Former Starr County Sheriff Reymundo Guerra was sentenced Thursday to five years and four months in federal prison for helping Gulf Cartel operatives move marijuana and cocaine through his remote border county.
The prison term, set to begin Sept. 28, makes Guerra the second Starr County sheriff in a row to do time and the latest in a line of Rio Grande Valley officials convicted of corruption and abuse of office.
"I'm saddened to see a law enforcement officer who's indicted like this," U.S. District Judge Randy Crane said, recalling the recent conviction of Cameron County Sheriff Conrado Cantu. "It is a stain on the badge."
Guerra was named in October along with 14 others on a 19-count indictment stemming from an investigation dubbed "Operation Carlito's Weigh."
He pleaded guilty in May to one of three charges against him -- conspiracy -- in an agreement that dropped other charges and gave hope for a lighter sentence.
Since then, the investigation has netted 28 defendants. Jose Carlos Hinojosa, a former Mexican police official pegged as the ringleader of the operation, is to be sentenced in October. In the end, Crane said, it appeared Guerra's role was as a "minor participant" in a "significant, large conspiracy."
Though he may have helped smugglers evade detection with tips on stings or recent seizures, there was no evidence that Guerra arranged to move drugs or was a key player in the cartel operation. It's unclear whether his ill-gotten gains amounted to more than a few thousand dollars.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2009 00:00 ||
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There isn't a lot of money in corruption. Politicans go on the take because they are arrogant. Cops speak of the stupidity of armed bank robbers who get 10 year sentences for $500 robberies. Idiots.
#2
Google brought up this. The text is another OMG, A few weeks ago, Starr County sheriff Reymundo Guerra was indicted on federal drug charges. Since he has not been convicted, he stays on the ballot. And heâs running unopposed., but the picture in the video window next the text says it all - Reymundo "Rey" Guerra (DEM).
#2
Did they check whether any of the items they were selling had been recalled by their manufacturers? They may have violated Federal Law.
Did they sell any old children's books or toys without checking them for lead? They may have violated Federal Law.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
08/29/2009 7:04 Comments ||
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#3
Has Arnold considered selling the state to Mexico? They already occupy it.
Posted by: ed ||
08/29/2009 8:01 Comments ||
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...well, at least a good portion of the southern half, though I'd want to hang on to San Diego till they could find a good location for military facilities. Move the foreign national inmate population down south as well before hand over and that along with the massive tax dollar drain for support services disappearing with the population should get the state budget back on line towards solvency. I enjoy the irony of those who came here illegally only to find themselves once again back in Old Mexico along with the corruption and opportunity they had before.
White House health-care adviser Ezekiel Emanuel blames the Hippocratic Oath for the 'overuse' of medical care.
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, health adviser to President Barack Obama, is under scrutiny. As a bioethicist, he has written extensively about who should get medical care, who should decide, and whose life is worth saving. Dr. Emanuel is part of a school of thought that redefines a physician's duty, insisting that it includes working for the greater good of society instead of focusing only on a patient's needs. Many physicians find that view dangerous, and most Americans are likely to agree.
True reform, he argues, must include redefining doctors' ethical obligations. In the June 18, 2008, issue of JAMA, Dr. Emanuel blames the Hippocratic Oath for the "overuse" of medical care: "Medical school education and post graduate education emphasize thoroughness," he writes. "This culture is further reinforced by a unique understanding of professional obligations, specifically the Hippocratic Oath's admonition to 'use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgment' as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of cost or effect on others."
In numerous writings, Dr. Emanuel chastises physicians for thinking only about their own patient's needs. He describes it as an intractable problem:
#2
in the interest of economy, if he gets ill, he can do surgery on himself.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/29/2009 16:49 Comments ||
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I guess he never plans on getting old, or sick, or injured.
I seem to recall Dr. Mengele making similar determinations at Auschwitz. Zeke is in some very select company.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
08/29/2009 16:50 Comments ||
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#4
Zeke probably took the Hypocritic Oath. Spelling error ruined his mind and his life, and potentially many others.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/29/2009 17:02 Comments ||
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#5
Dr. Emanuel is part of a school of thought that redefines a physician's duty, insisting that it includes working for the greater good of society instead of focusing only on a patient's needs.
Ranks right up there with Arafat, Che, and Mengele, I see.
It looked like it was business as usual for President Barack Obama on the first day of his Marthaâs Vineyard vacation, as he spent five hours golfing with Robert Wolf, president of UBS Investment Bank and chairman and CEO of UBS Group Americas. Wolf, an early financial backer of Obamaâs presidential campaign, raised $250,000 for him back in 2006, and in February was appointed by the president to the White Houseâs Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Economic recovery for whom?
Interestingly, Wolfâs appointment came in the same month that UBS agreed to pay the U.S. $780 million to settle civil and criminal charges related to helping people in the U.S. avoid taxes. Not to worry. UBS, an ailing bank with a pre-existing condition, had great insurance coverage. It was actually receiving $2.5 billion in a backdoor bailout from bailed-out insurance giant AIG. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said, âIt looks like weâre simply laundering this money through AIG.â UBS, this bank that shelters wealthy tax dodgers, was actually being bailed out by hardworking U.S. taxpayers.
Last Friday, as Wolf was preparing for his golf game with Obama, UBS whistle-blower Bradley Birkenfeld was sentenced to 40 months in prison for facilitating offshore tax evasion through UBS banking schemes, despite assisting federal investigators in exposing the secretive bank.
Above the entrance to UBSâs headquarters in Zurich is a bust of the Greek god Hermes â not only the fleet-footed messenger of the gods, but also the god of thieves and merchants. The symbolism is striking. Whether or not Wolf won his golf game against Obama, UBS has clearly scored a hole-in-one.
Not to mention buying up assets at fire sale prices using funds given by indenturing future US taxpayers. No wonder Europe is recovering from the recession faster than the US.
It's not what you know, make or sell anymore. It's what politician you know that is the key to riches.
Posted by: ed ||
08/29/2009 8:35 Comments ||
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#3
Actually, that link understates the amount of US taxpayers' money that was transferred. It only accounts for $100 billion of the $180 billion AIG bailout (to March 2009).
Posted by: ed ||
08/29/2009 8:51 Comments ||
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#4
It's what politician you know own that is the key to riches.
We're just confused with how representative government works. When it becomes a full time job with retirement benefits, it represents interests not the little people back in the district.
#8
After Labor Day, Paloski, Reed and Obama are going to use every bit of coerceive power they have on the Freshman legislators to vote for their own political suicide by signing on to ObamaCare. Given the very strong public reaction against federal health care few freshmen will survive their next election. PRO(Paloski,Reed,Obama) has to convince them to potentially sacrifice themselves for some greater good? Judging by past actions few of them will value anything higher than their own reelection. Maybe PRO can offer them a political afterlife akin to the 72 virgins promised to Arab children to get them to blow themselves up to please Allah.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
08/29/2009 19:56 Comments ||
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(CNSNews.com) -- Mark Lloyd, chief diversity officer at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), claimed that communications policies enacted by Republicans negatively impacted the civil rights of minorities.
Lloyd made the claim in a 1998 essay he wrote while working for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. He said that two decades of Republican communications policies had eroded the gains made by the civil rights movement in minority ownership in communications.
Lloyd also said that, prior to the Reagan administration, the FCC recognized that civil rights and communications policy were linked, and he said that minority ownership of radio and television stations was necessary to correct the lack of diversity in media.
"In the late seventies, in recognition of the lack of progress made with these [equal opportunity] employment policies, the FCC ruled that minority ownership was essential to create a diverse range of messages over the public's airwaves," Lloyd wrote.
Among the requirements the FCC created were licensing rules that required that the public participate in the license renewal process; caps on how many radio and television stations a company could own in one city; three-year license terms; and a process called ascertainment: requiring station owners to canvas the local community to find out what the public was interested in.
Lloyd said that, starting with Reagan, the Republican-dominated FCC had rolled back these rules, and with them the gains of the civil rights community.
"[T]he great progress made by the civil rights communities in the communications policy arena has been rolled back," Lloyd said. "The Reagan-dominated FCC destroyed the ascertainment process, arguing that it was too much of an administrative burden on the stations and the FCC.
"Licensing renewal can now be accomplished with a postcard," he wrote. The worst blow, according to Lloyd, would come from the Telecommunications Act of 1996, passed by a Republican Congress allegedly beholden to big business
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2009 00:00 ||
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And so it begins. (The return of the "Fairness" doctrine, that is.)
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/29/2009 0:26 Comments ||
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#2
Ascertainment po;icy will ensure that a survey and community outreach is taken to determine the public attitudes and needs. Community organizing groups will be perfect for using push polling to define the needs, and amazingly, minority broadcasting proposals, with goverment seed money, will end up with ownership of licenses, hence stations. Goebbels would be proud and Trotsky would applaud the brazen theft of the media, all the while creating government controlled organs of propaganda.
1934 anyone?
- Who is Mark Lloyd and how does he plan to "balance" the airwaves?
- Will he bring back the Fairness Doctrine or worse?
- Cass Sunstein once said he wants to balance the Internet; is that next?
- Will broadcasters who leave the airwaves be allowed to go to satellite or Internet without government regulation?
- Is there any place (that has a mass audience) where the government wont regulate free speech?
- Why does it seem every member of the Obama advisory team hates capitalism, unless those companies (like G.E.) are in bed with the administration?
If Lloyd has his way, stations who don't comply to the governments definition of the "public interest" will have to pay a massive fine that helps support public broadcasting:
- What will be the definition of "public interest"?
- Who defines "public interest"?
- Why should it be balanced? Because it's public airwaves? (Well, there are public roads that go by my house and I don't count how many Republicans and Democrats are driving on them)
#7
Just one question; as a casual/infrequent T.V. viewer, aren't all the "alphabet" media (CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC,et al) liberal/extremely liberal? AND, don't they outnumber (only quantity of FCC licenses, NOT viewers) Fox News by a significant number? A true balance could/would be achieved by "redistributing" their licenses to more conservative broadcasters.
#8
Wolfdog - it depends on where your centerline is. For this clown the 'centerline' is places like 'moveon.org' and huffington post. So with that sort of centerline the MSM is 'just right'.
While many members of Congress have spent their summer recess getting yelled at by constituents at unruly town-hall meetings, Rep. Doris Matsui has opted for a quieter approach.
The Sacramento Democrat has not hosted a single town hall meeting this month and has no plans to do so before Congress returns to work in September to tackle a $1 trillion health care bill. She's sponsoring only one event next week, where constituents can call her on the telephone to ask questions.
Matsui's absence on the town hall circuit stands in contrast to how most other members from the Sacramento region are handling Washington's most volatile issue of the year.
On Wednesday night, Republican Rep. Dan Lungren was in Rancho Cordova, hosting his third town hall meeting. Last week, an overflow crowd packed a meeting at Citrus Heights, prompting Lungren to use a police microphone to address a crowd gathered in a parking lot.
Next week, Republican Rep. Tom McClintock is planning four face-to-face meetings with constituents. And Democratic Rep. Mike Thompson has had five town hall meetings during the recess, with another planned in Eureka next week.
Matsui said her telephone meeting will allow her to reach out to more constituents without having to turn anyone away due to space constraints.
"I'm not taking away anything from some of the town halls that have been going on," Matsui said Wednesday. "But it seemed to me that not everybody got heard and sometimes the loudest people in the room overwhelmed some of the thoughtful ones who really wanted to ask a question. So I felt this is the best way to proceed."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2009 00:00 ||
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coward
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/29/2009 8:34 Comments ||
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I've been in a couple of small, closed door meetings with the Congresswoman, and found her to be pleasant, filled with vague and bland pronouncements, and utterly clueless about the substance of the topics.
She's honestly not very bright and cowering behind her staff for any complex issue.
From an perspective of actually voting on nation law and policy, utterly in over her head.
...The release of the only man convicted murderering 270 innocent civilians stinks. It should result in the toppling of Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labor government. Surely no one can have confidence in his spineless government.
But the larger question is this: Did Gordon Brown get a green light from the Obama administration to let this convicted murderer go "scot free?" Did the British government even consult with Washington before taking this despicable action?
What does this discreditable affair say about the "special relationship" that has existed for a century between Great Britain and the United States?
We are only seven months into this new administration. The early indications are not good that we have a seasoned and serious team manning the helm of the ship of state. For the sake of the country we all serve, let's pray they learn quickly.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2009 00:00 ||
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Thanks, Fred, for the perfect example of why I've ceased referring to Fox news for anything objective.
The author is so out of touch with reality that he fails to even relate to the fact that anything this administration does is by agenda and according to plan.
Those of us who understood who this man is and who he both associated with and governs him with their influence knew this pre August 2008.
The rest of the country is slowly getting a reality check.
The risk here, frankly, is, "What 'crisis' will the man's handlers manufacture next to meet their agenda, and at what cost????"
Learn quickly? (They know exactly what they're doing.)
That comment is best referred to those cretinous idolaters that voted for the man but still have half a brain.
#3
Of course they did. If an action undermines the US, then it will be done by Obama et al. It is their goal to diminish the US, and they are succeeding.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
08/29/2009 8:47 Comments ||
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#4
Any bets on how low Barack Obama bows when Kadaffi brings his tent and harem female bodyguards to the US next month?
Posted by: ed ||
08/29/2009 8:57 Comments ||
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#6
Giving this administration any hope of 'learning' presumes they don't know exactly what they're doing thus far; it is both naive & hopeful thinking from a network that has lost my confidence.
WM made my point a little clearer, but the learning message I segued to was to those that still 'hope' this guy will get it right and want to 'give the man a chance'. If they have half a brain, they'll understand and vote accordingly in '10. If they don't, then this country will likely incur some radical changes over the next 3 1/2 years.
Please don't suggest that isn't exactly what they this administration wants...I already had my fiber for the day.
#7
Thanks logi_cal. Yes indeed,'Learning' is for the little people. Barry, his cadre, and minders are the font of all knowing. I agree, this entire affair is unfolding in accordance with very well laid plans.
Not one's to waste a crisis, my fear is that some national or international catastrophe, either contrived or otherwise will prompt them to set the constitution fully aside and leave him and the congress in place indefinately.
Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.
They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.
The new version would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for "cybersecurity professionals," and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.
"I think the redraft, while improved, remains troubling due to its vagueness," said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which counts representatives of Verizon, Verisign, Nortel, and Carnegie Mellon University on its board. "It is unclear what authority Sen. Rockefeller thinks is necessary over the private sector. Unless this is clarified, we cannot properly analyze, let alone support the bill."
Representatives of other large Internet and telecommunications companies expressed concerns about the bill in a teleconference with Rockefeller's aides this week, but were not immediately available for interviews on Thursday.
A spokesman for Rockefeller also declined to comment on the record Thursday, saying that many people were unavailable because of the summer recess. A Senate source familiar with the bill compared the president's power to take control of portions of the Internet to what President Bush did when grounding all aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001. The source said that one primary concern was the electrical grid, and what would happen if it were attacked from a broadband connection.
When Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Commerce committee, and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) introduced the original bill in April, they claimed it was vital to protect national cybersecurity. "We must protect our critical infrastructure at all costs--from our water to our electricity, to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records," Rockefeller said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2009 00:00 ||
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This is one of those issues that is so highly technical that not even the people writing the laws understand it.
First of all, there is no such thing as "the internet" as any kind of physical entity. "The Internet" is thousands of networks exchanging traffic privately. Lets say you are on AT&T or Comcast or Verizon. If ou are on one of those networks and want to go to yahoo.com, for example, chances are that your provider directly connects to Yahoo. In order to shut down "the internet", thousands of networks would have to turn off their border routers they use for traffic peering with other networks.
If you are on a smaller network, your traffic might need to go through a third party (transit) in order to reach Yahoo.
Take Rantburg. Rantburg's IP addresses are apparently owned by someone called "Datapoint". Traffic from my network at work reaches Rantburg by first going to the Equinix facility at 11 Great Oaks in San Jose. From there it goes to a network owned by Level3 communications where it is hauled over Level3's network to an Equinix facility in Ashburn, Virginia and handed to a network called e-xpedient.com who then gives the data to datapoint. At no time did my traffic touch anything called "The Internet". It went over private networks.
In order to shut down "the ineternet" the President would need to order all networks not to communicate with any other network over their own private connections.
Now, having done that, what is there stopping people from loading Quagga on a linux box for routing and stringing cables between neighbors and creating their own "internet"?
Maybe the government could shut down the root nameservers, but people would create new ones. And many of the root name servers are outside of the US and not under the authority of the US President. The only way to shut down "the internet" is to physically shut off the links between private networks.
I don't believe the network operators would follow such an order even if given.
#3
There are only a few carriers who own the fiber trunks that carry comms and data traffic. Shut down their data traffic and the internet shuts down.
Posted by: ed ||
08/29/2009 7:56 Comments ||
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#4
Immediately following 9/11 all flight operations across the country were shut down in a matter of minutes. If you don't think Barry could direct a series Computer Network Offensive (CNO) measures be taken against domestic networks and systems you are sadly mistaken.
#8
We will have to go back to faxes like dissidents did in the ex Soviet Union. If we are lucky, we can vote out some of these scoundrels in 2010, if an election is held.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/29/2009 11:59 Comments ||
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#9
He wants control of everything. Doing the things tyrants do.
#12
"3 There are only a few carriers who own the fiber trunks that carry comms and data traffic. Shut down their data traffic and the internet shuts down."
Not exactly true. I can connect my network to Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and Google without ever leaving the building. That is over private fiber strung directly. No, going outside the building there are many carriers what will lease "dark" fiber to you. Some you may have never heard of (remember MFS? They are AboveNet now). In order to shut that traffic down they would need to basically break the cable which would disrupt more than just Internet traffic as telephone, video and lots of other services uses those paths as well.
"The Internet" architecture is one of cooperative communications between private entities. There is no government ownership or public entity through which the traffic flows. And the "problem" gets more interesting as more foreign carriers own infrastructure here. Want to connect to China Telecom? No problem, they appear in San Jose, California. British Telecom? Telecom Italia? No problem, they appear in several places in the US over their own infrastructure.
It would be a massive exercise in futility to "shut down the Internet". You could overload popular destinations like google, msn, yohoo, and aol but taking down ALL networks would be practically impossible as most are interconnected at several points.
#13
Worth noting that back in the Jurassic era, before the days of always-on DSL, we built ad-hoc networks over dial-up phone lines with tools like Point-to-Point Protocol and used UUCP (Unix to Unix Copy Program) to route mail and files. It depended on friendly sysadmins and people willing to share a little server space, but it could be done again if the need arises.
#14
You mean the old bulletin board system. What would you need to set that up using today's systems? Maybe put together a toolbox of needed items and post it just in case.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/29/2009 18:49 Comments ||
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crosspatch: Interesting analysis.
One point I would make is in networks. Although Yahoo, google et al have private networks that are routable to the internet, if you can connect to them, they are not private, they are public. They may strictly control traffic at the router level, but they are considered private.
So my reading of this bill is that in an emergency the government would get unfettered access to large private networks which are ordinarily not connected to the internet for its own purposes. Similar to comandeering airliners to transport materiel in time of war.
It is actually a reasonable proposal but for the current leftist government to make use of unaffected private computing power in the event of an attack.
#16
The government wants the power to pull the plug on the internet to protect critical infrastructure. Here's an idea for them: Don't put critical infrastructure on a global public network!
Posted by: Snuger Prince of the Welsh4131 ||
08/29/2009 20:19 Comments ||
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#17
I think Bambi may be overreaching here. Imagine what businesses would do if they lost the internet on which so many depend. What about the banking system? The stock market?
Many federal courts now REQUIRE that pleadings be filed electronically; that requires the internet. What happens if Bambi cuts off access to a good portion of the internet and plaintiffs/defendants miss an important deadline because of it?
How about medicine? A lot gets done over the internet; who pays if people get sicker or die because of no internet access?
And what the hell is a "cybersecurity emergency" anyway?
Tar. Feathers. Pitchfork. Some assembly required. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/29/2009 21:52 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Former Starr County Sheriff Reymundo Guerra was sentenced Thursday to five years and four months in federal prison for helping Gulf Cartel operatives move marijuana and cocaine through his remote border county.
While many members of Congress have spent their summer recess getting yelled at by constituents at unruly town-hall meetings, Rep. Doris Matsui has opted for a quieter approach.
Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet. 
