propping up the governments

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Will Secretary of State Britney Spears be making a formal apology for this someday?

An Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms senior agent assigned to the Phoenix office in 2010, Dodson's job is to stop gun trafficking across the border. Instead, he says he was ordered to sit by and watch it happen.

Investigators call the tactic letting guns "walk." In this case, walking into the hands of criminals who would use them in Mexico and the United States.

Dodson's bosses say that never happened. Now, he's risking his job to go public.

"I'm boots on the ground in Phoenix, telling you we've been doing it every day since I've been here," he said. "Here I am. Tell me I didn't do the things that I did. Tell me you didn't order me to do the things I did. Tell me it didn't happen. Now you have a name on it. You have a face to put with it. Here I am. Someone now, tell me it didn't happen."

Agent Dodson and other sources say the gun walking strategy was approved all the way up to the Justice Department. The idea was to see where the guns ended up, build a big case and take down a cartel. And it was all kept secret from Mexico.

I ended up never getting all the way into the House of Death case a few years ago because the people who had most of the evidence were insisting the real scandal was the racism of it all. After many hours slogging through a heavily redacted version of a report, only to be told there was a far less inscrutable version extant for anyone who wanted to take it on in a serious way, I get this racism blather from the holders of the real goods. I had been working on it in a migraine-inducingly serious way. I was pissed to find someone was holding vastly better documentation but reserving it for people willing to cry racism and ignore all that conspiracy theory stuff.

I might have been forced to work with total crap, but even handicapped I was convinced that it was a lot worse than merely a racist DHS/DoJ. It was clearly coming from the top. I did not want to spend any more migraines dealing with a bunch of academics in a snit about how we treat brown people. I can only take jackasses for so long before I start slapping them. So I bailed. They'll be citing this as racist too no doubt.

It still fries me because a bunch of wet hens had their mitts on that case, made a complete quagmire out of it, and nobody evil was even impeded for a nanosecond by it. I had no control over the material I would need to use, but a total jackass did, and was setting the terms, utterly sanguine in the justice of such an attitude. Hypnotized. Never snapping out of it. A dead man, with an email address. I didn't kill him again. I let him "live". I just got in an ice-filled not-a-tub and didn't get out for a week.

What's CBS doing on it? They are on it to hold it up next to Ruby Ridge and Waco, etc., we're supposed to freak out about it. Actually, though, we're supposed to STOP it... not just suddenly turn from the takedown of Gaddafi to make a little trip to speak with Felipe Calderón on the same day this was being released to the public... and then, pft. Has this been splashed all over Groupthink and I'm just blissfully unaware? Or what?

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love, 99
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and it won't be the last

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Unless... we're all saved by extinction on 21 December 2012... or....

And besides:

Iris recognition is increasingly used in airports, controlling access to restricted areas, and prisoner booking and release.

It's already too late. The Precrime Unit is already being tricked-out in the new DHS complex.

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More in the same vein HERE....

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And, yeah, good luck with that. I'm rootin' for you.

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love, 99
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about the outsider

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This isn't a recent interview, but it's a good listen... or I find it so anyway. For anyone who hasn't heard it or doesn't know about it, HERE is the Aaron Russo video Tsarion is raving about. Nobody should ever have missed that interview and if you have, you should go to the Russo interview before, or even instead of, listening to this three hours, or five hours, of Tsarion going on about the state of things. I think three, or four, or five, or six, or maybe even twenty-four hours out of this vale of tears sounds good right about now. I don't know if this applies on your machine, but I find that the connection in the Red Ice interview is really brassy and sounding as though someone's speakers are going out. So I just turned it way down and it's better that way.

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love, 99
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who says we have no industry left?

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Pfeh. We're lousy with profitable schemes.

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love, 99
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beware, shocking images

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Do you think we're supposed to be terrified of Mexico or something? Just terrified in general? Are we supposed to pee every time we see someone whose skin is brown? Is this the prelude to annexing another state? WTF is this about? I mean, assuming you have had the stomach to look at this....

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love, 99
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where we're headed

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Can't even relax with my podcasts. Sheesh.

You know, our policies have had a LOT to do with the state of Mexico. You know, the drug business is VERY big in very high places... there and here. You wanna start drilling down into this scene? You won't get far before some scary big boys start showing up on your radar. We are not in Kansas anymore.

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bowden on mexico again

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I remind you, this man writes like God and he is seriously insightful.
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oh, it's april fools' day

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Dumb observance... and everyone born on the first of April is ridiculously loath to offer up this stat... to the point of it being the immediately obvious reason you can't get them to tell you their birthdate. In fact, they steer away from the subject of birthdays altogether. Same thing applies in morticians. They never mention anything about what they do for a living....
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Not fooling links:

Brown's Bottom and Climate Bubble... that plutocrats are capitalizing on carbon trading does NOT mean one must deny climate change. Think of a better approach or we're finished. Kaiser Report, video, half hour....

Bond vigilantes, silver market catastrophe, perfidies of the New York Fed... Keiser Report, video, half hour....

I guess we can try hitchhiking....

Shit continues to pound the fan in Mexico....

Fuck Obama... and don't, baby, don't....

Norman at Harvard Law... video or audio, hour and forty-five minutes....

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haven't we helped enough already?

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Whut? Troops? More drug runners?

This is worth a listen, and I cannot possibly recommend reading Bowden's books highly enough.
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this means war

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Mexico and Argentina move towards decriminalising drugs
In a backlash against the US 'war on drugs', Latin America turns to a more liberal policy

Rory Carroll in Caracas, Jo Tuckman in Mexico and Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
guardian.co.uk | Monday, 31 August 2009 | 14.07 BST


Argentina and Mexico have taken significant steps towards decriminalising drugs amid a growing Latin American backlash against the US-sponsored "war on drugs".

Argentina's supreme court has ruled it unconstitutional to punish people for using marijuana for personal consumption, an eagerly awaited judgment that gave the government the green light to push for further liberalisation.

It followed Mexico's decision to stop prosecuting people for possession of relatively small quantities of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs. Instead, they will be referred to clinics and treated as patients, not criminals.

Brazil and Ecuador are also considering partial decriminalisation as part of a regional swing away from a decades-old policy of crackdowns still favoured by Washington.

"The tide is clearly turning. The 'war on drugs' strategy has failed," Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a former Brazilian president, told the Guardian. Earlier this year, he and two former presidents of Colombia and Mexico published a landmark report calling for a new departure.

"The report of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy has certainly helped to open up the debate about more humane and efficient policies. But, most of all, the facts are speaking by themselves," said Cardoso.

Reform campaigners have long argued that criminalisation enriched drug cartels, fuelled savage turf wars, corrupted state institutions and filled prisons with addicts who presented no real threat to society.

The US used its considerable influence to keep Latin America and the UN wedded to hardline policies which kept the focus on interdictions and jail sentences for consumers as well as dealers. The "war" was first declared by the Nixon administration.

The economic and social cost, plus European moves towards liberalisation, have emboldened some Latin American states to try new approaches.

Argentina's supreme court, presented with a case about youths arrested with a few joints, ruled last week that such behaviour did not violate the constitution. "Each adult is free to make lifestyle decisions without the intervention of the state," it said.

The government, which favours decriminalisation, is expected to amend laws in light of the ruling. The court stressed, however, that it was not approving complete decriminalisation, a move that would be fiercely resisted by the Catholic church and other groups.

The previous week the government of Mexico, which has endured horrific drug-related violence, made it no longer an offence to possess 0.5g of cocaine (the equivalent of about four lines), 5g of marijuana (about four joints), 50mg of heroin and 40mg of methamphetamine.

Three years ago, Mexico backtracked on similar legislation after the initiative triggered howls of outrage in the US and predictions that Cancún and other resorts would become world centres of narcotics tourism.

Now, however, the authorities quietly say they need to free up resources and jail space for a military-led war on the drug cartels, even while publicly justifying that offensive to the Mexican public with the slogan "to stop the drugs reaching your children". They also argue corrupt police officers will be deterred from extorting money from drug users.

Washington did not protest against the announcement, which was kept deliberately low key. "They made no fanfare so as not to arouse the ire of the US," said Walter McKay, of the Mexico City-based Institute for Security and Democracy. "I predict that when the US sees its nightmare has not come true and that there is no narco-tourist boom it will come under more pressure to legalise or decriminalise."

Some US states have decriminalised the possession of small amounts of marijuana and the Obama administration has emphasised public health solutions to drug abuse, giving Latin America more breathing room, said Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, director of the Global Drug Policy Programme. "My hope is that Latin America will be the next region, after most of Europe, where evidence and science will be the basis for policy-making."

Argentina and Mexico's moves may encourage other governments to follow suit. A new law has been mooted in Ecuador, where President Rafael Correa last year pardoned 1,500 "mules" who had been sentenced to jail. His late father was a convicted mule.

Brazil's supreme court, as well as elements in Congress and the justice ministry, favour decriminalising possession of small quantities of drugs, said Maria Lúcia Karam, a former judge who has joined the advocacy group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

She welcomed the moves towards decriminalisation but said repression remained a cornerstone of drug policy. "Unfortunately the 'war on drugs' mentality is still the dominant policy approach in Latin America. The only way to reduce violence in Mexico, Brazil or anywhere else is to legalise the production, supply and consumption of all drugs."

This rocks very hard. Bravissimo, boyz and girlz. That UNASUR summit must have been smoking. I'm allowing myself to fantasize about a sane world....

beware indians bearing gifts, nafta flu, drug deaths, drones and assassins

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Decided to duck around in the unfamiliar today, and to use it to catch up on what I missed earlier in the month with my long succession of debacles. This particular taping of Democracy Now! stands out for a number of reasons... not least that it includes some poor Mexican guy pleading to have the public health hazard in Perote dealt with properly... and a couple of instances where Obama blows our collective minds with the audacity of chutzpah in calling those who wish him to turn back his coup against Zelaya in Honduras "hypocrites"... but also because you have a chance to listen to journalist, Charles Bowden speaking about asylum for a Mexican journalist and about the Mexican government and drugs and guns. You might want to read his piece in Mother Jones on it that they mention in the interview, help remind you of Obama's mendacity and the recent history of Mexico, but, more than that, more than anything, maybe you want to read Bowden's Blood Orchid: An Unnatural History of America, which will drill about three tons of delusion right the hell on out of you all by itself. I promise. It is a masterpiece. Don't die without reading it.

[It should also be noted that the piece by Bowden linked here, We Bring Fear, is so good that I had to stop reading it online and print it out to take to bed with me. Just look at the first page and tell me you don't feel the same way.

I never can bring myself to believe these "Kindle" things will overtake books and magazines because there are some things that cannot be absorbed on a monitor, a viewing screen. Some writers have to be held, and Bowden is one of them.

I also have found myself irked for posting an image of Obama painted as a brave. I wanted an image of an indian holding a wrapped gift... and I can do that because I'm indian... but lost patience in the search. Maybe I will forget the blast of "INDIAN GIVER!" that shot through me at some point during this broadcast, and replace the image with something that is not an insult to my ancestors, or maybe I will leave it and just concentrate on the miserable irony of someone honoring him this way....

No, really! That should be reserved for a man of courage, not squandered on someone who sells out everyone in his country, everyone on earth to play this murderating role on the world stage.]

yeah, 'sensible', that's the ticket....

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Obama predicts 'sensible' health care win
By MARK S. SMITH, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 6 mins ago

GUADALAJARA, Mexico – President Barack Obama predicted Monday that Congress would pass his sweeping health care overhaul this fall as more "sensible and reasoned arguments" prevail. But he said immigration changes, another politically explosive subject, would have to wait until next year.

At a North American summit in Mexico, the president also delivered an animated defense of U.S. efforts to help restore Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted in a June 28 coup. He said critics of his policy in Honduras smacked of "hypocrisy," faulting the United States for being too heavy-handed in Latin America and yet telling him he has not intervened enough in this instance.

Obama spoke at a news conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, where he confronted questions on both his foreign and domestic agendas, from drugs in Mexico to the testy health care fight at home.

The president never made direct mention of a matter roiling Washington — the outbursts and hot tempers that have disrupted town halls on health care around the country. Republicans are pointing to them as signs of public dissatisfaction with Obama's health care efforts, while Democrats have accused Republicans of trying to sabotage the democratic discussion.

Said Obama: "I suspect that once we get into the fall and people look at the actual legislation that's being proposed, that more sensible and reasoned arguments will emerge, and we're going to get this passed."

He also spelled out a more detailed timeline on immigration change. The president said he expected draft legislation for an immigration overhaul this year but the matter would not get priority attention until 2010.

"We have a broken immigration system. Nobody denies it," Obama said. But politically and legislatively, the matter stands behind health care, energy legislation and an overhaul of financial regulatory rules on Obama's first-term agenda.

"It's very important for us to sequence these big initiatives in a way where they don't all just crash at the same time," he said.

On Mexico's turf, Obama backed Calderon and his efforts to take on drug cartels during a spiraling war on drugs and guns. Washington is debating whether to withhold money to help fight the powerful cartels because of allegations that the Mexican military has been guilty of human rights abuses.

Obama said he had great confidence that under Calderon "human rights will be observed."

Calderon said the Mexican government has an "absolute and categorical" commitment to human rights.

Targeting the long and painful recession, Obama said that he and the other two leaders agreed to take "aggressive, coordinated action" to restore growth across North America.

Noting the huge trading partnership among the three neighbors, Obama said that commerce must be expanded, not restricted.

Obama said that a "Buy America" provision in the giant economic stimulus package earlier this year had not hurt trade with Canada. "I do think it's important to keep this in perspective," he said. "This in no way has endangered the billions of dollars in trade taking place between our two countries."

Harper rallied behind Obama on Honduras. "If I were an American, I would be really fed up with this kind of hypocrisy," he said.

Obama said his administration has been clear in its view that Zelaya was forced out of his post illegally, and he said the U.S. is working with international bodies to send that message. "If these critics think that it's appropriate for us to suddenly act in ways that in every other context they consider inappropriate, then I think what that indicates is that maybe there's some hypocrisy involved in their approach to U.S.-Latin American relations," Obama said. He did not name any critics.

Started by George W. Bush in 2005 near his Texas ranch, the North American Leaders Summit has become an annual showcase on trade. Canada is the top U.S. trading partner, while Mexico is number three.

This year, as the U.S. economy struggles out of a crippling recession, the leaders met at the Institutos Cabanas, a 19th century home for poor children that's now a sprawling art museum with 23 arched courtyards filled with grapefruit and mango trees.

Streets around the complex were sealed off by heavily armed federal agents and police in riot gear.

The security stemmed in part from the drug wars that have raged in Mexico since Calderon deployed the army in an effort to crush the country's notorious cartels. Some 11,000 people have perished in the conflict.

In a separate meeting with Calderon, Obama voiced strong support of the offensive, but Calderon expressed concerns about delays in the latest installment of U.S. aid under the $1.4 billion Merida Initiative.

Calderon also pressed Obama on allowing Mexican trucks access to U.S. highways. Mexicans suggest the U.S. limits are less about safety — the stated reason — than protecting American hauling companies from competition under the NAFTA free trade accord.

dashiell hammett would have a field day with this guy

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"Shorty Guzman Loera"... I can see the words on the page....

audacious buggers

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We used to be like that here, too....

fuckhead's warning again

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to the border

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goofing around in my email archives

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...I found this ultimate image of the State Department at its finest, and went sniffing around after what our current Cat Woman of State is up to. She's going to solve the drug war problem in Mexico! And quell the mounting instability in nukes-riddled Pakistan. Do you doubt her? Of course not! She's a powerhouse Democrat bitch goddess! [see slug]

Why do I not feel any better about her than I did about Condi?

Because I don't. I really don't.

the other max, fuckhead that he is

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... was always warning me about watching for troops moving to the Mexican border. Well. Now it's happening, and he's awol. So, this, according to the non-master-spy Max is the harbinger of something very not good. He would not say what.

I don't know if I should be hiding from the knives of my farm worker neighbors, or if they should be hiding from American death squads, or if Max simply meant something entirely else awful was impending.

and this may only be the least of it in mexico

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I've been catching rumblings of bad unrest in Mexico, on the verge of outright revolt with all the outrageous violence in the warring among the drug kingpins' warring factions; to wit: the government and those we actually call drug traffickers. I know there have to be good links out there for this stuff, but I haven't gotten around to tracking them down.

[Here's a bit of it, but I think I want to know while not wanting to want to know and whatever seems to arc toward toppling rightist governments seems about fine by me these days. Whereas, whatever strengthens leftist governments is also about fine by me, too, these days. Morales kicked the DEA out of Bolivia today, and that is definite step for the health of Bolivia. He might have beheaded them and I would have been appalled... but understanding of the impulse anyway.]

yuh, and they stole the last election to insure it

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