https://www.foxnews.com/world/crowd-...ad-report-says

This seems like a big deal, curious how Trump will respond other than through twitter.

And Susan Collins now with her obligatory I'm not just going to fall in line before falling in line. Fuck off. Inauthentic pieces of shit.

The thing is, politicians know what get them re-elected. Collins, etc wouldn’t do this song and dance if her voters didn’t want it.

Should be interested to watch her re-election effort. Presumably we know the script here... anti-Trumpers nationwide pour cash into her Dem opponent, and then Collins gets to run on "oh, all the Hollywood money is coming in to beat me... but we Mainers know what we want" and she wins by... 7% or so? Willing to look back on this with embarrassment for being so off, but that sounds roughly right to me.

The difference here is that Maine has voted Democrat for President since Bill Clinton's first term. And has Ranked Choice Voting for elections now (negating an independent spoiler - which was the reason LePage was Governor). Collins has been running against the tide of her state because of her perceived moderation.

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Susan Collins is open to hearing from witnesses, but wants to decide after the evidence is presented. Clearly, she's looking for reasons to keep people from testifying.

dola

DoJ gets caught redacting Defense emails that aren't confidential, but do contradict the WH line on Ukraine funding.

https://www.justsecurity.org/67863/e...egal-concerns/

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/02/w...lia/fires.html

Global warming is a hoax, Ammitire?

Hopefully someone sends them some rakes.

They should also stop wasting water by allowing it to flow into the sea.

If global warming isn't real, then why is it so hot in Australia during the winter? Checkmate atheists!

In the continuing saga of Impeached President* Shit For Brains:

Unredacted Docs Show Pentagon’s Legal Panic Over Withholding of Ukraine Aid

As a flat earther, I have no answer for this.

But you didn't deny it...or confirm it...damn.

Crazy that the entire GOP will now argue that the President not only has the right, but the obligation to kill foreign leaders without congressional authority.

This really isn't a D or R thing. It hits so many gray areas and goes against the very framework of our government and powers of the executive branch.

If true, I'm surprised there hasn't been more reprisals and only a middling (?) breach of the embassy. "Shelling" doesn't seem like a US modus operandi vs using a drone though. More to come ...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/02/middl...ets/index.html

EDIT: Looks like BBC is confirming it was a US strike and it was one that occurred after the embassy breach. Trump likes to escalate things, I sincerely hope he and our overseas presence are ready for the consequences/retaliation.

Yeah, Dems haven't been good on this either. It's so much easier to let the executive make the decisions and then bitch from the sidelines if things go wrong rather than take responsibility.

See how much Trump has raised? $27 million more than Obama at this point in his re-election bid.

Thanks to to the impeachment for guaranteeing a Trump re-election.

Dem candidates as a whole out-raised him. Regardless, I don't think this election comes down to money. Both sides have plenty.

I'm so old I remember when Trump would self-fund so that he wouldn't owe anyone.

Oh, well...

Shits going to hit the fan. Trump orders an airstrike that kills a high ranking Iranian general.

What will the response be?

Was it just a straight attack on Iranian military targets?

I'm thinking yes.

In a Baghdad airport. Basically like someone bombing the Joint Chiefs on a visit to Canada.

So uh do we still have the Iraqi's back or are they on their own in this potential conflict?

Pretty historic moment. Essentially an act of war. Iran will have to retaliate in some capacity and we're probably going to war (in some capacity).

So much for the "at least Trump will keep isn't a hawk" talk.

Huge escalation. Soleimani was a critical part of Iran's apparatus and regional objectives. So I understand the rationale behind it... but this is also a major saber rattling.

I supported Obama's use of surgical strikes against terrorists, this is one of those rare occasions I again, think it's the right move as long as the threat warranted it.

Ya, I think this all comes across differently if there's a grown-up pulling the strings.

But Iran has been escalating its activities through these proxy groups and the U.S. warned Soleimani specifically last year that they'd hold him personally responsible for attacks of that nature.

Here's the problem: who's defining terrorists?

Oh, that's right. The Executive Branch. Which means Trump (or Obama or whoever) can re-define any group as a terrorist group so they can use the AUMF to wage war without congressional approval.

Which they did to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard in April of last year.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard, whether or not they've ever given material support to terrorist groups, are part of a sovereign nation's military.

Starting to see the problem yet?

The AUMF was supposed to authorize President Bush's use of the military to fight those involved with the 9/11 attacks. It was left so vague that it's been almost 20 years, and it's being used to justify new conflicts, whether that was President Obama taking on ISIL or, now, President Trump attacking a senior military commander of a sovereign nation on the soil of yet ANOTHER sovereign nation, in retaliation for their supposed support for an attack which had nothing to do with 9/11.

This is where I point out that the "right" move isn't necessarily either a legal or constitutional maneuver. He may well have been a threat to American interests. Unless the courts are willing to go full ostrich on this one and yet again abrogate their constitutional responsibility to check the executive, Trump still needed Congressional approval for this, and didn't seek it.

Hell, the House has been trying to tie his hands on this specific thing - attacking Iran without Congressional approval - for several months, and Republicans have repeatedly balked, saying that he'd never do something that silly so why are we wasting time on th--oh.

Sadly this is going to be one of those situations where the Democratic politicians should hold Trump and his Neocon advisers feet to the fire but who doesn't love the war machine and endless war in the Middle East?

Government sponsored assassination, possibly leading to conflict costing lots of American lives? Hooray!
Tweet about teenage global warning activist? Oh the horror, how will the world function tomorrow?

Like Jphillips alluded to earlier the members of Congress would much rather cede war powers to the executive so as not to effect their reelection chances if things go well/poorly. Why stand for something when there are 100's of wedge issues they can fall back on to rally their base?

Over/under on when Iran retaliates?

The left will scream how awful the Orange Man is.

The right will scream how we finally have a president willing to fight enemies.

There will be a few extra rockets and suicide attack attempts in the middle east for awhile.

The west will lose interest in a few days.

My guess is the west will not lose interest in a few days because Trump won't let it. This escalation puts his other troubles on a back burner, will play well to his base, and tug at the patriotism theme for the fringe voters.

It could all blow up in Trump's face if there are significant attacks that the US cannot stop etc. (lots of soft targets all over the world e.g. Trump hotels) but wouldn't surprise me if we are effectively in war as we get closer to elections.

Not to say Trump was wrong in making this decision. It definitely helps him politically and serves his self-interests but Soleimani was a bad guy and had a hand in attacking US military one fashion or another.

I could see it, but Trump's just so all over the place, I doubt it. He jumps from shiny thing to shiny thing, talks up how great he is, and moves onto the next thing that he (in his own words) does better than anyone else.

I'm perfectly fine with the attack, but I'm doubting this will make any major difference in the grand scheme of things either way.

Unfortunately Iraq has been the chessboard that US and Iran has been waging their proxy war on. Both have their own self interests in mind first and Iraq's second.

Iraq may be better off with a strongman in charge. Western democracy-lite don't seem to be working well there.

Market is only down only 250 so far. Surprised it's not more.

Since when does Iran have any concern with Iraqi’s interests?

Beyond that, your response does not answer the question. Given our recent actions with our Kurdish “allies”, the Iraqis have to question whether they have cover from the US or if they need to go about securing cover from another source be it sovereign nation or rogue group.

If I liked one thing about the Trump Presidency it is that we haven't been in any expensive large scale military military engagements.

Sadly I think that might about to change.

US to deploy thousands of additional troops to Middle East following Soleimani killing

We're already running a trillion dollar deficit, let's throw another half trillion on there for a completely avoidable war.

Just a reminder that a Hezbollah agent was just sentenced to 40 years for scouting daycare centers in the United States. No guarantee this all stays overseas.

I thought I was clear in saying Iran has their own interests first. They (and the US) are not asking what's best for Iraq, they are asking what's best for themselves first.

As far as secondary interests (1) both Iran and Iraq are primarily Shia (2) both have a lot of oil.


Again, thought I was pretty clear in saying US and Iran don't have Iraq's "back" as that is not their primary goal. Re: Kurds, the US will only support the Kurds when it serves their purpose and its been iffy.

I'm with you here. Unfortunately we still have strong interests in ME oil (hurry up Elon and like). I look forward to the day when ME regimes can no longer build their adult playgrounds in the sand with US, European and Chinese money.

This has nothing to do with oil.

And this stuff won't stop when we move to electric or another alternative source. See what we did to Bolivia to get access to those lithium mines.

Well this escalated fast sigh.....

US sending 3,000 more troops to Mideast as reinforcements

You don't think oil plays a significant role in our presence and support of the frenemy regimes in the ME?

I do agree that oil is not the reason for this strike, but our dependency on oil has set the stage for our ME policy for decades.

What did we do to Bolivia?

Sure, we'll have to play a role to secure necessary materials for alternative energy. I can't imagine those other areas are as volatile as the ME as the religion factor will be left out or minimal.

I'll take complexities of Boliva anyday over ME.

There was a coup in Bolivia and there seems to be a lot of smoke that indicates that the US was involved heavily in it.