Showing posts with label Austin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Austin. Show all posts

Monday, August 4, 2014

Texas Pro-Life Law Closes Yet Another Abortion Clinic

An interesting story from www.lifenews.com about abortion in Texas. This follows this post about Adalia RoseFor more that you can do to get involved click HERE and you can also get two very interesting books HEREYou can follow me at blogspot here and at twitter here https://twitter.com/brianleesblog. Please consider following both in case one goes down!






Texas Pro-Life Law Closes Yet Another Abortion Clinic



by Carole Novielli | Austin, TX | LifeNews.com |


Another abortion center in Texas has closed as a result of the new abortion law which took effect last year.
On their blog page, abortion clinic chain Whole Woman’s Health announced the closure of their Austin center.
The announcement reads:
With extremely heavy hearts, we’re announcing today that Whole Woman’s Health of Austin is closing its doors days before our trial against House Bill 2 begins.
Austin was our flagship clinic, serving the community of Central Texas with the best abortion care available to women for over ten years. House Bill 2, which passed last summer, has forced us into yet another closure, this time because we’re unable to meet the standards of an ambulatory surgical center at this location.


Friday, October 4, 2013

Eric Holder v. Austin FD: the fix is in

A timely post about from http://isteve.blogspot.com about Eric Holder and the Austin Fire Department. This follows this post about John McCain and Mitch McConnell’s stance on Obamacare. In the meantime, you can get more involved if you like here and read an interesting book HERE.

Eric Holder v. Austin FD: the fix is in


As commenters noted, last week's announcement that the Justice Department was suing the Fire Department of Austin, TX for racial/ethnic discrimination was evidence of a pre-arranged fix between the Obama Administration and the liberal city government to throw the case, rather than to let it go to courts where it might wind up a 5-4 Supreme Court decision cutting back disparate impact logic.



When the story broke, I couldn't find the DoJ's letter online, but now the firemen's union has posted it. It makes interesting reading in that it offers zero evidence for discrimination other than that using an objective test as one part of the three-part hiring process has "statistically significant" adverse impact on blacks and Latinos, and that hiring in top-down order based on the combined scores also has "statistically significant" adverse impact.



But who cares if this is a bizarrely bad case for the theory of disparate/adverse impact, if it will never be litigated? The DoJ letter spells it out:



"We understand that the City is interested in participating in settlement negotiations with the goal of resolving this matter without contested litigation."



My guess is that the octogenarian Ruth Bader Ginsburg will retire in 2015 or 2016 to make sure her replacement is appointed by Obama, giving the Democrats three relatively youthful Obama appointee votes. Perhaps Stephen Breyer, who will turn 78 in 2016, will take one for the team, too.



By the 2016 election, both Scalia and Kennedy will be 80, and Thomas's life expectancy doesn't appear all that hot. Chief Justice Roberts looks terrific, but has epilepsy.



So, if you are the Obama Administration, at present it makes sense just to pick rigged fights on adverse/disparate impact.





By Steve Sailer

Friday, October 26, 2012

University of Texas Hoax Crime Hysteria Aims At Racial Cleansing—No Pushback From Campus Republicans

A very interesting post from  www.VDare.com about a race hoax at U.T. Austin. This follows this post about free phones for welfare recipients. This follows this post about Emmit Till. This follows this post about the likelihood of urban warfare in the U.S. and this about violent Flash Mobs which can result in activities such as Knockout King. You can read a very interesting book HERE.

University of Texas Hoax Crime Hysteria Aims At Racial Cleansing—No Pushback From Campus Republicans




http://www.vdare.com/articles/university-of-texas-hoax-crime-hysteria-aims-at-racial-cleansing-no-pushback-from-campus-re

By Nicholas Stix
[Previously: University of Texas Hoax Crimes Intended to Save Affirmative Action?]



“End Islamaphobia?” October 2 UT march in support of hate crime hoaxes and because a terrorist who made multiple bomb threats was described as speaking with a “light Middle Eastern accent”.


At the University of Missouri/Columbia, where white students have been railroaded merely for mocking black racial privilege, black affirmative action students protest on October 12 in solidarity with UT/Austin hate crime hoaxers



At the University of Texas/Austin, racial socialist activists and their UT staff and Main Stream Media allies have launched a hysterical campaign to intimidate white students by claiming that they are guilty of “hate crimes.” The activists’ MO: constantly make up new stories of their victimization; re-define innocuous behavior by whites as “bias incidents” and “acts of racial violence”; stalk whites attending “fiesta” parties (isn’t this Texas?), and publish photographs of them. Unfortunately, there is no sign of white a.k.a. American opposition.

The activists’ apparent goals:



Influence the Supreme Court to continue its support of Affirmative Action in college admissions;

Take over a presently desirable off-campus neighborhood (West Campus) now populated by white and Asian students;

Get all majority-white “Greek” organizations (fraternities and sororities) banned, disbanded, or under the racial socialists’ control;

Ultimately, to purge UT of white students, save for a relatively small cadre of cultural Marxists.

Thus when a UT spokeswoman described a recent caller who said he was with Al Qaeda and had placed multiple bombs on campus as having a “light Middle Eastern accent,” it was denounced an instance of “racism and oppression” and a “recently reported incident[s] of bias.” A faculty ally, UT English professor Snehal Shingavi [Email him] said that “Arab or Muslim students would face bias or discrimination because of the University’s statement” and that he didn’t “see why the University needed to release information regarding the caller’s accent.” [Concerns raised over racial bias by Alexa Ura, The Daily Texan, September 17, 2012.]

Meet Taylor Raquel Carr.[Message her on Twitter]





Taylor Raquel Carr, R, at the October 2 hoax march



The anthropology major reportedly “identifies herself as black,” i.e., because she doesn’t look all that black, she has to instruct people to accept her politically-constructed identity.

Carr’s racially ambiguous appearance is significant. She keeps weaving new tales in which racially unidentified “racists” call her “racial slurs” and throw bleach-filled balloons at her from high apartment balconies—although she’s driving by at 2:30 a.m., and no one could racially identify her even if she were blue-black. [Students speak out against West Campus bias by David Maly, The Daily Texan, September 17, 2012.]

Carr also constantly co-founds new, overlapping “organizations” that exist only on paper, online, or not at all, containing the same few activists,: Texas Liberation Alliance, Social Justice Coalition, and Student Speak Out: Racism and Oppression.

But UT’s administration has been creating ever more very real “agencies” and divisions to provide the activists with power and paychecks, funded with millions of very real taxpayer dollars.

UT’s Division of Diversity and Community Engagement spun off a “Campus Climate Response Team” last March. It should have been named “Hate Crime Hoaxes ‘R Us.”



The university urges students to report ‘biased behavior’ to its new task force, the Campus Climate Response Team.”

[UT Austin students claim 'bleach bomb' attacks target minoritiesby Dana Guthrie, Houston Chronicle, October 4, 2012.]



Then there’s the Multicultural Engagement Center:



The Multicultural Engagement Center (MEC) mission is to transform lives by providing diverse educational opportunities and support services for students. As part of this mission, the MEC houses the following student agencies: Afrikan [sic] American Affairs, Asian/Desi/Pacific Islander American Collective, Latina/o Leadership Council, Longhorn American Indian Council, Queer People of Color and Allies, and Students for Equity and Diversity.



This racial taxpayer-subsidized politicking employs the hoaxers’ comrades and, in some cases, the hoaxers themselves.

Meet Joshua Tang.





Tang is another campus activist who has to order people how to see him. He looks Asian but “identifies himself as an African and Chinese American.” [Police looking into reports of racially motivated bleach attacks in West Campus, Statesman.com,September 28, 2012]

In addition to typical race-racket sinecures (“an advisor to UT's Vice President of Diversity and Community Engagement,” member of Students for Equity and Diversity) Tang claims to be the “campus coordinator” for Teach for America (registration required).

Like Carr, Tang also claims to have been repeatedly been the target of “hate crimes” by racially unidentified assailants on West Campus—someone called him the “n”-word, someone threw a balloon “bleach bomb” at him.



‘When you aren’t around people of color and people of color are the hyper-other, then it becomes acceptable to do racist things,’ said Tang, who is a student associate in the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement.”

[A Tale of Two Neighborhoods by Andrew Messamore, , The Daily Texan, September 14, 2012.]



“Hyper-other”? Austin is, with Berkeley, Madison, Ann Arbor and Cambridge, one of the most PC college towns in America. Tang expects us to believe that white students brainwashed since kindergarten never to talk about race, even in private, and who now live in this intensely anti-white environment, are openly calling people who don’t even look black the “n”-word, and throwing “bleach bombs” at them?

Tang claimed that he didn’t report the bleach-bomb “attack” to police, because the latter are hostile to “social justice [read: Marxist] activists,” meaning Tang.

Yeah.

Messamore’s Daily Texan article was part of Tang’s campaign for racial quota housing for “low-income” (= black and Hispanic) students in West Campus. It reported that, from 2000-2010, UT white undergraduate enrollment fell from 63.8 to 51.7 percent—but did not reveal that UT has done so via a campaign of continuous racial cleansing (aka “affirmative action”), admitting ever more unqualified Hispanic and black applicants, while rejecting qualified white applicants. In Fall 2011, the university shrunk the percentage of white undergrad admits to a mere 46.8 percent.

On October 10, the day that the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the affirmative action case, Fisher v. University of Texas, the bloodstained black race hoaxer Al Sharpton spoke in support of continuing affirmative action, “Accompanied by University of Texas student Joshua Tang…” [Groups rally in front of the court by K.C. Wassman, The Michigan Daily, October 10, 2012.]

The MSM misrepresented the predominantly non-white October 2 campus protest march supporting the hate crime hoaxes as having been organized by “students.” But its organizer was black former student Chas Moore. [Students plan march for equality by David Maly, The Daily Texan, October 1, 2012, updated on October 2.] Moore threatened violence against whites, and one marcher used a megaphone to intimidate white onlookers, shouting, “Those are the people we need to fight!” [Bleach bomb incidents ignite anti-racist demonstrations by Cody Permenter, The Horn, October 3, 2012; updated October 4.]

I searched in vain for opposition forces at UT.

Although the majority-white “Greek” fraternities are under siege by racist Affirmative Action students, I could find no Greek organization that spoke out against them. The only person from the Greek world who spoke publicly was an Alpha Phi sorority member Mandy Stein. And, as reported by The Horn’s Permenter, she sucked up to the racial socialist activists (“Please don’t dismiss everybody because there are people out there who care and that want to help”).

Last week, I repeatedly contacted the UT College Republicans(CR). Finally, I reached Executive Vice President Jordan C. Nichols. He said: “College Republicans does not have any comment to give regarding those issues. I apologize we can’t give you anything. That’s not anything we’re involved with.”

President John Horton of the overlapping “nonpartisan” Young Conservatives of Texas (YCT), did not return a telephone message I left him.

The UT CRs are always apologizing to their enemies for one thing or another and resigning under leftwing fire. Last year the UT College Democrats’ leader referred to the CR president, then besieged with charges of “racism,” as “Someone who seems politically correct most of the time.” [Racist tweet lands Univ. of Texas College Republicans in hot water by Alexis Levinson, The Daily Caller, December 20, 2011.]

The sad truth: Students who run groups like CR/YCT aim at becoming Conservatism, Inc. apparatchiks. They are political animals who know the score.

But their careerism comes at the price of deceiving UT students—and alumni—into thinking that there is an organized campus opposition.

CR and YCT need to lead, follow—or get out of the way.

Of course, normal, decent young people do not go off to college looking to fight race wars.

Well, they may not be interested in race war. But race war is interested in them. And younger Texans fought—and died—in the last Civil War.

Regardless of whether UT students fight back, why should Texas’ still predominantly white taxpayers continue supporting an increasingly totalitarian institution that is dedicated to discriminating against, dispossessing, and disenfranchising their children and themselves?

Nicholas Stix [email him] is a New York City-based journalist and researcher, much of whose work focuses on the nexus of race, crime, and education. He spent much of the 1990s teaching college in New York and New Jersey. His work has appeared in Chronicles, The New York Post, Weekly Standard, Daily News, New York Newsday, American Renaissance, Academic Questions, Ideas on Liberty and many other publications. Stix was the project director and principal author of the NPI report, The State of White America-2007. He blogs at Nicholas Stix, Uncensored.



Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Sanctuary City of Austin compels Apple to hire illegal alien workers

A very interesting post from www.Alipac.US about illegal immigration in the "conservative" state of Texas. This follows this post about the latest immigration enforcement law in Alabama. This follows this post about Marco Rubio's DREAM Act. This follows this post about the Black Caucus hurting Black Americans with their immigration stand. This follows this post about how to Report Illegal Immigrants! For more that you can do to get involved click HERE and you can read a very interesting book HERE!

Sanctuary City of Austin compels Apple to hire illegal alien workers

By requiring that Apple work with the Workers Defense Project, an illegal aliens advocacy group, they are pushing Apple into a relationship which compels them to use illegal alien workers.





Sibyl West: Today on the radio I heard one faceless, nameless City of Austin bureaucrat talk about this subject, mentioning “economically challenged / disadvantaged” workers. Just so you know, those are code words for illegal immigrants. I have also heard Texas Rep. Dan Branch and Senator Leticia Van de Putte use similar language in reference to education grants or scholarships. Check this out.



by Ramparts Patriot
May 18, 2012
Citizen Report



Do any of you know folks who work in, or would like to work in, the construction industry in Austin? The city may have jobs at Apple for them.



A local neighborhood newspaper has reported that the city of Austin is forcing Apple to use illegal alien construction workers in building their new Austin complex. Community Impact Newspaper noted:



“At the urgence of members of the Austin-based Workers Defense Project and area construction workers, council amended the agreement to include a requirement that Apple comply with all state and federal laws on construction, safety and minimum wage and that the company work with the Workers Defense Project in an effort to meet the obligation”.



City of Austin compels Apple to hire illegal alien workers



by Sibyl West on May 18, 2012



By requiring that Apple work with the Workers Defense Project, an illegal aliens advocacy group, they are pushing Apple into a relationship which compels them to use illegal alien workers.



Further, requiring Apple to agree to “comply with all state and federal laws on construction, safety and minimum wage” the reader must wonder why the city thinks Apple would break the law without the agreement. The city seems to have reason to believe Apple would hire illegal aliens under unsafe working condition and for pay below the minimum wage.



For those who have noticed local news reports in recent years on unsafe working conditions and frequent injuries and occasional deaths on construction sites, its not surprising to hear that the local construction industry hires illegals for wages below the minimum wage, and often creates unsafe working conditions.



The opportunity to embarrass the city into providing the same opportunities for Americans as it demands for illegals has thus presented itself. Let me know if you know people who’d want these jobs.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Texas Pilot Stack's Communist Sympathies

This is a timely post from www.newsbusters.com that describes the pilot and his manifesto of the man who crashed into the building with the IRS in Austin Texas. He is not a Tea Party member as some are reporting, but someone from the opposite end of the spectrum with Communist sympathies. For more posts like this click here.

CNN's Sanchez and Velshi Omit Stack's Communist Sympathies

By Noel Sheppard (Bio Archive)Fri, 02/19/2010

A trend is beginning to develop in the media reports concerning Joe Stack, the man who allegedly smashed a plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas: his disgust for capitalism and support of communism must be ignored at all cost.
As NewsBusters previously reported, both Time.com and a blog posting at the Washington Post have conveniently skipped two crucial sentences at the end of Stack's suicide note:

The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

Clearly, Stack was no friend of capitalism. Yet, similar to other media members, CNN's Rich Sanchez and Ali Velshi addressed much of Stack's suicide note during "CNN Newsroom" Thursday EXCEPT for the part where he expressed his support for communism (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):
CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Mexican Border Raids

Since we live near the border, I wanted to let you know about this story. I hope you find it interesting to know about something that is going on not that far from us.


Worrying Signs from Border Raids

November 12, 2008

By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
Related Special Topic Page
Tracking Mexico’s Drug CartelsLast week, the Mexican government carried out a number of operations in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, aimed at Jaime “El Hummer” Gonzalez Duran, one of the original members of the brutal cartel group known as Los Zetas. According to Mexican government officials, Gonzalez Duran controlled the Zetas’ operations in nine Mexican states.The Nov. 7 arrest of Gonzalez Duran was a major victory for the Mexican government and will undoubtedly be a major blow to the Zetas. Taking Gonzalez Duran off the streets, however, is not the only aspect of these operations with greater implications. The day before Gonzalez Duran’s arrest, Mexican officials searching for him raided a safe house, where they discovered an arms cache that would turn out to be the largest weapons seizure in Mexican history. This is no small feat, as there have been several large hauls of weapons seized from the Zetas and other Mexican cartel groups in recent years.The weapons seized at the Gonzalez Duran safe house included more than 500 firearms, a half-million rounds of ammunition and 150 grenades. The cache also included a LAW rocket, two grenade launchers and a small amount of explosives. Along with the scores of assorted assault rifles, grenades and a handful of gaudy gold-plated pistols were some weapons that require a bit more examination: namely, the 14 Fabrique Nationale (FN) P90 personal defense weapons and the seven Barrett .50-caliber sniper rifles contained in the seizure.
Matapolicias As previously noted, the FN Five-Seven pistol and FN P90 personal defense weapon are very popular with the various cartel enforcer groups operating in Mexico. The Five-Seven and the P90 shoot a 5.7 mm-by-28 mm round that has been shown to be effective in penetrating body armor as well as vehicle doors and windows. Because of this ability to punch through body armor, cartel enforcers call the weapons “matapolicias,” Spanish for “cop killers.” Of course, AK-47 and M-16-style assault rifles are also effective at penetrating body armor and vehicles, as are large-caliber hunting rifles such as the 30.06 and the .308. But the advantage of the Five-Seven and the P90 is that they provide this penetration capability in a much smaller — and thus far more concealable — package.The P90 is a personal defense weapon designed to be carried by tank crew members or combat support personnel who require a compact weapon capable of penetrating body armor. It is considered impractical for such soldiers to be issued full-size infantry rifles or even assault rifles, so traditionally these troops were issued pistols and submachine guns. The proliferation of body armor on the modern battlefield, however, has rendered many pistols and submachine guns that fire pistol ammunition ineffective. Because of this, support troops needed a small weapon that could protect them from armored troops; the P90 fits this bill. In fact, the P90 lends itself to anyone who needs powerful, concealable weapons. Protective security details, some police officers and some special operations forces operators thus have begun using the P90 and other personal defense weapons. The P90’s power and ability to be concealed also make it an ideal weapon for cartel enforcers intent on conducting assassinations in an urban environment — especially those stalking targets wearing body armor.The Five-Seven, which is even smaller than the P90, fires the same fast, penetrating cartridge. Indeed, cartel hit men have killed several Mexican police officers with these weapons in recent months. However, guns that fire the 5.7 mm-by-28 mm cartridge are certainly not the only type of weapons used in attacks against police — Mexican cops have been killed by many other types of weapons.
Reach Out and Touch Someone While the P90 and Five-Seven are small and light, and use a small, fast round to penetrate armor, the .50-caliber cartridge fired by a Barrett sniper rifle is the polar opposite: It fires a huge chunk of lead. By way of comparison, the 5.7 mm-by-28 mm cartridge is just a little more than 1.5 inches long and has a 32-grain bullet. The .50-caliber Browning Machine Gun (BMG) cartridge is actually 12.7 mm by 99 mm, measures nearly 5.5 inches long and fires a 661-grain bullet. The P90 has a maximum effective range of 150 meters (about 165 yards), whereas a Barrett’s listed maximum effective range is 1,850 meters (about 2,020 yards) — and there are reports of coalition forces snipers in Afghanistan scoring kills at more than 2,000 meters (about 2,190 yards). The .50-BMG round not only will punch through body armor and normal passenger vehicles, it can defeat the steel plate armor and the laminated ballistic glass and polycarbonate windows used in lightly armored vehicles. This is yet another reminder that there is no such thing as a bulletproof car. The round is also capable of penetrating many brick and concrete block walls.We have heard reports for years of cartels seeking .50-caliber sniper rifles made by Barrett and other U.S. manufacturers. Additionally, we have noted many reports of seizures from arms smugglers in the United States of these weapons bound for Mexico, or of the weapons being found in Mexican cartel safe houses — such as the seven rifles seized in Reynosa. Unlike the P90s, however, we cannot recall even one instance of these powerful weapons being used in an attack against another cartel or against a Mexican government target. This is in marked contrast to Ireland, where the Irish Republican Army used .50-caliber Barrett rifles obtained from the United States in many sniper attacks against British troops and the Royal Ulster Constabulary.That Mexican cartels have not used these devastating weapons is surprising. There are in fact very few weapons in the arsenals of cartel enforcers that we have not seen used, including hand grenades, 40 mm grenades, LAW rockets and rocket-propelled grenades. Even though most intercartel warfare has occurred inside densely populated Mexican cities such as Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez and Nuevo Laredo — places where it would be very difficult to find a place to take a shot longer than a few hundred meters, much less a couple thousand — the power of the Barrett could be very effective for taking out targets wearing body armor, riding in armored vehicles, located inside the safe house of a rival cartel or even inside a government building. Also, unlike improvised explosive devices, which the cartels have avoided using for t he most part, the use of .50-caliber rifles would not involve a high probability of collateral damage. This indicates that the reason the cartels have not used these weapons is to be found in the nature of snipers and sniping.
Snipers Most military and police snipers are highly trained and very self-disciplined. Being a sniper requires an incredible amount of practice, patience and preparation. Aside from rigorous training in marksmanship, the sniper must also be trained in camouflage, concealment and movement. Snipers are often forced to lie immobile for hours on end. Additional training is required for snipers operating in urban environments, which offer their own set of challenges to the sniper; though historically, as seen in battles like Stalingrad, urban snipers can be incredibly effective.Snipers commonly deploy as part of a team of two, comprising a shooter and a spotter. This means two very self-disciplined individuals must be located and trained. The team must practice together and learn how to accurately estimate distances, wind speed, terrain elevation and other variables that can affect a bullet’s trajectory. An incredible amount of attention to detail is required for a sniper team to get into position and for their shots to travel several hundred meters and accurately, consistently strike a small target. In spite of media hype and popular fiction, criminals or terrorists commit very few true sniper attacks. For example, many of our sniper friends were very upset that the media chose to label the string of murders committed by John Mohammed and Lee Boyd Malvo as the “D.C. Sniper Case.” While Mohammed and Malvo did use concealment, they commonly shot at targets between 50 and 100 meters (about 55 yards to 110 yards) away. Therefore, calling Mohammed and Malvo snipers was a serious insult to the genuine article. The assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the killing of Dr. Bernard Slepian, also have been dubbed sniper attacks, but they actually were all shootings committed at distances of less than 100 meters.Of course, using a Barrett at short ranges (100 meters or less) is still incredibly effective and does not require a highly trained sniper — as a group of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives special agents found out in 1993 when they attempted to serve search and arrest warrants at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. The agents were met with .50-caliber sniper fire that ripped gaping holes through the Chevrolet Suburbans they sought cover behind. Many of the agents wounded in that incident were hit by the shrapnel created as the .50-caliber rounds punched through their vehicles. While it is extremely powerful, the Barrett is however a long, heavy weapon. If the sniper lacks training in urban warfare, it might prove very difficult to move around with the gun and also to find a concealed place to employ it. This may partially explain why the Mexican cartels have not used the weapons more.Moreover, while the Zetas originally comprised deserters from the Mexican military and over the years have shown an ability to conduct assaults and ambushes, we have not traditionally seen them deploy as snipers. Today, most of the original Zetas are now in upper management, and no longer serve as foot soldiers. The newer men brought into the Zetas include some former military and police officers along with some young gangster types; most of them lack the level of training possessed by the original Zetas. While the Zetas have also brought on a number of former Kaibiles, Guatemalan special operations forces personnel, most of them appear to be assigned as bodyguards for senior Zetas. This may mean we are not seeing the cartels employ snipers because their rank-and-file enforcers do not possess the discipline or training to function as snipers.
Potential Problems Of course, criminal syndicates in possession of these weapons still pose a large potential threat to U.S. law enforcement officers, especially when the weapons are in the hands of people like Gonzalez Duran and his henchmen. According to an FBI intelligence memo dated Oct. 17 and leaked to the media, Gonzalez Duran appeared to have gotten wind of the planned operation against him. He reportedly had authorized those under his command to defend their turf at any cost, to include engagements with U.S. law enforcement agents. It is important to remember that a chunk of that turf was adjacent to the U.S. border and American towns, and that Reynosa — where Gonzalez Duran was arrested and the weapons were seized — is just across the border from McAllen, Texas.Armed with small, powerful weapons like the P90, cartel gunmen can pose a tremendous threat to any law enforcement officer who encounters them in a traffic stop or drug raid. Over the past several years, we have noted several instances of U.S. Border Patrol agents and other U.S. law enforcement officers being shot at from Mexico. The thought of being targeted by a weapon with the range and power of a .50-caliber sniper rifle would almost certainly send chills up the spine of any Border Patrol agent or sheriff’s deputy working along the border. Armed with assault rifles, hand grenades and .50-caliber sniper rifles, cartel enforcers have the potential to wreak havoc and outgun U.S. law enforcement officers. The only saving grace for U.S. law enforcement is that many cartel enforcers are often impaired by drugs or alcohol and tend to be impetuous and reckless. While the cartel gunmen are better trained than most Mexican authorities, their training does not stack up to that of most U.S. law enforcement officers. This was illustrated by an incident on Nov. 6 in Austin, Texas, when a police officer used his service pistol to kill a cartel gunman who fired on the officer with an AK-47. While the arrest of Gonzalez Duran and the seizure of the huge arms cache in Reynosa have taken some killers and weapons off the street, they are only one small drop in the bucket. There are many heavily armed cartel enforcers still at large in Mexico, and the violence is spreading over the border into the United States. Law enforcement officers in the United States therefore need to maintain a keen awareness of the threat.
Tell Stratfor What You Think