Leahy Blocking Anti-Drug Cartel Funding For Mexico

The release of a report that would free up more than $100 million in U.S. aid to Mexico to combat drug cartels has been delayed by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont.

Mexico has not met all of the conditions for aid, specifically the prosecution of police and military officers who violate human rights, Leahy said in a statement released Wednesday.

The money in question is part of the Merida Initiative, a $1.4 billion, three-year program, aimed at fighting drug cartels that the Mexican government says are responsible for more than 10,000 deaths since Mexican President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006.
The Merida Initiative aid from the United States was authorized to help Mexico with counternarcotics, port and airport security, technology, and training and strengthening of law enforcement institutions.

Most of the aid was released without conditions, but the agreement stipulates that 15 percent of the aid will be withheld until the State Department gives Congress a favorable report on Mexico's human rights record.

The Washington Post reported that the State Department was prepared to present a favorable report ahead of President Obama's visit to Mexico this weekend, but Leahy rejected the report.

So, when Congress wants to spend billions in earmarks and pet projects, they threaten to override a presidential veto in order to get him to ignore it. But for $100 million in what was one of the few successful Bubama initiatives, one that is making progress towards the goal of creating security on both sides of the southern border, and one that is already approved by Congress and the State department, Sen. Leahy will use his (ridiculous) committee authority to block it single-handedly by not letting the report be accepted before the whole Senate.

Yeah, makes sense he is from Vermont, where his colleague is an actual, admitted Socialist and they are as far away from border reality as possible. Maybe he should move to Texas for a few months.

Source: CNN

Leahy Plays The Race Card By Saying Republicans Played The Race Card

“You have one leader of the Republican Party call her the equivalent of the head of the Ku Klux Klan. Another leader of the Republican Party called her a bigot,” the Vermont Democrat said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “The leadership of the Republican Party came out against her long before we had the hearings, long before they looked at her record. I think that’s unfair.”

“I hope we don’t go back to the day when we used to have African-Americans up for confirmation and say yes, but you belong to the NAACP so we’re really suspicious of you,” said Leahy. “Come on, stop the racial politics. ...”

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, tried to jump in, saying, “Come on, Pat, I want to disagree ...” but Leahy continued

Sessions defended his party as simply conducting a vigorous investigation of Sotomayor’s background.

“No Republican leader said she was a bigot,” said Sessions. “There’s nothing wrong with us asking about her personal views about legal positions that she took as a member of any organization. That’s a normal thing to do.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25138.html#ixzz0LpDii6XZ