Politics in the Zeros

“[E]ither the United States and its society, its government and its congress decide to drastically reduce their consumption of drugs, or if they are not going to reduce it they at least have the moral responsibility to reduce the flow of money towards Mexico, which goes into the hands of criminals. They have to explore [...]

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Federal and state law enforcement recently made three mass arrests of drug smugglers in Arizona, resulting in a staggering amount of confiscated drugs, weapons, and money. In total, 76 suspected smugglers were arrested. Over 20 tons of marijuana, 160 pounds of heroin, 210 pounds of cocaine, almost $760,000 in cash, and 108 weapons were seized. [...]

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Their obvious and sane conclusion that legalization needs to be discussed will be ignored by D.C. because far too many lawmakers and their corporate benefactors make huge amounts of money from this failed war; either by building prisons, gittin’ tough on crime, or just outright corruption, bribery, and money laundering.

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DJ was right. He’s long maintained that while drug cartels may be getting some weapons from straw buyers in the US this couldn’t possibly account for the huge numbers of weapons they have nor are such weapons powerful enough. He recently commented on a post here about straw gun buyers being arrested in Arizona. Always [...]

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Bank Info Security “It is easy to forget and/or never really truly understand why this is such an important issue if you only see anti-money laundering as a paperwork detail,” Sullivan says. “Just look at what is going on at the border currently; you have got the drug lords and their gangs who are absolutely [...]

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Podcast interview from KUER at University of Utah Journalist Charles Bowden has spent some 15 years writing about Ciudad Juarez and in that time, he’s witnessed what he describes as the collapse of a society. In 2009, there were 2,600 murders in Juarez – up from around 300 in 2007. Houses sit empty, jobs have [...]

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Coming Anarchy summarizes Stratfor’s assessment that Mexico makes so much money from drugs that while it may try to whack a few cartels it doesn’t want to disrupt the aggregate flow of drugs and money. Nederland CO just legalized marijuana. Not just small amounts, but completely. Legalization of marijuana is on the Calif. ballot in [...]

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Map from Al Jazeera’s comprehensive Mexico in the Crossfire report. Phoenix AZ is now the cartel’s primary drug distribution point in the US and violence is escalating. So far it’s primarily been drug-related and between narcos. Let’s hope it stays that way. But even with that, neighborhoods and dangerous, there have been hundreds of kidnappings, [...]

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All manner of criminals, terrorists, and renegades are linking up in a lawless area of northwest Africa. The DEA just arrested three of them, who were linked to al Qaeda, in a sting in Ghana. (How the DEA gets access into Ghana certainly bears pondering but this is no phony threat. Read on.) Moreover, conversations [...]

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The officer allegedly helped plot a drug robbery then drove his squad car through the area with lights flashing to scare off rival gang members. But the ripoff went went bad and in the ensuing gun battle one of the robbers accidentally shot and killed his father. That makes it murder for anyone participating in [...]

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