Free Republic

Honduras? Why would ATF walk guns to Honduras? 1. The national scope of the Gunwalker Scandal & 2. Because that's where some of the action is. "It's just another little garden-variety act of war between hemispheric friends. What's the big deal?" "Why would ATF walk guns to Honduras?" asks a reader. That's easy. First, and this is important to understand: the Tampa operation proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that "Project Gunwalker" was a national strategy, not a Phoenix aberration. The "major media" has been slow to understand this. They have ignored the fact that the Houston Field Division...

"Lebanese Canadian Bank to Pay $102 Million in Hizballah Laundering Case" SNIPPET: "The Beirut-based Lebanese Canadian Bank ("LCB") will pay $102 million as part of a settlement reached this week with federal prosecutors. The LCB was accused in a December 2011 complaint of funneling money to the Lebanese terrorist group Hizballah as part of a global money-laundering scheme. The "settlement shows that banks laundering money for terrorists and narco-traffickers will face consequences for their actions, wherever they may be located. This type of money laundering network fuels the operations of both terrorists and drug traffickers, and will continue to use...

A self-described debt collector for Mexican drug cartels says he has slayed more than 30 people across the United States, according to investigators. If Jose Martinez, 51, is found guilty of scores of homicides on both coasts, he would earn a place among the most lethal serial murderers in American history. Investigators have confirmed that Martinez is responsible for a 2006 double-homicide in Marion County, Fla., a March homicide in Lawrence County, Ala., and at least 10 other killings in California, according to sheriff’s officials. Martinez, a U.S. citizen, told investigators that he committed those murders and more than a...

Critics say intimidation keeps shops, others, from complaining about lack of progress A congressional committee chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., may have moved on to other Obama administration scandals, but Arizonans still want answers to the Fast and Furious gun-running project that sent thousands of weapons to drug lords in Mexico. Will they get them? Not if a reported conspiracy of intimidation and enforced silence wins. Arizona State Rifle and Pistol Association President Noble Hathaway said it angers Arizonans that it looks like the federal officials involved with Fast and Furious “got away with it.” “To Arizonan’s it looks...

As if there were not already enough scandals plaguing the Obama administration, the federal “Fast and Furious” operation that armed Mexican drug cartels is back in the news after the Justice Department Inspector General released a report blasting a government leak intended to smear a key ATF whistleblower.

On the heels of news that the Obama administration Department of Justice was spying on reporters at the Associated Press, Monday brought the startling disclosure by the Washington Post that the DOJ had also targeted Fox reporter James Rosen for surveillance in an effort to plug up leaks. Additionally, the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza obtained the full application for a search warrant of Rosen’s personal email account, in which the DOJ accused him of being “an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator.” As Lizza put it, “Rosen was not charged with any crime, but it is unprecedented for the government, in...

President Barack Obama, speaking in Mexico City on Friday, said the United States is responsible for much of the crime and violence in Mexico because of the demand for drugs and the illegal smuggling of guns across the southern border. … Obama acknowledged the illegal smuggling of guns into Mexico by American criminals, but did not mention the Justice Department’s Operation Fast and Furious that allowed the flow of about 2,000 U.S. guns to Mexican drug trafficking organizations. Fast and Furious began in the fall of 2009 and was halted in December 2010 after two of the weapons from the...

"Most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States," President Obama said during a speech at Mexico's Anthropology Museum. "I think many of you know that in America, our Constitution guarantees our individual right to bear arms. And as president, I swore an oath to uphold that right, and I always will.""But at the same time, as I’ve said in the United States, I will continue to do everything in my power to pass common-sense reforms that keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people. That can save lives here...

"Texas Congressman Says Terrorists Taught to 'Act' Hispanic To Enter U.S." SNIPPET: ""We know that Al Qaeda has camps over with the drug cartels on the other side of the Mexican border,” U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert said on C-SPAN. “We know that people are being trained to come in and act like they're Hispanic when they're radical Islamist."" SNIPPET: "Gohmert, who is vice chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, said during the interview that while the United States should continue welcoming immigrants, it also needs to be highly vigilant about its borders."

Ted Nugent reacts to yesterday’s proposed gun legislation on CNN, explaining what he believes really needs to be done. He ends the interview by telling the host that Eric Holder needs to be arrested if we want to stop gun trafficking.

Author says government's actions are 'comparable to U.S. funding al-Qaida' WASHINGTON—The U.S. government running guns to Mexican cartels is “comparable to the United States funding al-Qaida to make someone in the United States look bad,” according to the author of a new best-seller. Katie Pavlich is the author of “Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and the Shameless Cover-Up,” news editor of Townhall.com and an expert on the Fast and Furious scandal. In an interview with WND, she asserted that the Obama administration intentionally orchestrated a “false flag” against lawful gun dealers, the U.S. Border Patrol and Mexican citizens...

Mexican drug cartels whose operatives once rarely ventured beyond the U.S. border are dispatching some of their most trusted agents to live and work deep inside the United States — an emboldened presence that experts believe is meant to tighten their grip on the world's most lucrative narcotics market and maximize profits. If left unchecked, authorities say, the cartels' move into the American interior could render the syndicates harder than ever to dislodge and pave the way for them to expand into other criminal enterprises such as prostitution, kidnapping-and-extortion rackets and money laundering. Cartel activity in the U.S. is certainly...

The Associated Press is out with an extensive piece today showing just how far Mexican drug cartels have infiltrated American society. The cartel problem is no longer a border problem, it's a problem for the entire country. Violent cartel members are carrying out crimes in our backyards with the potential to develop into something much worse. Mexican drug cartels whose operatives once rarely ventured beyond the U.S. border are dispatching some of their most trusted agents to live and work deep inside the United States — an emboldened presence that experts believe is meant to tighten their grip on the...

Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia Woodward McLelland were shot to death in their home last night as reported by The Dallas Morning News: "A law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity described the scene at the McLellands' home as an awful scene where the door appeared to have been kicked in. 'There are shell casings everywhere,' the official said. 'This is unprecedented. This is unbelievable. This is huge.'" Last month Kaufman County Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse was gunned down outside the local courthouse by two men in tactical gear who remain at...

Iraq and immigration have one thing in common. Both are founded on the assumption that national political philosophies can be universally applied to any population with the same results. The same leftists and radical libertarians who mocked the idea that Iraqis could be successfully transformed through democracy insist millions of illegal aliens from countries every bit as violent and unstable as Iraq can be successfully transformed by giving them legal status and the vote. Both assumptions were and are wrong. They are both symptoms of an internationalism that assumes a favorite political philosophy that works in the United States can...

Top homeland security officials told Congress Wednesday they still don’t have a way to effectively measure border security — a revelation that lawmakers said could doom the chances for passing an immigration legalization bill this year. Three years after the Obama administration scrapped the previous yardstick, which measured miles of the border under “operational control,” top Customs and Border Protection officials told Congress the new measure they’re working on won’t be ready for public use any time in the near future. The revelation stunned lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, who said that without a way to

In October 2010 a man was repeatedly stabbed and then grotesquely beheaded in Chandler, AZ, and now one of the three reputed narco soldiers from the Sinaloa cartel whom authorities suspect in the gruesome crime has pleaded no contest for his alleged role as reported by the Daily Mail. Although the Obama Administration insists that there is no drug cartel spillover violence the dead bodies on the north side of the border stubbornly belie the President's cynical lie. Former DEA supervisor Phil Jordan insists that the drug traffickers' most gruesome tactics including beheadings are occurring on American soil, and says...

Violence along the southern border has gotten so out of control that both Mexican and American journalists have stopped reporting it out of fear that drug cartels will retaliate against them and their families. This means Americans will be kept in the dark about the crisis along the porous and increasingly dangerous Mexican border. We certainly can’t expect the truth from the government. Remember that the nation’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, insists that the region is “as secure as it has ever been.” This delusional assessment has been repeated by Napolitano over and over again in a seemingly...

The indigenous town of Cherán used to be like many places in Mexico, caving under the weight of drug-related crime and a police force that did little to stop it. But about two years ago, citizens here threw out the police, and took over their local government, running the town according to indigenous tradition. So far, they’ve had remarkable success. Indigenous autonomy movements, like the one in Cherán, are a trend throughout Latin America, scholars say, from movements like the Zapatistas in Chiapas in the 1990s; to communities seeking to self-govern today in places like Chile and Bolivia. The response...

A Mexican officer claims the military is indeed at war with drug cartels for territory in northern Mexico and that vast numbers of children have been left homeless and hungry by the war in the seemingly unreachable cartel-controlled territory. The officer spoke with me in person on the condition of anonymity. When I asked him to explain which cartels were fighting in Nuevo Laredo, he explained that things were not so simple and not so easily defined. The officer did not speak in law enforcement terms but instead used military terms. It grew clear that the troubles facing Mexico had...