Attorney General Greg Abbott today demanded that President Obama send more troops to the Texas-Mexico border and used the shots that hit El Paso City Hall as an example of increased violence on the border.
Abbott said in a letter that the seven shots that hit City Hall in El Paso were an example of the violence that is plaguing the border area and that sending 1,200 National Guard soldiers to the entire U.S.-Mexico border is not enough.
He also cited the violence in Juarez and said that Americans lives are at risk.
“More than 1,300 people have been murdered in Juarez this year as a war continues relentlessly between the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels,” he told Obama.
He also said the “time for talk has passed.”
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Bullets fly from Mexican side of border, hit El Paso City Hall
AWOL Afghans Found … on Facebook
At least 11 of the 17 members of the Afghan military who went AWOL from an Air Force base in Texas and are considered deserters by their nation have turned up in the exact place you’d expect to find them in the year 2010.
They’re on Facebook.
And, by the look of things, they’re not unlike millions of other young men on the social networking site. One proclaims to be a fan of Paris Hilton and is a member of a group named “FREE Webcam Sex with ME!” Another is a fan of hip hop music, Michael Jackson, the tearjerker movie The Notebook, Family Guy and Sports Center. Another is a fan of soccer and the Godfather.
Feds issue terror watch for the Texas/Mexico border
Fox News, “Feds Issue Terror Watch for the Texas/Mexico Border”
by Jana Winter
The Department of Homeland Security is alerting Texas authorities to be on the lookout for a suspected member of the Somalia-based Al Shabaab terrorist group who might be attempting to travel to the U.S. through Mexico, a security expert who has seen the memo tells FOXNews.com.
The warning follows an indictment unsealed this month in Texas federal court that accuses a Somali man in Texas of running a “large-scale smuggling enterprise” responsible for bringing hundreds of Somalis from Brazil through South America and eventually across the Mexican border. Many of the illegal immigrants, who court records say were given fake IDs, are alleged to have ties to other now-defunct Somalian terror organizations that have merged with active organizations like Al Shabaab, al-Barakat and Al-Ittihad Al-Islami.
In 2008, the U.S. government designated Al Shabaab a terrorist organization. Al Shabaab has said its priority is to impose Sharia, or Islamic law, on Somalia; the group has aligned itself with Al Qaeda and has made statements about its intent to harm the United States.
Fox News article continues here.
Texas doctors opting out of Medicare at alarming rate
Houston Chronicle, “Texas doctors opting out of Medicare at alarming rate”
by Todd Ackerman
Texas doctors are opting out of Medicare at alarming rates, frustrated by reimbursement cuts they say make participation in government-funded care of seniors unaffordable.
Two years after a survey found nearly half of Texas doctors weren’t taking some new Medicare patients, new data shows 100 to 200 a year are now ending all involvement with the program. Before 2007, the number of doctors opting out averaged less than a handful a year.
“This new data shows the Medicare system is beginning to implode,” said Dr. Susan Bailey, president of the Texas Medical Association. “If Congress doesn’t fix Medicare soon, there’ll be more and more doctors dropping out and Congress’ promise to provide medical care to seniors will be broken.”
More than 300 doctors have dropped the program in the last two years, including 50 in the first three months of 2010, according to data compiled by the Houston Chronicle. Texas Medical Association officials, who conducted the 2008 survey, said the numbers far exceeded their assumptions.
Houston Chronicle article continues here.
Texas rep. plans immigration bill similar to Arizona law
KVUE, “Aide: Texas rep. plans immigration bill similar to Arizona law”
by Martin Bartlett
State Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, will introduce immigration legislation comparable to a law recently enacted in Arizona, according to an aide.
Rep. Berman, who is traveling in Europe, authorized the aide to respond to KVUE News’ request for information regarding his plans for the 82nd Legislative Session which begins in January 2011.
According to the aide, Berman said his bill will be similar to the Arizona law, specifically the provision which requires local law enforcement agencies in the state to check the immigration status of individuals who they suspect of being in the United States illegally.
KVUE article continues here.
Obama Admin only partially complies with Ft. Hood subpoenas
The Hill, “Administration only partially complies with Ft. Hood subpoenas”
by Roxana Tiron
The Obama administration has only partially complied with congressional subpoenas for information on the deadly November shootings at Fort Hood, Texas.
The failure by the Defense and Justice departments to turn over all the requested documentation — which they say they do not intend to do — is not likely to ease the growing tension between some key senators and the Obama administration over the incident at the Army base on Nov. 5, 2009.
In a joint statement, Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), the chairman and ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said that the administration’s “failure to comply with the subpoenas” is an “affront to Congress’s constitutional obligation to conduct independent oversight of the executive branch.”
The Hill article continues here.
Mexican drug war explodes, border-residents fear violence could spill into US
Fox News, “Texas Town Lives in Fear From Mexican Drug Violence”
by Joshua Rhett Miller
Residents of this tiny Texas town say they’re living in fear that Mexican drug cartel violence could spill over into the United States at any moment.
Locals here say they’ve seen a recent increase in illegal immigrants simply walking across the border and disappearing into the town, which lies just four miles from El Porvenir, Mexico, and 50 miles southeast of Ciudad Juarez, where 2,300 people were killed last year alone.
“A lot of the citizens here have family in El Porvenir and are concerned for their safety,” said James Irby, vice president of the Fort Hancock Water Control & Improvement District. “I still go anywhere I want to with no problems, because the violence hasn’t come over yet. But it could at anytime.”
Fox News article continues here.
Rick Pery wins primary in Texas Gov. race
Fox News, “Perry Wins Texas Republican Gov. Primary Race”
Breathing fire at an Obama-led federal government he says has Texas in its crosshairs, two-term incumbent Republican Governor Rick Perry claimed his party’s nomination with more than 50 percent of the vote, avoiding a run off against three-term Republican U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.
Hutchison was once seen as the candidate who could deliver Perry’s first election loss in a lifetime of public office, but the governor, a darling of the social conservatives, forcefully painted the senator as too entrenched in Washington politics.
Speaking at his election night party in Driftwood after Hutchison conceded, Perry said he would unite a fractured Texas Republican Party in the November general election and stressed that Washington politics had no place in the Lone Star state.
Fox News article continues here.
Pilot crashes into Texas building in anti-IRS suicide, leaves rambling manifesto
Fox News, “Pilot Crashes Into Texas Building in Apparent Anti-IRS Suicide”
Read the rambling manifesto here
A pilot furious with the Internal Revenue Service crashed his small plane into an Austin, Texas, office building where nearly 200 federal tax employees work on Thursday, igniting a raging fire that sent massive plumes of thick, black smoke rising from the seven-story structure.
Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said the incident was a single act by a sole individual, who appeared to be targeting the federal building. He refused to classify it as terrorism.
“I call it a cowardly, criminal act and there was no excuse for it,” Acevedo said at a news conference.
The FBI identified the pliot as Joseph Stack, a 53-year-old software engineer. Stack was confirmed dead, but his body has not yet been recovered.
Fox News article continues here.
The Fort Hood report: Why no mention of Islam?
Time, “The Fort Hood Report: Why No Mention of Islam?”
by Mark Thompson
The U.S. military’s just-released report into the Fort Hood shootings spends 86 pages detailing various slipups by Army officers but not once mentions Major Nidal Hasan by name or even discusses whether the killings may have had anything to do with the suspect’s view of his Muslim faith. And as Congress opens two days of hearings on Wednesday into the Pentagon probe of the Nov. 5 attack that left 13 dead, lawmakers want explanations for that omission.
John Lehman, a member of the 9/11 commission and Navy Secretary during the Reagan Administration, says a reluctance to cause offense by citing Hasan’s view of his Muslim faith and the U.S. military’s activities in Muslim countries as a possible trigger for his alleged rampage reflects a problem that has gotten worse in the 40 years that Lehman has spent in and around the U.S. military. The Pentagon report’s silence on Islamic extremism “shows you how deeply entrenched the values of political correctness have become,” he told TIME on Tuesday. “It’s definitely getting worse, and is now so ingrained that people no longer smirk when it happens.”
Time article continues here.
In Hasan case, superiors ignored their own worries
Yahoo! News (AP), “In Hasan case, superiors ignored their own worries”
by Richard Lardner
WASHINGTON – A Defense Department review of the shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, has found the doctors overseeing Maj. Nidal Hasan’s medical training repeatedly voiced concerns over his strident views on Islam and his inappropriate behavior, yet continued to give him positive performance evaluations that kept him moving through the ranks.
The picture emerging from the review ordered by Defense Secretary Robert Gates is one of supervisors who failed to heed their own warnings about an officer ill-suited to be an Army psychiatrist, according to information gathered during the internal Pentagon investigation and obtained by The Associated Press. The review has not been publicly released.
Hasan, 39, is accused of murdering 13 people on Nov. 5 at Fort Hood, the worst killing spree on a U.S. military base.
Yahoo! News (AP) article continues here.