"Peace and love" between AMLO and PRD.

It's front page news in Milenio, El Universal, and La Jornada, and rightly so: AMLO meets with thee chuchos, Jesús Ortega and Jesús Zambrano of the Nueva Izquierda, and they all call for "peace and love."

NI, the largest faction of the PRD and of a clear social-democratic orientation, has long been at loggerheads with AMLO. As far as I recall, Ortega has not met with AMLO for years, possibly 2006 when he was nominally his campaign manager, yet when he (and the PRD) was completely overruled and overrun by AMLO's own movement organization.

There's been lot of angry denunciations and accusations ever since - but now they've apparently decided to make up. "Love and peace," AMLO said. Hopefully it will last.

Sonora government of Guillermo Padrés: Does it have no shame?

Javier Sicilia has put blame of the murder of Nepomuceno Moreno on PAN Governor Guillermo Padrés Elías. While all is speculation at this point, this reaction is understandable, and certainly from a moral point of view: Nepomuceno Moreno had repeatedly asked the state government for police protection given a range of threats to his life, yet none was offered.

Yet the point I want to make is this: Rather than lamenting the murder and simply keeping a low profile, what does the state attorney general do? In meeting with the press, state attorney general Abel Murrieta Gutiérrez is more worried about smearing Nepomuceno Moreno, pointing out to media that earlier he

had been imprisoned previously for possessing a weapon exclusively for military use.The attorney general's office said that Moreno Nunez was involved in an armed incursion of a home in 2005. According to the Mexico City daily Reforma, however, the authorities failed to mention that he was released from prison after being absolved. (From CNN)

What complete lack of any moral integrity. The gut reaction from an attorney general who is obviously incompetent, incapable or unwilling to do his job to protect his state's citizens, is simply to blame the victim.

The contempt demonstrated by some prominent PAN and PRI members - the Sonora government is led by Guillermo Padrés Elías, and the attorney general is from PRI - toward the victims of Mexico's drug conflict is simply stunning at times. It is also bordering on, or even crossing, the illegal.

Nepomuceno Moreno murdered in Sonora

Sad news from Sonora: Nepomuceno Moreno Muñoz was a key activist in the ¡No más sangre! campaign, and a participant in Javier Sicilia's peace movement. Recently, like Sicilia, he met with Felipe Calderón at the Chapultepec castle in Mexico City, where the president received a range of activists critical of the "war" against the drug gang. Many, like Moreno, have simply been demanding to know the whereabouts of their children. Moreno's son has been missing since July 1, 2011, kidnapped in Ciudad Obregón.

Now Nepomuceno Moreno was himself murdered, when an unknown assailant shot him seven times while he was driving in Hermosillo, close to the Universidad de Sonora.

Javier Sicilia blamed the murder on PAN Governor Guillermo Padrés Elías.

Surprise warning against church manipulation from Chuayffet

Emilio Chuayffet Chemor has been a quite unpredictable an erratic president of Mexico's Chamber of Deputies. Now he launched a warning that also came somewhat out of the blue: the "manipulation of consciousness" carried out by the Mexican catholic church.

According to Chuayffet, the Church has been a master in the exercise of power,

so therefore, we catholics want it far away, we do not want it to intervene in political life, because we know how far it can get and how it easily it can manipulate consciences and guide them in in its own favor, for its own interest."

Can't say I disagree to much with the analysis, though surprised to hear it from Chuayffet. Not all former governor of Mexico State (and former interior secretary) are as kowtowing to the Mexican church as, say, an Enrique Peña Nieto or a José Francisco Blake Mora.

PRI denounces ghost companies in Guanajuato

Local PRI Deputy Miguel Ángel Chico Herrera denounced the government of Juan Manuel Oliva Ramírez in Guanajuato for having made no-bid purchases for the the government worthy 272 million pesos, from what appears to be simply "ghost companies" - meaning they have no address or physical location.

It is not the first time the ultra-conservative yunquista Oliva faces such accusations of dirty dealings, including juicy contracts doled out to close relatives.

AMLO calls out zapatistas for 2006

In Chiapas, AMLO called on the zapatistas not to repeat their behavior from 2006.

Then, surpassing even its usual high standard of sectarianism, the EZLN hurled a stream of epithets toward the PRD, including the standard ultraleft label of fascism (!) against the PRD and AMLO, and Marcos went on a celebrity-like tour around Mexico and called on people note to vote for the left - or any party.

While it is unclear how much influence Marcos had and had over the vote, his call upon the far left not to back AMLO, given the narrow victory of Calderón, might even have cost AMLO the victory.

Entire police force resigns in Carácuaro, Michoacán

Carácuaro, Michoacán, is a historic place: It was where José María Morelos, exercised his priesthood before joining and becoming a leader of the Mexican War of Independence.

It is sadly today a place where the entire police force of 38 men  resigned following threats and ambushes from organized crime, leaving public security provisionally in the hands of the military.

Carácuaro has been run by PRI, and will after the elections be led by a left coalition.