We Agree With Geraldo--Can You Believe It!

There are not many times that we agree with Geraldo, however, this is one. The Trayvon Martin Case is horrendous and those who are marching and demanding the police arrest someone before the facts are known should also be arrested.If George Zimmerman is found to be guilty of overzealous use of force, so be it, however, as Geraldo says, the Hoodie is part of the problem. It is a symbol which says "I am Bad" whether you are or not.
We need to let feelings cool, let the investigation find the truth or the closest thing to that and let the parents bury their child. 
Conservative Tom

CRIME‘YOU CANNOT REHABILITATE THE HOODIE’: GERALDO PARTIALLY BLAMES HOODIE-WEARING FOR TRAYVON MARTIN SHOOTING

• Posted on March 23, 2012 at 9:33am by  Jonathon M. Seidl
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In a segment that is sure to garner attention, Geraldo Rivera said that the Trayvon Martin shooting can partially be traced back to Martin’s clothing choice: a hoodie.

To be sure, Geraldo did make sure to go after the shooter, George Zimmerman, who many believe to be motivated by racist hate. But he also offered a new theory.

“I believe that George Zimmerman, the overzealous neighborhood watch captain, should be investigated to the fullest extent of the law and if he is criminally liable he should be prosecuted,” Geraldo said. “But I am urging the parents of black and Latino youngsters, particularly, to not let their children go out wearing hoodies. I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was.”

“When you see a kid walking down the street, particularly a dark-skinned kid like my son Cruz, who I constantly yelled out when he was going out wearing a damn hoodie or those pants around his ankles, ‘Take that hood off!’”

He went on to say that people associate the hoodie with crime.

“You have to recognize that this whole stylizing yourself as a gangster– you’re going to be a gangster want-to-be. Well, people are going to perceive you as a menace, that’s what happens.”

That wasn’t all, he added that while Martin is “innocent,“ ”I’ll bet you money, that if he didn’t have that hoodie on, that nutty neighborhood watch guy wouldn’t have responded in that violent and aggressive way.”

“You cannot rehabilitate the hoodie!” he exclaimed later. “Stop wearing it!”

“He wore an outfit that allowed someone to respond in this irrational, overzealous way, and if he’d been dressed more appropriately–,” he added before saying hoodies should be left for rainy days and track meets.*

You can watch the segment below:

*(According to the Associated Press, it was raining the night of Martin’s death.)

Should Marines Can "Tea Party Marine"

What is your opinion? Should the Marine be kicked out of the service?

We think there are a couple issues that we do not have the expertise to discuss, so we want our readers to let us know your opinion. They are:

     1. The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) does say that those in the service cannot be actively involved in campaigns, speeches or demonstrations. It also says that they cannot defame their leaders.  Does this mean they cannot gripe about their superiors? The military in this country has a long history of serving Presidents of both parties and there has never been any contemplation of a coup.  This we can be proud of.  Part of being "unpolitical" is to not get involved in politics.  Should this be continued?

    2.  Does a serviceman/woman lose their freedom of speech rights when they go into the military? Does a blog, like Sgt Stein's, equal free speech or is it blocked by the UCMJ?

I hope we get some good response from this discussion.

Conservative Tom

Marine Who Criticized Obama Faces Discharge

March 23, 2012 by Sam Rolley 

FACEBOOK

Sgt. Gary Stein, who started a Facebook page called Armed Forces Tea Party, was informed by the Marines that he violated a Pentagon policy barring troops from political activities.

A Marine sergeant who made online comments vowing to stand up to the Constitution and criticizing President Barack Obama and his policies is facing dismissal from the Corps for his actions.

According to The Associated Press, Sgt. Gary Stein, who started a Facebook page called Armed Forces Tea Party, was informed by the Marines that he violated a Pentagon policy barring troops from political activities.

The nine-year Marine veteran said he started the page to encourage fellow service members to exercise their free speech rights. Stein was first cautioned by his superiors at Camp Pendleton in 2010, after he launched the Facebook page and criticized Obama’s healthcare overhaul. He volunteered to take down the page while he reviewed the rules at the request of his superiors. Upon determining that he was not in violation of the rules, Stein relaunched the page.

Last week, in response to a post in which Stein said he would refuse to follow unlawful orders from the President, Stein’s superiors barred him from using social media sites on government computers.

The Marines say Stein failed to follow Pentagon directives that say military personnel in uniform cannot sponsor a political club; participate in any TV or radio program or group discussion that advocates for or against a political party, candidate or cause; or speak at any event promoting a political movement. Officers also are not allowed to use contemptuous words against senior officials, including the defense secretary or the President.

Stein said in a statement: “The allegations drummed up against me are no more than an agenda by the Marine Corps to use me as an example. I have never spoken on behalf of the Marine Corps or in uniform.  I have stayed within guidelines DOD Directive 1344.10 and made sure to. If I am guilty of anything it would be that I am American, a freedom loving Conservative, hell bent on defending the constitution and preserving Americas greatness. I am no more the Leader of the Armed Forces Tea Party than any other of 18,000 members are. I just happen to be normal guy who started a facebook page and who hold the Tea Party values close my heart and believes the Tea Party can enact real change in this county. We are all leaders in the Tea Party!”

ObamaCare -- An Unmitigated Disaster

We wrote about the problems with ObamaCare over the past years and there have been detractors who felt that we were just against it because Obama wanted to have the plan. The supporters suggested we were foolish to think there would be problems. We were told that this was a wonderful plan and would save money. (Hey, they had a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) office report that said so.)  Sarah Palin was ridiculed by suggesting there might be "death panels."

Now that we have had some time to digest the plan, see "review panels" aka death panels, we realize that we were on the right path and the deniers were uninformed. The CBO has revisited the plan and has determined that the cost has doubled and the number of people who will lose their employer paid insurance is seven times the number in the original document! We believe both of those numbers are significantly low and expect that costs will quintuple or worse and that most employees will lose their employer provided coverage by 2017.

Anyone who has taken the time to review the plan in detail will notice a recurring phrase. It is an open door, an unrestrained limit on spending. That phrase is "and whatever is needed in years x through y."  In other words, should HHS determine that an initial funding of, for example, $25 million is not enough for a plan provision in subsequent years, they are authorized to spend $250 million or more. There is no cap on the spending on this bill! A great example is under the "Trauma Care Centers and Service Availability " section of the law.  The law appropriates $100 million for Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 and "such sum as may be necessary for FY 2010 through FY 2015." Please tell us how the CBO could "score" this and make any reasonable assumptions?

Another example is the "Community Transformation Grants" which is essentially Michelle Obama's school children healthy foods and exercise program. The Law authorizes "appropriated sums as may be necessary to carry out this section for each of FY 2010-2014."  Score that for me CBO? Is that $1 million for $780 million? No one knows.

These are  a couple examples of the malfeasance in this law. When you start reading it, even the summary, one wonders who will ever get their hands around the entire mess. That's probably the reason for hiring all the attorneys and IRS agents.  We got to keep these pesky citizens in line.

In the following post, Larry Elder, covers some other unintended results of ObamaCare.  Don't read it on an empty stomach.

Conservative Tom

ObamaCare Still a Disaster -- No Matter How the Supreme Court Decides

• 
 
• Larry Elder 
   

Mar 22, 2012

 

"I am a refugee," my anesthesiologist told me after I had awakened from my third surgery in 12 years -- one to repair a muscle tear in my left shoulder and two for the same disc in my lower back. "I am part of the British 'brain drain' of the late '60s. Doctors could not make any money. So I left." Britain's loss, my gain. The same surgery 12 years ago required a two-day stay in a hospital. Last week, after a two-hour surgery, I left the same day as an outpatient.

But under ObamaCare, we can expect a loss of talent and a decline in quality of care. Thousands of us, the doctor explained, abandoned England to practice medicine in America. "So, how's this?" my doctor said. "I left the U.K. to get away from the government telling me how to practice, what to charge -- and now we are getting the same thing. ObamaCare stinks, and the people will regret it. What happened to the docs there will happen here."

Great Britain began practicing socialized medicine through the taxpayer-funded National Health Services in 1948. And indeed, one of the first U.K. studies on the emigration of their native-born physicians, "British Doctors at Home and Abroad," published in 1964, noted that, beginning in the 1950s, their docs were leaving for "high-income" countries at an alarming rate: "Many of them stressed the wider field of work they could undertake in general practice abroad and criticized the limited role of the general practitioner in England." And nearly half a century later, Britain's "brain drain" continues.

Medical advances require research and development. And as much as government spends on health care and medical research, the private sector spends much more. But ObamaCare places a tax on medical equipment manufacturers, to raise $20 billion for the federal coffers when it goes into full effect in 2013. As a result, some medical device manufacturers are already closing up shop or downsizing to reflect lower profits under ObamaCare. Some canceled plans for new U.S. plants, looking to other parts of the world. Many manufacturers have already announced significant layoffs, and most also look to other alternatives, including cutting research and development, and passing along the tax's costs to the patients.

In addition to the excise tax on medical device manufacturers, ObamaCare imposes many more taxes, including the following: an individual mandate excise tax for adults who don't purchase "qualifying" health insurance; an employer mandate tax for those companies who don't offer health coverage; and a surtax on investment income -- making the rate as high as 43.4 percent on gross income from interest, annuities, royalties, net rents and passive income for families making more than $250,000. Given this, will we see the same private-sector investments in the health care field, as ObamaCare imposes ever more regulations designed at increasing "accessibility" and "controlling costs"?

What about costs?

Obama promised that ObamaCare would "bend the cost curve" down. The Congressional Budget Office just released new figures on the 10-year cost of ObamaCare. Starting in 2010, government began taxing for ObamaCare to build up revenues. So for the first four years, ObamaCare takes in tax money but does not start spending in any significant amount until 2014. This was a tactic designed to make ObamaCare seem more "affordable."

But even with this gimmick, the CBO just doubled its original projections for the cost of ObamaCare. Now, the CBO pegs the cost to taxpayers at $1.76 trillion over the next decade. And, critics point out, this price tag is only for the cost of insurance subsidies, Medicaid and CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program). It doesn't include implementation or other costs, which will likely send the taxpayers' bill soaring past $2 trillion.

Obama said his plan would save American families $2,500 a year on their insurance premiums. The new CBO report says premiums will rise 10 to 13 percent, and that up to 20 million people could lose their employer-provided health insurance every year from 2019 to 2022, a sharp revisal of its previous estimate of up to 3 million.

Oh, it all seems so lovely on paper, doesn't it?

Sen. Obama said that if he were "starting from scratch," he'd have a single-payer system. This is what they have in Canada. But when a high-ranking member of the Canadian government -- and proponent of the Canadian health care system -- needed surgery, he did not stay home. After having his 2010 heart surgery performed in Miami, Canadian Premier Danny Williams told reporters: "This was my heart, my choice, and my health. I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics."

Consider what the then-incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association said about their single-payer health care system: "(Our) system is imploding." Consider what the outgoing president said: "Competition should be welcomed, not feared."

My doctor remains cheerful. "I retire in a few years," he said. "Then it's your problem."

Moderate Egypt--Yea Right

For those who dreamed that when Mubarak was overthrown, Egypt would be the example of what the Arab Spring would bring to the world, a modern democratic country.  Well, this is not occurring.  The Egyptian dream is turning into a pan-Arab, Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic republic nightmare.

The Coptic Christians are being persecuted, the Sinai Peace agreement with Israel is being terminated and Israel is now Egypt's number one enemy.  Egypt will not be a friend of Israel or a moderating force in the Middle East, rather it will be a destabilizing one. The dreams were naive and all those who still believe there is hope are ignorant. This includes the President of the United States who restores military aid Israel's enemy.

Conservative Tom

 

Egypt Designates Israel Its Top Enemy – Obama Restores Military Aid

Robert Spencer - FrontPage Magazine,  March 21st, 2012

Egypt’s parliament, which is dominated by two pro-Sharia Islamic supremacist groups, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists, voted unanimously last Monday to expel Israel’s ambassador to Egypt, and signaled that the Camp David Accords would soon be a thing of the past: Egypt, the parliamentarians declared, would “never” be Israel’s ally. In fact, Israel was Egypt’s “number one enemy.” And how did Barack Obama respond to this egregious trampling upon the agreement that has kept an uneasy peace between Israel and Egypt for thirty years? By announcing a resumption of military aid to Egypt.

From the beginning of the “Arab Spring,” I said repeatedly that it was not a democracy movement, as the Western press was claiming, but an Islamic supremacist takeover that would result in the creation of Sharia states that would be far more hostile to the U.S. and Israel than the Arab nationalist regimes they were supplanting. This assessment was greeted with the usual scorn: the Islamic supremacist media machine charged “Islamophobia,” on Fox Juan Williams said I was “fearmongering,” and the usual suspects made the usual ad hominem attacks. Yet everything that has happened since then has shown that the “Arab Spring” is indeed an Islamic supremacist winter, ushering in repressive Sharia regimes with the enthusiastic blessing of Barack Obama.

Yet even as Egypt’s Islamic supremacists rattle their sabers, their spokesmen, allies and useful idiots in the American mainstream media continue to peddle their soothing lies. The Islamic supremacist and adolescent mudslinger Reza Aslan was at West Virginia University last week speaking about the developments in the Middle East, and heaping more steaming piles of what he calls analysis on the hapless marks in his audience. “Believe it or not,” Aslan said, and anyone with eyes in his head will opt for “not,” “the greatest single aspiration in the region at this moment is to achieve democracy.” Slyly implying that those who have cast doubts on this alleged wonderful flowering of democracy are motivated by racism, he continued: “It does not matter where you pray or what skin color you were born with; democracy is a fundamental right of life.” He also, according to the report on his talk in the campus paper, “aimed to debunk that the Arab Spring is an Islamic takeover. This myth is simply an American paradox due to the primary belief that we live in a secular country that easily separates church and state, he said.” Ah yes, of course. “There is not much difference between us and them,” Aslan said. “These groups now have the opportunity to come out of the mosque and to market ideas and see how they can come to life in reality.”

Yes, “there is not much difference between us and them.” After all, we all want to cover women in burqas and enslave them to their husbands, brutalize and terrorize non-Muslims, murder apostates from Islam, and extinguish the freedom of speech, don’t we? And apparently one way these Egyptian parliamentarians hope to “come to life in reality” is by crucifying people and amputating their limbs. Yet as always, it doesn’t matter how outstandingly wrong and deceptive politically correct spokesmen are. It doesn’t matter that none of their predictions ever come true, or that everything they said was nothing to be concerned about turns out to be a matter of major concern. There is never any accountability for them at all — that a clown like Reza Aslan gets invited to speak at any university at all, while those who are consistently correct are demonized and marginalized, is a measure of how debased and politicized American academia and the public square in general have become.

Aslan also complained in January that “pundits and politicians are already ringing the alarm bells. The common refrain you hear in the US: The Middle East is being overrun with religious radicals bent on oppressing women and destroying Israel. That is nonsense, of course. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that political Islam will be a force in the new, democratic Middle East. And that is a good thing.” His comment on Egypt’s designation of Israel as its “number one enemy” was not recorded, but Aslan is no stupider or more malevolent than many other mainstream media and government spokesmen who assured us that the “Arab Spring” would bring a new flowering of freedom to the Middle East and North Africa. And chief among these was Barack Obama himself.

Speaking about the Libyan revolution in March, Barack Obama hailed “the rights of peaceful assembly, free speech, and the ability of the Libyan people to determine their own destiny,” and also praised “the peaceful transition to democracy in both Tunisia and in Egypt.”  Now, as Egypt rushes headlong toward becoming a Sharia state and going to war with Israel, Obama is giving his blessing to the anti-Israel, anti-America forces he is largely responsible for unleashing.

Obama’s abandonment of the undeniably repulsive Mubarak regime paved the way for the ascendancy of the forces now in control in Egypt.  Mubarak and his predecessors Anwar Sadat and Gamel Abdel Nasser kept a lid on the Muslim Brotherhood and other forces of Islamic fanaticism for decades.  Now that they are gone, it is unlikely that the peace that Sadat concluded with Israel back in the 1970s will long survive.

According to a new poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, 54% of Egyptians want to scrap the Camp David accords that have kept an uneasy peace with Israel since 1979—in yet another blow to the credibility of Obama and all the analysts and commentators who assured the American people that the Egyptian uprising heralded the dawn of a new, secular democracy there.  A significant percentage of Egyptians manifest a deeply ingrained Islamic anti-Semitism that leads them to hate Israel—and the Camp David accords—for religious reasons that are embedded within Islam, not political ones that may be susceptible to negotiation, compromise, or even rational consideration.

The resumption of military aid shows that Barack Obama doesn’t seem to mind that hostility one bit. A state can designate Israel its number one enemy and still receive military aid from the United States – military aid that it is almost certain to use against our putative allies in the Middle East, the Israelis.

Obama’s hostility to Israel runs throughout his administration. If he is reelected, and Egypt goes to war with Israel, it is not even certain that the United States would fight on Israel’s side.

Saudi Grand Mufti--All Churches Must Go

Anyone who believes that Muslims believe the same as we do in the United States does not really understand Islam.  It is not tolerant of any other religion and believes that all practitioners of other faiths are inferior.  So when we read the following article about the ordered destruction of all churches in the Middle East, it confirmed our beliefs that Islam must be treated as a major threat to all religious people in the world.  

We cannot treat this religion as we would any other. If we do, it is at our own risk.  Islam, if given a chance will run over faiths and in the end will become victorious.  Why? Their adherants are true believers and will sacrifice everything up to and including their lives to make the dream of their leaders come true. No other religion  (other than cults) can demand and receive such dedication.

What would you or the world do if any religious leader (other than Muslim) would say the same things that the Grand Mufti said recently? There would be demands for that leader to resign his/her post.  Yet, when an Muslim says this, the silence is deafening. This absence of response from the rest of the world tells Islam, that we are weak and that they can continue to do and say anything. 

 Are you weak? If you do not speak out, you are. You and others like you are encouraging Islam.  Find your voice and don't be intimidated by those who will condemn you. It never is popular to speak the truth.

Conservative Tom

Raymond Ibrahim: Saudi Grand Mufti Calls for 'Destruction of All Churches in Region'

Raymond Ibrahim - Jihad Watch,  March 14th, 2012

According to several Arabic news sources, last Monday, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, declared that it is “necessary to destroy all the churches of the region.”

The Grand Mufti made his assertion in response to a question posed by a delegation from Kuwait, regarding the position of a Kuwaiti parliament member who recently called for the “removal” of churches (he later “clarified” by saying he merely meant that no churches should be built in Kuwait). The Kuwaiti delegation wanted to confirm Sharia’s position on churches.

Accordingly, the Grand Mufti “stressed that Kuwait was a part of the Arabian Peninsula, and therefore it is necessary to destroy all churches in it.”

As with many grand muftis before him, the Sheikh based his proclamation on the famous tradition, or hadith, wherein the prophet of Islam declared on his deathbed that “There are not to be two religions in the [Arabian] Peninsula,” which has always been interpreted to mean that only Islam can be practiced in the region.

While the facts of this account speak for themselves, consider further:

Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah is not just some random Muslim hating on churches. He is the Grand Mufti of the nation that brought Islam to the world. Moreover, he is the President of the Supreme Council of Ulema [Islamic scholars] and Chairman of the Standing Committee for Scientific Research and Issuing of Fatwas. Accordingly, when it comes to what Islam teaches, his words are immensely authoritative.

Considering the hysteria that besets the West whenever non-authoritative individuals offend Islam—for instance, a fringe, unknown pastor—imagine what would happen if a Christian counterpart to the Grand Mufti, say the Pope, were to declare that all mosques in Italy must be destroyed; imagine the nonstop Western media frenzy that would erupt, all the shrill screams of “intolerance” and “bigot,” demands for apologies if not resignation, nonstop handwringing by sensitive politicians, and worse.

Yet the Grand Mufti—the highest Islamic law authority of our “friend-and-ally” Saudi Arabia—gets a free pass when he incites Muslims to destroy churches, not that any extra incitement is needed (nary a month goes by without several churches being bombed and destroyed throughout the Islamic world). In fact, at the time of this writing, I have not seen this story, already some three days old, translated on any English news source, though “newsworthy” stories are often translated in mere hours.

Likewise, consider the significance of the Grand Mufti's rationale for destroying churches: it is simply based on a hadith. But when non-Muslims evoke hadiths—this one or the countless others that incite violence and intolerance against the “infidel”—they are accused of being “Islamophobes,” of intentionally slandering and misrepresenting Islam, of being obstacles on the road to “dialogue,” and so forth.

Which leads to perhaps the most important point: Islam's teachings are so easily ascertained; there is no mystery in determining what is “right” and “wrong” in Islam. The Grand Mufti based his fatwa on a canonical hadith, which Muslims and (informed) non-Muslims know is part of Islam's sources of jurisprudence (or usul al-fiqh). And yet the West—with all its institutions of higher learning, including governmental agencies dealing with cultural and religious questions—is still thoroughly “confused” as to what Islam teaches.

All of this is nothing short of a scandal—a reminder of just how deep the mainstream media, academia, and most politicians have their collective heads thrust in the sand.

Meanwhile, here is the latest piece of evidence of just how bad churches have it in the Muslim world, for those who care to know.

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum

Obamas Should Be Charged With Child Endangerment

The Obama Family Should have charges brought against them for parental misconduct and endangering their child!  How can any family allow their  13 year old child to go away for Spring Break, no less to go to a dangerous foreign country!

We don't care what party a family is from, whether they are rich or poor, connected or disconnected, or smart or dumb, it is ridiculous for a minor child, no less a 13 year old to go on spring break. Compounding the error in judgment is sending a child to a third world, dangerous country that is on the US State Department do not travel list.  It would not matter to us if they sent a US Army division to protect her, it is irresponsible! A teenager should vacation with his or her parents, not the FBI and other youngsters. 

Even if the President made the parental mistake of allowing  his daughter to go away, what about Virginia Beach or somewhere on the Gulf of Mexico like Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas or Louisiana? It would be considerably safer than Mexico!

Sending a 13 year old to Mexico, regardless of the security provisions, is child endangerment and should subject the Obamas (and the other parents who sent their children) to civil and potentially criminal charges. We would hope there are others of similar opinion in the child protective division of the Washington D.C. government.

Conservative Tom

P.S.  On top of the massive error in judgement, the White House has the gall to call all media outlets and demand the story be pulled. The rationale was that it was about the daughter of the President and should not be news.  We disagree, it was about parental lack of judgment and endangering their child. This is abuse of power by the White House.

WHITE HOUSE ADMITS TO ASKING NEWS AGENCIES TO PULL MALIA OBAMA VACATION STORY

• Posted on March 20, 2012 at 10:06am by  Jonathon M. Seidl
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Update: Rick Santorum has offered his thoughts on the issue. Hear them here.

The White House has admitted to telling news agencies to pull stories on Malia Obama visiting Mexico for spring break, Politico reports.

Kristina Schake, Communications Director to the First Lady, emailed Dylan Byers:

From the beginning of the administration, the White House has asked news outlets not to report on or photograph the Obama children when they are not with their parents and there is no vital news interest. We have reminded outlets of this request in order to protect the privacy and security of these girls.

The Blaze first noticed the disappearing stories Monday afternoon, when accounts of Malia and 12 friends visiting Oaxaca with 25 Secret Service agents mysteriously began turning into broken links.

However, in admitting to “reminding outlets” about not reporting on the Obama children when there is “no vital news interest,” the White House has also tacitly admitted that Malia is (or now maybe was) in Mexico for spring break. Additional evidence has surfaced confirming that. One site has published a photo of the Obamas going to church on Sunday. It notes that Malia is absent, and says that’s due to the Mexico trip:

That site has also posted alleged photos of the vacation, but we have decided not to repost those.

As The Blaze noted on Monday, a vacation for Malia in Mexico raises a slew of questions considering the State Department has warned American citizens against travel there.

In fact, the language contained in the State Department’s travel warning is quite ominous.

“[C]rime and violence are serious problems throughout the country and can occur anywhere,” thewarning reads. “U.S. citizens have fallen victim to TCO activity, including homicide, gun battles, kidnapping, carjacking and highway robbery.” [Emphasis added] It continues later:

The rising number of kidnappings and disappearances throughout Mexico is of particular concern. Both local and expatriate communities have been victimized.  In addition, local police have been implicated in some of these incidents.  We strongly advise you to lower your profile and avoid displaying any evidence of wealth that might draw attention.

Additionally, the warning (dated February 8) notes that “U.S. government personnel and their families are prohibited from personal travel to all areas described as ‘defer non-essential travel’ and when travel for official purposes is essential it is conducted with extensive security precautions.” However, it adds that “USG personnel and their families are allowed to travel for personal reasons to the areas where no advisory is in effect or where the advisory is to exercise caution.”

According to the release, no specific warning has been issued for Oaxaca, where Malia is said to be. However, there have been concerns about that area in the past.