THE BORDER REPORT

They're lying. Or, they're wrong. Or both.

Suddenly, everyone's blaming La Linea for the murder of a consulate employee, her husband and the husband of a second employee. The Mexicans are saying it was the Juárez Cartel's La Linea who pulled the job; the FBI is saying it, the media is saying it. Not only are they saying it was La Linea/Barrio Azteca, they are saying it was a case of mistaken identity. This is infuriating.

Why?

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THE BORDER REPORT

I'm going to take this conversation in a different direction this afternoon and I'd like your input. I'm working on a project about murder in Mexico and some of my associates seem to be of the mind that there are innocents who are dying in Mexico's wars. Collateral killings, if you will. I argue they remain the exception. The vast exception.

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THE BORDER REPORT

The U.S. State Department has ordered its consulate employees along the border, specifically, Tijuana, Nogales, Juárez, Reynosa, Nuevo Laredo, and Matamoros to send their families out of Mexico for a month following the murders of three people, a consulate employee and her husband and the husband of a second employee this weekend in Juárez.

Leslie (or Lesley) Enriquez and her husband, Arthur H. Redelfs, were shot in a drive-by coming into Juárez. Ten minutes earlier, the body of the husband of a second consular employee, Jorge Alberto Salcido, was found by Chihuahua police.

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THE BORDER REPORT

Updated with donation information at bottom.

Alright, let's see if we can't help someone out here. Ryan Hess is a Podiatry Resident at the VA Hospital in Tucson. He is 30 years old and was diagnosed with lymphoma in June 2009. A friend of his wrote me, telling me that after three rounds of chemo and a bone marrow transplant, he went into remission last January. Then he relapsed; the cancer is back, in his blood and liver. Federal employees are able to donate sick days to help his family with salary and, more importantly, health insurance. This weekend, he'll no longer have health insurance. Apparently, Ryan has a six year and a three year old.

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THE BORDER REPORT

Found this one during a casual search of the Federal contract solicitation page. The Homeland Security Department is requesting bids for narcotics incineration here in Tucson. I'll ignore, for the moment, that they're simply repeating steps from DEA who already has an incineration facility here in town. Writing about the Feds would be less entertaining if they worked efficiently, after all.

Homeland is asking for a price breakdwon to burn 215,000 pounds of dope per year; that's 210,000 pounds of weed and 5,000 pounds of "hard" narcs; synthetics, meth, steroids, coke, and heroin.

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