Free Republic

I'm writing this in West Africa where I have spent eleven of the last fourteen months working with compassionate, dedicated, and brave people on humanitarian programs designed to save lives and alleviate human suffering. During the past five years, I have traveled to the Eastern Congo where the deaths of millions of people have gone largely unnoticed by the rest of the world, been to Darfur, responded to famines in Ethiopia, helped end a measles epidemic in Burkina Faso, and been deployed to Guinea Bissau in response to a cholera epidemic. I am currently focused on helping people affected by...

'Mexican Man' costume offends Latino shoppers, community groups By Sean Maher EMERYVILLE — A costume dubbed "Mexican Man" has offended Latino shoppers and community groups after being discovered at a Halloween chain store. The photo on the costume packaging shows a man with a thick mustache wearing a poncho and a sombrero. Oakland resident Monica Plazola said she discovered the costume last week at the Spirit Halloween store in Emeryville, which she was visiting with her two children, ages 7 and 9. "We were there at the store, with all kinds of costumes, and that was the only one identified...

There are a lot of different variations to this Mexican dip, but some things are just better simpler. The trick: use very ripe avocados.

The video is of up to 12 UFO's involved with Mexican Airforce planes taken from cameras on the planes. Here's another clickable link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQgF4zzfQKQ The video is somewhat sharper and clearer than earlier videos. The more significant issue is that it is the first time that any remotely significant country has officially announced that UFO's are real and extraterrestrial. The video notes that several other countries are becoming impatient with the USA holding back this information. France signaled it's impatience several years ago with a scientific study of the phenomena that was released to the public....

DALLAS -- Mexican authorities are investigating allegations of corruption and improper behavior at the Mexican consulate here, triggering calls from political leaders on both sides of the border for an ethics review at Mexico's consular offices in the U.S. The head of Mexico's Foreign Affairs Ministry, which oversees all diplomatic outposts abroad, said Mexican authorities are probing the Dallas consulate in connection with irregularities in the collection of passport fees. Enrique Hubbard, the Dallas consul general, said he launched an investigation after he discovered irregularities in the collection of passport fees, but declined to provide details. Senior diplomats familiar with...

The complaints against Broward County Deputy Jonathan Bleiweiss began more than a year before he was arrested on sexual assault charges. An Oakland Park priest sent an email to the mayor, city commissioners and sheriff officials, informing them of a deputy that was abusing the homeless people who attended his church’s soup kitchen. Father Bob Daudill had even posted a flier inside the All Saints Catholic Mission soup kitchen with Bleiweiss’ picture on it, warning the homeless to avoid that deputy, according to The Miami Herald. Daudill sent his email in June 2008. Apparently nothing was done about it. Not...

MEXICO CITY – U.S. refineries bought millions of dollars worth of oil siphoned from Mexican government pipelines and smuggled across the border — in some cases by drug cartels expanding their reach. At least one U.S. oil executive has pleaded guilty to a conspiracy that involved what prosecutors said was about $2 million in stolen Mexican oil, U.S. Justice Department officials confirmed to The Associated Press.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. business groups are growing increasingly frustrated with President Barack Obama's failure to resolve a cross-border trucking dispute with Mexico they say has threatened thousands of American jobs. "We've got companies that are really concerned," said Frank Vargo, vice president for international economic affairs at the National Association of Manufacturers. "Our calculation is that we've got 15,000 jobs at risk and the longer this goes on, the more likely it is that Mexican buyers are shifting suppliers," Vargo said. U.S. manufacturers hold out hope Obama's meeting early next week in Guadalajara with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian...

Shasta-Trinity National Forest - -- Mexican drug traffickers have expanded their marijuana-growing operations in California parks as state and local governments have tightened spending and slashed jobs and services. Law enforcement officials say the traffickers, taking advantage of the fact that there are fewer sheriff's deputies and rangers monitoring parks, are cultivating more pot than ever before. This year's multibillion-dollar crop is on pace to be the largest in history, said state officials. "It's a huge problem," said Gordon Taylor, the assistant special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. "California is ground zero for domestic marijuana cultivation...

DOTHAN, Ala. — An Alabama judge set a $20,000 cash bond for a native of Mexico who reportedly has been deported from the United States 28 times. Houston County Sheriff's Sgt. Jackie Smith said he charged Luis Hernandez-Arellano, 38, with felony obstruction of justice...for giving deputies false identification. Smith said deputies stopped a vehicle on Alabama Highway 109 Thursday for running a stop sign. The driver told deputies his name was Caesar Garza. After Garza failed to provide a driver's license or other identification, deputies were able to positively identify him as Carlos Cortez. Investigators later learned through Immigration and...

Federal wildlife managers have decided to allow an endangered Mexican gray wolf that has been linked to four livestock killings to remain in the wild in southwestern New Mexico. Despite a policy that allows the agency to remove a wolf from the wild after three livestock kills in one year, Tuggle said in a memo to the coordinator of the Mexican gray wolf recovery program ... Tuggle requested in his memo that the recovery program's interagency field team continue to monitor the San Mateo pack and try to prevent any further livestock kills by the pack.

<p>SONOITA, Ariz. — Ten undocumented immigrants "stacked like wood" in the back of a sports utility vehicle crammed with at least 22 people were killed when the driver lost control and rolled over on a remote southern Arizona highway, authorities said Sunday.</p>

--President Obama, while a presidential candidate, gave a very important speech (March 18, 2008) on race in America. In that speech he said that "Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race.... So when they ... hear that an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed ... resentment builds over time." Those were brave and important words for then-Sen. Obama to say. However, through close observation and experience I have learned to...

Trucking Headlines U.S.-Mexico trucking plan may resumeBy Jill Dunn The United States may allow Mexican trucks to do business here as early as June, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood reportedly said May 22. This spring, Congress ended the cross-border trucking program between the two countries. Mexico responded with 90 tariffs totaling $2.4 billion on U.S. products, casting a heavy burden on U.S. producers, LaHood said in a Bloomberg story. Candice Tolliver, the new communications director for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, did not immediately respond to questions. In recent weeks, the FMCSA began work with the U.S. Trade...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The new strain of H1N1 flu that has killed 56 people in Mexico and been carried around the world by travelers appears to be more easily passed along than the regular seasonal flu, researchers reported on Monday... "Thus while substantial uncertainty remains, clinical severity appears less than that seen in 1918 but comparable with that seen in 1957." The 1918 pandemic was the worst of the 20th century, killing anywhere between 25 million and 100 million people, depending on estimates. It was the first appearance of the H1N1 virus. The 1957 pandemic of H2N2 killed an estimated...

<p>Today's march for immigrants' rights stepped off from Union Park with a much smaller crowd than in years past.</p> <p>About 2,000 people banged drums, blew trumpets, chanted and carried signs calling for the legalization of immigrants as the march began about 11:30 a.m.</p>

Mexican immigration officials on the U.S.-Mexican border say they have been required to wear face masks whether swine influenza poses a threat or not. Meanwhile, on the U.S. side of the border, it is up to the discretion of Customs and Border Protection officials whether to wear masks to protect themselves against the flu.

Lawmakers have secretly approved awarding an illegal immigrant child molester more than $4 million because he was beaten by fellow inmates while in custody. Fernandez Ramirez, 24, is an illegal immigrant from Mexico who molested a 6-year-old girl in a park. The back door settlement, paid with tax dollers, gives the illegal alien's family $3.75 million and $900,000 will go to medical liens rendered while in custody. Orange County (CA) Board of Supervisors refused to comment on the settlement even though constituents have the right to know since it's their money.

In a discussion this morning with a cell biologist and medical doctor working at Johns Hopkins, my friend thought this 4-part flu combination is highly unusual and looks like it could be man-made. Especially because it has an avian strain. My doctor friend (he's Taiwanese) explained that in Asia, it's common for a avian-swine-human flu to happen naturally, but this virus first showed up in Mexico, where pigs and ducks are not usually raised together. Also, recombination of more than 2-different flu viruses is extremely rare. I'm just repeating what he said as an expert in the field. He says...

MEXICO CITY – An escalating arms race among Mexico's drug cartels casts doubt on whether Mexico or the U.S. can stop the flow of weaponry, despite renewed vows last week from presidents of both countries. Stockpiles captured by Mexican soldiers show that warring traffickers are now obtaining military-grade weaponry such as grenades, launchers, machine guns, mortars and anti-tank rockets.

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) -- Mexican authorities arrested a woman guarding an arsenal that included the first anti-aircraft machine gun seized in Mexico, police said Tuesday, as the army announced the capture of an alleged top drug cartel lieutenant. The arsenal belonged to a group linked to the powerful Beltran-Leyva drug cartel, federal police coordinator Gen. Rodolfo Cruz said. It also included ammunition, five rifles, a grenade and part of a grenade launcher. ... Cruz said the confiscated .50-caliber, anti-aircraft machine gun can fire 800 rounds per minute and is capable of penetrating armor from more than 5,000 feet (1,500...

Women and girls as young as 16 were smuggled into this country from Mexico and brought to Charlotte to work as prostitutes. For $25 and $30, authorities said, they performed sex acts – sometimes with 20 men a day. Jorge Flores Rojas, a 44-year- old undocumented Mexican national accused of running the sex trafficking ring, has been sentenced in Charlotte to 24 years in prison, authorities said Tuesday. He was ordered to pay $117,000 in restitution to one woman. He also must register as a sex offender. Acting U.S. Attorney Edward Ryan said Tuesday that prostitution rings like the one...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday sent a letter to the California congressional delegation urging it to restore the recently ended pilot program that allowed Mexican trucks to transport goods in the United States. "In this time of economic distress, when more than one in 10 Californians are out of work and the repercussions are felt throughout our great state, we must do all we can to boost trade with our international partners, not stifle it," Schwarzenegger wrote. "And yet I am afraid that the prohibition recently placed on Mexican truckers will do exactly that, with the result being markets functionally...

The use of teenagers as killers by the drug cartels is common in Mexico, and the kids are known as "narco juniors." Earlier this month CNN reported that Los Zetas, a paramilitary organization that provides enforcement muscle for the Gulf Cartel, has recruited U.S. teenagers as young as 13 years old to carry out its enforcement hits on the north side of the border. NPR now reports that "the cartels have begun seeking younger and younger recruits" as sicaritos or child assassins: Mexican drug cartels recruit children under 18 for the same reasons that armed forces conscript boy soldiers in...

An unemployed construction worker frustrated with trying to find work was arrested Saturday on Staten Island for saying he "killed two Mexicans," police said. Michael Franklin called 911 five times Thursday morning after a contractor rejected him in favor of three Hispanic day laborers. The 44-year-old Staten Island man boasted that he just "killed two Mexicans" and "threw them into the Great Kills Harbor." "I'm gonna be riding around all day looking to kill Mexicans," he threatened in his last call. "It all came back negative," said Inspector Michael Osgood, commanding officer of the hate crime unit, of the phony...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US is expected this week to announce plans to dispatch more federal agents to its border with Mexico in a bid to combat drug cartel operations there, US officials said. Washington appears poised to bolster its customs and border protection forces along the 3000-plus kilometer (2000 mile) frontier, in what would be President Barack Obama's first major domestic security initiative. The announcement is expected to come "in the next few days" a Department of Homeland Security official told AFP ahead of the announcement. The impending plan comes as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prepares to visit...

One day after signing the $410 billion omnibus funding bill into law, along with provisions ending the Department of Transportation's Mexican truck demonstration project, the Obama administration has announced intentions to restart the program as soon as possible.

WASHINGTON – Tighter gun control and stronger law enforcement in Southwestern states were recommended Thursday by lawmakers concerned about drug violence in Mexico possibly spilling across the border. The escalating violence — which has killed thousands, mostly south of the border — has been blamed on Mexican drug cartels which one Homeland Security official described as the biggest organized crime threat facing the United States. Roger Rufe, Homeland Security's head of operations, outlined the agency's plans for protecting the border, a response that includes — as a last resort — deploying military personnel and equipment to the region if other...

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration will try to reinvent a program to allow Mexican trucks full access to U.S. highways. An 18-month pilot program that allowed a few Mexican trucks beyond a border buffer zone died when President Barack Obama signed a $410 billion spending bill yesterday. The bill barred spending on the program. Debbie Mesloh, a spokeswoman for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, said Obama has told the office to work with Congress, the Transportation and State departments and Mexican officials to come up with legislation to create “a new trucking project that will meet the legitimate...

Por Ejemplo, the below video, though sort of funny, also highlights the problem with illegal immigration. There is a problem when we have a van PACKED with illegal aliens, defying our laws, again, engaging in a high speed chase with police officers, with no regard for the lives they are endangering, including their own. Anyway, take a look: (Video on site) http://www.notoriouslyconservative.com/2009/01/how-many-mexicans-can-you-fit-in-van.html What to do with the illegal aliens in our country that are doing their best, just to make a living, and are following our laws, even if they first defied them when they entered our country, is a...

State Sen. Abel Maldonado, the deciding vote in the big state budget morass, came to see me last week with a very interesting story about his fellow Republicans. I was telling him what a good name he has, because no one can figure out if it is Spanish, Italian or Portuguese. He proceeded to tell me that when he was running for state controller in 2006, he commissioned a poll to gauge the feelings of Republican voters in Orange County. The poll came back showing him losing to the Democrat by almost 2-1. "This is impossible," Maldonado said. "Orange County...

201st Mexican Fighter Squadron Flag of Mexico The "Escuadron Aereo de Pelea 201" (201st Mexican Fighter Squadron) of the Mexican Expeditionary Air Force (Fuerza Aerea Expedicionaria Mexicana) has the honor of being the only military unit that has fought outside of Mexican Republic. This Squadron fought in the liberation of the Philippines while assigned to the 58th Fighter Group, under the command of Major Ed Roddy, a fighter ace with 8 kills to his credit while assigned to the 348th Fighter Group under Col. Neal Kearby, 5th Fighter Command, 5th Air Force; (six of its pilots had trained in dive-bombing...

Reporting from San Diego -- A U.S. citizen was one of the three men who were found decapitated this week in Tijuana, Mexican authorities said Friday. The body of George Harrison, a 38-year-old former Chula Vista resident, had been dismembered and mutilated and was dumped in a vacant lot near Tijuana's beachside bullring. Harrison had several drug-related convictions in the United States and was suspected of drug trafficking in Mexico, Baja California Assistant Atty. General Rafael Gonzalez said.

Local senator revives controversy over Matricula Consular card. Mexican citizens living in California could use a controversial identification card issued by the Mexican government for business transactions under legislation introduced by Orange County state Sen. Lou Correa. The Santa Ana Democrat's proposal, Senate Bill 461, would allow notaries in California to accept Matricula Consular cards as valid identification for executing property transfers and other official transactions. The Mexican government, through its consulate offices, issues Matricula Consular photo ID cards to Mexican nationals living outside of their country, regardless of their emigration status. The cards have a reputation for being easily...

VILLA AHUMADA, Mexico – For people caught inside Mexico's drug corridors, life is about keeping your head down and watching your back, especially when the sun dips behind the cactus-studded horizon. No town knows this better than Villa Ahumada, where the entire police force quit after 70 cartel hit men roared through last spring, killing the police chief, two officers and three townspeople. Residents were left defenseless again last week when gunmen returned and kidnapped nine people, despite the soldiers manning checkpoints far outside town.

Mexican drug violence spills over into the US 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....

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...

MEXICO CITY - A Mexican beauty queen and international pageant winner has been detained by police along with suspected drug traffickers who had assault rifles and cash. Laura Zuniga, the 23-year-old Miss Sinaloa from the marijuana-producing Mexican state, was held with seven men at a military checkpoint in Guadalajara, police said on Tuesday. "She is the beauty queen of Sinaloa and was aboard an SUV with the weapons and several of the men," said a police spokesman from western Jalisco state, home to Guadalajara. The spokesman said police and soldiers at the checkpoint on the outskirts of Mexico's second-biggest city...

By Michael Webster, Syndicated Investigative Reporter Early this month U.S. Border Patrol agents from the Tucson, Ariz. sector and agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were again fired upon with what appeared to be military type automatic weapons by Mexican drug smugglers dressed in military garb. Agents after observing a Flatbed tow truck on the Mexican side of the U.S. Mexican border backed up to the new international border fence. According to witnesses the tow truck backed up on a newly constructed earthen dirt berm which put the truck almost even with the height of the fence. The tow...

MYFOXPhoenix.com/Arizona Dept. of Public Safety Arizona Department of Public Safety Detectives have confiscated about 2,118 pounds of marijuana from a truck that appeared identical to a United Parcel Service truck. A suspect fled the scene when an officer and narcotics canine attempted to stop the vehicle, according to MYFOXPhoenix.com. A search of the truck yielded nearly $1.2 million worth of marijuana bundles typically transported by

In Mexico's worst case of drug-related corruption in a decade, a drug cartel infiltrated the highest levels of Mexico's Attorney General's Office, paying as much as $450,000 a month to get sensitive information about anti-drug activities, Mexican officials said on Monday. The cartel even seemingly placed a mole inside the U.S. Embassy that fed the drug lords information from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, according to a copy of an arrest warrant seen by The Wall Street Journal and obtained by Mexican newspaper El Universal. A DEA spokesman said: "We are currently investigating this issue along with our Mexican counterparts."...

A U.S. official says American law enforcement arrested a top Mexican immigration official for carrying about 77 kilograms of marijuana. The U.S. official identified the Mexican official as Francisco Celaya-Carrillo. The official said he was stopped in Lukeville, Ariz. Sunday afternoon, as he was coming into the country in a pickup truck to do some shopping and said that a Customs and Border Protection officer inspected the vehicle and found marijuana in the gas tank and in the spare tire.

TIJUANA, Mexico — Four men were shot dead in front of a crowd at an amusement park, a toddler died after the car he was traveling in crashed during a gunbattle, and a businessman was killed after leading a protest against violence, officials said Thursday. All together, 21 people died during 24 hours across Mexico, which is waging a fierce battle against drug traffickers and other criminal gangs...

Catron County officials say an endangered Mexican gray wolf has been causing problems in the Cruzville area and they want the animal removed. The county said Monday that the uncollared wolf has killed family pets and attacked a horse at one property in the western New Mexico community. The county's wolf investigator has apparently confirmed the problems.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Suspected drug hitmen attacked a group of sleeping soldiers with grenades in central Mexico, sparking a battle that killed three gunmen, a state attorney general's office said on Wednesday. Around 15 drug gangsters in vehicles surprised the soldiers while they were camped out in the central state of Guanajuato on Tuesday night, shooting at them with automatic weapons. "Two soldiers were injured in the clash in a firefight that lasted several minutes," a spokesman for the Guanajuato state attorney general's office said.

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) -- The United States violated international law by putting a Mexican national to death in Texas, the Mexican government said Wednesday. Protesters for and against Jose Ernesto Medellin's execution gathered before he was put to death Tuesday night in Huntsville, Texas, for raping and murdering two teens in 1993. His death ended 15 years of legal disputes on a sour note. "The government of Mexico sent the U. S. Department of State a diplomatic note of protest for this violation of international law, expressing its concern for the precedent that it may create for the rights...

HOUSTON — In a case that has drawn international attention, Texas executed José E. Medellín on Tuesday night in defiance of an international court ruling and despite pleas from the Bush administration for a new hearing. The execution came just before 10 p.m. Central time, shortly after the United States Supreme Court denied a last request for a reprieve. Protesters for and against the death penalty clamored in the rain outside the Huntsville Unit, about 70 miles north of Houston, where Mr. Medellín was executed by lethal injection. “I’m sorry my actions caused you pain,” he said to the witnesses...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Mexican national Jose Ernesto Medellin has been executed by lethal injection, according to Texas prison officials. Jose Ernesto Medellin was put to death for his part in the gang rape and murder of two Texas girls. Corrections spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said Medellin died at 9:57 CT. The U.S. Supreme Court denied the last-ditch appeal of a Mexican national on Texas' death row late Tuesday, paving the way for him to be executed for a pair of brutal slayings, state corrections officials said. Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said about 9:15 p.m. that the court...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued a last-minute appeal to the United States Tuesday to halt the scheduled execution of a Mexican national sentenced to death for murder in defiance of an International Court of Justice (ICJ) order. Jose Ernesto Medellin, 33, was due to be executed by lethal injection at 2300 GMT in the state of Texas. He was convicted of the 1993 rape and murder of two teenagers and is one 51 Mexican nationals on death row in the United States. Less than 12 hours before Medellin's planned execution, Ban called on the US government...

WASHINGTON – A controversial one-year program allowing Mexican trucks to travel deep into the United States will be extended for two more years, federal officials announced Monday. John H. Hill, administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said the extension would allow for the collection of more data to determine whether Mexican trucks can operate safely in the United States. Opponents quickly denounced the move, which some had been expecting despite their protests that the program poses a danger on U.S. highways. Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, accused U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary...