World Politics

[TheMightyEthan]

Man, the world is a dumpster fire.

[MetalCaveman]

 

Omar Garcia Harfuch head of the Secretaria de Seguridad (Secretariat of Security) of CDMX was ambushed and attacked this morning in Avenida Reforma in CDMX. Two members of his security detail died in the attack, alongside a civilian that was around the area.

 

In a video you can see a transport truck used to block the path, while from a different truck several armed men step down and board the one blocking the road, ready to fire.

 

There's an ongoing investigation involving a possible leak from within that revealed their route and schedule for this morning, alongside reports that they had received threats from the CJNG some time ago.

 

 

These weapons were left behind by the attackers.

 

This happened in Reforma, one of the biggest and most important avenues in the city, the closest I can think of is Fifth Avenue in NY or something like that so yeah, a pretty big deal.

 

They're operating under the assumption that it was CJNG (which makes sense given the weapons and the amount of people involved), but could also be Union Tepito, Anti-Union or even SRDL as El Marro recently released a video calling all of his followers to join him and fight ti'll the end.

 

 

[MetalCaveman]

 

Modifications to copyright laws have been approved as part of TMEC (USMCA) "negotiations". These include the ability to remove any content that is deemed to be in violation of copyright without needing any proof of whether or not there's an actual copyright issue, the ability to remove or censor any content that the government deems overly critical, "inaccurate" or accusatory regardless of whether it's true or not, and the end of right-to-repair.

 

Some of these will be punished with up to 10 years in prison, which is more than some murderers get, so yeah, this is going to be fun.

 

Mind you these still need to go through one more approval before being signed into law, though considering this went with 0 votes against I don't have much hope.

 

At this point I'm kinda hoping for a false vacuum near us, just end it all real quick.  

[TheMightyEthan]

Copyright law is so fucked up.

[MetalCaveman]

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/07/01/world/americas/01reuters-mexico-first-lady.html

 

So that happened, in a way, it's weird to be relieved that this was just a dumb tweet and not some kind of policy/law or massacre, too many of those recently.

 

Speaking of:

 

https://www.excelsior.com.mx/nacional/masacre-en-anexo-de-irapuato-comando-mata-a-24/1391538

 

A massacre in a drug rehab clinic left 24 patients dead.

 

And in "this is getting into some serious action move script stuff":

 

Video evidence provided by El Marro's lawyers revealed that cops working for the CJNG created a fake checkpoint with the intention to kidnap and possibly murder his mother and sister. Marro then confessed to having those cops killed in revenge (their bodies were found later), he then warned the chief of the police to "stay neutral, or push evenly".

 

Meanwhile Harfuch who recently survived an attack from CJNG posted some pictures from the hospital, one of them with the head of the Financial Intelligence Unit, that also featured a bulletproof vest and some rifles in the background, this has been taken by some to mean an open threat and a declaration that he won't back down, as both of these men are at the head of many arrests and operations against CJNG and other cartels.

 

Police report that they have received several threats since the attack, and that they're working to identify and respond appropriately to them.

 

I live relatively close to CDMX and I remember when I was a kid and there were army trucks in every corner, some full of soldiers, some with mounted guns, plus many more just patrolling the city, that was when the strategy was "beat the shit out of them before they beat the shit out of us", I wonder how things will go now with the "hugs not bullets" approach the federal government still insists on.

[TheMightyEthan]

I got nothin. That's all just insane.

[MetalCaveman]

Hey! Remember when they went all "fuck your renewable energies!"? Here's the sequel:

 

 

CFE Will acquire 2 million tons of coal in order to reactivate the coal mining industry of Coahuila.

 

So that's fun.

 

Also, in Paracho, Michoacan a doctor and his family had to flee after being attacked in their home by people blaming him for killing a patient. Apparently the patient went in with difficulty breathing, the doctor gave him dexamethasone (which is part of COVID guidelines?) and then sent him to the hospital, unfortunately this person died there, so of course their relatives blame the doctor and accuse him of murder.

 

Oh and now I've been sent a couple messages from some relatives with warnings about how infrared thermometers are used to destroy brain cells, or how they're extremely dangerous because they use a high power laser and they can cause severe burns or something.

 

To quote Cattle Decap:

 

"We deserve everything that's coming"

[TheMightyEthan]

Humans saw the disaster coming, and what was needed to prevent it, and collectively said, "Meh."

[MetalCaveman]

May I introduce to you, the CJNG:

 

 

And people wonder why it's super scary to stop at a military checkpoint while driving, you never know if it's the army or if you'll run into these dudes.

[Mal]

At least you can probably count on them to wear masks... 

[MetalCaveman]

 

They're looking into the video, to determine whether it's real or not.

 

Part 2 is funny, he (Alfonso Durazo secretary of Security) says there's no armed group capable of facing against federal security forces (the army), seems like he forgot the Culiacanaso. Though I'll admit, that was not because the army couldn't face them, rather because the government decided to surrender. 

[MetalCaveman]

Our president "We're leaving things in the hands of the experts, they'll guide us through"

Our president a couple of days later "Our experts have told me there's no scientific evidence that masks work, there's no need to use them!"

 

Then this happened in Chilpancingo, Guerrero:

 

 

Supposedly because the store was having some kind of sale on cooking oil.

[MetalCaveman]

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/07/legal-deep-dive-mexicos-disastrous-new-copyright-law

 

EFF Takes a look at the new copyright law passed here. Not good, not good at all, which we already knew, but now they're confirming it.

[MetalCaveman]

 

El Marro, leader of Santa Rosa de Lima has been arrested. Captured in the middle of the night. Though there's still a chance his people will try their own Culiacanaso, it's also true that before this, they hit them hard in terms of closing income sources, freezing accounts, seizing assets, etc. So they may not have the strength and money to coordinate something like that.

[TheMightyEthan]

What happened to the hug-the-cartels policy?

[MetalCaveman]

Officially, that's still the president's stance on it, though seemingly it only applies to specific cartels, like CJNG, Del Golfo and maybe a couple of others.

 

There's some rumours going around, obviously take these with a grain of salt, though we've seen worse in the past:

 

1. They're going for a Sicario approach, where they take down smaller cartels, trying to consolidate power in one or two big groups to make it easier to keep track/control of things.
2. The groups that are receiving preferential treatment had involvement in the campaign to get AMLO elected, and/or have supported him directly/indirectly in the past.

 

1 Hasn't worked in the past, usually when the leader of a cartel gets brought down, what happens is that whatever's left over splinters into smaller groups, and violence increases while they fight over whatever's left from their old one.

 

2 Wouldn't surprise me, it's not that rare for certain candidates to get kidnapped and/or killed during elections, and former sicarios have confirmed they will support certain candidates, whoever promises to let them do as they please while going after the opposing groups gets their support, whoever doesn't want to play ball gets killed.

 

Of course there's also:

 

       3. Other people are actually doing their job, ignoring whatever the president wants.

 

Which IMO, is a bit too optimistic, but also a possibility.  

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, my first thought was that he's probably ignoring the ones that are helping him.

[MetalCaveman]

Apparently there's a deal between our government and Russia where they'll send us their Sputnik vaccine, you know, the one that seems to have skipped some tests and probably doesn't work as well as it should.  

 

Also, there's a new proposal from SAT (the tax people) that says their people should be able to enter your office/home/work area and be allowed to take pictures and video of EVERYTHING you own, so as to keep track of wealth and whatnot. So that's going to be a thing.  

[deanb]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/16/barbados-revives-plan-to-remove-queen-as-head-of-state-and-become-a-republic

 

Barbatos looking to slide into 18th century french politics and get rid of their queen.

 

So Ethan on the question last week on the amount of monarchies, its about to go down by one. They better hope they're not sat on any oil or their republic will get some CIA funded military coup action pretty quick.

[MetalCaveman]

The government, in their "austerity" plan just gutted:

 

1. A fund to protect human rights and journalists (Violence is not real)
2. A natural disaster relief fund (Natural disasters are a neoliberal conspiracy)
3. Climate change fund (Also a neoliberal conspiracy)
4. Grants for science, technology and education (STEM is for the bourgeois so we don't need that shit) 
5. Grants for renewable energy projects (National coal FTW)

 

Among others, in total 109 different grants, funds and other government programs have been killed.

 

I was originally going to post here making fun of a PES senator that went all "MAGA BITCHES! TRUMP'S GONNA OWN YA LIBERAL ASS!" but then I read this and... Yeah, fuck me.

[MetalCaveman]

AMLO During his campaign: "60K dead! Deadliest, bloodiest six years! All thanks to Calderon!"

 

2 years into AMLO's administration: 173K deaths, and counting.

 

 

[MetalCaveman]

Since the beginning of this administration there's been a several lack of medicines for many things, including patients who were receiving cancer treatment as part of the healthcare system, this, mostly because the new government cancelled a bunch agreements between laboratories, pharmaceuticals and distribution companies on a whim.

 

When first confronted about this, the first lady said "they should help themselves, it's not my problem" then claimed her words had been taken out of context.

 

4 Days ago, Head of government Mexico City: "Yeah so uh, we totally had the medicines, like, for realsies, they were in this warehouse in Iztapalapa, totally, they were there but uh... Yeah they were stolen by a bunch of armed people, yeah, totally, that's what happened, stolen, yup, but we totally had them here, no I can't show you any evidence that we had them here, you just have to trust us. What about the cameras? Yeah we have them in every corner but uh... Yeah they didn't catch these dudes, look, all I have is this photo of a truck... I mean, the truck they used to steal them, OK? No more questions!"

 

3 Days ago, the president: "Yeah no, we didn't have the medicines, we can't get them, we want to get them, but you see, there's this global conspiracy against the fourth transformation, they, the neoliberal conservatives, the intellectuals, the experts, the scientists, they don't want us to succeed, because it wouldn't benefit them, so that's why we don't have medicines"

 

Also 3 Days ago, in an official announcement: "Mexico will recover our heritage, more resources are being spent on traditional medicine, we will move ahead this way."

 

So yeah, fuck that neoliberal science and its medical treatments, here, take some chamomile tea, that'll fix you up. 

 

In other news, people from several communities have complained that the contracts they signed for the Tren Maya, were not what they thought they were, they were sure they were signing to allow the government to use the land, in exchange for monetary compensation, instead, they have learned the contracts state that they are allowing the government to take over the land. They claim that government officials didn't allow them to read the contracts, pressuring them to sign without properly going over the documents.

 

And while we still don't have money for schools, hospitals, medicines or to help people during the pandemic, we do have money to open hundreds of baseball schools.

[MetalCaveman]

The president stated that he will leave when "people want corruption back"

 

This after he had already said he'd quit if:

• People didn't want him there (already happened)
• 100K people marched against him (already happened)

Seems like he'll just keep moving the goal, which yes, also means that he has no intention of ever stepping down, part of his power fantasy known as the Fourth Transformation.

[TheMightyEthan]

Moving the goalposts is what politicians do best.

[MetalCaveman]

Salvador Cienfuegos, General and former secretary of Defence arrested in the US. Apparently he helped a faction of the Beltran-Leyva cartel while he was in office.

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN27128X?il=0