Dec.16

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Trump Declares Fentanyl a "Weapon of Mass Destruction"

Just in case his ill-conceived vendetta against Rob Reiner wasn't enough, Donald Trump made some additional headlines with a new executive order, one that "officially" designates "illicit fentanyl and its core precursor chemicals as Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)." You can read the XO here, if you wish.

We will note, yet again, that we really don't know what Trump's agenda is these days. Is he trying to create a distraction from EpsteinScam, or from his various grifts, or from his poor approval ratings? Is he trying to start a war, so he can then lean more fully into the fascism than he's already doing? Is he desperately trying to juice up MAGA in advance of the midterms? Is he just a brain-addled old man who does whatever crazy things that Steven Miller or Stephen Bannon or Secretary of Small Dongs Defense Pete Hegseth tell him to do?

In any event, we'll just pass along these four observations:

• The Trump administration is not the first to toy around with this idea; a few people in the Biden White House kicked it around before dismissing it as impracticable and legally indefensible. Yes, it is true that small amounts of fentanyl can kill large numbers of people. The same is true for enriched uranium, when placed into the right kind of delivery vehicle. However, that is where the commonalities end. One of those things is a weapon of mass destruction, and the other is not. And if fentanyl IS a weapon of mass destruction, then that term is well on the path to having no real meaning anymore, like "terrorist" or "socialist."
  
  
• We will also remind readers that Trump cannot unilaterally change American law with the stroke of his autopen. When Trump woke up yesterday, U.S. law defined weapons of mass destruction as "any weapon involving a biological agent, toxin, or vector," as well as "any weapon that is designed to release radiation or radioactivity at a level dangerous to human life." When Trump awakens today, U.S. law will still define weapons of mass destruction in that way. All he can do with an XO is order the executive departments to behave in a manner consistent with his "interpretation" of what fentanyl is. Largely, and the XO lays this out, if you read it, that means a lot of bureaucrats doing bureaucratic things.
  
  The problem is that fentanyl IS NOT a biological agent, toxin, vector or weapon, by any coherent meaning of those terms.
  
  
• Venezuela is not an important player in the fentanyl trade. In fact, it's not a player at all, because the hated Nicolás Maduro cracked down on the drug years ago. Not only does that nation not produce fentanyl, it doesn't even serve as a transit corridor for the drug. If you're after cocaine production, then Venezuela is the place to go, but not fentanyl. So, if Trump uses his new XO as justification for increasing the number of civilian boats the U.S. Navy blows out of the water, or the number of fishermen who are murdered, or the number of oil tankers seized, you will know that the XO was just smoke and mirrors in service of his undeclared war against Maduro.
  
  
• Meanwhile, most of the fentanyl in the U.S. begins life in China. So, if Trump does not use this XO to impose some sort of new penalties or restrictions on the Chinese, then you will also know that the XO was just smoke and mirrors in service of his undeclared war against Maduro.

And now, we wait and see what happens. (Z)