Free Republic

The Battle of Juarez is showing signs that the good guys are not prevailing. The Juarez newspaper, El Diario de Juarez, has cried uncle in its mixed stance of reporting the progress of the war. In the front page editorial that appeared recently, the editor waved the white flag and asked the cartels publicly what they want from him. The murder of a photographer and another reporter in the recent past are hitting far too close to home for him to continue to be a brave purveyor of the truth. In a city ravaged by nearly 7,000 deaths since 2006...

We tell you all the time about cartels hanging signs in Juarez and across Mexico. These signs threaten rival cartels or the government. Nome remarkable video as it happens. This video was taken in Chihuahua City as members of the Sinola cartel hang a sign from an overpass. As you can see they walk through traffic holding their automatic rifles, singing and seemingly unconcerned about anyone trying to stop them. Just another example of how these narco-traffickers are running northern Mexico.

Just a matter of time before this was going to happen. HEY! Commander-in-Chief!....Any comment?

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Some 230,000 people have left Ciudad Juarez, a border city that has become Mexico’s murder capital, in the past three years as the death toll from a gang war topped 7,000, a non-governmental organization said in a new report. About 124,000 people, or 53.9 percent of the total, have sought safe haven in El Paso, Texas, which is just across the border, the Ciudad Juarez Citizens Security and Coexistence Observatory said. The rest have returned to their hometowns, mainly in Durango, Coahuila and Veracruz states, to get away from the drug-related violence. “Action should be taken...

I watched the new documentary Southern Exposure which was just released and it was very well done. It helps those people who are not versed on the subject to realize that illegal immigration is a bigger problem than what they may have thought. Any effort to help make people understand that this is issue is so much more than migrant workers, is doing a good job. I live in a small town and we have ms-13 graffitti here too.

In Ciudad Mier -- about 18 miles from Roma, TX -- Mexican soldiers on Wednesday killed 22 suspected members from Los Zetas drug cartel in a shootout as reported by Mark Walsh for The Associated Press. Two Roma, TX police officers -- Jose Omar Garcia and his brother Roel Roberto Garcia -- were indicted by U.S. prosecutors last week pursuant to an investigation targeting the Mexican drug cartels as reported by The Associated Press. Meanwhile, in Ciudad Juarez -- just over the border from El Paso, TX -- one news photographer was killed and another injured in a shooting ambush...

MEXICO CITY — With a blunt remark that grated on Mexicans, Washington's top diplomat was merely echoing a growing concern about the alarming violence and instability being caused by Mexico's war on drug cartels. Mexican officials publicly disputed on Thursday the declaration by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton the previous day that Mexico is "looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago." Clinton's assessment is nevertheless shared by the crime-fighters who dismantled Colombia's killer cartels and have been offering Mexican officials, police and prosecutors advice and training for more than two years. Critics say Mexican President...

EL PASO, Texas -- It's a grizzly Ciudad Juarez murder with a startling El Paso connection. Mexican authorities discovered a severed head on top of the trunk of an abandoned blue Hyundai Wednesday afternoon. That car, which was stolen two weeks ago in Juarez, has Texas license plates and is registered to two people who live in El Paso. ABC-7 spoke with the car owner's daughter at the family's home. They did not want to be identified. "They left us without a car just to kill somebody," she said. The daughter said she had gone to Juarez with her mother...

Caterpillar Inc. is telling its American employees in Mexico, particularly those with children, to return to the United States because of escalating violence there, the company said Thursday. About 40 American employees of Caterpillar facilities in Mexico, including in Monterrey, are affected by the company's order. Those employees all are salaried or management, said company spokesman Jim Dugan. "We have been and will continue to monitor and assess the security situation in Mexico and communicate with our employees in order to improve their safety. Based on recent guidance from the (U.S.) State Department, Caterpillar has informed expat employees in some...

McALLEN — A man charged in at least five separate kidnapping and carjacking attempts in as many years has pleaded guilty to his role in a 2009 attack on an off-duty U.S. Border Patrol agent, prosecutors said Thursday. Jose Antonio “El Commandante” Armendariz told a federal judge that he organized a group of six others who shot at the agent, believing him to be a drug courier carrying a load of cash between Michigan and the Rio Grande Valley. Armendariz, 27, of Peñitas, also admitted his role in a 2006 kidnapping attempt on a prominent bakery owner — a crime...

Mexican prosecutors say hooded gunmen on Wednesday killed the mayor of a small town just beyond the southern border of Tamaulipas state. He is the third mayor to have been slain in the last month, apparently by Mexico’s drug cartels. This comes a day after Jose Ives Soberon Tijerina, the head of public safety in Tamaulipas, resigned amid the escalation of violence in the northern Mexican state. Also on Tuesday, the bodies of two other officials were found – officials who were helping with the investigation of the 72 migrants who were massacred last month in the city of San...

Several alleged Zetas were arrested in operations last week in Tamaulipas, according to a press release from the Mexican navy. On Friday afternoon, Mexican marines found four alleged Zetas off a dirt road about three miles from Reynosa, after receiving an anonymous tip. The men had been tied up and appeared to have been beaten, the press release said. Those arrested were identified as Gilberto Tomas “El Beto” Marcelino, Elodio Cortez Yavismea, Elias “El Diablo” Nuñez Gonzalez and Milton Omar “El Trasquilado” Alvarez Montijo. The four men were flown to Mexico City and turned over to a special prosecutor for...

El Imparcial (Hermosillo, Sonora) 9-6-10 Cloning priests! Monterrey, N.L. – Members of criminal organizations not only wear military type garments to disguise their activities but also dress as religious figures, the Cardinal of Monterrey, Francisco Robles Ortega, revealed yesterday. Over the two days that the Army has operated a checkpoint on the Reynosa Highway, numbers of people dressed as priests have been detained. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church has assured that the presumed priests are imposters. In an interview after a mass, the Cardinal said, “People dressed as priests have been detained at checkpoints. They say, ‘See how I...

GALICE, Ore. – Police uprooted another marijuana grow site in Galice. According to Josephine County Sheriff Gil Gilberston, authorities found a huge amount of marijuana in the area of Galice. Gilbertson says the grow is linked to the Mexican Drug Cartel. So far, police have put 18 people in jail. Gilbertson says the grow is massive but he cannot release the total amount of plants because the case is still under investigation. Galice Resident Cole Smith says he is frustrated with police. Authorities have been parked in front of his house for a week and won’t explain why they are...

Four men shot-execution style on a quiet block in Chicago's West Lawn neighborhood were targets of a drug-related attack, police said Friday. Police found multiple weapons in the two-car garage behind a brick home in the 6100 block of South Kildare Avenue, where the shootings occurred at about 8:30 p.m. Thursday.

YORK – At least $1 million in cash was discovered inside a tractor-trailer Friday afternoon during a routine inspection along the turnpike. Maine State Police said they found the stash of cash after detaining the driver and a passenger while they examined driver logs. The driver, 35-year-old Jhon Rivera-Ramirez, was ultimately arrested for falsifying logs. He was later released on bail. State police said Ramirez was traveling with a passenger, Jose Javier Perez, 46, who was not charged in the stop. Police did not say where the men were coming from or where they were going. State Police Lt. Thomas...

A former associate of Edgar Valdez-Villarreal, "La Barbie," is killed in a Nuevo Laredo prison. An inmate in a Nuevo Laredo prison stabbed Jose Luis Carrizales-Coronado to death. Authorities say a federal judge released Coronado from a prison in Monterrey on Monday claiming a lack of evidence in a case. He came back to Nuevo Laredo and was arrested for previous murder charges. Officials say he started a fight with other inmates in the bathroom, where they beat and stabbed him. According to Mexican authorities, Coronado was an associate of Edgar Valdez-Villarreal back in 2003.

A multi-day eradication effort by the Southern Oregon Multi-Agency Marijuana Eradication Team.... removed more than 40,000 pot plants estimated to be worth as much as $120 million. ....on Aug. 23, Josephine County sheriff's detectives stopped a vehicle with five Hispanic men in it on Forest Road 4105, which wends into the hills above the Sixmile recreation site toward the roughly 5-acre marijuana garden. Four of the men inside the vehicle wore camouflage clothing... The driver, David Barragan-Salazar,told investigators that he was paid $500 to take men to the growing operation in the forest. All are suspected of being in the...

<p>Eight people were killed when a gang burned down a bar in the resort city of Cancun early on Tuesday.</p> <p>At least 10 armed men attacked the Castillo del Mar, a nightclub outside the city's main tourist area, threatening patrons and then lighting the building on fire...</p>

SAN FERNANDO, Mexico – Two cars exploded early Friday in a northern state where officials are investigating the killing of 72 Central and South American migrants, while a prosecutor investigating the massacre has disappeared. The prosecutor, Roberto Jaime Suarez, disappeared Wednesday in the town of San Fernando, where the bodies of the migrants were found, the Tamaulipas state attorney general's office said in a statement. A transit police officer in the town is also missing. President Felipe Calderon, speaking during a forum on security, said Suarez, a Tamaulipas state prosecutor, was involved in the initial investigation of the massacre, which...