C'mon, reader, let's take a trip:
"PRI party in Mexico looks to regain presidency" by Damien Cave | New York Times, July 01, 2012
CIUDAD NEZAHUALCOYOTL, Mexico — ‘‘The rich are richer, the poor are poorer; the rest of us in between, we’re just surviving.’’
Sound familiar, Americans?
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A dictatorship in democratic clothing.
Sound familiar, Americans?
It was a party regularly accused of rigging elections, striking secret deals with criminals, and collecting bribes so proficiently that piles of [money] were said to fill the pockets and the briefcases of its standard-bearers....
Sound familiar, Americans?
A country of the stuck-in-place glaring at the upwardly mobile. While a minority of educated, skilled workers benefit from the dynamics of global trade, many more work long hours, often at several jobs, without progressing....
Sound familiar, Americans?
Part of the problem is that [it] opened its markets to cheap imports — with the North American Free Trade Agreement and other trade deals — without doing enough to help its own small businesses compete or innovate....
Sound familiar, Americans?
--more--"
WTF is wrong with these controls?
"Mexico on verge of returning PRI to power; Early polls show Peña Nieto leads race for president" by E. Eduardo Castillo and Katherine Corcoran | Associated Press, July 02, 2012
MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s old guard sailed back into power after a 12-year hiatus Sunday as the official preliminary vote count handed a presidential victory to Enrique Peña Nieto, whose party was long accused of ruling the country through corruption and patronage.
The second place candidate, leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, refused to concede, saying he would wait for a full count.
Wasn't he the one that got ripped-off in the last rigged Mexican election?
"Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who polled a higher-than-expected vote of about 32 percent, has refused to accept the loss, and many of his militant followers are suspicious of the results."
They have every reason to be after the last election.
The Federal Electoral Institute’s representative count said Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, won about 38 percent of the vote, prompting wild cheers from a party that was voted out in 2000 after 71 autocratic years in power. Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party had 31 percent and Josefina Vazquez Mota of the ruling National Action Party had about 25 percent, according to the institute....
There were plenty of reasons to celebrate. The party also appeared likely to retake at least a plurality in the two houses of Congress and some governorships. Critics say the party’s 71-year rule was characterized by authoritarian and corrupt practices. But the PRI has sought to portray itself as a group that has been modernized and does not seek a return to its old ways....
Woah, how did this thing get set for backwards?
Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City, took hundreds of thousands of supporters to the streets in protest when he narrowly lost in 2006....
The PRI party has been bolstered by voter fatigue due to a sluggish economy and the sharp escalation of a drug war that has killed roughly 50,000 Mexicans over the past six years....
All of the parties were accusing rivals of emulating the traditional PRI tactic of offering voters money, food, or benefits in return for votes.
The article was "updated," thus the chop.
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Related:
"Where do they get so many resources to conduct the PRI campaign, so many billboards?" asked voter Marilu Carrasco, a 57-year-old actress who was lined up to cast her vote for Lopez Obrador in southern Mexico City's Copilco neighborhood. The PRI's return to the presidency "could be the worst thing that could happen to us," Carrasco said."
Was left on the Globe's cutting room floor.
And about that drug war:
"3 police shot to death at Mexico City airport, June 26, 2012
MEXICO CITY — Men wearing what appeared to be police uniforms opened fire in a food court at Mexico City’s international airport Monday, killing three federal police officers on an antidrug mission as panicked witnesses dove for cover....
Criminals in Mexico sometimes wear fake police uniforms, but officials also have repeatedly struggled to crush corruption among law enforcement agencies at the airport, which traffickers have often used as a shipment point for narcotics.
And sometimes they are even wearing real ones (blog editor exhales deep and heavy sigh).
No suspects had been arrested following the shooting, which took place shortly before 9 a.m.
--more--"
Looks like we're stuck, readers.
