What's the answer to worsening relations between U.S. and Mexico?
(PHOTO CREDIT: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
Mexican President Felipe Calderon met with President Obama in Washington today.
The two leaders discussed everything from a trucking dispute that has hurt trade to the increasing violence near and around the U.S./Mexico border.
Relations between the two countries are worse than they have been in a long time. Drug gangs rule the streets in many Mexican border towns, and violence is soaring. Since 2006, the year Calderon took office, 34,000 Mexicans have died in drug-related killings.
Three weeks ago, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent was killed and another agent was injured when their SUV was ambushed on a Mexican highway. It was the first time a U.S. agent had been killed in the line of duty in Mexico in 25 years. Investigators believe that the killers were members of the Zetas, one of Mexico's most dangerous drug cartels.
And the violence continuously spills over the border into the United States.
Authorities in Chandler, Arizona, now say a man who was stabbed and beheaded last fall outside Phoenix was killed for stealing drugs from a Mexican drug gang.
The United States is the market for the drugs... and our government refuses to seal our border with Mexico.
The twin issues of immigration and border security are all but ignored by our federal government which is charged by our constitution with providing for our national security. It's an absolute disgrace.
Here’s my question to you: What's the answer to worsening relations between the U.S. and Mexico?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
Mideast Turmoil: Time to drill for oil in Gulf of Mexico?
FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:
http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=15240&action=edit#edit_timestamp
Violence in the Middle East has been driving the price of oil higher for weeks now. It has been more than $100 a barrel several times.
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/images/03/03/art.oil.jpg caption="White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel."]
It's times like these that our addiction to imported oil comes back to haunt us. And it has gotten worse since the horrific BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico last spring, which killed 11 rig workers and dumped nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil into the waters.
Suddenly, virtually all drilling activity in water deeper than 5,000 feet was ordered stopped. The Obama administration has given no sign that drilling there would return anytime soon – at least not to the level it was before the BP spill. The deepwater ban was lifted last fall, but no new permits were issued until just this week. Monday, the Department of the Interior issued the first permit for a deepwater well since last spring.
In a column on Politico.com, publisher and businessman Steve Forbes writes that by freezing U.S. energy assets in the Gulf, the U.S. government is "fueling an energy crisis that could bring this nation to its knees."
An estimated one-third of the oil used in this country comes from the Gulf of Mexico region, he says. And by limiting our drilling there, we become more dependent on oil-rich nations abroad, Libya included.
Here’s my question to you: In light of the Middle East turmoil, is it time to again drill aggressively for oil in the Gulf of Mexico?
Interested to know which ones made it on air?
@jackcafferty on Twitter
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