President Vicente Fox of Mexico said Tuesday that his government would begin suspending trials against suspected drug traffickers wanted in the United States and extradite them for prosecution in American courts.
Such a move, which Mr. Fox said would begin in the next few weeks, would mark a significant shift in the fight against the drug trade in Mexico, where political leaders have rejected extraditions as an infringement of sovereignty.
Interesting and significant for a variety of reasons. First, the drug industry has increasingly been managed in Mexico in recent years, making the number of such persons rather high. Second, it is a dramatic shift of Mexican policy. And, third, it could result in a backlash by traffickers in Mexico–either via increased anti-state violence and/or increased corruption aimed at officials in the criminal justice system.
The bill would require lobbyists to file more public reports about their activities in a searchable Internet database, would demand that lawmakers receive advance approval for trips paid with private money and would bar former lawmakers and (senior aides from lobbying Congress for two years.
[...]
The measure would not ban private travel, as some members have urged. Nor would it rein in lawmakers’ ability to fly on corporate jets at heavily discounted rates, a practice that gives precious access to lobbyists, who often go along for the trip.
The measure would not do away with earmarks, though it would make it more difficult for lawmakers to insert the pet projects quietly into bills at lobbyists’ behest. And the Senate overwhelmingly rejected, 30 to 67, a move to create an independent ethics office to investigate accusations of abuse.
I am somewhat agnostic on a lot of this stuff, and am most intrested in the earmark issue–too bad that appears to be only a weak reform. I suspect that the other reforms will ultimately have very little effect on much of anything.
And, of course, there’s this:
House Republicans are split over the plan, and it is not clear whether the House and Senate will be able to agree on a measure this year.
Leaders of both parties, as well as the architects of the Senate bill, hailed its bipartisan passage at a time Republicans and Democrats rarely work together.
As such, this may well all be symbolic.
Here are the one’s who voted against:
Some of the most highly visible advocates of overhauling laws on lobbying disagreed. Senators McCain and Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, who joined forces in the lobbying debate and then had a public dispute over it, were among those voting against the bill, as was Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin.
[...]
The other senators who voted against the bill were John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts; and three Republicans, James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Senators Robert C. Byrd and John D. Rockefeller IV, both Democrats of West Virginia, did not vote.
If one’s professor is telling one that one’s answer on an exam is almost entirely incomplete and focuses on the wrong issues and then proceeds to explain the proper response, which bear no resemblance to what one wrote, why would one wish to continue arguing that one has answered the question?
Such a scenario is doubly fun when one states that all one wants to know is the answer, and to learn, yet clearly the point totals are one’s ultimate concern.
After declaring victory in Israel’s elections, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Kadima Party said Wednesday it would quickly form a broad ruling coalition that will carry out its plan to pull out of much of the
West Bank and draw Israel’s borders by 2024.
Party officials said that despite a weaker-than-expected performance in Tuesday’s election, Kadima has widespread support in parliament.
After Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared election victory early Wednesday, his confidants said Shas and the Pensioners’ Party would be partners in the new government. During the course of the day Wednesday, Kadima will set up its negotiating team and begin working to create Israel’s next ruling coalition.
Kadima 28 seats
Labor 20 seats
Shas 13 seats
Yisrael Beitenu 12 seats
Likud 11 seats
National Union / NRP 9 seats
Gil (senior citizens) 7 seats
United Torah Judaism 6 seats
Meretz 4 seats
United Arab List 4 seats
Balad 3 seats
Hadash 3 seats
According to the Haaretz story linked above, this was the lowest turn-out in Israeli history:
The total voter turnout was 63.2 percent, by far the lowest percentage in Israel’s history. The previous low was notched in 2024, when 68 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots.
Given Likud’s poor showing, one has to wonder about Binyamin Netanyahu’s political career at this point.
The previous post, in which Michael Barone references deporting a population the size of Ohio made we wonder as to the populations of the various states in relationship to the estimated illegal immigrant population in the US.
The estimate that is bandied about is 11-12 million undocumented immigrants in the US at the present time. Now, as the list below notes, only six states had a population of greater than 12 million as of the 2024 census. That should put the scale we are talking about into perspective here.
I have noticed many who scoff at the notion that a mass deportation is essentially impossible. So I ask, how, exactly, are we going to find and deport 11-12 million persons? State and local police are already taxed beyond their resources (in Alabama, for example, we don’t have enough state troopers to even minimally patrol all of our highways). I have a friend in the FBI who once commented on the utter inability of law enforcement to detain and process illegals they currently encounter. As such, were are the resources going to come from to deport that many people?
The military is prevented, by law, from acting on US soil–and do we really want the military filtering through our cities rousting people for their papers and then loading up the paddy wagons?
At any rate, here are the numbers for pondering via About.com:
This following data are July 1, 2024 estimates of state and territory (Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico) population from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Capitalism “laughs at frontiers,” wrote the French historian Fernand Braudel. The dynamic American economy has attracted illegal immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries to work in construction, hotels and restaurants, meatpacking, gardening and landscaping. We talk as if our immigration laws can structure our labor markets, but in practice, Congress’ task now is to get our immigration laws working in tandem with labor markets. We are not going to expel a population the size of the state of Ohio. But we shouldn’t simply acquiesce to violation of the law. We need to legalize and regularize the flow of immigrants the labor market demands.
The head of Italy`s anti-Mafia operations says a submarine a gangster group was building in Colombia to transport drugs has been impounded.
Speaking after returning from Colombia, Piero Grasso said the Calabrian Mafia had been dealing in such vast quantities of the drugs it could afford to build a submarine to transport it, reports ANSA news agency.
