Free Republic

Summary U.S. hopes to ramp up pressure on Maduro government Covert operations expected to be first step, sources say U.S. options include overthrowing Maduro Human rights groups condemn U.S. strikes as illegal extrajudicial killings WASHINGTON, Nov 22 (Reuters) - The United States is poised to launch a new phase of Venezuela-related operations in the coming days, four U.S. officials told Reuters, as the Trump administration escalates pressure on President Nicolas Maduro's government. Reuters was not able to establish the exact timing or scope of the new operations, nor whether U.S. President Donald Trump had made a final decision to act....

President Donald Trump’s call for House Republicans to support releasing Jeffrey Epstein-related documents was a stunning capitulation after a months-long campaign to block the vote. It was also a specific defeat for Trump at the hands of a despised GOP opponent: Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky. “He got tired of me winning,” Massie said of Trump’s U-turn in an interview Monday morning. Insisting “I DON’T CARE!” in a late-night Truth Social post, Trump was bowing to the inevitable — a broad House Republican mutiny on a vote that was only scheduled because Massie forced it. It was the result of...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., was the only Republican who broke with his party and voted no on the test vote to break a filibuster on the deal to reopen the government. Paul voted nay because he wanted a guarantee of a change in the bill regarding hemp.

The Senate on Thursday voted down an effort to block President Donald Trump from conducting strikes against alleged drug smugglers off the coast of Venezuela without congressional approval. The War Powers Resolution, introduced by Democratic Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, failed to pass the upper chamber 51 to 49, just a day after Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth briefed top congressional members on the strikes — which some Democrats claimed lacked details on the operations. The resolution would have required Trump “to terminate the use of” U.S. armed forces “for hostilities within or against Venezuela,”...

Rand Paul (R-KY) blasted President Donald Trump’s overseas strikes on alleged drug boats “insane” and not something “civilized people” do. Paul joined Glenn Greenwald on the System Update podcast where he called out Trump and his Republican colleagues over US strikes against alleged drug boats in South American waters. Paul accused Republicans of supporting actions they would be up in arms over if a Democrat were in office. The senator argued the strikes include no due process and could be leading to the death of innocent people.

Senator Rand Paul is tired of being the only Republican senator willing to stand up to President Trump. The libertarian spoke with Politico’s Dasha Burns just days after being deliberately left out of Trump’s gathering of GOP senators in the Rose Garden. “We have everybody but one person here,” Trump said Wednesday. “We’re just missing one person. You’ll never guess who that is. Let me give you—he automatically votes no on everything. He thinks it’s good politics. It’s really not good politics.”

🚨 JUST IN: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) accuses President Trump of doing what CHINA and IRAN do when he "executes" narco-terrorists "I would call them extrajudicial killings. This is akin to what China does, what Iran does with drug dealers -- they summarily execute people without presenting evidence to the public. So it's WRONG."

There are a few reasons to doubt the American government's stated aim of wiping out these so-called "narco terrorist" gangs threatening the US from Venezuela, even after one takes out of the equation the sort of equipment the military is deploying - which isn't what they would need for effective drug smuggling interdiction. While the president acknowledges that the synthetic opioid fentanyl is a huge killer in the US (which it is) and is supplied by drug gangs (which it is), to blame Venezuela for fentanyl production is simply incorrect.Mexican cartels produce fentanyl with precursors largely supplied from China, and...

@RandPaul Like I told @cherylcasone on @MorningsMaria, Republicans ran against Biden’s reckless spending… then adopted his spending levels. I won’t. $38 trillion in debt isn’t sustainable. It’s a threat to our economy and our dollar. I’ll keep voting no until Washington gets serious about balancing the budget.

@Holden_Culotta Tucker Carlson: “What the hell is going on that Thomas Massie is a target, but Lindsey Graham has a Trump endorsement?” “Of all the members of Congress that I know, Massie is the most principled.” “If Lindsay Graham continues to get elected, then the whole MAGA thing is totally fake.” “I don’t think there are many people in the country who live out Donald Trump’s own stated principles more precisely than Thomas Massie does.” “His personal life … is like one of the most impressive things I’ve ever heard.” “He is self-reliant in the most American sense.” “This is...

Amid a wave of U.S. military strikes in the Caribbean and plans for covert operations in Venezuela, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., is leading a bipartisan effort to force a vote to stop President Trump from unilaterally declaring war on the South American nation. Kaine, a longtime proponent of Congress' powers to declare war, filed the resolution late Thursday, a move that will force the Senate to take up the legislation after a 10-day waiting period. Sens. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., co-sponsored the plan. Kaine said concerns about war in the Latin American region are growing. "The pace...