Free Republic

The former U.S. Attorney for Arizona could be disbarred, after an investigation found he lied to the Justice Department about his role in trying to discredit the federal whistle-blower who exposed the botched gun-running scheme known as Fast and Furious. An Office of Inspector General report showed that Dennis Burke -- the former chief of staff for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano appointed as U.S. Attorney for Arizona by President Obama in September 2009 -- lied when asked if he leaked sensitive documents to the press meant to undermine the credibility of ATF whistle-blower John Dodson. The IG report also...

As is often the case with my brain, I need to mull over things sometimes to decide what I think about them. Such is the case with Jason Richwine, the Heritage Foundation scholar who was driven out when it was discovered that his thesis (which passed inspection at Harvard) reached the following conclusions: So what is actually in the dissertation? The dissertation shows that recent immigrants score lower than U.S.-born whites on many different types of IQ tests. Using statistical analysis, it suggests that the test-score differential is due primarily to a real cognitive gap rather than to culture or...

State-owned Petroleos Mexicanos admits that "serious" corruption exists in some areas of the company and that contracting processes in particular have been plagued by "interference from organized crime," a leading Mexican daily said Friday. In a front-page story, El Universal said Pemex representatives and members of the Mexican Construction Industry Chamber drew that conclusion at a meeting in late April. Pemex executives acknowledged that corruption is fueled "by the elevated potential economic benefit of illegal acts, impunity and the spaces opened up due to unnecessary flexibility," the newspaper reported. El Universal's story was published just days after rival daily Reforma...

Mexican state-owned oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos said it detected the presence of oil at a deep-water field in the Gulf of Mexico. "There are clear signs of the presence of hydrocarbons in Maximino, but final tests are still needed to fully confirm it," Pemex announced on Twitter. It said exploration work was continuing at the field, which is located on Mexico's side of the Perdido basin in a zone very near U.S. territorial waters. Pemex has previously found crude at other deep-water fields in the Perdido area. The Mexican company added that it hopes "to have definitive results shortly on...

Columns of gas and ash 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) high were detected after two strong explosions from the Popocatepetl volcano, Mexico's Cenapred disaster-management agency said Friday. The first blast came at 10:14 p.m. Thursday, followed by another a little more than two hours later. The explosions deposited glowing fragments up to 1.5 kilometers from the crater as well as columns of ash and gas that were carried northeastward by the prevailing winds, Cenapred said. Popocatepetl, which rises 5,452 meters (17,875 feet) above sea level, is located about 64 kilometers (40 miles) from Mexico City. Mexican authorities have prepared contingency plans...

•Fast And Furious (guns for drug lords, resulting in murder of Americans and Mexicans)

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Authorities in Mexico City have arrested two men on suspicion of the fatal beating of the grandson of U.S. civil rights activist Malcolm X in a bar last week and are looking for at least two more people, Mexico City Attorney General Rodolfo Rios said on Monday. Malcolm Shabazz, who police have said was 29, died last Thursday at a bar just steps away from Mexico City's popular Plaza Garibaldi, where mariachis serenade tourists. Police have arrested two men who are waiters at the bar, David Hernandez and Manuel Perez, and are looking for at least...

Por La Raza, Todo! Joe Biden in full pander mode, totally without shame.- by John HillStand With ArizonaFew can equal Vice President Joe Biden as a race-baiting panderer. And Joe is increasingly making his professed amor for "Hispanics" standard fare for his stump speeches pushing amnesty for illegal aliens. Biden never misses an opportunity to put Hispanics - and especially illegals - on a pedestal. In January, addressing a group of newly-elected Latino members of Congress, Biden insisted that "now the nation -- and I might add the hemisphere -- understands the Hispanic community must be courted. Must be courted....

he grandson of US political activist Malcolm X has died in Mexico City following a fight in a bar, say Mexican officials. Malcolm Shabazz, 29, succumbed in hospital to multiple injuries he suffered on Thursday. Mexico's attorney general's office said an investigation into the incident was under way. The US state department said that it was in contact with the family and offering appropriate assistance. Shabazz was discovered with fatal wounds at Plaza Garibaldi, a popular tourist area packed with bars and restaurants, in the early hours of Thursday, officials said. Miguel Suarez, a union activist who was travelling with...

Chris Crane, president of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers union, spoke to Mark Levin on The Mark Levin Show Thursday evening. Crane recently testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the immigration bill working through Congress. Crane explained how President Obama and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano have, since the administration’s start, “attempted to shut down” border enforcement and “absolutely” tied law enforcement’s hands.

A Northwestern University Mexican student group finds “eating tacos and drinking tequila” to celebrate Cinco de Mayo racially offensive, and wants to see the practice come to an end. In a letter to the university’s paper, the Latin student group Alianza called for a “respectful” celebration to commemorate “the Battles of Puebla, in which a vastly outnumbered, under-equipped Mexican army twice defeated the well-armed, well-trained French army, which had not lost a battle in over fifty years.” This is not unlike a uniquely American holiday, which commemorates the moment when 56 men affixed their signatures upon the Declaration of Independence...

Royal Dutch/Shell will build the world's deepest offshore oil and gas facility, pushing the boundaries of industry technology to search three kilometres (1.9 miles) underwater in the Gulf of Mexico. The project go-ahead demonstrates Shell's confidence in pricey offshore projects despite a recent downturn in oil prices. Last month, BP decided to delay development of its biggest new Gulf of Mexico project, Mad Dog Phase 2, citing tough market conditions and fast-rising costs. Shell's 100 percent-owned Stones field was discovered in 2005 some 200 miles southwest of New Orleans and encompasses eight lease blocks in the Gulf of Mexico's Lower...

ICE Agent Crane to Obama: "Mr. President, you've overstepped your boundaries. It's your job to enforce the law, it's Congress' job to enact the law."- Last week, ICE union chief Chris Crane won a stunning initial court victory in his lawsuit against the Obama Administration. As we reported, Federal Judge Federal Judge Reed O’Connor told the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that they had no power to refuse to deport illegal aliens, and that he was likely to strike down Obama’s virtual “DACA” amnesty for millions of illegal aliens. The ruling stunned Washington, and Crane’s lawsuit could derail Obama’s four-year...

President Barack Obama has to be the most partisan and most ideological president we've seen in a long, long time. He cannot or will not refrain from injecting his partisan politics into almost every occasion. Did he go to Mexico last week to improve our relationship with our southern neighbor or to use Mexico, as he does anything else he can find, as a political prop to bash Republicans and as a platform to criticize the United States? What other American president has so often sidled up to foreign countries on the backs of his own countrymen? Obama's defenders deny,...

“If you get amnesty and a path to citizenship, what the Mexican president wants, that will lead to the erasure of the southern border of the United States.” So ominously stated syndicated columnist Pat Buchanan on PBS’s McLaughlin Group Friday. “If you get amnesty and a path to citizenship, what the Mexican president wants,” warned Buchanan, “that will lead to the erasure of the southern border of the United States because the Hispanic population in all those border states is going to be decisive in elections, and they will begin to demand that to people shut up about immigration and...

Executive Summary Unlawful immigration and amnesty for current unlawful immigrants can pose large fiscal costs for U.S. taxpayers. Government provides four types of benefits and services that are relevant to this issue: Direct benefits. These include Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation. Means-tested welfare benefits. There are over 80 of these programs which, at a cost of nearly $900 billion per year, provide cash, food, housing, medical, and other services to roughly 100 million low-income Americans. Major programs include Medicaid, food stamps, the refundable Earned Income Tax Credit, public housing, Supplemental Security Income, and Temporary Assistance for Needy...

San Diego Mayor Bob Filner said he wanted to pursue a joint Olympics bid with Mexico even after he was informed by the United States Olympic Committee that international rules prevent the two countries from doing so. The Associated Press reported the bid "appeared dead before arrival Tuesday" because the "U.S. Olympic Committee said international rules don't allow two countries to mount a joint candidacy." Filner, a Democrat who was a former Congressman, seems intent on still going forward with the bid with Tijuana. A San Diego-Tijuana Olympics would also cause massive border security problems and create many hurdles...

**SNIP** The short video played just before Perry took the stage to a welcome applause from the crowd. It shows Perry taking aim at an egg from about 100 yards out with a LaRue Tactical rifle, which is made by a company that recently opened up shop in Texas. The video then shows Perry hitting metal targets like a marksman. The video got quite a reaction online, and not all of it was good. The responses on Twitter ranged from folks saying Perry’s video did nothing but “promote and excite the already gun-thirsty and violent society” to others saying “I...

Excuse me, Barack Obama actually said “the United States,� but the headline would be more accurate. While the President told an audience in Mexico that “Most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States,� he somehow forgot to mention that thousands of them came specifically under the auspices of the ATF and the Department of Justice during his first term (via Real Clear Politics): And we also recognize that most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States. (Applause.) I think many of you know that...

President Barack Obama cited in his address to the people of Mexico on Friday a deceased Mexican writer who wrote that the United States was “the protector of tyrants,” condemned “North American imperialism” and expressed sympathy with an anti-American regime.Obama repeatedly referenced Nobel Prize-winning Mexican writer Octavio Paz (1914-1998) in his speech Friday at the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City, which he visited on the second day of a three-day tour of Mexico and Costa Rica.“In modern times, Mexico’s blend of cultures and traditions found its expression in the murals of Rivera and the paintings of Frida, and the poetry...

Speaking to a Mexico City crowd on Friday, President Barack Obama said he would not be president if not for Latino voters, and then he pledged immigration reform in the United States to legalize those who are here illegally. “Without the strong support of Latinos, including so many Mexican-Americans, I would not be standing here today as president of the United States,” Obama said. “That’s the truth.” …

After President Obama’s upbeat speech in Mexico on Friday, many in attendance said they were flattered by the description of their country, but others said they hardly recognized the place he had just described. “[That was] a really good speech by President Obama, but what Mexico was he talking about?” said Jose Carlos Cruz, 24, a graduate student in international relations. “Unfortunately in our country, the situation is terrible: There’s poverty, unemployment, and even worse, the future is anything but promising. “How nice that he came to give inspiring speeches, but what’s happening in Mexico is far from what he...

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

Due to a horrible error in the huge “Frocky Horror Picture Show©” Contest, the polls accidentally closed at noon yesterday instead of midnight, as announced. Let the record reflect that this was in no way my fault. The screw-up was completely attributable to one of MOTUS’ little people – OK, I’m just going to go ahead and throw Raj under the bus here: it was his fault. He seems to be operating on the Mumbai time zone. (SNIP) So don’t forget to go and cast some more votes for your favorite! That’s OK though, it just gives me an opportunity...

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...

President Obama used a speech at Mexico’s Museo Nacional de Antropología – the National Anthropology Museum – to claim that ‘most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States.’ ‘I think many of you know that in America, our Constitution guarantees our individual right to bear arms,’ Obama said. ‘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...

Activists are attempting to spotlight human rights issues during President Obama's visit this week to Mexico, urging him to publicly condemn what they describe as Mexico’s abysmal record of torture, killings and forced disappearances by security forces. It is highly unlikely Obama would make that kind of public statement during his stay here Thursday and Friday.

Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions estimates about 57 million new people, immigrants and people with nonimmigrant visas, will be entering the United States to compete with middle class Americans for their jobs if the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill passes. Sessions’ staff released an analysis detailing how they reached that number on Friday morning. “This is a number that exceeds the population of the state of California, our largest state,” Sessions said on a conference call with reporters discussing the analysis. “It’s a very, very significant impact on our economy and the American people.” Sessions argued that...

- Friday - President Barack Hussein Obama began a two-day visit to Costa Rica following a brief stop in Mexico that focused on expanding rights of Mexican citizens with regards to guns, drug trafficking and immigration. Obama took a bold first step as he guaranteed a large Mexican audience full of future American citizens that they would be allowed to keep all the guns they could carry across the border. “In America, our Constitution guarantees our individual right to bear arms. And as president, I swore an oath to uphold that right…. That can save lives here in Mexico…...

Shameless: Obama blames the U.S. and 2nd Amendment for Mexican gun violence.- President Obama delivered a speech today in Mexico City where he blamed the United States for being the root of Mexico’s violence. He even implied that the 2nd Amendment was to blame, after absurdly claiming he was committed to "uphold" the right to bear arms. But worst of all was the shameless hypocrisy of a man whose Attorney General Eric Holder carried out a gun-running "Operation Fast and Furious" which sold AK-47s and other weapons, which have been used to murder over 300 Mexican civilians, and 2 U.S....

RUSH: So Obama is in Mexico selling amnesty. He has gone to Mexico to make a speech on immigration reform, which in his world is amnesty. Ostensibly his goal is to go down there and tell them, “You guys gotta your economy up here so that my people in America are not as threatened by immigration. You gotta make it look like people will not want to leave your country. (whispering) When in fact I want as many of your countrymen as I can! I’m gonna need ‘em as voters, my party will.” EL RUSHBO LINK

Jose Maria Islas of New Haven caught a break this week, at least for a while, in his desire to keep from being deported to his native Mexico by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. His lawyer, Danielle Briand, thinks that since ICE is considering their request for a stay of removal, Islas ultimately will be given the stay and allowed to remain in the United States. If Islas is not deported, it will mean he can work at a job that is low-paying for most Americans but allows him to earn the money he needs to support his wife and...

By STEPHANIE CONDON May 3, 2013 Obama Tells Mexico: We Are "Equal Partners" Amid attempts in the U.S. to pass immigration reform and build a stronger North American economy, President Obama on Friday sought to put the United States' relationship with Mexico on stronger footing, saying that the two nations are "equal partners." "Just as Mexico is being transformed, so too are the ties between our two countries," he said before an enthusiastic crowd at Anthropology Museum in Mexico City. "As president, I've been guided by a basic proposition -- in this relationship there is no senior partner or junior...

"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...

I'm an eye witness to Obama's motorcade yesterday. The Zocolo and adjoining areas were securely tied up. The city closed down at least two metro stops (that I saw). The microbus I took downtown dropped me off about 1/2 mile from the Zocolo (its regular route) because the city had closed the streets to car traffic. Mucha policia guarded ubiquitous metal gates. Then came the long motorcade. Secret Service everywhere. I honestly did not know that the hoopla was for Obama. I thought it was for the President of Mexico and his very famous wife, Gaviota (Angelica Rivera). I've seen...

When Mexico's former drug tsar Noé Ramírez was arrested on suspicion of receiving monthly payments from the Beltrán-Leyva drug cartel he was confident the charges would quickly be dropped. No court, he thought, would believe testimony from a former cartel member who claimed to have seen Ramírez receive a briefcase full of cash at a Mexico City restaurant – on a day he was actually travelling to Las Vegas for a meeting with US law-enforcement officials, in the company of two US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents. Ramírez was wrong. It took four years, four months and a change of...

"And we also recognize that most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States," he said. "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 in Mexico...

President Barack Obama vowed Thursday during a trip to Mexico to continue pushing for new, tighter gun control rules in the United States, saying his proposals’ recent defeat in Congress was “just the first round.” Speaking following a meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, whose country has been ravaged by gang violence supported in part by gun trafficking into Mexico, Obama vowed to return to the issue of gun control in the United States. “The last time we had major gun legislation, it took 6, 7, 8 tries to get passed,” Obama said at a press conference following his...

Big Guy went to Mexico yesterday to assure their el Presidente there that their citizens would be given their civil rights when they comprehensively immigrate to the United States. BO and El Presidente Enrique Pena Nieto; is that a bow? Also, he vowed to continue his battle for gun control back home, telling them: “this is just the first round.” And believe me, he’s still got some high powered weapons with high capacity magazines in his arsenal to get ‘er done.            “President Barack Obama vowed Thursday during a trip to Mexico to continue pushing for new, tighter gun control...

Just days after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border by climbing a wall, a Chicago priest says what he did was wrong and urged parishioners in his Southwest Side church to apologize if they had done the same. "And by recognizing you did something wrong, you can't keep it doing it," said the Rev. Gary Graf of St. Gall Roman Catholic Church in Chicago's Gage Park neighborhood. "I'm begging the people to take a different tactic." --SNIP-- Graf paid for the trip but took about $3,000 from a church collection to pay coyotes, or people who smuggle others into the U.S. for...

Here they come: Migrants bound for the U.S. border ride on top of a train in Ixtepec, in Oaxaca, southern Mexico (AP).- For months, Stand With Arizona has been reporting (most recently here, here and here) on the massive increase in border crossings since Obama and the 'Gang of Eight' started promising amnesty for millions of illegal aliens. And I have been interviewed by two dozen media outlets from the Washington Post and L.A. Times to CNN and even FoxNews. Each time I begged them to report the truth about what border agents were telling me - that a tidal...

WASHINGTON (AP) — An Idaho man charged with attempting to assassinate President Barack Obama by shooting at the White House practiced with his weapon for six months and may have been upset about the country’s marijuana policy, prosecutors said in a newly filed court document. Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez is currently awaiting trial for the 2011 shooting, which didn’t injure anyone but left more than five bullet marks on the executive mansion. Prosecutors filed a 14-page court document Tuesday that adds additional detail about Ortega-Hernandez, who allegedly shot at the White House the night of Nov. 11 while the president and...

WESLACO - Rio Grande Valley police departments no longer will have direct access to their counterparts on the south side of the border. The Mexican government said it will limit the information it shares with U.S. law enforcement agencies. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's administration said all information will be disseminated through the ministry of interior in Mexico City. The announcement is a 180-degree turn from the open dialogue both nations had on law enforcement. The change likely will delay investigations Valley lawmen said. "It'll still trickle down to us. It might be a little slower, but we'll still get...

Apparently the drug cartels have not yet received Janet Napolitano's memo about the secure border. The Sinaloa cartel continues to use Chicago, IL and St. Louis, MO as distribution hubs in the Midwest as reported by Farrah Fazal for KSDK: "Sinaloa cartel members get drugs into the U.S. on ships in the Pacific Ocean, rafts across the Rio Grande River, semi trucks on highways and single engine planes across the Southwest border." The Mexican drug cartels move $50 billion in bulk product and bundled cash across the border each year, and have established supply lines, distribution networks and operational cells...

Archaeologists exploring tunnels under the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, a pyramid 30 miles from Mexico City, not only found three chambers (when they only expected one), but came across hundreds of mysterious metal spheres with unknown purpose.

As the White House first announced in March, Barack Obama is scheduled to visit Mexico and Costa Rica later this week. The trip is billed as "an important opportunity to reinforce the deep cultural, familial, and economic ties that so many Americans share with Mexico and Central America." And at yesterday’s White House press conference, the president stated that he is "very much looking forward to taking the trip down to Mexico" this week. But the trip won’t exactly be cheap for taxpayers, assuming the costs mirror those incurred by the American taxpayers for President Obama's last trip to Mexico,...

<p>The freight train known as The Beast travels from the southern Mexican town of Arriaga up to Mexico City.</p> <p>And every day hundreds of migrants, mostly from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras or Nicaragua, sit on top of the notorious train, often for days at a time.</p>

Welfare: Not content with having more Americans on food stamps than people in Spain, the Obama administration is ringing the dinner bell for illegal aliens. We'll feed you and not check your status. As we wrote last July, just as food stamp use has skyrocketed here under President Obama, so have marketing efforts to Hispanics under a partnership with Mexico. We dubbed the program "Fat and Furious" after the administration's gun-running program that also seemingly had worthy goals but had unclear motives and pernicious effects. "USDA and the government of Mexico have entered into a partnership to help educate eligible...

A government watchdog group has discovered that the United States government is advising Spanish-speaking residents that they need not declare their immigration status to qualify for food stamps. Judicial Watch obtained the Spanish-language flyers through a Freedom of Information Act request and announced on Thursday that the "promotion of the food stamp program, now known as 'SNAP' (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), includes a Spanish-language flyer provided to the Mexican Embassy by the USDA. A statement on the flyer—emphasized in bold and underlined—reads, “You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children.”

That’s the simple reality of Friday’s vote to ease the pain for the Federal Aviation Administration. By assenting to it, Democrats have agreed to sequestration for the foreseeable future. In effect, what Democrats said Friday was that in any case where the political pain caused by sequestration becomes unbearable, they will agree to cancel that particular piece of the bill while leaving the rest of the law untouched. The result is that sequestration is no longer particularly politically threatening, but it’s even more unbalanced: Cuts to programs used by the politically powerful will be addressed, but cuts to programs that...