Mexicans Resort to Clinton’s Crimefighting Strategy

Mexican officials faced with growing crime and a quasi-insurgency by drug cartel thugs are seeking to replicate a program embraced by President Bill Clinton and his minions in the 1990s: a Mexican version of Midnight Basketball.

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For those unfamiliar with Clinton's 1994 Crime Bill, among the multi-billion dollar, pork-barrel laced provisions was $40 million for the much-publicized midnight basketball leagues. In these leagues, each team had ten players (from areas with high percentage of kids in public housing and a high percentage of HIV positives in the population) and each league must have eight teams. Other provisions provided $100 million for Rep. John Conyer's "ounce of prevention program." This was free money for mayors to spend on virtually any purpose tangentially related to crime, including the building of swimming pools. Another $630 million was earmarked for "child-centered activities." This was money for arts and crafts, dance programs, recreational activities, nutrition training, and so forth. "No matter how many times nor how aggressively congressional supporters of the crime bill tried to justify this avalanche of new social welfare spending, their efforts have proved futile: the vast majority of Americans living outside of Washington, D.C. simply don't believe that dance classes, arts and crafts programs, more education spending, and olympic swimming-sized pools are going to do much to prevent crime," said Stephan Moore of the Cato Institute during his testimony before the House Ways & Means Committee in 1995. Moore was one of many who wished the crime bill to be reformed sans the pork-barrel projects and earmarks. On Thursday, during a segment on Fox News Channel's top-rated Your World with Neil Cavuto, the host interviewed Arizona Republican State Senator Frank Antenori about the threat of Mexican drug gangs and Mexico's own attempt at what critics call "touchy-feely" crimefighting. According to State Sen. Antenori, Mexican officials and President Barack Obama's U.S. advisors have come up with a $270 million dollar program to fight the treacherous and deadly Mexican drug cartels. The rationale for this latest anti-cartel initiative is that the thousands soldiers and cops based in Juarez, Mexico aren’t effective enough to stop the bloodshed that's seeping into the United States. However, instead of tough enforcement and increased police and military resources, the Mexican plan to solve the crime and violence epidemic is to create programs such as youth orchestras, physical fitness programs, free concerts, student breakfasts, etc. Antenori said he is outraged and asked if there is any "wonder AZ is doing all it can to defend its borders." "This will surely create fear and horror in these gangsters. Students doing a Mexican hat dance will stop the cartels in their tracks," quipped former New York narcotics officer Charles Santiago. Unlike most of the Obama -- and Bill Clinton -- minions, Antenori served more than 20 years in the U.S. military and most that time in Special Forces. Most recently he served in Iraq and told Cavuto that during Operation Phantom Fury, the U.S. was able to secure Fallujah, Iraq with about the same number of soldiers. He stated that he doesn’t understand how 10,000 Mexican soldiers are unable to get these cartels under control, citing possible leadership problems in Mexico. He also said he'd like to know "who the U.S. advisors are that advised the Mexican government to spend money on these social projects." “We have a national security issue here and Mexico is unable to deal with this ‘insurgency’ of cartels within its own borders," said Antenori