While U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bleats on about Russian attack helicopters aiding and abetting Syria’s repressive regime, eluniversal.com [via Google translation] reports that Mexico’s cartel carnage continues unabated. “The number of homicides from the dispute between organized crime groups in the 32 federated entities in the country reached 47,515 murders in the first five years of the Felipe Calderon presidency. The deaths reported by the federal government indicate that there were 62 homicides in December 2006; 2, 826 in 2007; 6,838 in 2008; 9614 in 2009; 15,273 in all of 2010, and 12,903 deaths from January to September from presumed criminal rivalry.” Yes, well, you may notice that the murder stats are cartel focused. So did eluniversal . . .
The first doubt that the PGR’s report raises is, just what is understood by “in the context of rivalry among criminal organizations”? Does this include confrontations with law enforcement agencies, or the number of civilian victims of abductions or robberies?
The PGR states that the number is derived by counting the homicides– in the context of (criminal) rivalry– that were reported to the federal government by the state attorneys general and prosecutors. One hopes that the states would at least have been asked to use uniform criteria for consideration.
One hopes? That’s about all you can do when the rule of law has disappeared. And disappear it has . . .
Thanks to a porous border, billions of dollars in illegal drug sales to American consumers, an endless supply of guns, grenades and ammo (via U.S. weapons sales to the Mexican and Latin American military and police) and Uncle Sam’s support for the Sinaloa cartel (against Los Zetas), our southern neighbor is turning into/has become a narco-terrorist state.
The body count grows, and the threat to our security increases. USA Today:
Not even fake IDs are made in America anymore.
Overseas forgers from as far away as China are shipping fake driver’s license and other IDs to the United States that can bypass even the newest electronic digital security systems, according to document security experts and the Secret Service.
The new IDs are “an affront to the very sovereignty and dignity of the states that issue them,” says David Huff, a senior special agent in enforcement for Virginia’s Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control, which has investigated some of the frauds.
Most troubling to authorities is the sophistication of the forgeries: Digital holograms are replicated, PVC plastic identical to that found in credit cards is used, and ink appearing only under ultraviolet light is stamped onto the cards.
Each of those manufacturing methods helps the IDs defeat security measures aimed at identifying forged documents.
The overseas forgers are bold enough to sell their wares on websites, USA TODAY research finds. Anyone with an Internet connection and $75 to $200 can order their personalized ID card online from such companies as “ID Chief.” Buyers pick the state, address, name and send in a scanned photo and signature to complete their profile.
ID Chief, whose website is based in China, responds personally to each buyer with a money-order request.
What, pray tell, is the primary document required to purchase a firearm in the U.S. (and, lest we forget, vote)? Let’s review . . .
The Obama administration helps Mexican drug thugs buy 2000 guns at U.S. gun stores, enables “undocumented Americans” to enter our country, says nothing to China about fake IDs (or the thousands of tons of meths precursors sent to Mexico), cracks down on a gun smuggling ring bringing weapons into China and establishes a long gun registry for border states.
What’s wrong with this picture?