Today's News (2020/1/3)
Jan. 3rd, 2020 10:05 pmThis is a Twitter thread worth reading:
https://twitter.com/KimGhattas/status/1212976875074662400
1 THREAD: Middle East waking up to incredible news of Qassem Suleimani's killing in US strike in Iraq, at Baghdad airport. He had reportedly just flown back from Beirut. He was like a Middle East viceroy, trotting around region, giving orders, masterminding small and large ops
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Wake up, Republicans. Your party stands for all the wrong things now.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/wake-up-republicans-your-party-stands-for-all-the-wrong-things-now/2019/12/31/c8347b32-2be8-11ea-9b60-817cc18cf173_story.html
Republicans are now officially the character-doesn’t-count party, the personal-responsibility-just-proves-you-have-failed-to-blame-the-other-guy party, the deficit-doesn’t-matter party, the Russia-is-our-ally party, and the I’m-right-and-you-are-human-scum party. Yes, it’s President Trump’s party now, but it stands only for what he has just tweeted.
A party without a governing theory, a higher purpose or a clear moral direction is nothing more than a cartel, a syndicate that exists only to advance itself. There is no organized, coherent purpose other than the acquisition and maintenance of power.
-----
Iran Loses Its Indispensable Man
The killing of Qassem Soleimani robs the regime of the central figure for its ambitions in the Middle East.
January 2, 2020
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/iran-loses-qassem-soleimani-its-indispensable-man/604375/
Today the United States killed Major General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Quds Force. The United States is now in a hot war with Iran after having waged war via proxies for the past several decades.
This doesn’t mean war, it will not lead to war, and it doesn’t risk war. None of that. It is war.
...
Qassem Soleimani was the adult supervision. He was spread thin over the past decade, but he was nonetheless a serious if nefarious adversary of the United States and its partners in the region. And Iran and its partners will now feel his loss greatly.
I don’t know, and I’m not willing to argue one way or the other, whether that fact justifies Soleimani’s killing. The United States is claiming it acted because Soleimani was making plans to attack U.S. diplomats and troops in the Middle East and because Soleimani had recently orchestrated other attacks on coalition bases in Iraq. Soleimani was at least partially, and in many cases directly, responsible for dozens if not hundreds of attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq going back to the height of the Iraq War. So unlike some other claims this administration has made, what the Trump administration is claiming here would not surprise me—to say the least—if it were indeed true.
-----
AFP is reporting that Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has reactivated Jaysh al-Mahdi, the Mahdi Army, which fought against US forces in Iraq more than a decade ago.
https://twitter.com/joanne_stocker/status/1212998267962904578
[Includes link to tweeted announcement from al-Sadr]
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Zeina Khodr -![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
zeinakhodraljaz
Senior correspondent, Aljazeera English Television
Zeina Khodr -zeinakhodraljaz
https://twitter.com/ZeinakhodrAljaz/status/1213006355780526081
Iraqi caretaker Prime minister Abdul-Mahdi: The attack is a breach of the deal that permits US presence in #Iraq. He called for an extraordinary meeting of parliament
Zeina Khodr -zeinakhodraljaz
https://twitter.com/ZeinakhodrAljaz/status/1213002019642003456
Question - will US be able to stay in #Iraq -
Shia cleric Muqtada Sadr ordered the “reactivation of Mahdi Army” following the assassination of Suleimani #Iran
Zeina Khodr -zeinakhodraljaz
https://twitter.com/ZeinakhodrAljaz/status/1212998686793445379
Few expect all out war ... #Iran “hardline” camp to benefit from killing; possible attacks against US targets but Iran & allies will tread carefully - killing couldn’t be a clearer message from Trump Administration
[more in thread]
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McConnell digs in on impeachment: 'Non-starter' for Pelosi to influence trial
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/476676-mcconnell-digs-in-on-impeachment-non-starter-for-pelosi-to-influence-trial
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) dug in Friday on the stalemate over impeachment, lashing out at Democrats and saying it was a "non-starter" that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) would play any role in determining the trial proceedings.
McConnell, speaking on impeachment for the first time in nearly two weeks, blasted House Democrats as having "cold feet" after Pelosi declined to say when she would transmit the two articles against President Trump
-----
Exclusive: Unredacted Ukraine Documents Reveal Extent of Pentagon’s Legal Concerns
https://www.justsecurity.org/67863/exclusive-unredacted-ukraine-documents-reveal-extent-of-pentagons-legal-concerns/
“Clear direction from POTUS to continue to hold.”
This is what Michael Duffey, associate director of national security programs at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), told Elaine McCusker, the acting Pentagon comptroller, in an Aug. 30 email, which has only been made available in redacted form until now. It is one of many documents the Trump administration is trying to keep from the public, despite congressional oversight efforts and court orders in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation.
...
Thanks to the testimony of several Trump administration officials, we now know what Trump was waiting on: a commitment from Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.
But getting at that truth hasn’t been easy and the Trump administration continues to try to obscure it. It is blocking key officials from testifying and is keeping documentary evidence from lawmakers investigating the Ukraine story. For example, this note from Duffey to McCusker was never turned over to House investigators and the Trump administration is continuing to try to keep it secret.
-----
Pelosi Statement on Urgency for Fair Senate Trial
January 3, 2020
Press Release
https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/1320
“In December, the House upheld its Constitutional duty to defend democracy For The People, honoring the vision of our Founders for a Republic. In an impeachment trial, every U.S. Senator is required to take an oath to ‘do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws.’
“For several months, the House has subpoenaed documents and witnesses which the President stonewalled. These cases are now in the courts. While the House nevertheless was able to obtain compelling evidence of impeachable conduct, Leader McConnell knows full well that the President’s obstruction of the House impeachment inquiry is unprecedented and in defiance of our system of checks and balances.
“Today, Leader McConnell made clear that he will feebly comply with President Trump’s cover-up of his abuses of power and be an accomplice to that cover-up.
-----
Republicans Seek to Swamp Democratic Offices With Anti-Impeachment Calls
The Republican National Committee’s effort was meant to tie up phone lines of congressional Democrats as part of a broader plan to defend the president.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/us/politics/impeachment-republican-national-committee.html
The Republican National Committee paid to generate thousands of calls to the congressional offices of nearly three dozen House Democrats in recent weeks, an effort that was aimed at both shaping opinion around the impeachment inquiry and tying up the phone lines of the elected officials, according to two people briefed on the effort.
The calls were part of a broader effort by Republicans to influence public opinion around the investigation into President Trump. The Trump campaign and the Republican committee have taken the lead on political messaging defending Mr. Trump at a moment of political vulnerability, using television and digital ads, as well as the phone calls.
The fact that the calls to congressional offices, estimated to number 11,000, were partly intended to jam the phone lines of House Democrats — potentially thwarting access to government offices — was described at a recent dinner of more than a dozen Republican aides, advisers and elected officials, known as the “Off the Record” dinner. Officials with the Republican National Committee told others at the dinner about the calls, suggesting they were automated and indicating that the aim was to tie up the phones in Democratic offices, according to two people briefed on what was said.
-----
Fox Business host Stuart Varney: “And where does it leave impeachment? Are we now going to try to impeach and remove from office the commander-in-chief who’s just taken out one of the world’s leading terrorists? That’s quite a question, I suggest.”
https://twitter.com/EricKleefeld/status/1213103800245981184
-----
Leonard Pitts: An open letter to all of you privately disgusted Republicans
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2019/12/04/leonard-pitts-an-open/
This is an open letter to all of you privately disgusted Republicans.
It's prompted by the fact that in the last few days, two of your colleagues have come forward to share with us your angst.
...
As Rick Perry and others claim Trump as God's "chosen one," as a new Economist/YouGov poll finds that most Republicans rank him a better leader than Lincoln himself, as the party grows ever more indistinguishable from a cult, with Trump as he who must not be questioned, he whose wisdom is beyond mere mortal ken, we hear that off the record, you lot are "very concerned?"
One struggles for adjectives to convey how little that means, how insignificant is the comfort it offers.
-----
Trump tells evangelical rally he will put prayer in schools
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-religion/trump-tells-evangelical-rally-he-will-put-prayer-in-schools-idUSKBN1Z22AN
MIAMI/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said his Democratic opponents would tear down crosses and pledged to bring prayer to public schools at a re-election rally to shore up evangelical support.
...
He got a big reaction from the crowd when he promised to bring religion into U.S. schools. A clause in the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from promoting one religion over the other, which means public schools don’t promote prayer or religious symbols.
https://twitter.com/KimGhattas/status/1212976875074662400
1 THREAD: Middle East waking up to incredible news of Qassem Suleimani's killing in US strike in Iraq, at Baghdad airport. He had reportedly just flown back from Beirut. He was like a Middle East viceroy, trotting around region, giving orders, masterminding small and large ops
-----
Wake up, Republicans. Your party stands for all the wrong things now.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/wake-up-republicans-your-party-stands-for-all-the-wrong-things-now/2019/12/31/c8347b32-2be8-11ea-9b60-817cc18cf173_story.html
Republicans are now officially the character-doesn’t-count party, the personal-responsibility-just-proves-you-have-failed-to-blame-the-other-guy party, the deficit-doesn’t-matter party, the Russia-is-our-ally party, and the I’m-right-and-you-are-human-scum party. Yes, it’s President Trump’s party now, but it stands only for what he has just tweeted.
A party without a governing theory, a higher purpose or a clear moral direction is nothing more than a cartel, a syndicate that exists only to advance itself. There is no organized, coherent purpose other than the acquisition and maintenance of power.
-----
Iran Loses Its Indispensable Man
The killing of Qassem Soleimani robs the regime of the central figure for its ambitions in the Middle East.
January 2, 2020
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/iran-loses-qassem-soleimani-its-indispensable-man/604375/
Today the United States killed Major General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Quds Force. The United States is now in a hot war with Iran after having waged war via proxies for the past several decades.
This doesn’t mean war, it will not lead to war, and it doesn’t risk war. None of that. It is war.
...
Qassem Soleimani was the adult supervision. He was spread thin over the past decade, but he was nonetheless a serious if nefarious adversary of the United States and its partners in the region. And Iran and its partners will now feel his loss greatly.
I don’t know, and I’m not willing to argue one way or the other, whether that fact justifies Soleimani’s killing. The United States is claiming it acted because Soleimani was making plans to attack U.S. diplomats and troops in the Middle East and because Soleimani had recently orchestrated other attacks on coalition bases in Iraq. Soleimani was at least partially, and in many cases directly, responsible for dozens if not hundreds of attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq going back to the height of the Iraq War. So unlike some other claims this administration has made, what the Trump administration is claiming here would not surprise me—to say the least—if it were indeed true.
-----
AFP is reporting that Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has reactivated Jaysh al-Mahdi, the Mahdi Army, which fought against US forces in Iraq more than a decade ago.
https://twitter.com/joanne_stocker/status/1212998267962904578
[Includes link to tweeted announcement from al-Sadr]
-----
Zeina Khodr -
zeinakhodraljazSenior correspondent, Aljazeera English Television
Zeina Khodr -
zeinakhodraljazhttps://twitter.com/ZeinakhodrAljaz/status/1213006355780526081
Iraqi caretaker Prime minister Abdul-Mahdi: The attack is a breach of the deal that permits US presence in #Iraq. He called for an extraordinary meeting of parliament
Zeina Khodr -
zeinakhodraljazhttps://twitter.com/ZeinakhodrAljaz/status/1213002019642003456
Question - will US be able to stay in #Iraq -
Shia cleric Muqtada Sadr ordered the “reactivation of Mahdi Army” following the assassination of Suleimani #Iran
Zeina Khodr -
zeinakhodraljazhttps://twitter.com/ZeinakhodrAljaz/status/1212998686793445379
Few expect all out war ... #Iran “hardline” camp to benefit from killing; possible attacks against US targets but Iran & allies will tread carefully - killing couldn’t be a clearer message from Trump Administration
[more in thread]
-----
McConnell digs in on impeachment: 'Non-starter' for Pelosi to influence trial
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/476676-mcconnell-digs-in-on-impeachment-non-starter-for-pelosi-to-influence-trial
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) dug in Friday on the stalemate over impeachment, lashing out at Democrats and saying it was a "non-starter" that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) would play any role in determining the trial proceedings.
McConnell, speaking on impeachment for the first time in nearly two weeks, blasted House Democrats as having "cold feet" after Pelosi declined to say when she would transmit the two articles against President Trump
-----
Exclusive: Unredacted Ukraine Documents Reveal Extent of Pentagon’s Legal Concerns
https://www.justsecurity.org/67863/exclusive-unredacted-ukraine-documents-reveal-extent-of-pentagons-legal-concerns/
“Clear direction from POTUS to continue to hold.”
This is what Michael Duffey, associate director of national security programs at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), told Elaine McCusker, the acting Pentagon comptroller, in an Aug. 30 email, which has only been made available in redacted form until now. It is one of many documents the Trump administration is trying to keep from the public, despite congressional oversight efforts and court orders in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation.
...
Thanks to the testimony of several Trump administration officials, we now know what Trump was waiting on: a commitment from Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.
But getting at that truth hasn’t been easy and the Trump administration continues to try to obscure it. It is blocking key officials from testifying and is keeping documentary evidence from lawmakers investigating the Ukraine story. For example, this note from Duffey to McCusker was never turned over to House investigators and the Trump administration is continuing to try to keep it secret.
-----
Pelosi Statement on Urgency for Fair Senate Trial
January 3, 2020
Press Release
https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/1320
“In December, the House upheld its Constitutional duty to defend democracy For The People, honoring the vision of our Founders for a Republic. In an impeachment trial, every U.S. Senator is required to take an oath to ‘do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws.’
“For several months, the House has subpoenaed documents and witnesses which the President stonewalled. These cases are now in the courts. While the House nevertheless was able to obtain compelling evidence of impeachable conduct, Leader McConnell knows full well that the President’s obstruction of the House impeachment inquiry is unprecedented and in defiance of our system of checks and balances.
“Today, Leader McConnell made clear that he will feebly comply with President Trump’s cover-up of his abuses of power and be an accomplice to that cover-up.
-----
Republicans Seek to Swamp Democratic Offices With Anti-Impeachment Calls
The Republican National Committee’s effort was meant to tie up phone lines of congressional Democrats as part of a broader plan to defend the president.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/us/politics/impeachment-republican-national-committee.html
The Republican National Committee paid to generate thousands of calls to the congressional offices of nearly three dozen House Democrats in recent weeks, an effort that was aimed at both shaping opinion around the impeachment inquiry and tying up the phone lines of the elected officials, according to two people briefed on the effort.
The calls were part of a broader effort by Republicans to influence public opinion around the investigation into President Trump. The Trump campaign and the Republican committee have taken the lead on political messaging defending Mr. Trump at a moment of political vulnerability, using television and digital ads, as well as the phone calls.
The fact that the calls to congressional offices, estimated to number 11,000, were partly intended to jam the phone lines of House Democrats — potentially thwarting access to government offices — was described at a recent dinner of more than a dozen Republican aides, advisers and elected officials, known as the “Off the Record” dinner. Officials with the Republican National Committee told others at the dinner about the calls, suggesting they were automated and indicating that the aim was to tie up the phones in Democratic offices, according to two people briefed on what was said.
-----
Fox Business host Stuart Varney: “And where does it leave impeachment? Are we now going to try to impeach and remove from office the commander-in-chief who’s just taken out one of the world’s leading terrorists? That’s quite a question, I suggest.”
https://twitter.com/EricKleefeld/status/1213103800245981184
-----
Leonard Pitts: An open letter to all of you privately disgusted Republicans
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2019/12/04/leonard-pitts-an-open/
This is an open letter to all of you privately disgusted Republicans.
It's prompted by the fact that in the last few days, two of your colleagues have come forward to share with us your angst.
...
As Rick Perry and others claim Trump as God's "chosen one," as a new Economist/YouGov poll finds that most Republicans rank him a better leader than Lincoln himself, as the party grows ever more indistinguishable from a cult, with Trump as he who must not be questioned, he whose wisdom is beyond mere mortal ken, we hear that off the record, you lot are "very concerned?"
One struggles for adjectives to convey how little that means, how insignificant is the comfort it offers.
-----
Trump tells evangelical rally he will put prayer in schools
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-religion/trump-tells-evangelical-rally-he-will-put-prayer-in-schools-idUSKBN1Z22AN
MIAMI/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said his Democratic opponents would tear down crosses and pledged to bring prayer to public schools at a re-election rally to shore up evangelical support.
...
He got a big reaction from the crowd when he promised to bring religion into U.S. schools. A clause in the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from promoting one religion over the other, which means public schools don’t promote prayer or religious symbols.
