Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked an effort aimed at preventing continued U.S. strikes on alleged drug-carrying boats off the coast of Venezuela.
Democrats forced a vote on the issue under the War Powers Act. In a 48-51 vote, the effort failed to garner enough support to move forward.
The resolution, led by Sens. Adam Schiff of California and Tim Kaine of Virginia, would have blocked the U.S. military from engaging in hostilities with “any non-state organization engaged in the promotion, trafficking, and distribution of illegal drugs and other related activities” without congressional authorization.
Aimed at blocking Trump’s serial murders
In a notification to Congress after the second strike in mid-September, the Trump administration said the U.S. is in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels it has designated as terrorist organizations. The drugs smuggled by these cartels kill tens of thousands of Americans each year and constitute an “armed attack” against U.S. citizens, according to the White House.
The Trump administration has designated several drug cartels and gangs as terrorist organizations, including Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel and El Salvador’s MS-13.
Oh FFS, the long ploy here isn’t Venezuela or the cartels, it’s to normalize the use of military force at his discretion against gangs and terrorist groups, like oh, the newly designated terror ‘organization’ of antifa, with the national guard being sent in to all these ‘warzone’ cities conveniently hostile to Trump’s agenda…
…thank fuck they are forcing votes on this shit…
Even if it fails this makes it clear where they stand. Republicans voted down several amendments to extend tax cuts only for filers below $1m, $100m, $500m, $1b annual income. They made it crystal clear they were giving a gift to the rich. They need to propose payments to the military during the shutdown as they’ve done before.
So there are 51 easily identifyable war criminals.
48-51? What is happening there?
Some sane-voting republicans, a bunch of not, and fetterman
You had all democrats vote for it, with a couple Republicans flipping (the typical bunch with Rand Paul and Murkowski). Then you have all the Republican voting against.
The only notable exceptions are Ted Cruz not voting (don’t know why) and Fetterman voting with Republicans. But at this point Fetterman might as well switch parties.
Note: Rand Paul pretty much always votes against anything not isolationist (the one true libertarian), so this is typical. Alaska/Murkowski is always a bit odd and her voting with Democrats happens fairly frequently.
Not much. What’s happening there?
