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Winter is coming, and the weather has finally turned. Temperatures have dropped. Daytime temps are hovering around 25C, and at night, down to 17C. For many who live in northern climes, it may sound warm. Around these parts, when I go for my morning exercise, most people are covered up as if they're waiting for the snow. 😉
We're gearing up for the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons. Just like the last trip to SMA for the roof project, we have several to do here. We're doing some minor construction. We have three different projects in the works. One is to remove the old siding on the shed, purchase and cut new laminated siding. Over the years, humidity and pool chemicals have rusted the roof away. It is very hard in this area to find people to do small jobs. They all want to build a house, raise the roof, or more.
However, I'm working on that. Buying a new metal shed like those at Home Depot- they don't sell those here, only online. Then you have to have someone assemble it. That's where it gets expensive. The siding or lamina is easy to find. The issue is getting someone to cut it. I'm hoping the place I have found will sell and cut. The current siding is a pattern; each piece is the same size. Cut to size, drill the same holes from the pattern (one on top of the other), and reattach. Am I being too simple?
We had a wall put up with the neighbor next door two years ago. Before that, the hedge was bamboo and looked green and healthy. Now, for unknown reasons, the bamboo has died. We will take that out next week. The wall will be covered with white stucco, with some form of bushes planted along the wall. The length is 25 meters by 6.5 meters. Total cost for materials and labor is around $ 1,000 USD. It will take about three days to complete.
What is a bola de rata? Literally translated, a rat's nest. In Mexico, it is used for a group of crooks. That is what we have going on right now. We have an autonomous electoral committee, Instituto Nacional Electoral (INE). You may have heard of Mexicans using an INE card as identification, or you may have been asked for this card that allows Mexicans to vote. It really isn't an ID card,d but Mexico uses it as such.
Under the last regime (the last eight years), the institute was managed by its president, Guadalupe Taddei. In only a few years, they managed to steal and pilfer more than $1 billion U.S. How did they use the money? They established providers who overcharged for services such as printing the ID cards for 100 million Mexicans, all of the materials used at a voting poll: voting booths, voting boxes, ballots, ink markers (used to mark someone who has voted), etc. In addition, the institute's president hired five family members. She had a boyfriend who had a male lover. He became jealous and began recording video and audio conversations that he later revealed. Among those videos were lavish parties, $ 10,000-a-night hotel rooms in Paris with one of the sons drinking champagne and looking out the windows overlooking the Louvre.
Where is she now? She ran to a family ranch in Arizona and may now be under U.S. scrutiny. 30 members of her staff, also rats, have resigned. How much worse can this become? It's in its initial stages.
The 6.3 Million Peso Furniture Debt: Documented multi-million dollar residential outfitting entirely registered under family names, exposed through internal debt collection tracking.
Acquisition of premium multi-million peso properties and a 338-square-meter apartment in the exclusive Parques del Pedregal neighborhood of Mexico City. These properties were utilized rent-free by family members until sudden, frantic liquidation attempts were made just prior to public exposure.
15 million pesos
50 million pesos
My question is, how did it go undetected for so long? It was an internal network of over 35 members of the electoral institute, obviously, one covering for the other. Can you imagine spending someone else's money to the tune of $10,000 U.S. per night in a Paris hotel and flying first class? Unbelievable.
In this chart, the Morena party, along with their alliances (left side), gave power to the president of the electoral institute to bypass any other authorization and elect her staff as she wished. It is very clear who gave power to her and who didn't (left vs. right).
