Republicans Hate Democracy

How else do you explain this shit?  An argument that anything a president does to win re-election is not impeachable, because a president believes that their holding office is in the national interest is basically "L'etat c'est moi" for the digital age.

If - as expected - the Senate GOP votes against hearing from witnesses, I do think we will be looking at a Democratic Senate a year from now.  Collins, Gardner, McSally, Ernst and Tillis won't survive that vote.

Will It Make A Difference, Part the Millionth

John Bolton's gag slipped a bit. For whatever reason, an excerpt from his book made it into the Times, and now Republicans have to address why it makes sense to deny witnesses at the Senate trial. The standard argument that they will make, based on my interactions with the Trumpenproletariat online, is that the Democrats had their shot in the House and blew it.

Of course, that argument is based on a number of faulty presumptions.  First, it presumes that all discovery needed to take place in the House. That's not true of trials in general, but it's especially not true in this case.  One of the two impeachment charges against Trump is obstruction of justice.  His refusal to let ANYONE testify is both undeniable and by definition obstructive. The counterargument I heard about this was that the Courts should have weighed in on his obstruction and forced people to testify.  The counter to that is that impeachment is a power vested solely in Congress.  If Trump stopped people from testifying before a normal subcommittee, then it should go to the Courts.  Once it's an impeachment hearing...that power lies with Congress.

Secondly, they will go back to arguing that Trump was completely within his power to ask Ukraine to ratfuck and American election. You won't hear this argument from Senators, but the various trolls, bots and True Believers will basically throw out the Nixonian argument of "If the President does it, it's not illegal."  In effect, the argument is "Sure, he used the power of the presidency for personal political gain, but suck on it."

There were powerful incentives for the House to expedite impeachment.  For all the caterwauling about how rushed the process was, it's worth rehashing the timeline.  In early August, we got wind of the whistleblower's report. At some point in September, the House moved forward with impeachment hearings.  Those took place in October and November, followed by a vote in December. Articles were referred to the Senate in January.  Does that seem rushed? In 1868, Andrew Johnson fired Edwin Stanton on February 21st.  He was impeached on February 24th. On March 4th, the articles of impeachment were sent to the Senate.

Yes, Watergate took so much longer, but that was because Nixon was obstructing the investigation - similar to how Trump is obstructing this one. Unlike Watergate, however, evidence of Trump's wrongdoing has been available from the start. The Watergate hearings had to peel back layers of cover-ups and make connections that were actively being hidden.  Trump walked on to the White House lawn and asked Ukraine and China to investigate the Bidens. The evidence of his guilt has been pretty solid from the start.

The Clinton impeachment took a fairly long amount of time, at least in part because Clinton's behavior was hard to prove. Throughout the spring of 1998, Ken Starr and House Republicans worked hard to create a patina of guilt over Clinton's actions. Most people didn't buy it, so they kept grinding away. Today, a plurality to a slight majority support impeaching Trump. Those numbers slightly favor removing him.  Those numbers were never true for Clinton.

Trump refused to let anyone currently working for the executive branch testify in the House, because they said the process was rigged by House Democrats.  Now, in a Senate Chamber controlled by Republicans, they say that the House should have called witnesses. 

Every single Republican Senator who votes against hearing from John Bolton (or Mick Mulvaney or Mike Pompeo) is aiding and abetting a criminal cover up and obstruction of justice.  Every single one.

Oh, Look. Trump Lied Again.

After the Iranian attack on the US base in Iraq, Trump said there were no casualties.

Except there were.

OK, fine.  Fog of war.  Whatever. Traumatic Brain Injuries are tricky things.  We deal with them a lot in coaching athletics and they are tricky because they are rarely visible. If you get kicked in the jaw and the muscles of your jaw seize up in spasm, giving you a headache, you don't have a concussion, but the symptom has to be treated as a concussion.

So, Trump didn't know that high powered explosions cause TBI.  Except, of course, when pressed upon the Pentagon reporting the injuries, Trump did what he always did: refuse to admit he was wrong. In fact, he doubled down on being an asshole about it.  Captain Bonespurs, the guy who called the Joint Chiefs of Staff "losers" and "babies," decided to mock the softness of these soldiers and the extent of their injuries.  In fact, TBI are very, very serious, especially among combat veterans. Repeated TBI can cause all sorts of cognitive, psychological and mood disorders.

Once again, the asshole-in-chief has laid down a marker that would've set the world on fire if Barack Obama had said the same thing.

Loathsome person, and 40% of Americans would walk through fire for him.

Feeling The Heat

Yesterday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo melted down on and off tape at an NPR reporter who dared to ask him about Ukraine and the State Department's treatment of Marie Yovanovich. It was epic in terms of self-ownage, when Pompeo challenged her to find Ukraine on a map and she did, because she's not a freaking moron.

There are a number of ways to read this incident.

First, Pompeo was a rising star in Republican hard right circles. Now he will be irrevocably tied to his sycophancy to Trump. As more and more evidence emerges showing Trump's disregard for legal and constitutional norms, Pompeo and his cohort must be feeling the stress. Blowing up at a reporter asking a completely unsurprising question suggests Pompeo is cracking.

Second, angrily yelling and borderline threatening a female reporter seems to check off a lot of boxes for the Trumpist Right. The bullying, the disdain for the press, the disdain for women...It's a trifecta. Pompeo's behavior is very on brand.

Third, Pompeo being surprised that an NPR foreign policy reporter could find Ukraine on a map suggests that he's currently surrounded by morons. How can you think that finding Ukraine on a map would be a challenge for someone who's a foreign affairs correspondent? It's a large country that has been in the news.  Maybe you've heard of it?  Sure, some dimwit interviewed by a street reporter for laughs on Jimmy Kimmel can't find it, but Mary Louise Kelly is not a dimwit off the street.

The most likely scenario is just that Pompeo is seeing his career circle the bowl, as he's already passed up a Senate run in Kansas. He is lashing out - as Trump is lashing out - in any and all directions. The pressure is working.

Polarization

If nothing else, impeachment here in Trumpistan is demonstrating - once again - the high levels of political polarization in the US today. Ezra Klein flags a study suggesting that the current levels of polarization are actually fairly normal by historical standards.  I think there's merit there.  In the 19th century, election day violence was fairly common.  Even when the parties had few ideological differences - as in the Gilded Age - partisanship was high.  Some of this is the broad idea of identity politics. If you were a white Southerner or an Irishman, you voted for the Democrats.  If you were African American or a small town merchant, you voted for the Republicans.  Your identity WAS your politics, because there were few issues that broadly separated Americans.

One thing Klein doesn't talk about - and few do, which is baffling - is the impact our electoral system has on polarization.  Not campaign finance issues but the simple matter of a single member district where the person with the most votes - not the majority of votes - wins the election.  This "winner take all, and the winner just has to be least unpopular" system rewards partisan fervor and disdains compromise.  It forces people into one of the two parties (or dooms them to counterproductive third party support) and increases the level of partisanship.

Having said all that...Fox News, man....Fox News.

How Do We Solve Fox News?

It's clear that Fox - more than any other pathogen in our body politic - is killing America's experiment in representative government.  Liberal democracy cannot survive without at least a nodding acquaintance with objective reality.

Trump - a belligerent ignoramus - would only be allowed in the White House on a tour, if it were not for Fox News. Similar apparatus have existed in the past, but Fox has such greater reach than John Birch newsletters.

America needs a sane right of center party to function.  Instead, we have a party consumed by the idiocracy of Fox.

Please Practice Self-Care

These impeachment hearings are going to be packed full of lies and stupid arguments. Trump's lawyers aren't making a case to neutral jurors, they are making a case to brains pickled in years of Fox News - one worm-ridden brain in particular.

Trump will be acquitted in the Senate.  This was always going to happen. It won't happen because the Democrats failed to pull off some Aaron Sorkin inspired bullshit.  It won't happen because they don't have a strong case. It won't happen because what Trump did was OK.

It will happen because the GOP prizes party loyalty above constitutional government.

So, don't invest your emotional energy in this disgraceful display by the Senate GOP.

Register someone to vote instead.  That's our only hope.

Judis On The Left

I have had my problems with John Judis' arguments at times. I typically do with Leftists. But he's written a penetrating critique of the Left from the perspective of an aging Leftist who lived through the failures of the New Left.  It's fairly long, so the TL;DR version is basically this:

- The Left's causes are fundamentally moral.
- This can give them the feeling of religious reform movements rather than coalition politics.
- The purity of belief inevitably means schisms.
- The combined effect is to turn off the requisite number of voters needed to win an election.

As everyone howls over Hillary Clinton's criticism of Bernie Sanders, it's worth noting one aspect that is true: Bernie Sanders has been unable to build a coalition in the Senate, despite being there for decades.(Yes, she should support the party's nominee, but I imagine she will.)  Sanders has never been able to reach a critical numbers of his peers to create meaningful legislation.  Biden has his fair share of baggage, but he did author and shepherd major legislation. Klobuchar and even Warren can make that case better than Sanders.

Warren is the most interesting, because at time she "gets" the idea of reaching out to middle ground.  She talks big structural change, but also commits herself to being a capitalist.  Where Judis points out the Left's descent into its own navel is probably correct. I think it's important to recognize gender identification, because I think every person has the right to define themselves to society. But I don't obsess over pronouns.  I'll do my best to remember, but I'm sure I'll forget (should it arise).

The High Priests of the New New Left need to understand that compromise is built into all political change. I don't see that dynamic at work.  I think back to the schism between William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass, where Garrison considered all cooperation with what he felt was morally corrupt politics was evil.  Douglass was much more concerned with the actual emancipation of African American slaves, and he was ultimately willing to use coalition politics to achieve that.

I've stated often that I believe revolutions always fail.  They always snap back into the forms that created them, if with slightly different spins. The Tsar becomes the General Secretary. The Shah becomes the Ayatollah. Louis becomes Napoleon. Judis' piece is illustrative of why that happens.  The inevitable factionalism of revolutionary forces makes coalition governance impossible. And, yes, coalitions produce unsatisfactory results, if you are only judging those results based on your prefered outcome.  But, of course, there is more than an unsatisfactory result.  There is Trump.

Lucy And The Football

Well, we are at it again.  Time after time, we have seen that Republicans are powerless to live up to anything approaching their oaths of office in the face of Trumpism. They were recently sworn in as "jurors" in the impeachment trial in the Senate, and they almost certainly perjured themselves when they swore to "do impartial justice." There will be nothing impartial about the trial in the Senate.  They will not call witnesses.  They will not hear new evidence. Hell, they will barely listen to the evidence we already DO have.

Every time some significant story comes along, we wait for the "reasonable Republicans" to restore our faith in our governing institutions. And with one exception - when a dying John McCain saved the ACA - the so-called Senate moderates have let us down.

There are no "reasonable Republicans" waiting to find their courage. They don't like Trump, but they - or at least their voters - hate Democrats so much that flirting with the end of true republican governance and the rule of law seems a small price to pay for keeping "filthy Demoncrats" from power.

There is only one cure for Trumpism.  It's not only a landslide election of a Democratic president in 2020, but flipping 6-7 Senate seats, including Mitch McConnell's.  The odds of that actually happening is vanishingly small, but really it's the only hope for our values and institutions.

If we are still writing history in 20 years, it won't be kind to McConnell and his ilk, but he - and they - have amply demonstrated that they simply don't care.

UPDATE: This is exactly right.

Trump As McCarthy

Historical comparisons are always a bit stretched, but this is a solid one. Chait is perhaps uncharacteristically pessimistic in noting that there was nothing pre-ordained in McCarthy's fall.  If you want a more optimistic take, I can offer it.

Chait notes that McCarthy became a liability when a Republican headed the executive branch, and his attacks on the Army and George Marshall lacked partisan utility.  A counter-argument could be that, burdened with responsibility, McCarthy flamed out under a different form of press scrutiny.  As a back-bench bomb thrower, McCarthy's wild accusations were the point.  Once he had the burden of actually trying to prove his attacks, he withered.

Trump ran on 2016 on being "not of Washington."  A certain segment of the population thought, "What's the worst that can happen?  Let's elect a business man."  A certain segment of that segment has reached the conclusion that the worst can indeed be bad.  These are the suburban voters who returned a Democratic House majority in 2018.

Yes, there will be people who support Trump until the bitter end. Republicans Senators will back Trump out of fear of this majority of Republicans who venerate this orange-hued clown. But that doesn't mean he will get re-elected. 

Lead, Follow Or Get Out Of The Way

Folks at Davos should be anxious. Sanders and Warren might make them itchy, but the reality is that there are twin disasters headed for the world.  The first is that wealth inequality erodes democracy to the point that political violence - for the moment mostly confined to the far right - becomes an acceptable tool to force change on a system that blocks it.

The second, of course, is climate change and the Davos Billionaire class is all very, very concerned about it and thinking very deeply about it.  They aren't exactly rushing to raise the taxes necessary to fix the fucking problem, but their press agents want you to know that they share our concerns.

There's not really a moral case for billionaires existing. There's a theoretical utilitarian one: that billionaires became that way because they are just so awesome.

Taxes work better than charity. Once people understand that, the billionaires will be sweating even more.

Lev Parnas And The Judgment Of History

Once rumors started that Ukrainian goombah Lev Parnas was willing to cooperate with federal law enforcement and House impeachment efforts, three questions arose.

First, what did he really have?  It turns out, he has some very interesting written evidence, including texts that put Giuliani and Trump at the center of everything, and much earlier than we knew. In particular, Parnas's evidence reveals that Giuliani's cabal had open communication with Zelenskyy's predecessor's lead prosecutor.  This guy was notoriously corrupt, and Giuliani and Parnas were trying to leverage US aid and a Trump visit to get "dirt" on Biden.

Second, can he be trusted? Well...that's still an open question.  Parnas is a conman, a grifter and a criminal.  In no reasonable circumstances would I call Lev Parnas trustworthy.  However, I haven't heard that line of defense offered much by conservative defenders of Trump.  Having documentation - documentation that lines up with known facts of the case - certainly enhances Parnas as a witness.  Still, Parnas's reliability as a witness is very much an open question.

Third, will it make a difference in the Senate trial? My gut tells me, no.  Senate Republicans are in a very tight bind. Step out of line with Trump and the Deplorables (aka the Republican base) will hammer them. Stay in line with Trump and how many more Lev Parnases are out there?  How much more evidence will emerge.  Sure, there's a decent - if cynical - argument that evidence doesn't really matter.  We have tons of evidence that Trump is guilty and large numbers of Americans are OK with that, because they hate Democrats.

Still, some of them presumably have some small idea that history is watching. They know, fundamentally, that Trump is unworthy and unfit to be president. How closely do they want to lash themselves to this rotten ship?

Back in 2016, a fresh-faced young fella named Lindsay Graham said that if the GOP nominated Trump they would get killed and they would deserve to get killed.  Today, that bold truth teller has his lips so firmly attached to Trump's posterior, the gap can't be measured by modern science.  However, he has to suspect that maybe he was not wrong.  Maybe the GOP will get killed for nominating Trump.  It would just take 4 years for the bullet to hit.

Good God....

Read this and weep.

One of the fascinating things - as an academic, not a citizen - of Trumpistan is watching how institutions and institutional rules both restrain and enable Trump.  This piece does a great job of showing how Trump's media strategy is perfectly tailored to today's media landscape. Trump's relentless torrent of lies overwhelms the ability of factcheckers and journalists to keep up with him.  But the basic rules of "bothsides" and journalist respectability mean that the president can't be called a childish, unhinged, peevish lunatic, even if that description fits.  When Trump engages in a bizarre rant, it's usually couched in terms other than a "bizarre rant." Jon Chait notes how Trump is successfully politicizing prosecutions by the Justice Department.

But the piece linked in the first line is terrifying in so many ways. If Trump's behavior described in that piece is even 75% accurate, then you just have to pick your jaw up off the floor. He's ignorant, but his web of sycophants and structured bullshit means he's the walking embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect. So, the first horror show is that - when the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretaries of Defense and State tried to educate him about the world - he blew up like a spoiled brat being told he couldn't have all the cookies. Even more troubling is that - challenged in ways that he really never has been before, by people he deep down craves respect from - he slammed them in ways that is...just flabbergasting.

Trump has never been "President."  He's been "President of the Deplorables."  He refuses to unify or engage the nation beyond his base.  When he decided that the military brass and national security apparatus was not part of "the Deplorables," he turned on them, just like he turns on anyone who isn't sufficiently loyal and deferential.

As far as institutions go, this episode could lead in two directions.  One is the Mattis direction. The military and national security apparatus, so steeped in chain of command, roll over for this martinet. The other is that they find a way to interfere in the 2020 election. If they do, that challenges the essential separation of the military and intelligence agencies from domestic politics.  The CIA barely survived the Church hearings and Watergate, but at least in those instances, they were operating under the chain of command. What happens if the CIA and other agencies leak damaging information about Trump in October? Good news!  He's gone!  Bad news!  We've eroded yet another democratic institutions within the borders of Trumpistan.

More Evidence That Won't Matter To Republicans

Lev Parnas has some dirt.  It doesn't exactly break new ground, but it intensifies the amount of connections between Giuliani, Ukrainian officials and by extension, Trump. I would guess there is a bit more evidence in Parnas's phone, but Democrats are holding it back.

Another Debate Coming

Think they will ask about this?

Nahhhh, it will be the spat between Sanders and Warren.

Meanwhile, the world literally burns.

Will It Matter?

Some rumblings that we might get witnesses at the Senate trial.

Two caveats: New witnesses? Or just the ones who already testified in the House?

And: What difference will it make anyway?  I'm VERY skeptical John Bolton is going to add anything substantive to the discourse.

But...If they call witnesses and the White House stonewalls them...how can you vote to acquit on obstruction charges?

Lying Liars And Their Lies

As we try and come to grips with the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, we are trapped by two circumstances.  It is in the nature of intelligence services to be secretive. They don't wish to divulge ANYTHING, though in a democracy, they grudgingly concede they must. So any information about why we killed him was bound to be incomplete.

The greater tension is that this administration lies so routinely and so shamelessly that it's impossible to believe anything that comes from the White House apparatus.  They are no more reliable than "Baghdad Bob" was.

You can't just assassinate people. You can take preemptive measures in the face of imminent harm. But Trump clearly just wanted to kill an important Iranian and then make up a reason afterwards. There is no evidence Soleimani was an imminent threat. Or rather, maybe there is, but intelligence sources can't divulge it publicly.  Of course, they don't seem to be able to divulge it privately either.

The crisis of credibility in American foreign relations is a big problem. Will it be repaired by removing Trump?

The Plan

Pelosi looks to be sending the impeachment articles to the Senate next week.  There is no shortage of advice for her as to how to proceed.  Pelosi never acts without thinking several steps ahead, so there must be a reason to send the articles now.  Perhaps Susan Collins has grown a spine. 

Stop laughing.

No, stop it.

OK, so it's unlikely Senate Republicans will do their constitutional duty.  It is unlikely that John Bolton will come in and save the day.  It's unlikely that Democrats will be able to introduce new evidence in the Senate at all.

Instead, they seem to be banking on tying the entire GOP to Trump's crimes, then wait as more and more crimes trickle out.  It's not a terrible strategy, since the only way to remove Trump from office is the election (or a massive KFC-fueled coronary).

Still, "impeachment" was never going to be as satisfying for Democrats as it was upsetting to the malignant narcissist-in-chief. 

Strange Times

A few days ago, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) came out of the Intelligence briefing on Soleimani's assassination furious at the lack of thought and care in the briefing or the rationale for the strike on a foreign military leader.

Yesterday, Matt Gaetz - of all people - voted for the resolution binding Trump's ability to use military force against Iran.  Gaetz's reasoning (I can't believe I'm writing these words about Gaetz) is rock solid. Congress has a constitutionally mandated role to play in the use of military force and they should not abandon this incredible power to the whims of ANY president.  But we don't have ANY president.  We have Trump.  This makes Congress's attempt to rein in his impulsivity even more critical.

It also means that you cannot - under ANY circumstances - break with Hair Furor. Keep an eye on Gaetz over the weekend. He's got the most ironclad Trumpist bona fides of anyone.  Will that give him cover for his vote? I have my doubts.  The GOP continues to spiral into authoritarianism.  Mike Lee walked back some of his criticism of the briefing ("I wasn't criticizing the President."), and I'm guessing Gaetz will crumble soon.

Thou shalt not break with the whims of Dear Leader.

Well, Actually...

In 2002, Republicans smeared Max Cleland - who lost three limbs in Vietnam - of coddling terrorists, because he didn't want to go to war in Iraq.  Today, that legacy lives on in Georgia.  I don't know how much that will resonate beyond the Fox News crowd, but there it is.

It's worth pushing back on the argument that Soleimani was a terrorist.  He wasn't.  He was a soldier, targeting soldiers (at least as far as taking on the US is concerned).  He did support terrorist groups who tended to attack US diplomatic targets, but there is some evidence he didn't direct those sort of attacks.  There are US servicemen and women who are dead or maimed because he supplied them with weaponry.  He was our enemy on the field of battle.  But he was more like Rommel than bin Laden.  Allowing Republicans to cast anyone who opposes us in the Middle East as a terrorist allows them to cast every conflict there through the lens of 9/11.  It's worked for about two decades and it needs to stop.

By Dawn's Early Light

Last night's chaotic events are still coming in to focus.  Initially, it looks like the following is true: Iran launched missiles from Iran into US bases in Iraq, without killing US troops.  Meanwhile, it what might be an ungodly coincidence, a Ukrainian airline fell out of the sky near Tehran. Of course it had to be Ukrainian. 

Operating on the assumption that the US was not responsible for the downed Ukrainian airliner and that there are no US deaths, then we are likely looking at Iran trying to nudge the US out of Iraq.  That's been their strategic goal for years now. If these attacks are designed to push Trump out - starting from the perspective that Trump really doesn't want another Mideast war - then not killing Americans would've been the goal.  I don't know how accurate Iranian missiles are, but this recalls when the US launched a bunch of cruise missiles at Syria to no real effect.  The strike was significant, not the damage.  Iran may also have wanted to change the topic after 50+ people were crushed to death at Soleimani's funeral.

If that was their intent, I wouldn't expect that they are done.  Iran is patient, and they will hit us again when it our guard is down, in ways that will be harder to trace.  For now this is still not World War III.

Bolton

John Bolton said he would abide by a Senate subpoena. Why did he say that?

Most likely he said it in the same way I might say that I won't quit my teaching job to pitch for the Braves. He's making a commitment that will never be tested.  The Senate does not seem remotely ready to call witnesses. Bolton pointedly did NOT say he would abide by a House subpoena.  It would be interesting if the House did, in fact, subpoena him in the next couple of days.  My guess? He doesn't show.

Presumably, Bolton's statement puts some pressure on Senate "moderates" who might buck McConnell and write rules for the "fair trial" scenario. Here's a credible, central witness who should be heard, unless your desire is to sweep this under the rug.  However, who are these "moderates"? Mitt Romney will vote for the "fair trial." I could maybe see Mike Lee follow his lead, given how uniquely unpopular Trump is in Utah.

After that?

We can already write off Susan Collins.  She's the most worthless invertebrate in Congress.  Murkowski is more of a possibility, but I'm not holding my breath.  For the others, maybe a retiring Senator like Lamar Alexander or Johnny Isakson might support it, but there is equally no incentive for doing the right thing.  People like Joni Ernst, Cory Gardner or Martha McSally - who are running for re-election this year - are in a tight spot. Support the "fair trial" and you lose MAGAt support. Oppose it, and you lose independents. 

So, Bolton's offer to testify in a Senate trial is likely him trying to distance himself from the historical reckoning that is coming without jeopardizing his future in Republican politics.

It means nothing.

This Could Be Huge

Lev Parnas is the linchpin in exposing Trump's various crimes in Ukraine and possibly Russia. He was "in the room" for all sorts of bad actions that included Rudy Giuliani.

His documents will be turned over to Adam Schiff this week.

No wonder the GOP wants to expedite Trump's acquittal.  The problem is, the quicker the sham trial, the worse they look when more rank criminality is exposed.

The Drunken Tough Guy At The End of the Bar

Jon Chait notes how Donald Trump's foreign policy can basically be reduced to whatever the drunken bully at the end of the bar might rant while watching Fox News.  It's the erosion of American moral authority - to the degree that existed - and being replaced with whatever the muttering asshole who couldn't find Iran on a map thinks we should do to "prove we're tough."

Did Trump Commit A War Crime?

There's a lot of debate about the legal significance of Trump's decision to assassinate the head of Iran's Qud Force. In a broad sense, it is very difficult to convict the President of war crimes, simply because Congress, the Constitution and the public have largely ceded military matters to the executive branch. There have been various Congressional measures that allow the President to strike at "terrorists" associated with 9/11, but Soleimani was hardly involved with Al Qaeda (in fact, he was a nominal ally against Al Qaeda and ISIL). There was also the authorization to use force to topple Saddam Hussein, and Soleimani was obviously in Iraq when he was killed. Add in the assault on the US embassy in Baghdad that Soleimani was likely involved with somehow, and you can stretch a justification for killing him.  Almost certainly after the fact.

If this reporting is accurate, Trump was given some responses and Soleimani was thrown in there as a the "absurd option." Basically, it's like offering your toddler dinner options of spaghetti or rusty razor blades. The idea is that they will pick the spaghetti. After the embassy attacks, Trump went for the rusty razor blades and they had to scramble to come up with a legal rationale.  History has certainly shown that the rationale can be as thin as paper, but it will still work to shield the president on international and military affairs. 

The days of mourning for Soleimani are coming to an end, and I'm sure Iran is looking at options. If they were smart, they'd target Trump properties all over the world.  They could even phone in bomb scares and clear the buildings before they blow them up. No (or few) casualties, but it would drive Trump insane watching the Trump Towers in Rio or Trump Tower Punta Esta burn and crumble on TV.  Iran wouldn't even have to target the US properly to make their point.

Trump acted impulsively, because...duh.  But Iran has the ability to strike in myriad ways that we are likely not expecting.  Because Trump had Soleimani killed and claimed it was legal, Iran can make the same claims.  In twenty years, maybe the World Court will issue a sternly worded ruling. In the meantime, the legality or illegality of Trump's actions a tertiary to how Iran responds and how we respond to their response.

My Iran Hot Take

Since everyone is wondering about Iran, I might as well weigh in.

Iranian leadership is not stupid.  They do not want a full scale war with the US, as it would devastate Iran. But they are also facing massive unrest over economic hardships (caused mostly, but not exclusively by US sanctions). They will want to respond in a way that leads to less than escalation to full scale war, but clearly demonstrates their resolve to their own people.  If Trump responds by bombing an Iranian city...that works OK for the regime, as martyrs are incredibly important to Shia theology.

My guess is that they will hit back in two ways.  First, they will hit some soft targets to make everyone feel unsafe. Maybe cyber attacks.  Maybe a suicide bombing near a US embassy.

Secondly, they will likely hit a US ally in the region, most likely Saudi Arabia.  If they were to knock out Saudi oil capacity, it would send oil prices skyrocketing around the world and cause some of the same economic pain that Iranians are suffering through right now.

I think the only thing that leads us to a direct out-and-out war with Iran is miscalculation. I truly don't think Trump wants a war.  I know the Iranians don't.  But both sides are erratic and untrustworthy in their decision making.  If we go to war, it will be because we blundered into one.  Which is completely possible, given what we know about decision making in Trump's White House.

Pelosi Holds All The Cards

When it comes to the trial in the Senate, every day that goes by increases the pressure to allow a real trial. As Martin Longman explains, when every day seems to bring some new revelation, the following options appear to McConnell:

1) Allow the House Managers to call the witnesses that stonewalled the impeachment hearings in the House and risk a steady erosion in support for the President.

2) Stop them from calling witnesses, acquit the President and then watch as revelation after revelation makes them look like criminal co-conspirators.

My Hopes For 2020

- Better than 2016, and perhaps even better than 2018.
- Better health for everyone I know.
- That everyone take a deep breath, unplug and realize that - once you abandon the negative cesspool of social media - there is true beauty and goodness in the world.  Things really do work out more often than not.
- A championship for an Atlanta sports team.
- My sons get rewarded when they deserve to be. Regardless, they learn and grow from their endeavors.
- That money not be a worry, but a tool.
- That this time next year, we can all look back on 2020 and smile more than we frown.

The Party Of Grievance

Jon Chait examines GOP climate realists who prioritize "pwning the libs" over, you know, saving the planet.

The GOP used to call themselves "the party of idea" and while most of the Reagan Era ideas were horrible, they at least were worthy of being called ideas. What the GOP is now is essentially a loosely aggregated bunch of angry white people who are defined not by what they want but who they hate. If you accept the climate science, there is literally no earthly reason why you would not want to act on it.

The GOP must be broken in its current form.  It's toxic to the ability to govern this country.