Trump blew up more drug smugglers.
The United States struck another small boat accused of carrying drugs in the waters off Venezuela, killing six people, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday.
Those who died in the strike were aboard the vessel, and no U.S. forces were harmed, the Republican president said in a social media post. It's the fifth deadly strike in the Caribbean as Trump's administration has asserted it's treating alleged drug traffickers as unlawful combatants who must be met with military force.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the strike Tuesday morning, said Trump, who released a video of it, as he had in the past. Hegseth later shared the video in a post on X.
Trump said the strike was conducted in international waters and "Intelligence" confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with "narcoterrorist networks" and was on a known drug trafficking route.
For Rand Paul, the Constitution always means whatever he decides it means this morning.
The same guy who claims he would defund the military and just pay privateers to kill our enemies simultaneously gets squeamish about killing drug dealers.
Paul's "but I support privateers!" claim is bullshit. He's simply a left-wing pacifag with some of his father's racial baggage, and he talks about "letters of marque and reprisal" to sound tough and badass while he pushes Code Pink's extreme pacifism on the country.
Last week, Lumpy Fettermen joined Republicans in blocking Democrats' -- and peacefag dope-hippy Rand Paul's -- attempt to block Trump from intercepting drug boats.
Republican Senators, with an assist from Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., voted down an attempt block the Trump administration's missile strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug boats on Wednesday, hours after a nominee to serve as the CIA's top lawyer dodged questions from Democrats about the secret legal justification for the strikes at his confirmation hearing.
The Senate voted 51-48 against a War Powers Act resolution sponsored by Sens. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Tim Kaine, D-Va. -- the first time members of Congress went on the record about the strikes.
If passed, the resolution would have blocked Donald Trump's administration from conducting further strikes without congressional approval.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were the only Republicans to vote in favor of the resolution. Fetterman was the sole Democrat to break with the rest of his caucus, mirroring his vote earlier this year for a similar resolution in response to the Trump administration's strike on Iran. (Fetterman's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, did not vote.
"There is also the policy issue of the risk of the U.S. getting embroiled in another war."
The vote came days after the fourth confirmed boat strike conducted by the U.S. military. Those strikes, which the administration claims hit boats carrying drugs, have taken the lives of at least 21 people.
...
Speaking on the Senate floor, Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, defended the Trump administration's actions.
"People were attacking our country by bringing in poisonous substances," he said. "The people carrying those drugs were terrorists, plain and simple. They were trafficking drugs that finance a designated foreign terrorist organization."
"We will never know, because they were blown to smithereens."
His fellow Republican, Paul, said that the terrorist label has been twisted out of recognition.
"The blow-them-to-smithereens crowd might stop to ponder that a good percentage of the ships that we actually search turn out not to be drug smugglers," Paul said. "We will never know, because they were blown to smithereens."