Peña Nieto's "Foxazo"

Sure, it can happen to everyone: Confuse one's two favorite authors.

During his participation as a speaker at the International Book Fair in Guadalajara, Enrique Peña Nieto, the PRI candidate for president of Mexico, confused the authors and forgot the titles of the books that have "left a mark" on his life...

For several minutes the priista tried to remember more titles, but could not and  even sought help from his handlers.

The moreirazo: New president of PRI is senator Coldwell

After a weary-looking Humberto Moreira stepped down as PRI leader yesterday, after only nine stormy months on the job,  the PRI's big shots simply "decided" that the new party president will be Pedro Joaquín Coldwell. He is a senator from Quintana Roo, where he was governor before being secretary of tourism 90-93 for Carlos Salinas.

Secretary general Cristina Díaz was sworn in as interim president, but it will be just that - Coldwell will replace her soon.

Ernesto Cordero, on his quixotic quest for the PAN nomination, notably wanted his part of the credit - "I was the first to accuse him!"

PAN and PRD are not content with his mere renunciation, given the Coahuila debt and likely fraud scandal. PAN warned PRI to not give Moreira a senate or deputy seat, which would grant him immunity for persecution.

AMLO's 2012 campaign coordinator: Ricardo Monreal

AMLO has chosen Ricardo Monreal as his 2012 campaign coordinator.

Monreal is an AMLO unconditional. He was a lifelong PRI member who bailed the party in 1998 when he failed to get the PRI nomination to be governor of Zacatecas. AMLO recruited him and he won the state for the PRD.
In 2008, now as a senator, he left the PRD's legislative group to join the senate group of the Partido del Trabajo (PT), a party wholly subservient to AMLO.

Humberto Moreira renounces

Humberto Moreira renounced as president of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI).

As I noted yesterday, it was time for him to count his days after Peña Nieto spoke out against him.

Specifically, one day.

Time for PRI's president Moreira to count his days

Enrique Peña Nieto, PRI's presidential candidate, said that the debt and possible fraud scandals in Coahuila under the watch of national PRI president Humberto Moreira Valdés have "worn down" the party.

With Peña Nieto now dropping the ball on Moreira, it seems to me it is time for the PRI president to count his days on the job.

Misiones de Shaddai: Yet another charlatan sect comes apart in Chiapas

Southern Mexico and Chiapas in particular is notorious for the many religious sects preying on the poor. Misiones de Shaddai is one of them. Its leader Darinel López Toledo was arrested this weekend for exploitation, including minors, after having recruited them to work at the mission's banana plantation for a pittance:

The detainee is accused of "hooking" those poor and of low income with the promise of jobs, housing and food, and forced them to do exhausting days in exchange for a payments of 25 pesos a day. In his ministerial statements, one of the victims who escaped the building in the ejido Congregación Reforma de Tapachula said that López Toledo approached low-income families with the idea of ​​"reaching the word of God."

May this criminal charlatan spend a long time behind bars.

"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.