American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture
If, as the Washington Post says, “Democracy Dies in Darkness”, the media should get a lot of the credit for dimming the lights. Not for simply making up stories out of whole cloth (remember the “hacked power grid” story that turned out to be one laptop with malware?), but also by omitting or ignoring pertinent information.
Two stories this week illustrate the point. Read my post, The not-quite-fake but rather manipulated news
Going for a goth theme, the WaPo unveiled a new banner,
Meanwhile, I find out from commenter Bill that
A Google search for “Fausta’s Blog” no longer turns up the current edition of faustasblog.com.
I’m having my tech support guy look into it.
During nearly thirteen years of blogging, I have received invitations to parties at the Venezuelan embassy (curiously timed to coincide with my posts on Chávez), denial of service attacks, death threats, and enough obnoxious comments to fill another blog (which made me cut down on comments enough to the point that now I barely get any).
So excuse me for sounding paranoid, but yeah, call me paranoid if you want.
All the same, I thank you for your support, and please remember to share my posts and support my advertisers.
House Speaker Paul Ryan is at the border; the WaPo reports,
Ryan makes trip to U.S.-Mexico border as lawmakers mull building Trump’s wall
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan led a delegation of House Republicans on a six-hour tour of the U.S.-Mexico border Wednesday, seeing firsthand by helicopter, horse and boat the security challenges of keeping out undocumented immigrants President Trump wants to block with a costly wall.
Ryan (R-Wis.), on his first trip to the border, said in a statement afterward that U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents on the ground need “more tools and more support . . . for them to do their jobs effectively.” He said Congress “is committed to securing the border and enforcing our laws” and pledged cooperation with the Trump administration.
Sec. of State Rex Tillerson is in Mexico. The Mexicans are not exactly thrilled
“I want to make it emphatically clear that neither Mexico’s government or the Mexican people have any reason to accept provisions that have been unilaterally imposed by one government on the other,” Mexico’s Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said at a ceremony on Wednesday.
“We won’t accept it because we don’t have to,” he added, in an apparent reference to U.S. plans to return illegal migrants to Mexico, regardless of their nationality.
Videgaray doesn’t seem to remember how Mexico treated Andrew Tahmooressi.
If Videgaray’s name sounds familiar, he’s the guy who quit as Finance Minister after the Peña Nieto-Trump press conference didn’t work the way he expected.
UPDATE
Livefeed of Tillerson press conference in Mexico
Brazilian journalist Felipe Moura on the corruption scandals,
Related:
Fearing jail sentences, investor lawsuits, and fines, Brazil Corruption Scandal Has Companies Rushing to Bulk Up Compliance Ranks. Antibribery operation known as ‘Operation Car Wash’ is causing wider cleanup of Brazilian business. This has a lot to do with it:
Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht SA in December signed the largest anticorruption settlement in history with authorities on three continents, agreeing to pay between $2.6 billion and $4.5 billion to authorities in Brazil, the U.S. and Switzerland.
Additionally, now the multinationals are worried that they may be banned from bidding on lucrative public works projects.
I’m not going to CPAC this year thanks to my new $18,000/yr Obamacare premiums, deductible and out-of-pocket. I’ll miss most of all visiting with fellow bloggers, but here are a few thoughts on Milo and CPAC:
Ii’s all about the headlines.
Ecuador Presidential Vote to Go to Second Round Runoff in April
Emili Blasco reports El partido de Correa se atasca en la Asamblea del Ecuador. El empate en diputados entre el oficialismo y la oposición acaba con la mayoría cualificada que montó el sistema bolivariano [Correa’s party stymied in Ecuador’s Assembly. The deadlock between the ruling party and the opposition ends the qualified majority that set up the bolivarian system.]
Uncertainty in Ecuador as Votes Trickle In, Opposition Confident in Second Round
Reports of voter fraud in Ecuador leaves country on the cusp of becoming another Cuba or Venezuela
Should Ecuador move to the right with a second-round victory for Lasso, it would end a decade of leftist rule in Ecuador and follow on the heels of Argentina, Brazil and Peru which have all swerved away from the left as a China-led commodities boom ended.
Lasso has campaigned on a platform to revive the economy, which is dependent on exports of oil, flowers and shrimp, by slashing taxes, fostering foreign investment and creating a million jobs in four years.
He has also vowed to remove Wikileaks founder Julian Assange from the Ecuadorean embassy in London and denounce Venezuela’s Socialist government.
Ecuador officials deny fraud claims in presidency vote
I’m very glad I was wrong.
InSight Crime reports,
American officials are reporting that the Jalisco Cartel – New Generation (CJNG) has expanded its trafficking operations in the United States, marking an important evolution in the modus operandi of the growing criminal organization.
As reported by Proceso, the CJNG has used its growing presence in Juárez to boost its participation in US markets for cocaine and heroin. This marks a change in direction for the group whose prominence in Mexico has risen sharply over the past five years, but whose international forays seemed to be mostly limited to trafficking to Europe.
The Proceso report squares with other recent indications from US authorities. In its 2016 National Drug Threat Assessment, published in November, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reported that the CJNG was one of the six Mexican organizations with the greatest presence in the United States. It has set up distribution hubs in Los Angeles and Atlanta, and also operates in far-flung cities such as Miami, San Antonio, San Francisco, and even Roanoke, Virginia. The most recent assessment reflects an increased presence relative to prior DEA reports.
CJNG was founded in 2010 as an offshoot of the Sinaloa Cartel, distributing cocaine in Europe and, as InSight Crime points out, has a substantial operation in Asia.
In other Mexican cartel news, the manhunt for Gulf Cartel leader Julián “El Toro” (The Bull) Loisa Salinas has created infighting within the organization, leaving nine dead so far.
