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Today's News (2020/1/9)
Jan. 9th, 2020 10:22 pmFirst, a few notes from tonight's demonstration against any war with Iran:
They were all going to be small, given how little warning/leadup there was, and the one I attended in Bothell was in fact small - I did a couple of counts at peak and came up with just over 60 each time. But there were a couple of people leading things, and it lasted at reasonable strength for about as long as it needed to, a little short of two hours.
I wondered if the tiny number of MAGAts who shout at our protests would do the same thing given that 45 ran in part on "Clinton will get us into a warn in Iran!" so strictly speaking, we're on the same side here, right? No. Obviously, that didn't happen; it was the same shit as always. Fuckhead says, MAGATs do.
I am bad at chanting ernestly so I was going "STOP THE WAR / SO WE CAN GO HOME / STOP THE WAR / IT'S GETTING COLD OUT!" Also there was a NO WAR / WE WANT PEACE call-response and I kept going WE WANT PEAS and then stopped that and just started adding "and carrots" quietly in the gaps.
And now, today's news.
-----
Top US general says Iran tried to kill US troops as some administration officials believe they purposely missed
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/08/politics/trump-iran-retaliation-missile-attacks/
Washington (CNN)The top US general made clear Wednesday night that he believes Iran meant to kill US troops in the ballistic missile attack on US forces in Iraq, rebutting a belief among some Trump administration officials that Iran intentionally missed areas populated by Americans.
"I believe based on what I saw and what I know that they were intended to cause structural damage destroy vehicles and equipment and aircraft, and to kill personnel. That's my own personal assessment," said Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when speaking to reporters on Wednesday.
...
Uran fired a number of missiles aimed at the bases in retaliation for the American strike that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani last week, further escalating tensions between the two countries. Officials have said there were no US casualties as a result of the attacks, though a full assessment is underway.
Iranian missiles also landed close to the US consulate in Erbil, but didn't target the consulate itself, though the belief is that they could have.
"We could have done it and we didn't do it," is the message Iranians appeared to be sending, a State Department official said.
The US gave Iran the "opportunity to do what they needed to do and not escalate by killing Americans," the official said, suggesting how the administration could frame the retaliation. This was "a smart move" by the Iranians who demonstrated that they had "more to lose" if they killed Americans.
-----
Some Democratic senators say it's time for Pelosi to submit Trump impeachment articles
"We are reaching a point where the articles of impeachment should be sent," Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told reporters Wednesday.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/some-democratic-senators-say-it-s-time-pelosi-submit-trump-n1112376
A growing number of Democratic senators are saying it's time for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to submit the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate.
"We are reaching a point where the articles of impeachment should be sent," Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told reporters Wednesday.
In an interview with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday, Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with the Democrats, said he believes "it is time for the speaker to send" the articles.
"I don't think her holding them puts any particular pressure on" Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., King said. "I think the key vote will come in the middle of the trial."
-----
Rand Paul, Mike Lee Are 'Empowering the Enemy' By Wanting To Debate War With Iran, Says Lindsey Graham
The Senate is preparing to vote on a War Powers Resolution that would move to curtail President Trump's military actions abroad.
https://reason.com/2020/01/08/rand-paul-mike-lee-are-empowering-the-enemy-by-wanting-to-debate-war-with-iran-says-lindsey-graham/
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) on Wednesday strongly criticized Sens. Mike Lee (R–Utah) and Rand Paul (R–Ky.) after his two Republican colleagues argued that Congress should exercise its role as a lawful check on President Donald Trump's military action against Iran.
"Whether you mean to or not, you're empowering the enemy," Graham told reporters, referring to Lee and Paul's suggestion that the Senate formally discuss the constitutionality and necessity of Trump's decision to assassinate Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. "We live in the real world here," Graham added.
-----
Trump Is Running Hundreds Of Facebook Ads Praising Himself For The Killing Of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani
Within three days of the drone strike, the Trump campaign was using it to build support for his reelection.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alexkantrowitz/trump-is-running-hundreds-of-facebook-ads-praising-himself
President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign is wasting little time capitalizing on the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
Just three days after the death of the head of Iran’s Quds Force, the president’s reelection campaign began to run hundreds of ads praising Trump for ordering the killing — a decision that had been declined by presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
As of Tuesday, Facebook had taken down a few dozen of the ads, some of which appeared to violate the site’s policy against using fake buttons in ads. Facebook did not respond to a request for clarification.
-----
Internal docs reveal that Canada's Exxon subsidiary knew about climate change risks and lied about it for decades
https://boingboing.net/2020/01/08/filthiest-oil-anywhere.html
Imperial Oil is Exxon's Canadian subsidiary, with control the majority of Canada's tar sand oil -- the filthiest, most climate-damaging oil in the world. Calgary's Glenbow Museum has a largely unregarded archive of historical internal Imperial Oil documents, which were retrieved by Desmog and the Climate Investigations Center and turned over to The Intercept.
The Intercept's Murtaza Hussain reports that even as then-CEO Robert Peterson was publishing articles where he asserted that there was "absolutely no agreement among climatologists on whether or not the planet is getting warmer or, if it is, on whether the warming is the result of man-made factors or natural variations in the climate...carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but an essential ingredient of life on this planet" -- he was also being briefed by Imperial Oil's own scientists that its own oil was a major factor in dangerous global warming.
The archives reveal how, since the 1960s, Exxon and Imperial had been working to discredit activists and scientists who were alarmed by the pollution from the oil industry, and how they maintained a surveillance apparatus that spied extensively on activist groups, doxing their participants. At the same time, the company created internal plans to capitalize on polar ice-cap melting and other effects of climate change (last year, the company helped launch a fleet of icebreakers that will clear a path for liquefied natural gas transport across the melting Arctic).
-----
Christiaan Triebert [Visual Investigations - nytimes]
twitter.com/trbrtc
The twitter.com/nytimes visual investigations team has obtained a high resolution version of the video purportedly showing a missile being fired at #PS752. We've verified the video's location and have more information from the person that filmed it. Stay tuned.
https://twitter.com/trbrtc/status/1215348488164298752
[THREAD - includes link to NYTIMES story]
-----
How Pompeo convinced Trump to kill Soleimani and fulfilled a decade-long goal
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/09/politics/pompeo-trump-iran-soleimani/index.html
(CNN) - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was a driving force behind President Donald Trump's decision to kill a top Iranian general, sources inside and around the administration tell CNN, a high-stakes move that demonstrates Pompeo's status as the most influential national security official in the Trump administration.
Taking Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani "off the battlefield" has been a goal for the top US diplomat for a decade, several sources told CNN.
Targeting Iran's second most powerful official -- the leader of the Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, the politically and economically powerful military group with regional clout -- was Pompeo's idea, according to a source from his inner circle. That source said the secretary brought the suggestion to Trump. Pompeo "was the one who made the case to take out Soleimani, it was him absolutely," this source said.
-----
Trump’s DOJ quietly ends two-year fishing expedition on the Clintons — and admits it found nothing
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/trumps-doj-quietly-ends-two-year-fishing-expedition-on-the-clintons-and-admits-it-found-nothing/
On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that the Department of Justice is quietly winding down a two-year probe into the Clintons, and admitting that “nothing of consequence” was found to suggest they had committed any sort of criminal offense.
The probe, conducted by U.S. Attorney John Huber, began as an attempt by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to satisfy Republicans who had been clamoring for President Donald Trump to fulfill one of his campaign slogans and “lock her up.”
Huber focused in particular on the debunked right-wing conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton traded approval of the sale of a Canadian uranium company operating in the United States to the Russian government, in return for contributions from its board to her family’s charitable foundation.
They were all going to be small, given how little warning/leadup there was, and the one I attended in Bothell was in fact small - I did a couple of counts at peak and came up with just over 60 each time. But there were a couple of people leading things, and it lasted at reasonable strength for about as long as it needed to, a little short of two hours.
I wondered if the tiny number of MAGAts who shout at our protests would do the same thing given that 45 ran in part on "Clinton will get us into a warn in Iran!" so strictly speaking, we're on the same side here, right? No. Obviously, that didn't happen; it was the same shit as always. Fuckhead says, MAGATs do.
I am bad at chanting ernestly so I was going "STOP THE WAR / SO WE CAN GO HOME / STOP THE WAR / IT'S GETTING COLD OUT!" Also there was a NO WAR / WE WANT PEACE call-response and I kept going WE WANT PEAS and then stopped that and just started adding "and carrots" quietly in the gaps.
And now, today's news.
-----
Top US general says Iran tried to kill US troops as some administration officials believe they purposely missed
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/08/politics/trump-iran-retaliation-missile-attacks/
Washington (CNN)The top US general made clear Wednesday night that he believes Iran meant to kill US troops in the ballistic missile attack on US forces in Iraq, rebutting a belief among some Trump administration officials that Iran intentionally missed areas populated by Americans.
"I believe based on what I saw and what I know that they were intended to cause structural damage destroy vehicles and equipment and aircraft, and to kill personnel. That's my own personal assessment," said Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when speaking to reporters on Wednesday.
...
Uran fired a number of missiles aimed at the bases in retaliation for the American strike that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani last week, further escalating tensions between the two countries. Officials have said there were no US casualties as a result of the attacks, though a full assessment is underway.
Iranian missiles also landed close to the US consulate in Erbil, but didn't target the consulate itself, though the belief is that they could have.
"We could have done it and we didn't do it," is the message Iranians appeared to be sending, a State Department official said.
The US gave Iran the "opportunity to do what they needed to do and not escalate by killing Americans," the official said, suggesting how the administration could frame the retaliation. This was "a smart move" by the Iranians who demonstrated that they had "more to lose" if they killed Americans.
-----
Some Democratic senators say it's time for Pelosi to submit Trump impeachment articles
"We are reaching a point where the articles of impeachment should be sent," Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told reporters Wednesday.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/some-democratic-senators-say-it-s-time-pelosi-submit-trump-n1112376
A growing number of Democratic senators are saying it's time for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to submit the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate.
"We are reaching a point where the articles of impeachment should be sent," Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told reporters Wednesday.
In an interview with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday, Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with the Democrats, said he believes "it is time for the speaker to send" the articles.
"I don't think her holding them puts any particular pressure on" Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., King said. "I think the key vote will come in the middle of the trial."
-----
Rand Paul, Mike Lee Are 'Empowering the Enemy' By Wanting To Debate War With Iran, Says Lindsey Graham
The Senate is preparing to vote on a War Powers Resolution that would move to curtail President Trump's military actions abroad.
https://reason.com/2020/01/08/rand-paul-mike-lee-are-empowering-the-enemy-by-wanting-to-debate-war-with-iran-says-lindsey-graham/
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) on Wednesday strongly criticized Sens. Mike Lee (R–Utah) and Rand Paul (R–Ky.) after his two Republican colleagues argued that Congress should exercise its role as a lawful check on President Donald Trump's military action against Iran.
"Whether you mean to or not, you're empowering the enemy," Graham told reporters, referring to Lee and Paul's suggestion that the Senate formally discuss the constitutionality and necessity of Trump's decision to assassinate Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. "We live in the real world here," Graham added.
-----
Trump Is Running Hundreds Of Facebook Ads Praising Himself For The Killing Of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani
Within three days of the drone strike, the Trump campaign was using it to build support for his reelection.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alexkantrowitz/trump-is-running-hundreds-of-facebook-ads-praising-himself
President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign is wasting little time capitalizing on the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
Just three days after the death of the head of Iran’s Quds Force, the president’s reelection campaign began to run hundreds of ads praising Trump for ordering the killing — a decision that had been declined by presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
As of Tuesday, Facebook had taken down a few dozen of the ads, some of which appeared to violate the site’s policy against using fake buttons in ads. Facebook did not respond to a request for clarification.
-----
Internal docs reveal that Canada's Exxon subsidiary knew about climate change risks and lied about it for decades
https://boingboing.net/2020/01/08/filthiest-oil-anywhere.html
Imperial Oil is Exxon's Canadian subsidiary, with control the majority of Canada's tar sand oil -- the filthiest, most climate-damaging oil in the world. Calgary's Glenbow Museum has a largely unregarded archive of historical internal Imperial Oil documents, which were retrieved by Desmog and the Climate Investigations Center and turned over to The Intercept.
The Intercept's Murtaza Hussain reports that even as then-CEO Robert Peterson was publishing articles where he asserted that there was "absolutely no agreement among climatologists on whether or not the planet is getting warmer or, if it is, on whether the warming is the result of man-made factors or natural variations in the climate...carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but an essential ingredient of life on this planet" -- he was also being briefed by Imperial Oil's own scientists that its own oil was a major factor in dangerous global warming.
The archives reveal how, since the 1960s, Exxon and Imperial had been working to discredit activists and scientists who were alarmed by the pollution from the oil industry, and how they maintained a surveillance apparatus that spied extensively on activist groups, doxing their participants. At the same time, the company created internal plans to capitalize on polar ice-cap melting and other effects of climate change (last year, the company helped launch a fleet of icebreakers that will clear a path for liquefied natural gas transport across the melting Arctic).
-----
Christiaan Triebert [Visual Investigations - nytimes]
twitter.com/trbrtc
The twitter.com/nytimes visual investigations team has obtained a high resolution version of the video purportedly showing a missile being fired at #PS752. We've verified the video's location and have more information from the person that filmed it. Stay tuned.
https://twitter.com/trbrtc/status/1215348488164298752
[THREAD - includes link to NYTIMES story]
-----
How Pompeo convinced Trump to kill Soleimani and fulfilled a decade-long goal
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/09/politics/pompeo-trump-iran-soleimani/index.html
(CNN) - Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was a driving force behind President Donald Trump's decision to kill a top Iranian general, sources inside and around the administration tell CNN, a high-stakes move that demonstrates Pompeo's status as the most influential national security official in the Trump administration.
Taking Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani "off the battlefield" has been a goal for the top US diplomat for a decade, several sources told CNN.
Targeting Iran's second most powerful official -- the leader of the Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, the politically and economically powerful military group with regional clout -- was Pompeo's idea, according to a source from his inner circle. That source said the secretary brought the suggestion to Trump. Pompeo "was the one who made the case to take out Soleimani, it was him absolutely," this source said.
-----
Trump’s DOJ quietly ends two-year fishing expedition on the Clintons — and admits it found nothing
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/trumps-doj-quietly-ends-two-year-fishing-expedition-on-the-clintons-and-admits-it-found-nothing/
On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that the Department of Justice is quietly winding down a two-year probe into the Clintons, and admitting that “nothing of consequence” was found to suggest they had committed any sort of criminal offense.
The probe, conducted by U.S. Attorney John Huber, began as an attempt by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to satisfy Republicans who had been clamoring for President Donald Trump to fulfill one of his campaign slogans and “lock her up.”
Huber focused in particular on the debunked right-wing conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton traded approval of the sale of a Canadian uranium company operating in the United States to the Russian government, in return for contributions from its board to her family’s charitable foundation.
