Down in Mexico, organized crime is on the rise and sending a message, according to Kellin Dillon, a fine reporter with Pulse News Mexico.  This is the latest report:

According to national security experts, Mexico’s organized crime drug trafficking groups have escalated the use of explosive devices in order to instill fear in local communities, a violent methodology that left three security officers dead and another 10 people injured in Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, Jalisco, on the night of Tuesday, July 11.

Mexico’s Secretary of National Defense (Sedena) documented 288 incidents where improvised explosives were used under the administration of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) between December 2018 and February 2022, a 223 percent increase from the six-year term of his predecessor former President Enrique Peña Nieto.

That same Sedena report went on to reveal that 1,342 explosive devices were used across the 288 incidents, usually in the form of car bombs, land mines or explosives dropped from drones.

And where is President López-Obrador?  He is not engaged, according to Daniel Battle:

Unlike previous administrations, López Obrador has taken a hands-off approach to the cartels, even denying that fentanyl is produced in Mexico. Predictably, the cartels have expanded their power and reach. They have also diversified into extortion, kidnapping, agriculture, mining and other activities. 

Again, where is President López-Obrador?  He is arguing with Peru over an impeachment down there, hugging the Cuban dictator and looking more and more like a man who wants to do in Mexico what Chávez did in Venezuela.

Where is the Biden administration?  They are hunting down "white supremacists," parents who don't want their eight-year-old kids indoctrinated with sexuality lessons and treating López-Obrador's disdain for Mexican democracy like an afternoon shower that will pass.

Mexico will elect a new president in twelve months.  President Biden, and definitely the GOP candidates, need to talk more about Mexico.  I mean more than the border crisis but rather the erosion of law happening under the man they refer to as AMLO.  We should support Mexican democratic institutions, such as the Supreme Court under siege by the authoritarian López-Obrador administration. 

Here is the truth: An unstable Mexico would present horrible consequences for the U.S., and it's time to start talking about what's going on down there, from organized crime terrorizing local communities to cartels bringing fentanyl across the border to a president who dreams of being a third-world leader.

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Image via Peakpx.