The US Senate on Thursday advanced a bipartisan war powers resolution to prevent Donald Trump from taking further military actions against Venezuela, after he ordered a weekend raid to capture that country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, without giving Congress advance notice.
The measure passed with 52 senators in favor and 47 opposed. All Democrats voted for the resolution , as did Republicans Rand Paul, Todd Young, Lisa Murkowski, Josh Hawley and Susan Collins.
Should the Senate approve the measure, it will need to pass the House and be signed by Trump.
The war powers resolution, introduced by the Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, requires Trump to seek permission before attacking or otherwise using the military against Venezuela. Following the Saturday raid that saw US special forces assault the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, and spirit Maduro to New York City to face trial on charges related to “narco-terrorism”, the president said he did not tell lawmakers beforehand because “Congress has a tendency to leak”.
Ironically, this is shaping up like Reagan’s Iran-Contra Scandal.
Congress forbid the Reagan administration from interfering in the Nicaraguan elections and government, but the Republicans didn’t want to obey. So they secretly sold weapons to our bitterest enemies, the Iranians (who had recently held dozens of American hostages for over a year), using the profits to fund and operate a secret war in Nicaragua. Republicans are proud of that treason, and George HW Bush pardoned everyone involved, on the advice of Bill Barr, the Republicans’ designated presidential cover-up man.
Side note: since they used known drug smugglers to smuggle the guns OUT of America, and to Central America, the drug runners would find themselves in Cocaine HQ, with an empty plane, a fistful of American cash, and CIA cover. What do you think they did?
Yep, they loaded up their planes with fresh cocaine, and flew it back to the United States, over and over and over, kicking off the crack cocaine epidemic that still exists today. This is no conspiracy theory, it is a known fact, ever since pilot Eugene Hassenfuss’ plane crashed and he claimed CIA immunity.
It’s still debated how much the CIA knew about the drugs (they HAD to know, nobody is that stupid), or if they were deliberately involved in the smuggling because they wanted the profits from the cocaine sales to keep funding their illegal operation. Dumping drugs into America’s inner cities, while creating profits to fight commies? For a psychopath, like ALL Republicans, that sounds like an elegant solution to two problems at once.
Trump wants that oil, so he can be as rich as his friends the Saudis. Does anyone honestly believe that a mere law passed by Congress is going to stop him? The only difference between this and Iran-Contra is that he will do this right out in the open, in defiance of Congress. He’ll just get the oil companies to put up the money to pay for it, and they’ll do it, and he’ll claim that was his workaround. Since Congress isnt paying for it, they don’t get a say.
But we’ll pay for it anyway, and he’ll just pocket whatever money he extorts from the oils companies.