3 Americans Killed in Northern Mexico Bus Attack

From The Associated Press, December 23, 2011

Three U.S. citizens travelling to spend the holidays with their relatives in Mexico were among those killed in a spree of shooting attacks on buses in northern Mexico, authorities from both countries said Friday.

 A group of five gunmen attacked three buses in Mexico’s Gulf coast state of Veracruz on Thursday, killing a total of seven passengers in what authorities said appeared to be a violent robbery spree.

 An official of the neighbouring state of Hidalgo said the Americans killed in the attack included a mother who was born in the area, and was returning with her two daughters to visit relatives in the region, known as the Huasteca.

 A 14-year-old nephew from the Mexican border city of Reynosa who had joined the three family members on the trip was also killed, said Hidalgo state regional assistant secretary Jorge Rocha.

 A U.S. embassy official confirmed the women’s nationalities, but could offer no information on their ages or hometowns. The official, who was not authorized to be quoted by name, said consular authorities were offering assistance to the victims’ relatives.

 Rocha identified the dead U.S. mother as Maria Sanchez Hernandez, 39, of Fort Worth, Texas, and the daughters as Carla, 19, and Cristina, 13. However, the embassy could not confirm the names. Rocha said Karla appeared to have been born in Mexico, and that all three held dual citizenship.

 While funeral plans were unclear, Rocha said Sanchez Hernandez’s mother wants her daughter to be buried in Mexico.

 Rocha said the other bus passengers killed in the attacks were a young Mexican couple, who left behind a three-month-old baby boy, who survived the attack. A bus driver was also killed.

 Five gunmen who allegedly carried out the attacks were later killed by soldiers.

 Earlier in their spree, the gunmen shot to death three people and killed a fourth with grenade in the nearby town of El Higo, Veracruz.

 On Thursday, the U.S. Consulate General in Matamoros, a Mexican border city north of where the attacks occurred, said in a statement that “several vehicles,” including the buses, were attacked, but did not specify what the other vehicles were.

 The consulate urged Americans to “exercise caution” when travelling in Veracruz, and “avoid intercity road travel at night.”

 While the specific area where the Thursday attacks occurred is not frequented by foreign travellers, other parts of the Huasteca — a hilly, verdant area on the Gulf coast — are popular among Mexican tourists and some foreigners.

 The attack occurred near the border with the state of Tamaulipas, an area that has been the scene of bloody battles between the Zetas and Gulf drug cartels.

Federal Judge Rules Against Arizona Sheriff in Immigration Enforcement

From Reuters News Service, December 23, 2011 By Alex Dobuzinskis

(Reuters) – A federal judge on Friday barred high profile Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio from detaining people simply for being in the country illegally, in a ruling that faulted the local lawman for enforcing federal immigration law.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio talks to the media about the Department of Justice

The 40-page written opinion by U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow came on the same day he issued legal sanctions against Arpaio over destroyed documents.

The decisions come as a further blow for the controversial sheriff, who already has faced rebukes from the U.S. Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security.

Both rulings by Snow stemmed from a 2007 civil lawsuit against Arpaio and his agency, which accuses his officers of racial profiling of Latinos in traffic stops the judge found were conducted as immigration sweeps.

The judge also said officers with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department (MCSO), which covers Phoenix and surrounding areas, circulated emails that “compared Mexicans to dogs” and portrayed them “as drunks.”

“Local law enforcement agencies, such as MCSO, may not enforce civil federal immigration law,” Snow said in his written opinion.

He added that the sheriff’s agency was “hereby enjoined” from detaining “any person based only on knowledge or reasonable belief, without more, that the person is unlawfully present within the United States.”

In his ruling, Snow also granted a request by plaintiffs to certify the lawsuit as a class action.

He defined the class action as encompassing all Latinos “stopped, detained, questioned or searched” by Arpaio’s officers “while driving or sitting in a vehicle” on roads or parking areas in Maricopa County.

EVIDENCE DESTRUCTION

Snow also cited the admitted destruction of emails and patrol records by Arpaio’s office related to the case. He noted the sheriff’s agency never contested those documents were shredded rather than lost.

Further proceedings in the case are expected to be decided by Snow rather than a jury because the plaintiffs have not requested a jury trial.

Snow’s sanctions against Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office were outlined in written opinions issued a day after the judge heard oral arguments on the matter.

Separately last week, the U.S. Justice Department issued a scathing report accusing Arpaio and his deputies of engaging in a “pervasive culture of discriminatory bias” and violating civil rights laws by singling out Latinos for unlawful detention and arrests.

The same day, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security barred Arpaio’s deputies from screening jail inmates for their immigration status.

Arpaio was given until January 4 to agree to negotiations addressing the abuses cited by the Justice Department or face a request for a court order requiring compliance.

The Justice Department’s report and the similar allegations raised in the lawsuit relate to Arpaio’s controversial efforts to crack down on illegal immigration in Maricopa County.

Those efforts have earned him accolades in conservative political circles. Several candidates for the Republican presidential nomination sought his endorsement, which ultimately went to Texas Governor Rick Perry.

Arpaio has denied that his department engages in racial profiling and accused the Justice Department under President Barack Obama of undermining immigration enforcement.

A lawyer for Arpaio was not available for comment.

The sheriff was a strong supporter of controversial new Arizona law SB 1070, requiring police to check the immigration status of anyone they detain and suspect of being in the country illegally.

That law is under challenge by the Obama administration in a case the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide next year.

Aside from the allegation of racial profiling, Arpaio also faces a firestorm over media reports that his office might have given short shrift to hundreds of sex-crime investigations.

(Editing by Steve Gorman and Jerry Norton)

Liberals Continue to Abandon Obama!

From: Access Hollywood – Thursday, December 22, 2011

Academy Award winning actor Matt Damon was one of Barack Obama’s most vocal Hollywood supporters in the 2008 election, but the actor has since changed his tune.

Matt Damon steps out at the ‘Contagion’ premiere at Lincoln Center in New York City

After speaking out against Obama’s economic decisions to Piers Morganlast year, the “We Bought a Zoo” star has expressed his disappointment with the Commander-in-Chief yet again.

“I’ve talked to a lot of people who worked for Obama at the grassroots level. One of them said to me, ‘Never again. I will never be fooled again by a politician,’” Matt, 41, told Elle magazine in a new interview. “You know, a one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done would have been, in the long run of the country, much better.”

Referencing nearby Occupy Vancouver protestors (the interview took place in the British Columbian city), Matt said the President had more than enough of a “mandate” to make more drastic political decisions.

“If the Democrats think that they didn’t have a mandate–people are literally without any focus or leadership, just wandering out into the streets to yell right now because they are so pissed off,” he told the mag. “Imagine if they had a leader.”

As previously reported on AccessHollywood.com, though Matt may have strong political opinions, the actor shot down rumors of possible political aspirations earlier this year.

When asked by a paparazzo if he’d consider running for President back in August, Matt quickly replied, “No, sir.”

Adding, “I think there are probably better choices out there.”

Mexican Authorities Seize 229 Tons of Methamphetamine ‘Precursor Chemicals’

From The Associated Press, December 23, 2011

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico said Friday that it seized 229 metric tons of precursor chemicals used to make methamphetamine, the third such huge seizure this month at the Pacific port of Lazaro Cardenas, all of which were bound for a port in Guatemala.

The seizure bringing to over 534 tons the amount of meth chemicals detected at Lazaro Cardenas in less than a month.

Authorities announced on Dec. 19 that they had found almost 100 metric tons of methylamine at the port, and earlier said that 205 tons of the chemical had been found there over several days in early December.

Experts familiar with meth production call it a huge amount of raw material, noting that under some production methods, precursor chemicals can yield about half their weight in uncut meth.

The Attorney General’s Office said the most recent seizure was found in 1,600 drums, and had been shipped from Shanghai, China.

All three shipments originated in China and were destined for Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala, authorities said.

The office has not indicated which cartels may have been moving the chemicals, but U.S. officials have noted that the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico’s most powerful, has moved into meth production on an industrial scale.

Sinaloa also has operations in Guatemala, and given recent busts by the Mexican army of huge meth processing facilities in Mexico, the gang may have decided to move some production to Guatemala.

Lazaro Cardenas is located in the western Michoacan state, which is dominated by the Knights Templar cartel and previously by the La Familia gang.

However, a series of arrests, deaths and infighting may have weakened those gangs’ ability to engage in massive meth production.

Also Friday, the attorney general’s office in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz reported that it had found ten bodies in an area along the border with the neighboring state of Tamaulipas. The office said investigators were alerted to the bodies by a tip, and are working to identify them and the cause of death.

The area has been the scene of bloody battles between the Gulf and Zetas cartels.