The State Department’s previous warning from last April advised against travel to all or part of ten states in Mexico. In the new warning, the number of states has increased by four:

Americans should avoid all but essential travel to all or parts of 14 Mexican states, the U.S. State Department warns as violence has spread.

Shootouts, kidnappings and carjackings have climbed, as have cartels, also known as transnational criminal organizations (TCO), the State Department said this week in a broadened travel warning.

While millions of U.S. citizens safely visit Mexico every year, the country’s ongoing violence and security concerns pose risks for U.S. citizens, and travelers should take precautions, the State Department advises.

No matter where you’re traveling in Mexico, the State Department recommends that you “lower your profile and avoid displaying any evidence of wealth that might draw attention.” It’s the same advice State gives to Wall Street millionaires planning on walking through “Occupy” encampments.

This map really puts the scope of the problem in perspective (h/t Tammy Bruce and Gretawire):

If you’re not good at reading maps, just remember that it’s like choosing which wine to have with fish: Avoid the red.

Doug Ross:

Say, I’ve got an idea! Let’s have the ATF deliver thousands of weapons to the Mexican drug cartels. Maybe that will help!

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Adding to the drama of an election year and the Supreme Court taking on the Obamacare law, SCOTUS will also hear the Arizona immigration law next spring/summer:

The high court agreed to review a ruling that put on hold the key parts of the law signed by Republican Governor Jan Brewer in April 2010. The case has been closely watched because several other states have adopted similar laws.

The law requires police to check the immigration status of anyone they detained and suspected of being in the nation illegally. Other parts require immigrants to carry their papers at all times and ban people without proper documents from soliciting for work in public places.

The justices are likely to hear arguments in the case in April, with a ruling due by July.

Only eight Supremes will hear the case:

In its notice, the court said Justice Elena Kagan had recused herself from the decision to take the case.

Justice Kagan has come under fire for not recusing herself from the decision to hear challenges to the new health care law.

She was Mr. Obama’s solicitor general from March 2009 up through May 2010, though she stopped taking part in cases in March 2010 so she would preserve her ability to hear them as a justice.

The health care law was signed in March 2010. Arizona’s immigration law passed in April 2010.

In May the Supreme Court upheld a separate 2007 Arizona law that imposes sanctions on businesses that hire illegal aliens. Kagan sat that one out as well.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

It’s now a “9999” plan: 9 percent personal income tax, 9 percent national sales tax, 9 percent business tax, and a 9 amp jolt if you try to illegally cross into the US.

New York Times:

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said Saturday that part of his immigration policy would be to build an electrified fence on the country’s border with Mexico that could kill people trying to enter the country illegally.

The remarks, which came at two campaign rallies in Tennessee as part of a barnstorming bus tour across the state, drew loud cheers from crowds of several hundred people at each rally. At the second stop, in Harriman, Tenn., Mr. Cain added that he also would consider using military troops “with real guns and real bullets” on the border to stop illegal immigration.
[...]
It is not the first time that Mr. Cain has floated the idea of an electrified fence. He has told the story many times of a caller to his former radio show who chastised him for talking about building a border fence, saying that such an idea was impractical. Mr. Cain often says he told the caller that he had recently returned from China, and if the Chinese could build the Great Wall then America could build a border fence.

Before we assume that Herman Cain’s suggestion will cause Democrats or even select Republicans to throw even more scorn in his direction, I’d suggest this: Cain could win over many of them simply by saying that in his border plan, the fence would be electrified with power provided by solar panels the government purchased from stimulus-backed green energy companies.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Translation: We don’t need people who live 1500 miles away telling us what’s going on under our noses:

Gov. Rick Perry (who had plans with a friend today) wasn’t willing to travel all the way to El Paso to meet President Obama on the tarmac, his spokeswoman said after the White House noted the governor declined a meeting.

Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger said the governor asked whether he could instead meet the president on the Austin tarmac.

She said the White House nixed that idea and also refused a wildfire tour, saying the president’s schedule was too busy.

As for Perry declining a past National Security Council briefing on the border, the governor’s staff said that’s right on target.

”The last thing the governor needs is a briefing about what is happening on the border,” Cesinger said. “We know exactly what is happening. It’s not secure, and we need more federal resources. …. We’re living it every day. It’s in our backyard.”

What do Republicans want, a moat filled with alligators? In any case, by refusing to be briefed by the administration’s border security team, Rick Perry’s totally blowing his chance to meet Eva Longoria (update: or meet her again, I should say).

Speaking of President Obama’s visit to the border, the flag of a particular country provided a symbolic backdrop to his visit.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Word is that Sheriff Joe — no, not this one — is considering a run for Senate:

Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Monday he is open to the possibility of running for the seat of retiring Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) in 2012.

Arpaio, the conservative sheriff famous for his hard-line anti-immigration stances, made the remarks in light of a poll released Monday by Summit Consulting Group Inc., which is fundraising for Arpaio’s reelection campaign for sheriff. The company’s Chad Willems is Arpaio’s campaign manager.
[...]
The poll reported 21 percent of likely GOP voters would choose Arpaio; 17 percent would vote for Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.); 16.6 percent favored former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.), who challenged Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the 2010 GOP Senate primary; 12 percent would vote for Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) and 6 percent would choose freshman Rep. Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.).

Pink underwear for any member of Congress who keeps spending the country into oblivion! On second thought, maybe that’s not a good idea (being bankrupted by a bunch of doughy marshmallow peeps would provide little consolation). Maybe Sheriff Joe’s signature edition pink handcuffs would be more appropriate.

It’s worth noting that the Tea Party organization FreedomWorks has already endorsed Jeff Flake to replace Kyl.

Update: A local reporter sat down with Arpaio at a Mexican restaurant for an interesting segment:

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

From the “this just in” file:

PHOENIX — Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has announced the state will sue the federal government for its failure to secure the border and enforce immigration laws.

Brewer and Attorney General Tom Horne held a news conference Thursday to announce their fight in the face of a federal judge’s ruling that parts of SB1070, the state’s controversial immigration law, are unconstitutional.

Another option would be to keep enforcing SB1070 in full in spite of a federal judge ruling parts unconstitutional, but doing so would be considered an egregious infringement on Obama administration copyright.

Here are the five counts in the lawsuit:

1. Failure to obtain operational control of the border
2. Failure to enforce immigration laws
3. Failure to protect Arizona from harm from immigration
4. Failure to reimburse Arizona for more than $763 million in costs for incarceration of criminal aliens
5. Violating Arizona’s 10th Amendment, failure to protect Arizona citizens’ welfare

Any other states want to join the party?

Many in Arizona, along with Mississippi, don’t want to wait for the federal government to build a border fence, either. Sometimes if you want something done, you’ve got to do it yourself.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

When I heard that August 1st was the target date for National Guard troops at the US/Mexico border, I thought they meant August of this year, but that was a naive assumption.

June 3:

Mrs. Brewer said Mr. Obama promised to send administration officials to Arizona within a couple of weeks to work out details of the president’s plan to deploy up to 1,200 National Guard troops on the U.S.-Mexico border. Mrs. Brewer said she expects most of those troops will go to Arizona, which is ground-zero for the flow of illegal immigrants coming into the country.

July 19:

The National Guard troops assigned to the Arizona border will begin to arrive Aug. 1, and the federal government is sending other reinforcements to stem the flow of illegal immigrants and narcotics entering the state, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said.

August 11:

In an exclusive interview with Fox 11 News on the south lawn of the White House, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says it will still be weeks before National Guard troops are on the U.S.-Mexico border — troops the White House said would be there ten days ago.

The White House says the lengthy delay is due to the logistics of a complex deployment, but it’s a safe bet that if Governor Brewer announced that, effective immediately, the state was going to defy Judge Bolton’s blockage of parts of the law, Arizonans would have troops coming out of their ears within a 12 hours.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

The Sheriff who chaps more lefty keisters than a rump rash outbreak at Burning Man is still going strong.

This year marks the 17th anniversary of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “Tent City,” and the Sheriff has opened a new area where illegals arrested under Arizona’s new SB1070 law will be housed. The area is appropriately called “Section 1070″:

“Citizens here sincerely hope that SB 1070 will result in large numbers of illegal aliens being captured and arrested by local law enforcement officers,” Arpaio said in a press release. “I’m not so certain that will actually happen. But on the assumption it does, then as the sheriff of this county, I am ready. Tent City is ready. There will never be the excuse that this jail hasn’t enough room for violators of SB1070.”

Additionally, Arpaio said that Obama’s plan to send National Guard troops to the border is a joke.

As Michelle passed along on Twitter, Phoenix reporter Corey Rangel is tweeting live from a courtroom hearing on SB1070.

All I keep thinking is “if all the taxpayer money being spent on this lawsuit were instead put toward securing the border, maybe SB1070 wouldn’t have been necessary.”

(h/t HotAirPundit)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

For his part, Todd Palin wasted no time doing what needs to be done to protect his borders from unwanted invasion.

Greta Van Susteren has a photo of the fence he has already built.

See the whole thing here.

I nominate Todd Palin for border czar.

If only our federal government acted as swiftly and decisively to protect the nation’s borders from intrusion…

As calls spread for an economic boycott of Arizona, the state’s governor enlisted former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Saturday to defend a new law cracking down on illegal immigration.

Brewer and Palin blamed President Obama for the state law, saying the measure is Arizona’s attempt to enforce immigration laws because the federal government won’t do it.

“It’s time for Americans across this great country to stand up and say, ‘We’re all Arizonans now,“’ Palin said. “And in clear unison we say, ‘Mr. President: Do your job. Secure our border.“’

The former Alaska governor appeared with Brewer at a brief news conference on Saturday. The event launched a website that Brewer said was an effort to educate America about border security and discourage an economic boycott of the state.

The website is here, and it features a petition along with the latest “secure the border” announcement.

I like ads like this, but at the same time I don’t because they are stark, but yes, all too necessary, reminders of the kind of people who now hold power:

It’s too bad that the scholarly hip-hoppian hempheads of Cypress Hill cancelled their Arizona concert, because I’m sure Sarah was really looking forward to hearing their hit that would make the perfect theme song for the 2012 Democratic Convention, “Insane in the Brain.”

It’s clear that Palin is getting under Obama’s skin, because, as this photo demonstrates, the president had a couple of his operatives spying on her at the NRA convention — I think they were trying to see what was written on her hand:

In other Arizona news, the Texas city of Austin — so named because “Berkeley” was taken — has become the latest city to vote to boycott Arizona. So much for Brewer’s dream of meeting Matthew McConaughey.

And exactly how do we know who needs to register without checking IDs? Naturally, Obama doesn’t mean any of it — except maybe the “register” part. I have no doubt the goal is to get illegals to register… as Democrat voters.

As a Senator, Obama voted “no” on making English the official language for the US government. If Obama doesn’t care if I can understand what the clerk at the DMV is saying when I’m trying to renew my driver’s license (which I have to produce papers for, by the way), I seriously doubt he cares if a construction worker in Tuscon can speak English.

The “wink, nudge” factor from this speech yesterday in Iowa is enough to knock you off your chair — and if that doesn’t do it, you’ll fall off the chair laughing:

Help is on the way though, because according to Drudge, the Department of Homeland Security will soon have unmanned drones patrolling the Texas border, meaning that before too long we might see a drone sporting 50 legs and a sombrero running across the border while Janet Napolitano points at them as evidence that “the system is working.”

The Obama administration’s plan is for the drones to patrol the border, and if a US government official notices a threat and tries to actually do something about it, the drone will be programmed to quickly eliminate said government official.

The only remaining question is whether or not Eric Holder’s review of the Arizona law will lead to a civil trial or a military tribunal for Governor Jan Brewer.

(h/t FreedomsLighthouse)

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

He left behind a wife and two children.

His community in Arizona has set up several memorial funds.

The website “chipin” has a memorial page set up in honor of Agent Rosas. People can pay via credit or debit card. Proceeds will go to Rosas’ wife and children and to help pay for the funeral.

That website is here.

There is also a memorial fund set up at Sun Community Banks in the Imperial Valley. Checks can be made out to the Robert W. Rosas Memorial Fund. The account number is 5159280.

A memorial fund has also been set up at San Diego’s Cabrillo Federal Credit Union. Checks can be made out to Agent Robert Rosas. That account number is 186716-02.

Keep the family in your thoughts and prayers. And help honor Rosas’ service by helping his family and keeping his legacy alive.

A U.S. Border Patrol agent was held at gunpoint Sunday night by members of the Mexican military who had crossed the border into Arizona, but the soldiers returned to Mexico without incident when backup agents responded to assist.

Agents assigned to the Border Patrol station at Ajo, Ariz., said the Mexican soldiers crossed the international border in an isolated area about 100 miles southwest of Tucson and pointed rifles at the agent, who was not identified.

I figured this news would send the blogosphere through the roof. On my usual prowlings I see one squawk from the Jawa Report.

Did we just give up on this whole “border” thing?

P.S. The State Department was, of course, ready with a clear and strongly worded statement:

State Department spokeswoman Nicole Thompson said Tuesday that the department had no information on the incident, and referred further questions to the Border Patrol. “It is not an incident that we are aware of,” she said.

_________________

{Post by See-Dubya.}

Translation: No enforcement.

For a stark illustration of McCain’s double talk at La Raza/The Race yesterday, here he is telling an audience member that he’ll support the DREAM Act–after telling conservative bloggers that he would have voted no on cloture for the bill “because he ‘got the message’ this summer that Americans want the border secured before we ‘go on to the rest.’” Uh-huh. McCain was AWOL for that cloture vote last October. He was a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act.

I’d say my pre-event translation yesterday was dead on.

***

Allah begs to differ with me on McCain and the DREAM Act. Gabriel at Ace thinks I’ve been “taken in.”

Yes, I know what McCain said in the rest of his answer, not shown on the clip, about securing the border first. Anyone who believe that is the one who’s being taken in. He led conservatives to believe that he opposed it. He told his friends at La Raza that he supports it. All the rest is noise.

***

Reader Edgar M. e-mails:

On a Mexican radio program on 1420 AM in Tijuana hosted by Odilon Garcia, Morones called in and gave more information on what Morones and McCain talked about after their public conversation took place.

Morones told Garcia that while McCain was talking on the microphone about the fact that drug smugglers are using migrants to cross over illegal drugs, Morones told him that the United States should stop the demand for illegal drugs.

After McCain ended his Q and A session, Morones and McCain spoke face to face and McCain told him about the need for Border Security. Morones asked the Senator to meet with him privately without cameras so Enrique could make the point that Immigration raids are “separating families” and border walls are “killing immigrants”. He told the Senator to ask Enrique’s good friend Juan Hernandez, whom Enrique had dinner the night before, to set up the private meeting. McCain told him that he would. Enrique said that he would ask McCain to sign an executive order to stop Immigration raids.

Enrique then adds, that he called Juan Hernandez about the mistake the McCain campaign is doing by portraying the picture of John McCain with the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the background at the NCLR convention. Morones then told the story that on Saturday some students called him at the convention that they were upset with the McCain booth having a picture of Senator McCain with the Virgin of Guadalupe because the senator was using the image of the virgin for political purposes. One of the students took the picture and ran away. Some security officers ran off and caught the student but that the picture was not hung back. The next day the picture was not seen and Morones called that a victory.

The suspects may have been hired by drug cartels to perform home invasions and assassinations in the U.S.

Police reports show that three men arrested in a Phoenix home invasion and homicide Monday may have been active members of the Mexican Army.

Full tactical gear, AR-15s, 50-100 rounds burped off at the victim’s house (who was suspected to be a marijuana dealer) and alleged plans to “ambush” any Phoenix PD officers who tried to stop them.

When the Wall Street Journal says, “Let there be open borders”, is this what they had in mind?

Forget the fence for just a second and think about this:

The Mexican Army has made several incursions across our Southern border. Some were probably just units getting lost, some had a more sinister reason behind them…but given the recruitment of elite military assassination squads by the cartels, this should be seen as a serious problem.

It would be overstating the problem to say that “the Mexican military is invading us”. But there is a criminal, militarized element that is crossing the border with impunity and distressing regularity, and for nefarious purposes.

Why is President Bush pulling the National Guard off the border? Granted, there have been some problems, but why should we leave potential combat with a militarized incursion to the Border Patrol?

Okay, now think about the fence again. Real, please, not virtual.
_______________

UPDATE: That Fox item linked above (and the AZ Republic) is saying they weren’t active Mexican soldiers, but that one had received military training. So, okay, nothing to worry about then. Just business as usual. Six trained hitmen in a Tahoe full of AR 15s and tactical gear can drive across the “border” and kill a guy in his house in Phoenix and expect to get away with it.

No problem here. Everybody go back to sleep.

________________
{Post by See-Dubya}