Saturday, June 18, 2011

Calderón wanted to "repress" 2006 sit-in protests in Mexico City

Alejandro Encinas, the PRD candidate for governor  in Mexico State, who in 2006 was interim mayor of Mexico City, said that president-elect Felipe Calderón wanted then-interior minister, now-deceased Carlos Abascal, to "repress" the 2006 plantón in Mexico City, where hundreds of thousands of PRD and AMLO supporters protested what they argued was a fraudulent election, through a massive sit-in in the main avenue Reforma, demanding a recount.

Yet the interior minister replied, "Felipe, you are still not president."

Los Pinos vehemently denied this revelation. It is truly remarkable if the claim is true.

Mexico´s internal debt grew 4.5-fold under PAN´s two governments

According to the Banco the México, Mexico´s internal debt - through the issuance of local bonds -  the government´s grew 4.5 times since 2000, reaching a fourth of the GDP. or from around 715 billion pesos to today's 3258 billion pesos - almost 29 thousand pesos per inhabitant. This does not include external debt.

Bishop Onésimo Cepeda, with his 130+ million loan, off the hook for now

Onésimo Cepeda, one of the absolute most dubious members of the Mexican clergy and bishop of Ecatepec, got an amparo or injunction that puts an end to a long investigation where Cepade was accused of defrauding an old woman for a collection of highly valuable paintings. The investigation is now officially closed, following a 2-1 decision by the 8th Appellate Court.

To recall, Cepeda was accused of snatching the collection of paintings by faking a 130 million dollars(!) loan to Olga Azcárraga Madero, now deceased. Cepeda claimed he lent the money; his opponents, that it was all a simulation. Nor does Cepeda have to prove where the hell he got the 130 million dollars that he claimed to have lent Azcárraga, the aunt of Televisa president Emilio Azcárraga Jean.

Xavier Olea Peláez, lawyer of the company accusing Cepeda of fraud, claimed trafficking of influences, as two of the judges of the 8th Appellate Court as well as Supreme Court Minister Sergio Valls recently attended Cepeda's birthday party. Cepeda, to be sure, is a very powerful man, and very close to the PRI.

Yet even if no fraud took place, what is there to say of a bishop that is apparently capable of producing 130 million dollars in cash, and refuses to state where the money come from?

(in on of his most truly pathetic columns to date, Carlos Marìn ridicules the charges, yet does not find it worthwhile to even take note of the bishop´s immense wealth)

I am convinced that it is indeed easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than it is for Bishop Cepeda to enter the paradise he claims to believe in.