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MAGA Legislators Want To Add Mercenaries To Trump’s Perverse Take On The ‘War On Drugs’
from the rogue-state-seeks-additional-rogues dept
Yeah, the economy sucks and trade-war tariff agendas are only making things worse. But as Trump promised/threatened during a recent national address from the White House, things are turning around, even if you (MAGA voters especially) are too stupid to see it.
It looks like the first growth market to see a significant increase might be law firms specializing in maritime law. (And those of you who specialize in Third Amendment law might want to hang around for a bit before becoming Costco greeters or whatever.)
The Trump administration has been straight up murdering people in international waters for the past few months. The regime’s “shoot first, demand all questioners be hit with sedition charges” plan hasn’t exactly worked out. Questions are actually being asked, and in response, the administration has been engaged in some last-minute retcon. Following the controversial boat strikes, the government has now declared drug cartels and drugs themselves to be terrorists worthy of extrajudicial killings.
Not only has Trump declared a controlled substance to be a “weapon of mass destruction” (fentanyl), he’s also pretty much directly asked oil companies if they’re interested in seeing a foreign government overthrown — an offering that ensures the CIA won’t be getting the holidays off this year.
Trump kills people in boats and commandeers Venezuelan oil tankers while relying on plenty of specious legal assertions. If there’s anyone who loves specious legal assertions, it’s the people who worship Donald Trump. This is the new hotness awaiting us in 2026: the addition of mercenaries to an undeclared war of opportunity.
Here’s Senate head Mike Lee with a proposal to allow regular-ass Americans to participate in actions that are already extremely questionable in terms of legality.
U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced legislation today that would allow private entities to stop drug cartel smuggling and violence. The Cartel Marque and Reprisal Authorization Act authorizes President Trump, as provided under the Constitution, to commission American operators under letters of marque to seize cartel property and persons on land or sea. Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN) introduced the House version of the legislation.
“The Constitution provides for Letters of Marque and Reprisal as a tool against the enemies of the United States,” said Senator Mike Lee.“Cartels have replaced corsairs in the modern era, but we can still give private American citizens and their businesses a stake in the fight against these murderous foreign criminals. The Cartel Marque and Reprisal Authorization Act will revive this historic practice to defend our shores and seize cartel assets.”
Lee’s bill is hardly worth reading. It only runs three pages and basically says “the president can hire whatever mercenaries he wants” before heading to a conclusion that claims the president can declare whoever he wants to be a “cartel” and therefore a worthy target of whatever sort of Blackwater-murdering-civilians might ensure.
Of course, every Senate bill must be matched with something similar. No one specially asked congressional reps Tim Burchett and Mark Messmer to speak up, but they’ll be damned if their bootlicking will go unnoticed.
Here’s a bit of Rep. Burchett’s CV:
On March 28, 2023, Burchett responded to the Covenant School shooting, where three nine-year-old students and three staff members were killed in Nashville, by telling reporters: “It’s a horrible, horrible situation, and we’re not going to fix it. Criminals are gonna be criminals. And my daddy fought in the second world war, fought in the Pacific, fought the Japanese, and he told me, he said, ‘Buddy,’ he said, ‘if somebody wants to take you out, and doesn’t mind losing their life, there’s not a whole heck of a lot you can do about it.'” Burchett also said he sees no “real role” for Congress in reducing gun violence, other than to “mess things up”.
[…]
After a local D.J. was killed and 22 others were wounded in the 2024 Kansas City parade shooting, Burchett inaccurately identified an adult attendee of the Kansas City rally, Denton Loudermill Jr., as the shooter, claiming he was an “illegal alien”. Burchett’s social media post received 1.4 million views.
Yeah, so he’s one of those people.
Burchett’s buddy on this one is Rep. Mark Messmer, who used to be a pretty normal person before being elected to his current position. Now he’s just a guy who says stuff like this:
“I agree with President Trump that drug cartels are foreign terrorist organizations and are a serious threat to all Americans,” said Rep. Messmer. “The Cartel Marque and Reprisal Authorization Act of 2025 would add another arrow in our national security quiver, guaranteeing that President Trump has all the authority he needs to protect our citizens from criminal and terrorist-linked threats.”
These two rubes were at least ahead of the game. They tossed this one into the congressional pool back in February 2025. That one has been copied word-for-word by Sen. Mike Lee, who looks like he’s desperately trying to shore up his toady credentials now that Trump has pretty much declared war on anything traversing international waters while in the vicinity of Venezuela. Everything old is new again, except for Donald Trump, who is older than last time and far less likely to remember this idea got pitched months ago.
The Trump administration has never seen a bad idea it can’t make worse. And while Trump has chosen to legislate from the executive office as often as possible, he’ll always have a place in his heart for the desperate sycophants who are willing to give him whatever he wants, no matter the cost to their own careers.
And there are plenty of violent, bigoted sycophants in the private sector just dying for an opportunity to get their violent racism on. They, too, are now being given a chance to claim a chair at the Big Boy table and to engage in lawlessness this administration will always celebrate, rather than condemn.
Filed Under: boat strikes, drug war, due process, extrajudicial killings, mark messmer, mercenaries, mike lee, murder, tim burchett, trump administration, venezuela
Comments on “MAGA Legislators Want To Add Mercenaries To Trump’s Perverse Take On The ‘War On Drugs’”
What are you talking about? The economy is great! Soaring healthcare costs have unexpectedly boosted GDP. The healthcare industry is squeezing people harder than ever, and the top 10% are spending ever more of their income to get less. What about any of that makes you think “the economy sucks?”
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Well, it may not be the best to start a sentence if you want to keep an ounce of credibility.
Re: Re: From red flags to red hats
Much like wearing the red hat of cruelty and stupidity starting a sentence like that is a great way for people to know right off the bat that you’re not someone they should ever consider credible or honest.
The mark of a failing country is when they must expand by force or gain resources by force.
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Any old shit-stained monkey can bully weaker monkeys for short term gain.
That crap may give smooth-brains a dopamine hit and a banana but it doesn’t lead to cured diseases or put any monkeys on the moon.
Maga is the antithesis of civilization.
Re: Re:
Eventually all the smaller monkeys gang up against the oppressor too.
No, worse than mercenaries, privateers. With mercenaries, their chain of command joins up with the regular army’s at some point, and their compensation structure is under your control. And traditional mercenaries are often operating under your eye, not out somewhere conducting piracy on the high seas. You can at least potentially maintain discipline among mercenaries.
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Even worse, pirates. An army of bloodthirsty ignorant warriors dedicated to a single absolute crazy captain of a sinking boat with only the star-spangled banner floating above the sea.
Erik Prince spent much of Trump’s first term trying to privatise the war in Afghanistan. Now every position and policy deemed toxic 5 years ago is being enacted so he’ll have his 100% for profit oil war before 28.
'What part of 'nazis are the BAD GUYS' did you not get from my stories?!'
On March 28, 2023, Burchett responded to the Covenant School shooting, where three nine-year-old students and three staff members were killed in Nashville, by telling reporters: “It’s a horrible, horrible situation, and we’re not going to fix it. Criminals are gonna be criminals. And my daddy fought in the second world war, fought in the Pacific, fought the Japanese, and he told me, he said, ‘Buddy,’ he said, ‘if somebody wants to take you out, and doesn’t mind losing their life, there’s not a whole heck of a lot you can do about it.’”
For the sake of his father I hope the man’s dead of old age by now, I know I’d be equally heartbroken and horrified if I went to war, watched those around me die horribly in the process only to see one of my own children on the side of the exact sort of people I and others bled and died to stop.
Next up...
Trump proclaims Democrats are a cartel.
Re: Cartels
The Democrats ARE a cartel. So are the Republicans.
Too bad we don’t have any other REAL options here in the “land of the free”.
“If God had meant for us to vote, He would have given us candidates.” – Jay Leno
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MAGA will eventually get declared domestic terrorism and a cartel as well. At some point the opposition will take steps to remove the GOP from politics permanently, once sufficiently goaded into weakening itself with it’s own infighting.
MAGA itself is a racist overreaction to the last 70-100 years of neoliberalism, it’s only fitting it goes the way of the Tories and weakens itself enough to get the GOP involuntarily declared beyond reform and taken out (and thus the opposition starts freezing, seizing and taxing the assets of America’s top 10% that voted and donated to MAGA since just before 2016, while steamrolling courts that disagree, because what choice does the opposition have when MAGA has left no way to concede a debate?)
But in order to declare the GOP a threat to the entire globe and act accordingly to disable it and nationalize its associated tech companies and media empires to be released to non-partisan private donors with sunset-period content and compensation restrictions, a long economic dumpster fire will have to crash hard enough to weaken rule of law enough to shove these reforms down the GOP voting population’s throats after the voting coalition disperses and is spiritually and emotionally broken.
Re: I'd say don't give them ideas but...
That’s crazy talk that is, I mean it’s not like republicans in general or Trump in particular have spent years accusing democrats(or anyone who’s not a republican really) of being criminals, what possible grounding could there currently be to all of a sudden declare an entire group criminals other than the one they already laid with ANTIFA?
Meanwhile he PARDONS a South American drug dealer who agrees with his politics, so this is clearly NOT about drugs. Just another Trump shakedown.
Make the East India Corp great again!
Woohoo! Piracy is back, baby!
With Vietnam, the rationale was the “domino theory”, where it was deemed necessary to contain communism, less it spread to neighboring countries.
Well, with respect to South America, we see the Monroe Doctrine meet the Domino Theory, with “socialism” substituted for “communism” and our foreign policy is quite clear – if the people of South America elect a socialist government, the US will do all it can to destabilize that government and overthrow it so that there will be no successful socialist government that other countries might copy.
It’s a war on socialism, not drugs. We have a opioid addition problem in this country because Congress passed laws permitting entities like Purdue Pharma to create new addicts.
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Pretty sure you are seriously overthinking it, it’s not a case of ‘No socialist governments allowed’ but rather ‘Nice oil you have there, be a shame if we had to invade your country to get it…’ mixed with a hefty dose of good old warmongering to rile up the rubes and use to justify power-grabs.