4um: Just saw that political slut Norah O'Donnel on MSNBC...

Title: Just saw that political slut Norah O'Donnel on MSNBC...
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Published: Mar 25, 2009
Author: X-15
Post Date: 2009-03-25 15:29:34 by X-15
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Views: 355
Comments: 23

...and she was using her feminine wiles to get General Barry McCaffrey to agree that America was flooding mexico with full-auto weapons. I say General McCaffrey is a goddamned liar and Norah is a fucking cunt. They're setting the stage for the Halfrican to take a stab at the 2nd Amendment.

Chris Mathews approves of your steadfast dedication and wants to send you a Hardball t-shirt to reward your obedi...err, loyalty.

Armed and dangerous: ; America must do its part to stop drug cartels getting guns, Mexico says

MEXICO CITY - Mexico blames Americans for arming the world's most powerful drug cartels, a complaint supported Friday by a U.S. government report that found nearly all of Mexico's escalating drug killings involved weapons from north of the border.

President Felipe Calderon told The Associated Press that his police and soldiers are dangerously outgunned because U.S. authorities are failing to stop the smuggling of high-powered weapons into Mexico. His attorney general called for more aggressive prosecutions of gun smugglers, saying that the U.S. constitutional right to bear arms doesn't protect them.

"The Second Amendment was not put there to arm foreign criminal groups," Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora told the AP on Thursday.

Calderon has complained for two years that the U.S. isn't carrying its weight in the cross-border drug war, despite the fact that American drug users ultimately finance the cartels.

"I'm fighting corruption among Mexican authorities and risking everything to clean house, but I think a good cleaning is in order on the other side of the border," Calderon said.

President Obama's administration is beginning to respond. On Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder promised to enforce a long-ignored ban on importing assault weapons, many of which are re- sold illegally and smuggled into Mexico to resupply the cartels.

Calderon applauded Holder's announcement as "the first time ... in many years that the American government is starting to show more commitment."

When the U.S. enforced the assault weapons ban, only 21 percent of the weapons Mexico seized from traffickers were assault rifles, Medina Mora said. Today, more than half are, and Mexican law enforcement officials are paying with their lives - some 800 have been killed in the past two years.

Drug-related killings claimed 6,290 lives last year in Mexico - more than double the 2007 toll, and more than 1,000 have been killed so far this year, he added.

Both Calderon and his top prosecutor said the U.S. should aggressively enforce gun laws and pressure sellers to keep weapons in the hands of law-abiding citizens.

Their complaints were supported by a U.S. State Department report Friday that weapons bought or stolen in the U.S. were used in 95 percent of the killings.

The report also said cartels are increasingly carrying out contract killings inside the United States, part of a wave of violence that also includes a sharp rise in kidnappings in Phoenix.

Holder announced Wednesday the Drug Enforcement Administration had rounded up 755 suspected Sinaloa cartel members and seized more than $59 million in drug money in the past 21 months.

Congress is also paying attention. Lawmakers included $10 million in the economic stimulus package for Project Gunrunner, a federal crackdown on U.S. gun-trafficking networks.

The Brookings Institution has estimated that 2,000 guns enter Mexico from the United States every day. The ATF says more than 7,700 guns sold in America were traced to Mexico last year, up from 3,300 the year before and about 2,100 in 2006.

Cartels turn to the U.S. because Mexico's gun laws are much stricter - gun buys must be pre-approved by the Mexican defense department and are limited light weapons, no higher than the standard .38 caliber. Larger calibers are considered military weapons and are off-limits to civilians.

North of the border, cartel representatives often pay U.S. citizens to purchase assault rifles for them at gun shows where background checks aren't required and sales aren't easily traced. The cartels have found this weapons source so reliable that hitmen simply toss expensive assault weapons aside while fleeing assassinations.

Obama said during his campaign that he respects the Second Amendment, but favors "common sense" gun laws. Advocates on both sides of the U.S. gun control debate took that to mean he'll eventually endorse new limits on ownership of assault weapons and background checks at the gun shows.

David Johnson, the assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement, presented the report in Washington.

He said the new administration doesn't believe the constitution protects gun traffickers who deal to Mexico.

"It is something we can do something about, and we are taking some steps to do some things about it," he said.

I sincerely hope that Atty General Medina is assassinated very soon. Anybody who is the enemy of the Second Amendment needs to die before they can screw up our culture and way of life laid down by the Founding Fathers. I care not one whit about the life of a mexicon, I put my life and my heritage before all other nations and peoples.

OK, so we open our Southern border to guest workers, and low and behold, Mexican drug cartels appear doing the work our own gangs won't do. It's your basic government twofer; they get our kids hooked and take away our guns at the same time. It's all so reasonable....

Several times a day, a chain-link gate rolls open and dozens of illegal immigrants stroll out of the U.S. Border Patrol station here, blinking into the hot Texas sun as they look for taxis to the bus station and a ticket out of town.

Each holds a piece of paper that Spanish-speakers call a "permiso" — permission, courtesy of the U.S. government, to roam the country freely.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, more than 118,000 undocumented migrants who were caught after sneaking over the nation's borders have walked right out of custody with a permiso in hand.

They were from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Brazil. But also Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen — among 35 countries of "special interest" because of alleged sponsorship or support of terrorism.

These are the so-called OTM, or "Other Than Mexican," migrants too far from their homelands to be shipped right back. More than 70,000 have hit U.S. streets just since this past October.

The Border Patrol is catching them, riding inner tubes across the Rio Grande or trekking through farm fields. But the government has no place to put all the "OTMs" while they await deportation hearings, so they are released with a notice to appear in immigration court.

Many don't show — disappearing, instead, among the estimated 10 million undocumented migrants living in America.

In the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2001, 5,251 non-Mexicans were freed on their own recognizance from Border Patrol custody, according to statistics the agency provided. In fiscal year 2002, that rose to 5,725. Fiscal 2003: 7,972. Fiscal 2004: 34,161.

Last year's number included at least 91 illegal immigrants from "special-interest" countries.

Releases have soared again this year. With four months left in the fiscal cycle, 70,624 OTMs have been released on their own recognizance — or 70% of all non-Mexicans apprehended by the Border Patrol. That includes 50 undocumented migrants from "special-interest" countries, Border Patrol spokesman Salvador Zamora says.

Authorities stress that apprehended illegal immigrants are routinely screened, and any determined to be a risk are detained. Individuals from "special-interest" nations aren't necessarily more likely to be terrorist threats than others, they note.

Still, front-line officers voice concern that so many who break the law to enter the country are systematically set free.

"I absolutely believe that the next attack we have will come from somebody who has come across the border illegally," says Eugene Davis, retired deputy chief of the Border Patrol sector in Blaine, Wash. "To me, we have no more border security now than we had prior to Sept. 11. Anybody who believes we're safer, they're living in Neverland."

Outside the Harlingen patrol station, an agent grumbled recently that he'd dislocated his shoulder while catching one group — then, in no time, they walked free.

The afternoon is quickly fading, and 20 illegal immigrants sit under a hackberry tree near the Rio Grande.

"I betcha dollars to doughnuts that there's a bunch of OTMs in there," Border Patrol agent Eddie Flores says, swinging his SUV to a stop. He's right: This group consists of one Honduran, six Brazilians and the rest Costa Ricans, all unfazed at being apprehended by immigration officers. One Brazilian woman smiles, even, then fires off something in Portuguese.

They're depending on the very system charged with capturing unlawful entrants to help them go free. Nowadays, OTMs often flock to Border Patrol agents rather than fleeing them.

Of the 834,731 apprehensions made by the Border Patrol so far this fiscal year, 100,142 were non-Mexican arrests. That's a 137% increase from the 42,167 non-Mexicans arrested in the year of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Illegal immigrants from Mexico and Canada typically choose to voluntarily depart and can be returned home almost immediately upon being caught. Those from other countries must undergo deportation proceedings and await flights to their nations. A growing number of those are freed with a notice-to-appear because of lack of holding space.

The so-called "catch and release" arrangement happens most frequently in Texas' Rio Grande Valley, where 91% of non-Mexicans caught by Border Patrol agents are then freed, statistics show.

Most of those arrested in the region are from Brazil, Honduras and El Salvador, though arrests of illegal immigrants from the 35 "special-interest" countries doubled from two dozen in fiscal 2003 to about four dozen in fiscal 2004, according to internal Border Patrol statistics obtained by The Associated Press.

Nationally, Zamora says, 644 migrants from "special-interest" countries were apprehended by Border Patrol in fiscal 2004; more than 450 have been nabbed so far this fiscal year.

Congress in the past two years funded 19,444 immigration detention beds nationally, says Manny Van Pelt, spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. An extra 1,950 bed spaces were approved in May.

The Border Patrol, as it checks apprehended entrants' names against terrorist watch lists and crime databases, contacts ICE's Office of Detention and Removal to see if there's holding space. Unless the entrant is a convict or on a watch list, the answer is often no — and migrants are cut loose.

"It's creating an environment in which people can go around unnoticed," says James Edwards Jr. of the conservative Hudson Institute think tank. "They can easily obtain false identities. ... That's a mighty big risk to take."

Zamora says only 91 of the 644 undocumented "special-interest" migrants arrested by Border Patrol in fiscal 2004 were released, and that the others were turned over to ICE for detention. However, the Border Patrol refused to provide the AP with a country-by-country breakdown of undocumented migrants released on their own recognizance.

Migrants from terror-watch countries are vetted not only by Border Patrol agents and criminal database checks but also federal Joint Terrorism Task Force investigators, says Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security.

"An alien from a special-interest country who presents absolutely no risk — is that someone you're going to detain? Or are you going to detain a drug dealer or a child predator from a country that's not on the special-interest country list?" he says.

Authorities point out that a new "expedited removal" program, focusing on the quick return of non-Mexicans to their home countries, has resulted in 7,000 deportations. Still, word is out among migrants that if they can make it across the border, they might get walking papers.

"I had 46 of them standing there at the side of the road. That's the first thing they ask me, 'Immigration?'" says Joe Serna, one of two police officers in La Grulla, 65 miles west of Harlingen. "Best we can do is check them for weapons."

Homeland security officials say spotting would-be terrorists is the No. 1 priority of border guards. But veteran line officers note databases can't always detect whether a migrant is using a fake name. And while they're processing OTMs, other illegal entrants are getting by.

Pakistani Farida Goolam Mahomed Ahmed was arrested last July at the McAllen, Texas, airport as she tried to board a plane to New York. She carried $7,300 in various currencies and a passport with pages missing. Agents later learned she waded across the Rio Grande. She was deported in March.

In February, the reputed leader of the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, gang was arrested after he crossed from Mexico into Texas. Ever Anibal Rivera Paz was found 100 miles north of the Rio Grande, hiding in the trunk of a car. He had escaped from a Honduran prison where he was charged with masterminding a deadly bus attack. He is jailed in Houston.

Others who are caught, and then released, fail to show up for immigration hearings.

The Harlingen Immigration Court, one of 53 nationwide, incurs more no-shows than any other: 87% of migrants failed to appear and were ordered deported "in absentia" in fiscal 2004. Nationally, that failure-to-appear rate stands at about 22%.

ICE estimates a cumulative 465,000 undocumented immigrants — visa overstays, illegal entrants and others unlawfully in the States — have received final orders of removal but remain at-large.

The list now includes four of the six Brazilians Flores and Garcia apprehended under the hackberry tree.

Twenty-four hours after they were caught, the group walked out of Border Patrol custody. A shuttle operated by the Harlingen bus station provided a ride to the terminal. There, after presenting a clerk with their "permisos," the Brazilians each purchased $25 one-way tickets to Houston, where they planned to get connecting flights. They boarded the 10:30 p.m. bus, smiling.

Only two returned for their June 9 court date. The four no-shows were ordered deported "in absentia."

Sneak into the country Illegally and you're in "detention" and an "undocumented migrant" and set free. Take a 50 cent candy bar and you are a Criminal and end up in Grey Bar Motel forever as an "american."

There's that darned "estimated 10 million" figure that really ticks me off. It's well over 30 million and has been for a few years.