Feckless Ben Cline is trying to cosplay as a MAGA drug-fighting warrior

Ben Cline thinks a Morgan Griffith-sponsored bill that claims in its name to “Halt Fentanyl” is doing enough to pretend to be doing something to, you know, actually stop the flow of fentanyl into the U.S.

Well, and you’ve also gotta also get in a dig at the previous administration while you’re passing Griffith’s do-nothing legal-loophole bill.

“Communities throughout the Sixth District of Virginia and across the entire nation turned into border communities under the last administration. This was the direct result of the failed leadership of President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas, who allowed deadly fentanyl to pour through our open borders for four years,” Cline said, no one paying attention, as usual, as he addressed Griffith’s Halt Fentanyl Act on the House floor this week.

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Contact Ben Cline

• Phone: (202) 225-5431
• Web: bit.ly/BenClineContactForm
• D.C. office: 2443 Rayburn House Office Building (directions)

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The bill, which extends a law that was set to sunset in March giving prosecutors another charging mechanism to use to go after drug traffickers, won’t, in and of itself, halt the flow of fentanyl from Mexico into the U.S.

The holdup, we learned this week, with that, ahem, hard bargain that Trump/Musk got out of Mexican leaders with the dumb tariff threat, since rescinded, is our gun industry, which makes too much money selling guns to Mexican drug cartels to want to do the right thing.

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ICYMI

• Trump backs off Mexico tariffs: Countries agree to one-month pause

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The Mexican government has been pleading with the U.S. for years to get our gun manufacturers to stop sending guns across the border to the drug cartels that use the weapons to fight back against Mexican authorities trying to fight the drug war within their borders.

Trump begrudgingly agreed this week, to get out from under his massive tariff blunder, though he certainly didn’t fess up to it.

We had to get that part of the hard bargain from Claudia Sheinbaum, the president of Mexico, who noted that Trump had “committed to working to prevent the trafficking of high-powered weapons to Mexico.”

We’re talking 500,000+ guns a year making their way from the U.S. to Mexico, into the hands of the drug cartels down there that run deadly illegal drugs, including fentanyl, back across our border.

At last check, it wasn’t Joe Biden, it was Alejandro Mayorkas, it wasn’t congressional Democrats, who kept going to bat for our gun manufacturers in the name of an unfettered Second Amendment.

That would be: well, among others, we have our mealy-mouthed Ben Cline, who seems to think voting to keep a potential legal loophole closed makes him some sort of MAGA drug-fighting warrior.

“Unlike the previous administration, House Republicans are stepping up to protect the American people,” Cline said, somehow with a straight face. “We are committed to fighting back against the fentanyl crisis, securing our borders and saving lives. We must pass this important legislation to protect innocent lives and ensure the safety of our families and our communities.”