Perry on El Paso violence

Mulvaney gives it 4 peppers...

The claim...


In a TV interview last week about border security, Gov., Rick Perry said: "It’s becoming really frustrating when we’re seeing a Mexican governor assassinated across the border from Texas, you’ve got bullets hitting the City Hall in El Paso, you’ve got bombs exploding in El Paso."

The facts...


There has not been a car bombing, or other drug-related bombings, in El Paso. Asked what the governor was referring to, aides said that he meant to cite a July 15 car bombing across the border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
http://dallasne.ws/dwIbLZ

Juárez drug violence not likely to go away soon, authorities say

Corchado reports from Ciudad Juárez:

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico – Even after thousands of drug-related slayings in this border city, U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials say that a war between rival cartels could continue for years – contradicting reports that one group had gained control over a key smuggling route.
http://tinyurl.com/2e3hasu

Mexico, U.S. working together to battle drug cartels

Murder of 3 with US consulate ties prompts heightened activity. Gillman reports:

WASHINGTON – Drug cartels have expanded their war for control of Mexico faster than the U.S. has been able to pump in aid.


In the time needed for roughly 18,000 Mexicans to die in the violence raging just south of the Rio Grande, the United States has delivered about a fifth of the $1.3 billion promised in late 2007 under a security pact known as the Mérida Initiative.

Fighting Cartels on the Camino Real Corridor/Merida II

See the original .pdf here. -- jj

Texas State Senator Shapleigh's letter on the volatile and violent border situation:
I write to update you on the situation in Juarez. Over the last few weeks, approximately 250 experts from Washington, D.C. and Mexico, D.F. representing a dozen agencies have been on the ground in Juarez, San Diego, Tijuana and other Border communities on a fact-finding mission to inform a policy review and assessment of the fundamental policy changes critical to US-Mexico bilateral relations.

Their basic plan is to frame Merida II around four key policy objectives: federal security, local/state security, jobs, and socioeconomic concerns. Key interest groups here and in Mexico want to broaden the policy discussion further to include the trillion-dollar annual (and growing) demand for drugs in the United States.

U.S. agencies join Mexico's inquiry into killings of 3 tied to American Consulate

Alfredo Corchado reports on heightened US involvement following slaying of consulate worker, 2 others in Ciudad Juárez:

MEXICO CITY – Teams of U.S. and Mexican agents on Monday poured into the grim streets of Ciudad Juárez, following leads in the murder of an American consulate worker, her husband and another Mexican acquaintance, amid vows that the killings will not go unpunished as so many thousands of others have in Mexico's widening drug war.

Obama condemns U.S. consulate killings in Mexico

MEXICO CITY — Mexican drug cartel enforcers are being blamed for the weekend gang-style slayings in Ciudad Juárez of an American Consulate office worker, her American husband and a Mexican employee of the consulate office, an outbreak of violence President Barack Obama called an outrage. Alfredo Corchado reports from Mexico.