President Trump: Making America Great Again...

[frank ryan]

Openly laughing about the danger innocent people face when the US targets drug boats, basically giving the game away that they are not as precise as they're claiming, is some dystopian shit:

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Vance is not a good person. He is so duplicitous. Even for a politician he is sketchy

It's like MAGA is trying to make the US hated around the world

[LVAllen]

Vance is not a good person. He is so duplicitous. Even for a politician he is sketchy

It's like MAGA is trying to make the US hated around the world

So much for MAGA and some on here proclaiming that of course they are drug dealers, and that this administration definitely wouldn't target them without piles of piles of evidence (which they will never, ever put before a court or subject to any kind of critical analysis). If you are just fishing, you should be 100% safe, right?

Also, is he saying the Coast Guard hasn't made any kind of drug interdictions recently? That's kind of a major mission for them. What happened to the 61,000 pounds of cocaine the USCG offloaded in August from the Caribbean? Did it go straight to the White House?

[Maximus]

https://thedispatch.com/article/trump-venezuela-drug-war/

This is of course a debate that rests partly on the assumption of many facts about at least 14 dead Venezuelans whose bodies are now somewhere in the Caribbean Sea. “I certainly don’t know all the potentially relevant facts,” George said. “I’m not sure anybody outside of the people responsible for the attack and those on the boat know all the facts that would be relevant. So I’m hesitant to offer any unrevisable judgments about this, and that’s a problem.”

Indeed, two weeks after the initial strike, key facts about the Trump administration’s official story remain unclear.

First, start with the administration’s claim that the boat blown up on September 2 was destined for the United States. Secretary of State Marco Rubio initially said that “these particular drugs were probably headed to Trinidad or some other country in the Caribbean,” then later changed his story to align with the official administration claim that the boat was headed to the United States. A State Department spokesman did not reply to a request from The Dispatch to explain Rubio’s changing story. Trinidad, located just 7 miles off the coast of Venezuela, is a far more plausible destination than a 2,000-mile journey by sea to the United States for such a small boat. On September 10, the New York Times reported the boat was not even heading north at the time it was destroyed. The boat “appeared to have turned around before the attack started,” the Times reported, according to officials familiar with the matter, and “the military repeatedly hit the vessel before it sank.”

And what evidence is there that the 11 members on board were in fact members of the gang Tren de Aragua and were in fact trafficking drugs? “We have tapes of them speaking,” Trump said on September 3. It’s plausible the boat was trafficking drugs, but those tapes have not been shared with the public or Congress. Professor David Smilde of Tulane, an expert on Venezuela who wrote about the issue for The Dispatch, cast doubt on the Trump administration’s claims. “It would be very atypical” for a small speedboat trafficking drugs to have 11 people aboard, Smilde told The Dispatch in an email, and such a boat would typically have a crew of just three to five people to maximize “capacity for the cargo. If there were 11 people on board at least some of them were probably migrants.”

A September 10 letter signed by 25 Senate Democrats, including Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, asked Trump to respond to several unanswered questions, including: “Who were the individuals targeted in the strike, and what intelligence does the Administration have regarding their identities, any imminent threat they did or did not pose, what crimes they were accused or suspected of, and what alleged affiliations they had with a narcotrafficking criminal organization?”

The Trump administration has a dodgy record of labeling people members of Tren de Aragua in order to achieve a policy objective: At least some people who likely had no connection to the gang were deported to a brutal prison in El Salvador this spring without any due process under the Alien Enemies Act. The administration also has a legal reason to engage in a shooting war with Tren de Aragua: On September 3, a panel of judges on the 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the president’s authority to deport alleged members of Tren de Aragua under the Alien Enemies Act because the gang had not engaged in an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” necessary for the law to be invoked. “The more this conflict with Tren de Aragua looks like real war—the more it looks like lawful warfare—the stronger the president’s arguments are under the Alien Enemies Act to deport,” Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith, a former Bush Justice Department lawyer, said on his podcast on September 8.

There is, of course, a strong argument that the president has no legal authority to blow up the boats of suspected drug traffickers. Although the State Department has designated Tren de Aragua as a “foreign terrorist organization,” such a designation does not provide a legal basis for killing its members. There is no congressional authorization of military force against drug traffickers in general or Tren de Aragua in particular. In his war powers letter to Congress, Trump simply cited his inherent authority as commander in chief.

[chrisrenrut]

https://thedispatch.com/article/trum...uela-drug-war/

Secretary of War Hegseth is not going to enjoy the post-Trump administration trials. He says in public print he will “stop at nothing”, I guess that includes US laws, the constitution, and international laws and treaties.

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[LVAllen]

Grandpa Trump making all the sense in the world here:

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[frank ryan]

Grandpa Trump making all the sense in the world here:

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Only Joe Biden has neurological issues

[frank ryan]

Secretary of War Hegseth is not going to enjoy the post-Trump administration trials. He says in public print he will “stop at nothing”, I guess that includes US laws, the constitution, and international laws and treaties.

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Renaming the department of defense to the department of war is a very fascistic move.

Over-amplify and practically worship the military and law enforcement is typical.

Jimmy Kimmel just got fired because he said Kirk's shooter was a MAGA person. Cobert was already let go for criticizing Trump because was utilizing the FCC to shake down his employer.

[frank ryan]

Secretary of War Hegseth is not going to enjoy the post-Trump administration trials. He says in public print he will “stop at nothing”, I guess that includes US laws, the constitution, and international laws and treaties.

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Too many all CAPS words.

[Northwestcoug]

Brian Kilmeade can unequivocally say homeless people should be round up and executed, and with an apology he gets to stay on air.

Kimmel can make an eyebrow-raising comment that Kirk's killer was MAGA and he's suspended indefinitely after the FCC threatens him. And Trump gleefully wanted to go after the other late night hosts next.

Remind me again how far on the road to fascism we're on?

[Jeff Lebowski]

Brian Kilmeade can unequivocally say homeless people should be round up and executed, and with an apology he gets to stay on air.

Kimmel can make an eyebrow-raising comment that Kirk's killer was MAGA and he's suspended indefinitely after the FCC threatens him. And Trump gleefully wanted to go after the other late night hosts next.

Remind me again how far on the road to fascism we're on?

I watched the clip. Kimmel can be super political but this was nothing. I can’t believe he is off the air for that.

And we mock the UK for not having free speech. God help us.

[frank ryan]

Brian Kilmeade can unequivocally say homeless people should be round up and executed, and with an apology he gets to stay on air.

Kimmel can make an eyebrow-raising comment that Kirk's killer was MAGA and he's suspended indefinitely after the FCC threatens him. And Trump gleefully wanted to go after the other late night hosts next.

Remind me again how far on the road to fascism we're on?

Well, Trump's followers and enablers either support it or tolerate it.

The play is to find an enemy pump insults and fear-mongering 24/7. People are susceptible to that kind of influence. History should have taught us that. They are all about dehumanizing their opponents.

Trump was asked about the political assassination in Minnesota and he replied as if he had no idea what was being asked.

[frank ryan]

I watched the clip. Kimmel can be super political but this was nothing. I can’t believe he is off the air for that.

And we mock the UK for not having free speech. God help us.

Colbert was ousted first. These are scary times

[BlueK]

I watched the clip. Kimmel can be super political but this was nothing. I can’t believe he is off the air for that.

And we mock the UK for not having free speech. God help us.

Conservatives don't do cancel culture, or so they say.

[falafel]

Colbert was ousted first. These are scary times

A close friend of mine was "celebrating" the firing and talking about "consequences for actions." What? Why is this something we should celebrate? Trump, or the Government, or the White House, whoever you want, is responsible for getting a comedian taken off the air? These are the consequences?

[All-American]

Why do republicans hate the high ground. Ugh.