From the
El Paso Times -
By Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera - In light of Tuesday's arrest in Juárez of a U.S. trucker with 268,000 rounds of ammunition, a former agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives questioned the current safeguards at the U.S. side of the border to prevent similar contraband moving southbound. Jabin Akeem Bogan, 27, was detained Tuesday afternoon by Mexican federal customs officers at the Bridge of the Americas with the cargo. His employer and others have come out in his defense, saying the ammunitions were actually headed to Phoenix and that Bogan ended up in Mexico by accident. Regardless of Bogan's intentions, René Jáquez, former assistant country attaché in Juárez with the ATF, said that U.S. customs officers should have intercepted the cargo. "In my opinion, the real question to ask is how is it that our customs agents with all heightened security were able to miss this type of shipment going into Mexico? How was it that this truck was able to get into Mexico with all those ammo?" he said. And if the cargo was indeed legitimate, Jáquez said, U.S. customs officers should have been able to see the ammunitions, check the paperwork and steer the driver in the right direction. "If they would have opened the door they would have seen the ammunition," he said.
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Ex-ATF agent: Ammo load should have been stopped
Capitol Report New Mexico - It’s been said that facts are stubborn things. So are demographics. The baby boom generation — some 77 million strong — is hitting retirement age at a staggering rate: an American turns 65 every 10 seconds. What does that mean for the social safety net in place, namely Medicare and Medicaid? Steve Moses, the president of the Center for Long-Term Care Reform in Seattle, says it means financial disaster unless some changes are made immediately. “We can expect those costs for long-term care — care in a nursing home, assisted living or in the home to skyrocket as the aging population grows,” Moses told Capitol Report New Mexico in a recent interview. And New Mexico faces some daunting issues as well. Moses points out that New Mexico has the nation’s fourth-highest rate of growth in population aged 85 or older through 2030. “When Franklin Roosevelt brought us Social Security, there were 35 [workers] paying in for every one taking benefits,” Moses, 66, said. “We’ll soon be down to where there’s only two [workers paying in for every one receiving benefits]. Every working couple will be supporting one us baby boomer oldsters.” Moses says in order to keep the system alive for the truly poor and needy, means-testing will have to done. Means-testing – distributing fewer benefits to people who have more money – is pure poison for any politician who broaches the subject but Moses says it’s inevitable. Read More News New Mexico
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