AMLO: I've forgiven Felipe Calderón

In an interview with the Spanish El Pais, AMLO said he had forgiven Calderón for the 2006 election, and that he would not seek to reopen any investigation into that election, because there is already a "verdict." Which one is that, one might ask?

He also notes, "I've evolved, I have more knowledge of the reality because I have traveled the country," though he doesn't really tell us what new lessons he has learned, or any self criticism made. I would really like to have seen some.

In any case, the interview is well worth a read.

Worst.Excuse.Ever. for pirate taxis

From a PRI local deputy in the Mexico City legislature: When a car that belongs to him was impounded due to being used as a pirate taxi (!), Leobardo Urbina angrily denounced that it was not a pirate taxi at all. When authorities pointed out that the car had been stopped complete with taximeter,  Urbina instead took the high moral ground:

He (driver) works with me in the Assembly, and brought with him a taximeter so that we not forget where we came from, that's a moral thing I told my friends, let's go to the city assembly, but let's not forget who we are."

Yes, it had a taximeter just so the good legislator should not forget his roots. And presumably also why the taxi was confiscated as he was letting off a passenger from a 45-peso ride.

10 arguments for legislative reelection

In the Mexican state of Puebla, 10 local legislators, or 25 percent of the entire state legislature, is leaving their current office to seek a seat in the national congress as federal legislators.

There is nothing illegal or even unnatural of politicians seeking to "move up the ladder" politically - indeed, it lies at the very heart of representative politics.

Yes this case shows the very perversions of what is very likely a product of Mexico's no-reelection practice:
The legislators took office just one year ago! They have barely found the time to learn the workings of the legislature, get informed of local matters, deepen ties to constituents, and so forth, and then barely a third into their term, they bail ship. It may partly be a reflection of excessive personal ambition, but certainly the practice is awarded incentives by 1) only having three-year terms, and 2) not having reelection.

An illustrative and rather funny story on the matter from a couple of weeks back:

PRI's Ivonne Álvarez García, mayor of Guadalupe, was elected mayor two years ago in Guadalupe, Nuevo León, had promised and sworn and pledged she would sit out her full term. Yet as Mexico's parties are now choosing candidates for national office, she forgot about her election promise, changed her mind, asked for a leave of absence, and left town

Yet now so fast! One of her constituents complained  that she had broken a promise, and managed to secure a writ of amparo, forcing the senator hopeful to return to the pueblo. Kudos to Dinorah Cantú Pedraza for keeping her to her promise!

The saga continued for a few nervous days, as this might have enormous consequences for candidates elsewhere, who might be refused similar pedidos de licencia or requests for "leaves of absence." Álvarez huffed and puffed and was "very angry" at this pesky citizen, and found an amparo for herself and her candidacy, and finally a federal judge rejected the earlier decision, clearing the way for her candidacy.

Oh, and merely days after, she was again in trouble as she promoted her candidacy on Youtube via a raffle, breaking at least 3-4 electoral laws, where she from her municpal office called on voters to "like" her Facebook account, in return for the chance to win - an Ipad!

Perhaps the citizens of Guadalupe, NL, are better off with their mayor far off in Mexico City.

Pope visit to Mexico: Must-read AP article on an inconvenient book

A highly recommend read is AP's "Pope's Mexico trip clouded by Legion victim's book," by Eduardo Castillo, as it address a very inconvenient book just published ahead of the pope's visit to Mexico tomorrow: La voluntad de no saber" ("The will to not know"). It uses documents obtained through friendly Vatican sources who began years ago making copies of documents that were slowly disappearing, as members of the extremist order Legionaries of Christ had begun silently stealing them from the Vatican archives.

What do the documents, on which the book is based, prove? What we long knew, but now documented by the Vatican's own sources:

Successive popes knew, including Benny the 16th, about the child raping by priests such as Marcial Maciel ever since the 1940s, but did nothing to stop it.

For eight years, Benedict 16 knew, but didn't lift a finger as the Legionaries unleashed a campaign of defamation against the victims.

A very inconvenient book.

Pope in Mexico: Will not meet with victims or apologize

Christophe Pierre, the Vatican's nuncio or diplomatic representative in Mexico, made it clear that Pope Benny XVI will not meet with any of the victims, ranging at least in the tens of thousands, from priest abuse when he visits Mexico this weekend.

Why on earth not? This is not simply a case of apologizing on behalf of the far too many priests who turned into child rapists and molesters, which has happened so many places, but which in Mexico is given the added touch that the Vatican knew for more than forty years about the abuses of one affiliated organization, the Legionaries of Christ, where desperate stories of child abuse by particularly its founder Marcial Maciel surfaced shortly after its founding - abuses that the Vatican, we now know, was aware of for decades, but didn't do anything with until the public pressure became to large in the 2000s.

Yet don't expect any apology when the pope visits Mexico. After all, he did force Marcial to retire, lest we forget, to life of "repentance and self reflection."

Perhaps an apology isn't in order - I would trade a papal apology for an arrest warrant of multiple members of the Vatican leadership any day.

Better for US that left wins in Mexico

PRD president Jesús Zambrano is on a brief visit to the United States, and in a speech at the Wilson Center declared that "It's better for the United States that the left governs in Mexico"

The more we generate conditions, we will have more social stability and less migration, fewer drug problems and more opportunities for young people... Mexico City is the safest region of the country, and the PRD knows how to govern and is demonstrating it with its actions."

Amen.

Lie detectors, seriously?

Josefina Vázquez Mota yesterday handed over, unsolicited and to surprised officials at the federal electoral institute, the results of lie detector and drug tests, and suggested other presidential candidates do the same.

What is she running for, the presidency of a high school council or that of Mexico?

This is simply petty and childish.