Mexican drug cartel attacks are here. Feds say no

[henryclay]

It is referred to as "spliiover violence", and Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw testified May 11 on Capitol Hill that his agency has identified 22 murders, 24 assaults, 15 shootings and five kidnappings since January 2010 that are "directly related to the Mexican cartels."

U. S. Border Patrol no longer reports attackes on their agents.

A Border Patrol agent not authorized to speak on local activity said assaults on agents have jumped in recent years. Agents regularly fire gunshots and deploy less-lethal options at smugglers along the river, but few of the incidents are made public.

Part of it is the keeping perception of safety," the agent said.

Lee said it’s not Border Patrol’s policy to go public with most incidents, especially those that only involve less-lethal weapons.

"There’s investigations, privacy issues, there’s judicial procedures that we need to follow on this," he said.

Federal authorities’ definition of spillover violence differs from that of DPS, setting more clear and restrictive parameters. And among the crimes listed as spillover by state officials, few involved innocent bystanders.

Federal authorities define spillover as "deliberate, planned attacks by the cartels on U.S. assets, including civilian, military or law enforcement officials, innocent U.S. citizens or physical institutions."

Whoops, forgot the link:
www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/dispute-127139-palmview-report.html

[Bluerobin]

Does anyone still believe the feds?

ETA: It is past time to bring our troops home and put them on the borders.

[Deleted]

Does anyone still believe the feds?

Sadly I think we have reached times where being PC is MUCH more important than people's lives. God forbid that any public official make a less than the required amount of PCness in a public statement.

I love the new phrase "Latino". It's very PC to call someone a Latino or even Latino American. Like we have 4 to 5 million illegal Latinos in the U.S. The only problem with that statement is that while generally true, it would be more true to say (because you narrow it down more) that of the 4 to 5 million illegals, most of them are Mexican. Mexican is not a socially acceptable term any more in the PC world. It somehow degrades Mexicans to call them Mexican. Much like it degrades Americans to call them Americans...wait, we are called that all the time. Someone from Mexico is called Latino, someone from America is called Americans, someone from England is called English (& I could go on & on) because it's just stupid much like all of this PC stuff going around.

I often think that the most natural way to show how stupid PCness is would be to come up with a name for Americans that involves the use of letters from all of our states (making it about a foot & a half long when typed) & adding either a prefix or suffix on it to designate what ethnic group you identify with. Now I wouldn't really want to push that idea because I've got a feeling that it just might catch on in the PC world.

[BeenThere...DoneThat...]

<<< Sadly I think we have reached times where being PC is MUCH more important than people's lives. >>>

...seems so, huh?

[Deleted]

ETA: It is past time to bring our troops home and put them on the borders.

BlueRobin, why? You know that it's not PC to shoot those illegals so they wouldn't be have bullets. If (after a few of them got killed) they did give them bullets then we would just have to prosecute them for murder if they defended themselves. Besides if everything fell in place & they did capture a few of the illegals & send them back to Mexico, they would still get back into the states within 24 hours. It's a waste of time unless we actually DO something & mean it.

[handyman2]

Why not put signs along the border that say anyone crossing the border at a place other than a check point will be shot and no questions asked and bodies will be left to the Coyotees. That would give them second thoughts anyway. That is the way it is done on the other side.

[Bluerobin]

Jun 2, 2011 11:43:14 GMT -5 @oldtex said:

ETA: It is past time to bring our troops home and put them on the borders.

BlueRobin, why? You know that it's not PC to shoot those illegals so they wouldn't be have bullets. If (after a few of them got killed) they did give them bullets then we would just have to prosecute them for murder if they defended themselves. Besides if everything fell in place & they did capture a few of the illegals & send them back to Mexico, they would still get back into the states within 24 hours. It's a waste of time unless we actually DO something & mean it.

Oldtex, I view it as our country being invaded by a foreign country. I would start with bulldozing a 3 mile wide swath into Mexico and making a no go zone. Yes, we asked mexico to address the problem and they have not. Time for troops.

[txbo]

As long as America smokes and snorts this crap there will be border wars in supplying this huge profitable demand. It’s mostly Mexicans that are doing the dying.

[Bluerobin]

txbo, I have long been in favor of legalizing all drugs. If you take the profit motive away, you take away the crime. Sell them at CVS and screw the cartels.

[txbo]

Jun 2, 2011 12:30:36 GMT -5 Bluerobin said:

txbo, I have long been in favor of legalizing all drugs. If you take the profit motive away, you take away the crime. Sell them at CVS and screw the cartels.

I have mixed feelings about that, but it may become a necessity.

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

Jun 2, 2011 12:53:25 GMT -5 txbo said:

Jun 2, 2011 12:30:36 GMT -5 Bluerobin said:

txbo, I have long been in favor of legalizing all drugs. If you take the profit motive away, you take away the crime. Sell them at CVS and screw the cartels.

I have mixed feelings about that, but it may become a necessity.

I used to have mixed feelings about it, too. I don't use drugs. I don't want my kids using drugs. I never wanted to be seen as saying that I support people using drugs. So, for me it has been overcoming my personal feelings on the subject and simply acknowledging that prohibition isn't working.

More people die from prescription drug abuse than from fatal car crashes, cocaine overdoses, heroine overdoses, and ecstasy overdoes--- combined.

There are 100 warrants issued for "no knock" drug raids every day in the US-- many of them incorrectly, or incorrectly executed. This alone is reason enough for me to relax my own personal feelings on the subject because I feel stronger about liberty.

We have spent too much time, and too much of our blood and treasure, we have frittered away our personal freedoms, and turned our country into a bloodbath just to stop stupid people from getting high.

Let 'em get high. Let 'em die. I really don't care anymore. The war on drugs simply costs us too much that we can never get back. I'm willing to throw some dumbasses in the volcano to lift the curse of the war on drugs.

[henryclay]

When I was a kid we had marijuana hedges for fence rows, but nobody smoked pot. The country didn't have a drug problem until hollywood made it "chic".

Paul says there is a problem now with prescription medicines killing people. We have become a nation dependent on trying to look like swimsuit models and surfboard kings. We do everything to stay yung and virile except eat a healthy diet and get some exercise. And some people want to make drugs legal.

My problem with that is maybe the people handling the prescriptions are already using drugs. Maybe we won't be satisfied until the people who process our food and administer to us when we have the flu are drug users too. How about the day care center employees that care for our pride and joy while we shoot up and handle the payrolls, or fly airplanes with hundreds of people in the back, or something as mundane as type legal documents for the clerk of court, , , , , or do any of another couple million different people-sensitive jobs around the country. All of it with some legal dope running through our system.

I'd rather not see that day come.

[floridayankee]

Jun 2, 2011 12:30:36 GMT -5 Bluerobin said:

If you take the profit motive away, you take away the crime.

Sorry blue but that doesn't make much sense. If you reverse the law you take the crime away. Profit has nothing to do with legality. Lots of people make lots of profit on perfectly legal products every day.

[floridayankee]

Jun 2, 2011 13:40:22 GMT -5 henryclay said:

My problem with that is maybe the people handling the prescriptions are already using drugs. Maybe we won't be satisfied until the people who process our food and administer to us when we have the flu are drug users too. How about the day care center employees that care for our pride and joy while we shoot up and handle the payrolls, or fly airplanes with hundreds of people in the back, or something as mundane as type legal documents for the clerk of court, , , , , or do any of another couple million different people-sensitive jobs around the country. All of it with some legal dope running through our system.

I'd rather not see that day come.

Alcohol is legal and yet pharmacists, babysitters, pilots and court employees are not showing up to work drunk (yes, I'm sure some do) en masse.

[hello fromWarsaw]

???Legalize pot at least and TREAT the rest...Mexico has 30k DEAD fighting OUR drug war- Pretty disengenuous to blame them. Prohibition DOESN"T work....thanks again, PUBS....try reality....

[Bluerobin]

FY if drugs become legit and are sold at drug stores, the cartels lose the profit, as legit farmers, etc will be supplying the drugs, not the cartels. Bye bye profit motive. The cartels will have to go back to running women and numbers, etc.
We have lost the war on drugs. Why spend any more on it? If the fools want to blow their brains out on drugs, let them! They are going to do it anyway.

[henryclay]

I said drugs were not a problem when I was a kid. jumpiong off bridges wasn't either, but now you can seldom find a high spot where people congregate that doesn't have a fence to keep people from jumping off. There must be a reason for the need for those fences. It may not be drugs, but it certainly isn't alcohol alone, because there has always been alcohol, but there has not always been fences to keep people from trying to fly.

Floridayankee seems to classify alcohol and drug use. It may be a fair comparison. While I don't use either now, it was not always so. I was once as much a party drinker as anyone else. Thank goodness it was never to excess. I still have yet to get my first DWI citation, and since I have been a teetotaler for this long, I don't think I will be a risk in the future. And for sure, drugs have never been an attraction, not even as a sampler. My closest contact with MJ was to smell the odor of buring grass once in the dead of winter as I was entering a building.

But there seems to be an ever increasing need to do urine tests for drug users from school age athletes, (and maybe other students also), through retirement age. There are also people who want to test for drug use on welfare recipients. I gather there is no other reliable test to determine if a person is a "user".

But with alcohol no urine test is necessary, and driving under the influence is probably more wdely engaged in than any other activity that puts other people's welfare at risk by alcohol users. If drugs were legalized, , , , and I believe MJ may already be legal in some places , , , it is my understanding that we will be opening up a much more dangerous practice than drunk driving.

I certainkly don't have many answers, but legalizing mind altering drugs of any kind is not one of my choices.

[billisonboard]

Jun 2, 2011 16:16:06 GMT -5 henryclay said:

I said drugs were not a problem when I was a kid. jumpiong off bridges wasn't either, ...

It was during the Great Depression that the Colorado Street Bridge earned the nickname “Suicide Bridge.” Dozens of men and women took their life at the site, according to historical records maintained at Pasadena Central Library. [...]

In all, officials estimate that 79 people jumped to their deaths from the bridge in the early 1930s.

rwarn17588.wordpress.com/2010/05/01/a-history-of-suicide-bridge/

fwiw

[henryclay]

Yeah, bills. We know you can always find a distraction to let people know you are just out of sight.

People committed suicide back then. But fences were still not a part of every high spot in on the horizon. And even with the fences that are up today, people manage to jump. And it's not even the height of the depression.

More people commit suicide at the Golden Gate Bridge than at any other site in the world.[52]

An official suicide count was kept, sorted according to which of the bridge's 128 lamp posts the jumper was nearest when he or she jumped. By 2005, this count exceeded 1,200 and new suicides were averaging one every two weeks.For comparison, the reported second-most-popular place to commit suicide in the world, Aokigahara Forest in Japan, has a record of 78 bodies, found within the forest in 2002, with an average of 30 a year.

There were 34 bridge-jump suicides in 2006 whose bodies were recovered, in addition to four jumps that were witnessed but whose bodies were never recovered, and several bodies recovered suspected to be from bridge jumps. The California Highway Patrol removed 70 apparently suicidal people from the bridge that year.

[/u][/i][/blockquote]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_Bridge

[vonnie6200]

Legalize it, regulate it and tax it

[billisonboard]

Truth is a "distraction"?

[Bluerobin]

Henry, what would do, continue to unwinnable war on drugs? Time to try something different. Just think how much our deficit would improve without having to spend so much on enforcement and imprisonment. Also, the tax would generate income.

[henryclay]

bluerobin, it's not a question of what I would do, it's a question of what the American people are willing to accept. I am in the camp that says doctors who are drug users should not be examining people for medical problems, writing prescriptions or performing operations. Some will say they already can and do those thngs, because they are the first ones to have unfettered access to drugs. I hardly think that is a valid argument for legalizing drugs.

Nor do I want to see airplanes flown by air crews, or directed by air controllers, who are high on legal drugs. Nor cops, nor judges, nor meat packers, nor school teachers, nor lifeguards, nor automobile mechanics, nor, not, nor . . . . . .

If it takes the army and the navy on the border to stop the flow of drugs, then let's put them there. And if we don't have a big enough place to put dealers, let's build one. In either case it would be cheaper in the long run than lealizing drugs.

Some will say make drugs legal and tax them. I don't think that would work because we alreadty have evidence that taxing anything just makes it more likely we will get poorer quality and counterfiet versions of the same items. Just like with legal alcohol and bootleg alcohol, (which is the genesis of NASCAR), so it would be with drugs.

[billisonboard]

If it takes the army and the navy on the border to stop the flow of drugs, then let's put them there.

Granted this would cut down on some drug flow but illegal drugs are grown and manufactured within the US also. So should we have our military patrolling within our nation also? Personally, I do not support the use of DOD forces for civilian law enforcement.

[henryclay]

I do not support the use of DOD forces for civilian law enforcement.

I don't support the feds taking away the rights of states either, but it doesn't stop the feds.

And the United Statres MAY be to only country left in civilization who refuses to use the militayr to protect it's borders.

Hell, the United States may be to only country left in the world that doesn't even recognize that it HAS borders.

[fairlycrazy23]

Jun 2, 2011 17:43:31 GMT -5 henryclay said:

Yeah, bills. We know you can always find a distraction to let people know you are just out of sight.

People committed suicide back then. But fences were still not a part of every high spot in on the horizon. And even with the fences that are up today, people manage to jump. And it's not even the height of the depression.

So you are saying that putting up a fence (call the fence a prohibition on suicide) does not actually deter the people that want to commit suicide.
I think the reason for the fence is not to prevent suicide but rather it is a response to our litigious society.

Prohibition didn't work for alcohol and it is not working for drugs, at the very least the Federal Government should get out of this and leave it to the states, at least with prohibition of alcohol the Federal Government knew it needed a Constitutional amendment to restrict its use at the Federal Level.

To me it doesn't matter whether it is under DOD or some other federal agency, it is a responsibility of the Federal Government to maintain and defend the boundaries of the Union from external invaders, and anybody entering without following the legal requirements is an invader.

[Bluerobin]

Nor do I want to see airplanes flown by air crews, or directed by air controllers, who are high on legal drugs. Nor cops, nor judges, nor meat packers, nor school teachers, nor lifeguards, nor automobile mechanics, nor, not, nor . . . . . .

You won't. Booze is legal and most companies have policies about restricting its use on or before duty.

[henryclay]

You won't.

I wont? Tell me WHY I wont? Tell me why making drugs legal will have people who use drugs changing their user habits.

And while you're at it, tell me which one/s of these people do you want behind the teller window handling your money at the bank. Never mind taking care of your children.

[Bluerobin]

Their next pics will be autopsy pics, so, not to worry. Don't be alarmist. Sure, some will sneak through, but by and large, it would be a benefit.

[henryclay]

Sure, some will sneak through, but by and large, it would be a benefit.

How? What product will be safer because drugs are legalized? What endeavor will be made safer because drugs are legalized?
What school will turn out better educated studens because drugs are legalized?
And on, and on, and on . . . . .

HOW will this "it would be a by and large benefit" manifest itself if drugs were legalized?