Remember when Trump wanted a force of his MAGA Goobers patrolling our southern border armed to the teeth? Remember, back in the first term he wanted our MILITARY down there with shoot on sight orders. Sort of, ‘If you see em coming towards or over the border just kill em.’ He got talked out of it but encouraged his followers to show up to “help” down there and sure enough groups of self-proclaimed militias did just that. Perhaps that was in Utah Senator Mike Lee’s thoughts as he dropped his “Patriots of the Caribbean” initiative. It would authorize MAGAs with boats to act as Pirates! (No, you haven’t been re-directed to the Onion!)
I know it sounds crazy but Lee is actually pushing this nonsense. The Atlanta Black Star has a short article about the proposal and the response it’s getting from MAGAs which exposes the deep strain of racism in the MAGA Beast:
Mike Lee, a Republican senator from Utah, introduced the bill on Thursday, which he said would turn citizens into “Patriots of the Caribbean,” which could create a maritime version of the Proud Boys.
I think the author of the linked piece is being generous with that ‘maritime version of the Proud Boys reference. Given the history of Trump getting MAGAs to do awful things (Not just Jan. 6 – Remember Trump inspiring MAGA goobers to grab their guns and head to the southern border in his first term?) this is more like creating a Naval force in the larger Klan. The seagoing MAGAs have wasted no time expressing their desire to sign up. The line in the linked article after the highlighted paragraph wryly asks ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ All kinds of things including dumbass MAGAs dying at sea, or having to be rescued by our Navy for starters.
Still, this is something that’s actual legislation that’s been introduced and Lee is serious enough about it to have found a counterpart to introduce a version over in the House:
“They push millions of dollars in fentanyl into our country with no regard for American lives,” said Republican Rep. Tim Burchett from Tennessee, who introduced the House version of the bill.
“It’s time to get creative about how we face these threats. These cartels present a serious risk to our national security, and this bill would authorize President Trump to commission Americans to help defend our homeland.”
Well, a-holes the ‘creative’ part has already taken place. Trump and Hegseth created the concept of tons and tons of fentanyl on a vast armada of small open boats somehow sailing those boats across well over 2000 miles of ocean to dump that cargo on gulf coast beaches. Of course, this ignores the actual facts. First, this year for the first time ever the Coast Guard is FULLY funded. They say a good twenty-percent of boats like this suspected of drug smuggling aren’t smugglers at all.
Then there’s the fact the drug lords in Venezuela don’t make fentanyl but rather COCAINE. And most of it goes not here to our country but Europe and east Africa! The fentanyl is well known to be mostly from China and smuggled in via Mexican drug cartels. (I gather there’s a small amount of fentanyl production in Mexico too.)
My point is the creative part, the turd-polishing that has allowed Team Trump to get away (so far) with what it’s been doing down in the Caribbean was already done. All this new proposal does is give the more extreme racists that permeate MAGA the ok to go out and kill non-white foreigners! The responses on social media show there’s a group of wannabe ‘Pirates’ chomping at the bit:
Many supporters expressed their eagerness to join in a response to Lee’s announcement on the social platform X.
“Boy I swear, if I could be a f–king PIRATE for the USA government, as long as this is for White people, than I am DOWN! Will seize that sh-t!,” wrote one X user. “Mikey!!!! Please bro! Make it happen! You got millions of American White men down to run the cartel down like cattle and make uncle same BIG BUCKS! We get a big cut and we waste these clowns! YES!”
“So I can train up to be a pirate in the name of the US? Seriously I’m asking and I’m going to start doing pushups, situps, and squats while I await the answer,” another wrote.
The asshat who specifically let his racist freak flag fly with the ‘As long as this is for white people’ grabbed my attention. MAGAs, and even those who say they are just supporters of Trump’s policies but not actual MAGAs hotly deny racism in Trump World. However they only speak against this kind of talk when confronted by friends and family. I don’t see Lee or Burchett denouncing this kind of talk. Or other GOP elected/appointed officials either. Frankly I’m disappointed Democrats haven’t raised hell and started shaming Lee over this. At least on social media decent people are speaking up:
Well. It’s official. I’ve lived long enough to see a member of the U.S. Senate be proud to announce he’s fine with pirates and murder. Sad. And disgusting,” one critic wrote. “That could lead to absolute disaster. No, that’s why we have the most powerful military on earth and a chain of command to control their actions,” another person replied.
I close with again stating that when it comes to Fentanyl the problem is from China and Mexico. Even Trump’s own DEA recognizes that in their report on addressing the problem. Venezuela on the other hand produces cocaine which is of course bad. But they ship most of it to places other than the United States. And finally, Trump doesn’t care about cocaine. He did after all just PARDON the former President of Honduras who was serving time in a U.S. prison for helping his own country’s cartels smuggle it here. The dude even bragged about it! Well, that’s a topic that could take up it’s own article.
For now we have to deal with the fact a sitting U.S. Senator is trying to create a real life ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ movie/documentary.
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise, among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
And just exactly HOW will this make Uncle Sam big bucks? Are they going to sell the drugs they intercept? I don’t get it. Besides the fact that this is all idiotic and offensive.
The former President of Honduras was not just pardoned for smuggling cocaine, but for smuggling FOUR TONS of it.
But yeah, of course Dimwit Dementia Donny is in a ‘war on drugs’.
Because of his involvement yes, it was a HUGE amount that got made and smuggled into the U.S. That alone makes the pardon unforgiveable but after all Trumpty’s talk about our country being flooded with illegal drugs pardoning this asshole who enjoyed publicly bragging about sending all that cocaine into the U.S.? I wonder how much the bribe was to get him his pardon?