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Sylvia Longmire's new book Cartel: The Coming Invasion of Mexico's Drug Wars has just been released and is available in bookstores today. She is a retired Air Force captain and Special Agent with extensive experience investigating Mexico Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO). She now consults and writes about southwest border violence issues and blogs at Mexico's Drug War. I interviewed her last month. Your book implies the violence and corruption of the drug wars will be spilling across the bor

Though  the mainstream political press has naturally focused on the stinging  Democratic losses and sweeping Republican gains in last week's  elections, 2010 has proven to be an historic year for third party and  Independent politics in the United States. One  of the primary motifs in media coverage of this year's elections has  been the public’s deep discontent with both the Democratic and  Republican parties.  In poll after poll, record numbers of  Americans opted to identify themselves as In

Either this has been one of the strangest elections in recent history, or else having the Internet around has simply made it possible to nationally ruminate over the strange goings-on in elections throughout the country. Here are ten of the weirdest moments during the 2010 midterm elections: 1. Demon Sheep Ad Carly Fiorina, the Republican nominee to challenge U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer ran the now infamous "Demon Sheep Ad" during her Republican primary battle against Tom Campbell. It went vira

On July 1, the federal government and dozens of states set up temporary “high-risk” health insurance pools for people denied health insurance due to so-called pre-existing conditions. These pools were one of the major provisions included in federal health care reform signed into law early this year. However, this is only a temporary fix intended to provide health insurance to individuals without coverage until the law goes fully into effect in 2014, when insurance companies will no longer be ab

After losing in the first round, Governor Schwarzenegger has again applied for federal dollars through the “Race to the Top” initiative hoping to secure $700 million for California’s public school system. The Governor staged a public signing of the application in Long Beach, California. As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka federal stimulus package), the Obama Administration allotted $4.3 billion in federal aid, designed as a competitive program intended to make education r

A significant – and often overlooked -- result of what’s been dubbed the Great Recession is that in just over half of the 50 states, the programs that pay unemployment insurance to workers who’ve lost their jobs are insolvent, leading states to borrow more than $39 billion from the federal government to keep writing checks. California, which has the largest unemployment program in the country, has the dubious distinction of leading 34 other states and the Virgin Islands in borrowing:  $8.5 bil

First, it was GOP victories in the gubernatorial elections of Virginia and New Jersey.  Just last month, it was the senatorial election of Scott Brown who claimed a historic Republican victory in the bluest of blue states, Massachusetts.  Finally, it was Sarah Palin speaking before the Tea Party convention in Tennessee, claiming the time had come for a revolution and that the GOP would be ready to deliver this revolution to the people.  With these electoral victories and Palin’s efforts to conso

According to various reports, Sarah Palin may be getting paid at least $75,000 to speak at the nation's first, official Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee.  If confirmed, such a development would fuel skeptics who have long criticized the motivation and make-up of the movement. While Palin's aides and conference organizers will not provide a response, Politico has uncovered documents which reveal that the former Alaska governor charges $100,000 per speech, with a $25,000 discount for

It nowappears that Sandra Cantu, the 8-year-old who was last seen wearing a"Hello, Kitty" shirt, didn't die at the hands of the clichédshadowy stranger. Instead,the person accused of killing the Tracygirl is the statistical abduction probability: 60 percent of the time whensomeone other than a family member kidnaps a child, it's someone the child is atleast acquainted with. Ayoung mother whose 5-year-old was a playmate of Sandra's, who lived justfive doors from the Cantu home, is accused of ki