Thread: South Padre Island / Precinct One Corruption & Border Wa

Cartels paying off reporters for their silence : News : KGBT 4
Mar 12, 2010Â*… Action 4 News is learning why recent drug cartel violence is not being reported in Mexican media outlets.
www.valleycentral.com/news/stor... - Options
Cartels paying off reporters for their silence : News : KGBT 4
Mar 11, 2010Â*… The violence along our borders has gone on for three weeks. An estimated 100 people have been killed andÂ*…
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What Violence? Powerful Mexican Drug Cartel Paying Off Journalists ...
8 posts - 2 authors - Last post: 2 days ago
(Reuters.com) - A powerful drug cartel is buying offÂ*… over the border from Texas are paying reporters around $500 a month andÂ*… to intimidate and silence colleagues at radio stations andÂ*… Many of the rogue journalists do little to hide theirÂ*…
www.thisis50.com/profiles/blogs... - Options
Mexico drug gang hushes killings with news blackout | Reuters
Mar 11, 2010Â*… REYNOSA, Mexico (Reuters) - A powerful drug cartel is buying off journalists in northern Mexico to work asÂ*… corrupt local police in the pay of the Gulf cartel andÂ*… bulging in their wallets when most local reporters earn less than $400 a month.Â*…
www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE... - Options
Drug cartel is buying off some Mexican journalists, colleagues ...
Mar 12, 2010Â*… and silence newspaper and radio coverage, Reuters says.Â*… In some cases, journalists have refused to name their missingÂ*… reporters have occasionally been forced by cartel gunmenÂ*… Nat'l Enquirer's practice of paying for interviews raisesÂ*…
knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/ - Options
Mexico drug cartel uses rogue reporters to intimidate media
A powerful drug cartel is buying off journalists in northern Mexico toÂ*… the Gulf cartel based over the border from Texas are paying reporters around $500 a month and showering them with liquor and prostitutes to intimidate and silence colleagues at radio stationsÂ*…
www.canada.com/../story.html - Options
Reuters AlertNet - Mexico drug gang hushes killings with news blackout
Mar 11, 2010Â*… Source: Reuters * Gulf cartel uses rogue reporters to intimidateÂ*… A powerful drug cartel is buying off journalists inÂ*… over the border from Texas are paying reporters around $500 aÂ*… to intimidate and silence colleagues at radio stations andÂ*…
www.alertnet.org/../N1141010.htm - Options
Mexico drug gang hushes killings with news blackout - Yahoo ...
Mar 12, 2010Â*… REYNOSA, Mexico - A powerful drug cartel is buying offÂ*… based over the border from Texas are paying reporters around $500 aÂ*… to intimidate and silence colleagues at radio stations andÂ*… bulging in their wallets when most local reporters earnÂ*…
sg.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20100312... - Options
Drug gang hushes killings with news blackout - Americas- msnbc.com - 20 hours ago
Mar 13, 2010Â*… A powerful drug cartel is buying off journalists in northernÂ*… around the globe share their insight on news events.Â*… based over the border from Texas are paying reporters around $500Â*… to intimidate and silence colleagues at radio stations andÂ*…
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35852472/n... - Options
Mexico drug cartel uses rogue reporters to intimidate media
A powerful drug cartel is buying off journalists in northern Mexico to workÂ*… from the Gulf cartel based over the border from Texas are paying reporters .... Nearly 28000 dogs and their owners have gathered .Â*…
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Hey. . .

. . .wasn't the mayor of South Padre Island's family the owners and operaters of numerous Spanish speaking radio stations between Matamoros / South Padre Island / Brownsville / Cameron County and AUSTIN, TEXAS ?

Pinkerton, local radioman and adventurer, dies at 92

Comments 3 | Recommend 2



January 19, 2010 8:44 PM

By LAURA TILLMAN, The Brownsville Herald


Robert N. Pinkerton Sr., co-founder and former president of the successful chain of Radio Gallito Spanish language stations that spanned from Matamoros to Austin, passed away of natural causes at his South Padre Island home on Saturday. He was 92.
Pinkerton was both an introverted businessman who built his fortune from the first penny, and a fearless adventurer who didn’t bat an eye at swimming with piranhas or sipping a martini with a boa constrictor hanging around his shoulders, family members said.
Born Robert Newton Pinkerton in Tacoma, Washington in 1917, Pinkerton had ambition in his blood. His mother, Flora Hartman, was the daughter of Montana Supreme Court Judge and Ambassador to Ecuador Charles Hartman. His father, Roy David Pinkerton, was the publisher and editor of the Star Free Press in Ventura, California.
Pinkerton came of age during the country’s greatest economic crisis. Though he could not afford school he established himself as a formidable businessman.
Pinkerton married his wife, Juana Maria, in Laredo, Texas, in 1942 before moving to Brownsville. Pinkerton established the first of his radio stations in Matamoros in 1946, using spare military parts left over from World War II, before being struck with polio. Pinkerton recovered and over the next 25 years developed his radio chain, adding stations in Reynosa, San Antonio and Austin for a Spanish-speaking audience. Juana Maria became a radio personality and together the couple hosted numerous Charro Days parties at the Jacob Brown Auditorium on behalf of the radio station.
Pinkerton’s son, South Padre Island Mayor Robert N. Pinkerton Jr., says that his father led by example. He taught him honesty, self-sufficiency and integrity.
"He knew that no one was going to do anything for him," Robert Jr. said. "He said that the most important thing in life is to ensure your integrity and make sure that you keep your promises."
Pinkerton paid cash, even for large purchases, and never kept a balance on his credit card. To teach his son the value of a dollar, he loaned him the money to pay for college but required that it be paid back.
"It was a good lesson," Robert Jr. said.
A brilliant mind, Pinkerton was a member of the elite intelligence club Mensa, and his IQ put him in the club’s top intelligence bracket.
The most treasured years of Pinkerton’s life were spent trolling on the open sea, alone with his wife and nature.
"He is a very hard person to explain," Robert Jr. said, recalling his father’s intense privacy. "He was hard to get to know. He wasn’t the type to go to parties. He and my mother were diametrically opposed personality wise."
To know Pinkerton, then, is to know what he loved: the tranquility and isolation of his home on Ambergris Caye, an island off the coast of Belize. There, Pinkerton and his wife swam, fished and watched the white beaches.
Ever the entrepreneur, Pinkerton took his paradise vacation and turned it into a business. He started a honey production company in Belize, exporting 1,000 tons of honey a year.
"My father wasn’t afraid to tackle anything," Robert Jr. said.
Pinkerton and his wife lived in San Antonio before moving to South Padre Island. Juana Maria passed away a year ago, and Robert Jr. says his father’s health deteriorated quickly after that.
"He lost virtually all of his eyesight and he couldn’t move on his own," Robert Jr. said. "But his mind was sharp until the day he died."

Cash is King in a Cartel World: Cameron County's Cocaine Uber Alles. . .

Remember what it was like to live under feudalism?

Cartel Feudalism: Get used to it because it is coming to your hometown. . .

. . .carried to America on the backs of illegal immigrants;

I would advise studying a few history books about life under feudalism--because in Cameron County we live under it.

By Lynn Brezosky and Gary Martin
- Express-News
BROWNSVILLE — The Zapata County sheriff Thursday was questioning why a Mexican military helicopter was hovering over homes on the Texas side of the Rio Grande.

It was one of the more jarring incidents of the fourth week of border tensions sparked by drug killings, and rumors of such killings, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said he'd reviewed photos of the chopper flown by armed personnel Tuesday over a residential area known as Falcon Heights-Falcon Village near the binational Falcon Lake, just south of the Starr-Zapata county line. He said the helicopter appeared to have the insignia of the Mexican navy.

“It's always been said that the Mexican military does in fact ... that there have been incursions,â€

When the primary beneficiaries of the policy makers are solely the policy makers we define this as an oligarcy--and they are not going to enforce the laws against themselves;

Few can vote against them on South Padre Island because few of the actual labor pool can actually vote--few of the workers are Americans: Are the resort and tourist industry owners going to force themselves to obey labor laws when they are the government?

How our democracy is eroded one dollar at a time: Cocaine Uber Alles. . .

http://www.alipac.us/ftopic-188220-0.html

Date:Â*February 20, 2010 2:47:56 AM CST


Mexican drug cartels rig elections to take over U.S. cities
Posted on Tuesday, June 27 @ 12:48:06 EDTÂ*
Topic:Â*Illegal Immigrant Gangs Terrorists

Gang expert backs Tancredo charges: Entire Cities Under Control of Mexican Gangs

WASHINGTON – Rep. Tom Tancredo's charge that Mexican drug cartels are buying up legitimate businesses in U.S. cities to launder money and using some of the proceeds to win local mayoral and city council seats for politicians who can shape the policies and personnel decisions of their police forces, has been backed up by a veteran gang investigator.Â*

Topics: Felix drug cartel, Fuentes cartel, illegal immigration, gangs, law enforcement, drugs, money, politics, Mexican, city campaigns, local corruption, MS-13, Mara Salvatrucha, MS 13

June 27, 2006
By Joseph FarahÂ*
World Net Daily

Richard Valdemar, a retired sergeant with the L.A. County sheriff's department and a longtime member of a federal task force investigating gang activity, went beyond the charges made by Tancredo, the chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus who has led the fight to secure America's southern border.Â*

In fact, he cited first-hand experience in investigating attempts to take over seven cities in Los Angeles County – Southgate, Lynwood, Bell, Bell Gardens, Cudahy, Hawaiian Gardens and Huntington Park.Â*

He also told WND in an exclusive interview that he has since become aware of similar efforts by Mexican drug cartels throughout the Southwest – in New Mexico, Arizona and Texas.Â*

The stunning disclosures substantiate claims made by Tancredo in his new book, "In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America's Border and Security," in which he exposes what he has learned from meetings with law enforcement authorities regarding a concerted effort by the Mexican mafia and drug cartels to extend its corruptive influence in urban areas dominated by illegal alien populations.Â*

Tancredo says some of these small cities have become hostile and dangerous places for legitimate law enforcement officials. Valdemar agrees, saying the sophisticated technique being employed in the U.S. was "invented in Mexico."Â*

Valdemar, the grandson of legal Mexican immigrants and now a consultant to law enforcement agencies across the country on gang activity, explains how the operations work.Â*

"In the typical scenario, a wealthy Mexican immigrant opens a business in a small town," he says. "It could be a very nice Mexican restaurant. He's well-dressed, speaks English, seemingly a real gentleman. He gets involved in the community. His business welcomes police officers with discounts. He makes friends with city officials and other businessmen. No one has any idea where his money comes from – the Mexican drug cartels."Â*

Valdemar says the agent of the cartels often sets up other businesses – including the sale of cheap used tires and used autos. These businesses are used almost exclusively as fronts for laundering money.Â*

Then he begins targeting political power in the town. When election time rolls around, Valdemar says, he sponsors – directly or indirectly – a number of candidates for the city council with the express purpose of winning a majority of seats for his handpicked operatives. Some of the candidates are simply in place to level baseless accusations against incumbents, while others keep above the fray, positioning themselves for victory.Â*

As soon as they take power, the new majority fires the city attorney and names a replacement. Often the second city official to go is the city manager. Both of these moves are designed to cover up the illicit activities that will follow.Â*

City contracts for trash collection and other services are given to friendly businesses – also in league with the cartel. Regulations on auto-repair businesses and alcohol sales are lifted – again, making it easier for cartel-tied businesses to operate more freely. Gambling ordinances are changed to permit casinos and bingo parlors. Loan sharking, prostitution and increased drug business follow – all of which increase revenues for the cartels and power for their agents in the city.Â*

Valdemar says very few prosecutions are successful because of the wealth and political ties of those involved. The situation in the Southwest is grave, he says, and the problem is spreading nationwide.Â*

"We lost California," the Arizona resident says. "That's why I don't live there any more."Â*

Tancredo, who blew the whistle on the growing power of the Mexican drug cartels and Mexican mafia in his book, "In Mortal Danger," explains who is behind the plot.Â*

"The Tijuana-based Felix drug cartel and the Juarez-based Fuentes cartel began buying legitimate business in small towns in Los Angeles County in the early 1990s," he writes. "They purchased restaurants, used-car lots, auto-body shops and other small businesses. One of their purposes was to use these businesses for money-laundering operations. Once established in their community, these cartel-financed business owners ran for city council and other local offices. Over time, they were able to buy votes and influence in an effort to take over the management of the town. They wanted to create a comfort zone from which they could operate without interference from local law enforcement."Â*

Tancredo, now a powerful force within Congress for opposing amnesty plans for illegal aliens and for promoting tougher border security measures, points in his book to the L.A. County city of Bell Gardens – where corrupt elected officials under the influence of drug lords actually tried to shut down the police department.Â*

"City officials who would not cooperate with the Mexican-born city manager were forced out of office," he writes. "Eventually, the L.A. County attorney's office moved in, and the city manager was prosecuted on charges of corruption. Unfortunately, Bell Gardens was only the tip of the iceberg. Other Los Angeles suburbs – including Huntington Park, Lynwood and Southgate – became targets for the cartels."Â*

Tancredo, too, cites similar efforts under way to undermine law and order by Mexican criminal gangs in Texas, Arizona and elsewhere.Â*

"The corruption spreading from south of the border is not confined to Southern California," he writes. "In Cameron County, Texas, the former sheriff and several other officials were recently convicted of receiving drug-smuggling bribes. In Douglas, Arizona – where the international border runs down the middle of the town and divides it from its sister city of Agua Prieta, Mexico – the mayor's brother was discovered to have a tunnel from one of his rental properties going into Mexico."Â*

Tancredo reports he has had confidential briefings with top officials in big-city law enforcement who say there are entire cities under the virtual control of Mexican criminal street gangs and their associated businesses, in some cases, making it dangerous for county, state and national law enforcement officers to venture in and rendering any interdepartmental cooperation impossible.Â*

This under-reported aspect of the immigration and border problem is just one of the reasons Tancredo believes the U.S., as a nation, is "in mortal danger" as the debate over solutions rages on in Washington.Â*

Throughout "In Mortal Danger," Tancredo, the undisputed heavyweight champion of the border security issue in the nation's capital, tells the whole story of the threats facing the nation, the solutions within its grasp and his own personal quest to awaken the political establishment to the seething discontentment gripping America as a result of illegal immigration.Â*

Tancredo warns that the country is on a course to the dustbin of history. Like the great and mighty empires of the past, he writes, superpowers that once stretched from horizon to horizon, America is heading down the road to ruin.Â*

English historian Edward Gibbon, in penning his classic "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" (ironically published in the year America's Founding Fathers declared independence from Great Britain), theorized that Rome fell because it rotted from within. It succumbed to barbarian invasions because of a loss of civic virtue, its citizens became lazy and soft, hiring barbarian mercenaries to defend the empire because they were unwilling to defend it themselves.Â*

Tancredo says America is following in the tragic footsteps of Rome.Â*

Living up to his reputation for candor, Tancredo explains how the economic success and historical military prowess of the United States has transformed a nation founded on Judeo-Christian principles of right and wrong into an overindulgent, self-deprecating, immoral cesspool of depravity.Â*

His recipe for turning things around?Â*

Without strong, moral leadership, without a renewed sense of purpose, without a rededication to family and community, without shunning the race hustlers and pop-culture sham artists, without protecting borders, language and culture, the nation that once was "the land of the free and home of the brave" and the "one last best hope of mankind" will repeat the catastrophic mistakes of the past, he writes.Â*

Tancredo, born and raised in Colorado, represents Colorado's 6th district in the U.S. House of Representatives. Prior to his election to Congress in 1998, Tancredo worked as a schoolteacher, was elected to the Colorado State House of Representatives in 1976, was appointed by President Reagan as the secretary of education's regional representative in 1981, and served as president of the Independence Institute. He serves on the International Relations Committee, the Resources Committee and the Budget Committee, and is the chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus. Tancredo and his wife, Jackie, reside in Littleton, Colo.Â*

Laguna Vista, Texas
What's the City Council Done for You Today?
The following was posted on a different thread, but I think it is worthy of its own.

The current SPI City Council has done more than all the rest combined from the time I've lived in this area (some 22 years). It is easy to overlook things, but when they're presented like this poster did, it's an impressive list.

"There is change afoot on South Padre Island. It is frustrating that it is not happening faster, but it is happening.

It started with the landslide election that threw out a corrupt Board of Aldermen who were using their influence to help developer Clayton Brashear with taxpayer money.

Then, the unethical Board of Adjustment and Appeals was abolished.

A Comprehensive Plan was adopted and is being followed. Committees are accountable to it.

Home Rule is here and calls for many things including a Board of Ethics and more accountability by the Council and Staff, including a way to monitor the CVA budget for the first time.

A Business Coalition was set up to find ways to help business and some are working already.

Dewey Cashwell was given the boot; the former Fire and Police Chief retired and all have been replaced by ethical, competent people.

Most of the gambling joints were closed down.

Sensible zoning is on the horizon and resident and small business needs are being considered for the first time instead of just realtors, developers and property managers.

The speed limit for the north part of Padre Blvd. has been lowered (not enough but some). Speed bumps have been installed on the side streets to slow speeders and increase safety for pedestrians and pets. The restricted parking is just the next natural step toward that goal.

Restrictions have been put on the bay ending streets to protect the rights of residents living there.

Hopefully, the bond propositions will pass and physical improvements can be made to the island that will translate into more and better business.

For those who don't like the changes, there may be greener pastures for you. These changes are here to stay along with the voters who encouraged them. New residents are arriving who want more amenities, a better quality of living and a strong business community. They don't give a flip about the real estate community and only want selective development that will benefit the island, not cheapen it."

I would add "New WAVE Stops" to the list. They've been needed and talkded about for a long time, but this Council got it done. There are about 15 things on this list. I wish the Laguna Vista Council could just get 1/15th of this accomplished.
Â*

Â*

Know your enemies: they are the politician gatekeepers who own the keys, turn the merchanisms, and let in the criminal hordes while we are lullabied in sleep. . .