http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/wod/ en-us Fri, 1 Jan 2010 07:33:43 GMT Focus Forum 15 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2418852/posts A 33-year-old El Monte school board member and five other men were shot dead execution-style in north central Mexico on Wednesday night, after they were abducted by gunmen, according to family members. Agustin Roberto “Bobby” Salcedo was having dinner with his wife in a restaurant when armed men burst in and kidnapped Salcedo and five other men. All six were found dead Thursday, El Monte officials said. Salcedo’s wife was not abducted. LA Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2418852/posts#comment Fri, 1 Jan 2010 07:33:43 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2418782/posts Updated 2:43 PM PST, Thu, Dec 31, 2009 Gang task force members in Hemet are lucky to alive Thursday after they noticed their office was flooded with natural gas in an apparently deliberate attempt to cause a deadly explosion, police said. "It was basically designed so that once somebody came in and moved around a little bit, it would have gone off," said Hemet police Lt. Duane Wisehart. "At the very least, it would have leveled the building and killed whoever was inside." Wisehart told the Southwest Riverside News Network that there is no doubt the trap was meant for... NBC http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2418782/posts#comment Fri, 1 Jan 2010 03:40:44 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2417822/posts A federal prosecutor blasted Fairview’s police chief for going to bat for a Cliffside Park man who was sentenced Monday to 51 months in prison for keeping a small arsenal of illegal firearms, including a silencer-equipped 22-caliber pistol, in his home.   Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa M. Colone told U.S. District Judge Joseph A. Greenaway that he should not consider Chief John Pinzone’s letter in support of leniency for Giovanni DeMaio, because the chief neglected to mention he is dating the defendant’s daughter.While the judge received more than 90 letters similar to Pinzone’s, attesting to DeMaio’s kindness and charitable endeavors in... northjersey.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2417822/posts#comment Wed, 30 Dec 2009 19:28:21 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2407739/posts Three police officers were shot early Monday evening and a suspect injured during a drug raid at 12 Hollis St. in the city’s West End, the police said. Police Chief Dean M. Esserman said the officers were wearing coats and jackets labeled Providence Police and were making a forced entry at an address for which they had a search warrant. Two were shot just as they crossed the threshold, Esserman said from Rhode Island Hospital, where the police were gathering in droves in a show of respect for their injured colleagues. Providence Journal http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2407739/posts#comment Tue, 15 Dec 2009 06:23:37 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2413296/posts A truly sad story about a 23-year-old Panama City man dying while being subdued by Bay County sheriff’s deputies has reawakened the debate about the legalization of marijuana. On December 11, 2009, Andrew Grande choked on a plastic bag full of marijuana as police attempted to arrest him on a violence charge. A video shows police valiantly trying to save his life once it became apparent that he was having difficulty breathing. Two talk show hosts in Panama City have been discussing the case in the early morning hours — and revealing a divide on the right. Burnie Thompson of... Pajamas Media http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2413296/posts#comment Tue, 22 Dec 2009 21:47:42 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2413096/posts QUINTIN ARAUZ, Mexico - Suspected drug gang hitmen shot dead the grieving mother, brother and sister of an elite Mexican marine who died after a raid that killed a top drug lord, police said on Tuesday. In what appeared to be a revenge attack for last week's navy operation, gunmen burst into the family's house in the town of Quintin Arauz in the southern Mexican state of Tabasco just before midnight on Monday and fired assault rifles. "They broke the door down with a sledgehammer and sprayed them with bullets in the living room and bedrooms," said local deputy police... Reuters http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2413096/posts#comment Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:36:25 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2409999/posts MEXICO CITY -- Mexican prosecutors are requesting that Texas-based norteno singer Ramon Ayala be held pending investigation after he was detained at a drug cartel's Christmas party. Attorney General Arturo Chavez announced Thursday that a judge is considering the request and that any possible charges would be determined by the investigation. Ayala, a Mexican accordionist who lives in Hidalgo, Texas, has been detained in federal police headquarters in Mexico City since the Dec. 11 military raid at a mansion outside the mountain town of Tepoztlan where three gunmen were killed and 11 others suspected members of the Beltran Leyva cartel... MySA.com/AP http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2409999/posts#comment Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:38:49 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2409126/posts A medical marijuana dispensary at 3005 W. Gill Place was robbed at 10:06 a.m. today by two armed men - one of more than two dozen such robberies or burglaries in the past five months, according to Denver police.The suspects entered the dispensary and held the owner and an employee at gunpoint, said Officer Joe Ramirez, spokesman for the Denver Police Department. Subsequently, the suspects and the employees got into a fight and multiple shots were fired, said Ramirez. Denver police said that since July, there have been a total of 25 medical-marijuana related robberies or burglaries. Thirteen of those... Denver Post http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2409126/posts#comment Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:39:33 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2406677/posts Not exactly sure what to make of this. The Guardian (via Yves Smith): Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were "the only liquid investment capital" available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result. This will raise questions about crime's influence on the economic system at times of crisis. It will also prompt further examination of the banking sector as... The Business Insider http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2406677/posts#comment Sun, 13 Dec 2009 18:38:12 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2405013/posts U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has secured $4.85 million in funding to be used by border sheriffs to stop drug and human trafficking. The money is coming from the fiscal year 2010 Omnibus Appropriations bill. It will help border sheriffs pay for overtime, hire additional deputies, and purchase equipment. This project supports Operation Linebacker, an initiative of the Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition. "Our law enforcement personnel along the border are regularly under assault, and drug and human traffickers continue to threaten the safety of our communities," Hutchison said in a news release. "Sheriffs patrolling the border need additional reinforcements to... KVIA http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2405013/posts#comment Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:49:02 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2404038/posts CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Mexican prosecutors say gunmen shot and killed a university student in the deadly border city of Ciudad Juarez. Chihuahua state prosecutor's spokesman Arturo Sandoval says the student's body was found in a truck Tuesday at an intersection. He is the second student from the Autonomous University of Chihuahua to be killed since Saturday. Houston Chronicle/AP http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2404038/posts#comment Wed, 9 Dec 2009 22:01:26 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2403122/posts Gunmen in Honduras have shot dead the head of the country's anti-drug trafficking operations.Police said retired Gen Julian Aristides Gonzalez was travelling in a car in the capital, Tegucigalpa, when attackers on a motorcycle opened fire. Honduras is a major route for drugs smuggled from South to North America. The nation, mired in political crisis since President Manuel Zelaya was ousted in June, also has one of the highest murder rates in the region. Gen Aristides, director general of the national office for combating drug trafficking, was travelling by car through Tegucigalpa when two attackers on a motorcycle opened fire,... BBC http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2403122/posts#comment Tue, 8 Dec 2009 20:43:20 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2402763/posts Albert Einstein declared, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” He wasn’t describing the federal government’s nearly century-long war on drugs but he might as well have been. Despite ample lip-service for “hope” and “change,” the Obama administration’s cynical response to the escalating drug prohibition-related violence around the Mexican border epitomizes Einstein’s oft-quoted observation. Since 2008 more than 7,000 people—over 1,000 last January alone, including Mexican civilians, journalists, police, and public officials—have been killed in clashes with warring drug traffickers. Wire-service reports estimate that Mexico’s drug lords employ over 100,000... Freeman http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2402763/posts#comment Tue, 8 Dec 2009 13:24:50 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2401341/posts Unconfirmed reports of fatalities but no reports of American casualties PROGRESO —The international bridge here was closed Saturday afternoon after a shooting across the border in Nuevo Progreso. There were unconfirmed reports from witnesses crossing back from Mexico that one to five people were dead after gunfire among soldiers and other armed individuals. Identities of the victims remain unknown. A representative at the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey confirmed there was gunfire in Nuevo Progreso and said the consulate had received unconfirmed reports of two fatalities. However, the consulate had received no notification of any American casualties as of about 6... The Monitor http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2401341/posts#comment Sun, 6 Dec 2009 04:04:08 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2399962/posts A while back in (December, 1906) prominent members of New York's Jewish community organized a strike against Christmas exercises in the city's public schools. In light of state laws prohibiting the teaching of "religious doctrines or tenets of any particular Christian or other religious sect," they asked the Board of Education to bar school-based festivities that had in the past included such elements as religious hymns, pictures of the Madonna, holly, mistletoe, and Christmas trees. (They also maintained that any "symbols of Judaism, Mohammedanism, or infidelism" should be banned as well.) When the Board of Education failed to respond to... reason magazine http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2399962/posts#comment Fri, 4 Dec 2009 05:22:59 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2398562/posts PALMVIEW - Police say a traffic stop yielded everything from prescription pills to ecstacy pills. Police stopped a car driven by 22-year-old Mario Guadalupe Saenz on Monday. Inside they found black tar heroin, xanax pills, cocaine, marijuana and several ecstasy pills. The ecstasy caused some concerns, because it was brightly colored and made to look like popular cartoon characters like Homer and Bart Simpson, The Smurfs, and even President Barack Obama. "It's very unusual cause of the way the ecstasy are being shaped and the way they're colorful. It looks like a vitamin for kids," says Lenny Sanchez of the... KRGV http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2398562/posts#comment Wed, 2 Dec 2009 17:43:31 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2395945/posts At This School, It’s Marijuana in Every Class By TAMAR LEWIN SOUTHFIELD, Mich. — At most colleges, marijuana is very much an extracurricular matter. But at Med Grow Cannabis College, marijuana is the curriculum: the history, the horticulture and the legal how-to’s of Michigan’s new medical marijuana program. “This state needs jobs, and we think medical marijuana can stimulate the state economy with hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars,” said Nick Tennant, the 24-year-old founder of the college, which is actually a burgeoning business (no baccalaureates here) operating from a few bare-bones rooms in a Detroit suburb. The six-week,... New York Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2395945/posts#comment Sat, 28 Nov 2009 19:09:33 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2392599/posts MATAMOROS — Mexican newspapers are reporting the death of a Brownsville woman after a Mexican army soldier in Matamoros accidentally misfired his weapon Lizbeth Marín Garcia, 36, was pronounced dead early Saturday morning at the Alfredo Pumarejo General Hospital. According to various newspapers including El Diario, El Bravo and Contacto, Marín was inside a friend’s house at approximately 11 p.m. Friday at the corner of Primera and Solernau streets when a stray bullet went through a window, through the couch where she was sitting and struck her in the back piercing a lung. The shot was an accidental misfire from... The Brownsville Herald http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2392599/posts#comment Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:44:26 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2392092/posts First Marijuana Coffee Shop Opens In America The first marijuana coffee shop in the US has opened, posing an early test of the Obama administration's move to relax the policing of medical use of the drug. "We hope to have classes, seminars, even a cannabis community college, based here to help people learn about growing and other uses for cannabis." The cafe is in a two-story building which formerly housed a speak-easy and adult erotic club called Rumpspankers. It is technically a private club, but is open to any Oregon residents who hold an official medical marijuana card. There are... Telegraph(UK) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2392092/posts#comment Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:33:56 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2391831/posts After decades of mistrust and sometimes betrayal, Mexican and U.S. authorities are increasingly setting aside their differences to unite against a common enemy. According to interviews in Washington and Mexico City, the two countries are sharing sensitive intelligence and computer technology, military hardware and, perhaps most importantly, U.S. know-how to train and vet Mexican agents. Police and soldiers secretly on the cartels' payroll have long poisoned efforts at cross-border cooperation against some of the world's most dangerous criminal organizations. "The recognition by both sides, at the highest levels, that we have a shared responsibility for drug trafficking and serious crime... The Washington Post http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2391831/posts#comment Sun, 22 Nov 2009 04:18:15 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2389085/posts <p>The former head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection called Monday for the U.S. to reinstitute the ban on assault weapons and take other measures to rein in the war between Mexico and its drug cartels, saying the violence has the potential to bring down legitimate rule in that country.</p> Wa Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2389085/posts#comment Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:52:45 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2389063/posts EL PASO, Texas -- The widespread violence in Juarez is affecting a lot of things in El Paso, including the UTEP athletic program. The basis of UTEP's athletic teams are formed by recruiting student-athletes from across the state and country to study and play in El Paso. And now many of them, especially their parents, are now expressing concern about what is going on across the border. UTEP's campus is located just a few football fields away from Juarez, where thousands have been murdered this year, and that is not easy to hide. "I just recruited a girl from Sweden... KVIA http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2389063/posts#comment Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:25:42 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2387707/posts A shootout at this hospital in Mexico claims two more lives — victims of the country's bloody drug war. The hospital is in Ciudad Juarez — the epicenter of the drug cartel violence convulsing Mexico. Two gunmen burst into the emergency room looking to finish off two rival gang members wounded in an earlier shootout. Witnessess said the pair fired their weapons as they roamed the corridors, looking for their targets. Patients and staff fled the building in terror. Police rushed to the scene, shooting dead two gunmen outside the hospital and arresting several others inside. The men being hunted... NTDTV http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2387707/posts#comment Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:26:52 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2386263/posts PORTLAND, Oregon — The United States' first marijuana cafe opened on Friday, posing an early test of the Obama administration's move to relax policing of medical use of the drug. The Cannabis Cafe in Portland, Oregon, is the first to give certified medical marijuana users a place to get hold of the drug and smoke it — as long as they are out of public view — despite a federal ban. "This club represents personal freedom, finally, for our members," said Madeline Martinez, Oregon's executive director of NORML, a group pushing for marijuana legalization. "Our plans go beyond serving food... FoxNews.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2386263/posts#comment Sat, 14 Nov 2009 13:40:58 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2384235/posts The Atlantic Foreign Affairs December 2009 In the almost three years since President Felipe Calderón launched a war on drug cartels, border towns in Mexico have turned into halls of mirrors where no one knows who is on which side or what chance remark could get you murdered. Some 14,000 people have been killed in that time, the worst carnage since the Mexican Revolution, and part of the country is effectively under martial law. Is this evidence of a creeping coup by the military? A war between drug cartels? Between the president and his opposition? Or just collateral damage from... Atlantic Monthly http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2384235/posts#comment Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:01:18 GMT