Marco rides into the Senate
And bonks Democrat after Democrat with mallet towards all.
Marco Rubio rode into the Senate on Wednesday and scored nearside shot after nearside shot on the lefties.
Let me talk about Venezuela in particular. I’m sure your questions will be about what happened before and led up to and the operation, I want to focus my comments this morning on what happens now, moving forward. Let me just say this. What is our goal going in?”
We have in our hemisphere a regime operated by an indicted narco trafficker that became a base of operation for virtually every competitor, adversary and enemy in the world. It was for Iran, their primary spot of operation in the Western hemisphere was Venezuela. For Russia, their primary base of operation in the Western hemisphere, along with Cuba and Nicaragua, was Venezuela.
In the case of China, China was receiving oil at $20 a barrel discount and they weren’t even paying money for it. It was being used to pay down debt they were owed. This is the oil of the people of Venezuela, and it was being given to the Chinese as barter at a $20 discount per barrel in some cases.
And so you had, three of our primary opponents in the world operating from our hemisphere, from that spot. It was also a place where you had a narco trafficking regime that openly cooperated with the FARC and the ELN and other drug trafficking organizations using their national territory.
It was an enormous strategic risk for the United States, not halfway around the world, not in another continent, but in the hemisphere in which we all live. It was an untenable situation and it had to be addressed.
Then he should have said thank you for your attention to this matter and the committee chairman should have adjourned.
Rubio knows his stuff better than they do because they rely on newspapers for their facts. He told the committee, “Actually, the Board of Peace was chartered and set up by the UN Security Council through a vote at the UN Security Council as to deliberations, so it’s an international organism recognized by the Security Council of the United Nations, which is something I think many of you should be supportive of.”
Republicans brought him in to play rope-a-dope and Democrats provided plenty of dopes. Cory Booker tried.
BOOKER: You’re lifting Temporary Status for Venezuelans, sending people back to dangerous conditions! Does that make sense to you?
RUBIO: Because it had no vetting and Tren de Aragua received TPS, the numbers are so large, we had to cancel the program to appropriately vet it!
BOOKER: But I don’t trust this administration!
The feeling is mutual.
It was a bipartisan beatdown.
PAUL: We violated the Constitution, removed an elected official.
RUBIO: We did not remove an elected official! We removed an unelected, indicted drug trafficker.
The USA, most if not all the other NATO countries and the civilized world did not accept the 2024 rigged election. Maduro is an illegitimate president.
As expected, media reporting was as lousy as it always is. The New York Times said:
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, a libertarian and one of the few Republicans in Congress who have opposed the Trump administration’s actions in Venezuela, rejected Rubio’s characterization of the U.S. capture of Maduro as a law enforcement operation.
“If we said that a foreign country invaded our capital, bombed all our air defense—which would be an extensive bombing campaign, and it was—removed our president, and then blockaded the country, we would think it was an act of war,” Paul said as he left the hearing.
As he left the hearing, meaning he got his soundbite, time to move on. He did not want to be late for his next appearance on Fox or CNN.
Chris Coons demanded to know why President Trump didn’t consult him before arresting Maduro.
RUBIO: The truth is, this was leaked, leaked by a contractor at the Department of War, had it been published would’ve endangered the lives of people or canceled the ability to carry out the mission!
The truth of the matter is that this mission could not have been briefed to Congress because it wasn’t even in the realm of possible until very late in December, when all of our efforts to negotiate with Maduro had failed and the president was finally presented these options and made these decisions. It was also a trigger-based operation.
It may never have happened. It required a number of factors to all align at the right place at the right time in a very limited window. And it wasn’t even clear if it was ever going to be possible.
Loose Coons missions ruin.
Tammy Duckworth tried and failed.
DUCKWORTH: The Trump administration acknowledged that the vast majority of the men it rounded up and deported to torture under this law had no criminal records whatsoever!
RUBIO: We didn’t torture anybody. Who have we tortured? We arrested gang members.
DUCKWORTH: Again, I want to ask you, will you advise the president to rescind his invocation of the wartime Alien Enemies Act?
RUBIO: Of course not. These are people that are threats to the national security of the United States!
DUCKWORTH: You’re saying we’re at war?
RUBIO: When it comes to narco-trafficking groups and criminal gangs that are targeting the United States for criminal activity—there’s no doubt about the fact that we’re confronting them in a war-like manner! They’re waging war against us, they are enemy combatants.
She would be the dumbest senator currently serving, if not for Mazie Hirono of Hawaii.
The other Hawaiian senator, Brian Schatz, is slightly smarter. I think.
SCHATZ: Will you make a public commitment today to rule out U.S. regime change in Cuba?
Surprisingly, Rubio declined the invitation to support the regime that forced his grandparents into exile 63 years ago.
Tim Kaine, Hillary’s prototype Tim Walz, took a shot:
KAINE: Trump said Iceland, but he meant Greenland.
RUBIO: I think we’re all familiar with presidents who have verbal stumbles. Some made a lot more than this one.
Biden was sharp as a tack—after a steamroller ran over it.
Bang bang, Marco’s silver mallet came down upon her head.
ROSEN: Are you even the lead for U.S. government on foreign policy?
RUBIO: No—the lead on US foreign policy is named Donald J. Trump, the President of the United States!
Look, Democrats, if you are going to fix elections, how about fixing them for people who can spell cat without spotting them the C and the A?
I read. I shook my head again. I moved on. Thanks Don. I did not vote in the poll today because there was no "all of the above". Good for Rubio to stand his ground against the clowns.
Poll: Honorable mention to Rand Paul...