett's dog barked at the intruders, the illegal aliens accused him of ordering the dog to attack. One of the women said the rancher kicked her because she refused to get up.

Barnett allegedly detained the trespassing illegals until Border Patrol agents arrived.

When the hippies in Seattle notice how bad things are in Mexico, then it means that the situation is horrible. I prefer the analysis from StratFor because they actually study this and find the facts that Media then usually ignore.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008602532_mexico08.html

WASHINGTON -- Drug-related violence in Mexico, already at unprecedented levels, is expected to escalate further this year, with targets likely to include top Mexican politicians and law-enforcement agents and possibly even U.S. officials, according to diplomats and intelligence experts on both sides of the border.

The warning underscores the difficult choices confronting President Felipe Calderón as he takes on drug cartels while weighing the implications of growing casualties in a year of midterm elections and a slowing economy.

It also reflects rising concern among U.S. officials and analysts about the deteriorating security situation, corruption among Mexico's top crime fighters, and the vulnerability of the military to possible corruption in battling cartel gangs.

As the war against cartels escalates in 2009, so will threats, particularly against U.S. officials and other Americans, said officials, analysts and diplomats, including U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza.

"Calderón must -- and will -- keep the pressure on the cartels, but look, let's not be naíve: There will be more violence, more blood, and, yes, things will get worse before they get better. That's the nature of the battle," Garza said. "The more pressure the cartels feel, the more they'll lash out like cornered animals."

He advised Americans traveling to Mexico to check State Department travel alerts at www.state.gov.

A U.S. intelligence official based along the Texas border warned that U.S. officials, American businessmen and journalists will "become targets, if they're not already."

Violence related to organized crime continued across Mexico this past week. Among the more noteworthy incidents was the discovery of three severed heads inside a cooler just outside Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state. Meanwhile, some 20 armed men shot and killed two police officers in San Miguel Totolapan, Guerrero state, then set fire to two buildings before fleeing. And in Durango, Durango state, a group of gunmen traveling in at least one vehicle shot and killed two people.

While violence in most of the country continues at a level we have come to expect, Sinaloa state registered a noticeable decrease in homicides. This decline also coincided with reports that Mexico's major drug-trafficking organizations had reached at least a limited cease-fire as a result of several meetings held in December. Rumors of such meetings and truces are quite common in Mexico, and more often than not, such agreements quickly break down. Nevertheless, the situation warrants monitoring, especially considering that this has been a year of flux in cartel relationships, and any new truces or alliances could have a significant impact on the country's security environment.

It is about time he did this! Even this commutation is the barest minimum the President could do for these poor scapegoats. They should have been pardoned and given reprimands for not shooting the drug smuggler dead, then returned to their jobs and see how many more smugglers try the border.

Also, this was not really a debate about illegal immigrants, it was a debate about border security. This is a border for the country, not the border of a playground. If we have to fence off our playgrounds because of criminals and drug smugglers, why are the national borders not being closed to these scum? If prosecutors are allowing tons of drugs to be carried over the border, then what is going to stop tons of bombs? Even nuclear or biological weapons? That is what I am really worried about!

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D95QC5OO0&show_article=1

In his final acts of clemency, President George W. Bush on Monday commuted the prison sentences of two former U.S. Border Patrol agents whose convictions for shooting a Mexican drug dealer ignited fierce debate about illegal immigration.

Bush's decision to commute the sentences of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who tried to cover up the shooting, was welcomed by both Republican and Democratic members of Congress. They had long argued that the agents were merely doing their jobs, defending the American border against criminals. They also maintained that the more than 10-year prison sentences the pair was given were too harsh.

Rancor over their convictions, sentencing and firings has simmered ever since the shooting occurred in 2005.

Ramos and Compean became a rallying point among conservatives and on talk shows where their supporters called them heroes. Nearly the entire bipartisan congressional delegation from Texas and other lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle pleaded with Bush to grant them clemency.

Bush didn't pardon the men for their crimes, but decided instead to commute their prison sentences because he believed they were excessive and that they had already suffered the loss of their jobs, freedom and reputations, a senior administration official said.

The action by the president, who believes the border agents received fair trials and that the verdicts were just, does not diminish the seriousness of their crimes, the official said.

I am glad to see that in Canada they can turn away known terrorists, Too bad they can't arrest them, but it is a start.

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/195903.php

Niiiiiice: Canada Turns Bill Ayers Away at the Border

Friend of Barack Obama and unapologetic former terrorist Bill Ayers was scheduled to speak at the University of Toronto today in honor of Martin Luther King Day. Given King's commitment to non-violence, this is ironic, no?

But when he showed up at the border yesterday the Canadians wouldn't let him in. Someone buy that Mountie a beer.