Just Security?

Bigly Stick:  Up until now the rap on Trump was that he’s a dove in wolves clothing, that he speaks loudly but carries small sticks, a philosophy typified by his approach to North Korea’s Kim Jong un, who he insulted mercilessly before starting what has turned out to be an ill-fated bromance.  Well apparently, at least with regard to Iran, Trump is a Hawk, capital intentional, speaking loudly and carrying a really bigly stick.  Yesterday  Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s top security and intelligence commander who led Iran Revolutionary Guards Corp Quds forces, was targeted and killed during a Trump authorized drone strike of Baghdad airport.  General Suleimani was a really bad guy so there is no need to mourn his demise, however, to state the obvious, his assassination, which represents an escalation of hostilities with Iran, isn’t being taken lightly by the Iranian government which is expected to respond with “forceful revenge” against American, and for good measure Israeli, targets all over the world.  To that end Israel has already gone on alert and has closed a few tourist sites. In the event that you’re thinking, what’s the big deal, we’ve assassinated international terrorists before with few consequences, think again, the big deal here is that unlike the elimination of those evil players, Suleimani was one of the top leaders of a real country, putting his assassination into a whole new dangerous category; that partially explains why Presidents George W Bush and Obama who had both considered taking out Suleimani rejected the option, concluding that doing so would lead to war between the US and Iran.  The Trump party line is that Suleimani had to be eliminated now because he was planning many more attacks against US targets, and he probably was, but those attacks are likely to move forward anyway with even more vengeance so it’s not a stretch to surmise that Trump thinks that an escalation of hostilities against Iran might distract from that whole impeachment thing.  And, by the way, in case anyone cares, acts of war, and this was an act of war, are supposed to be authorized by Congress and in this case it’s not even clear that the bipartisan Gang of Eight House and Senate leaders were notified in advance.    

Impeach, Impeach, Impeach: As to impeachment, yesterday Just Security, a national security website, reported on their review of unredacted emails between OMB and the Defense Department in which the withholding of aid to Ukraine was discussed.  The “big new takeaway” is that there were even more significant concerns within the Pentagon about the legality of the hold up than were previously known with OMB official Michael Duffey, one of the people that Democrats want called as a witness in the as yet unscheduled Senate trial, saying there was “clear direction from POTUS to continue the hold” even though doing so violated the Impoundment Control Act.  And even more notably, the unredacted emails reveal how much Trump’s involvement in holding up the aid was obscured by the redactions that were included in the “official” release of the same email stream. In fact, the unredacted emails reviewed by the Just Security team reveal that the authorized redactions weren’t just odd, nor were they random, they were applied to intentionally minimize Trump’s involvement and knowing culpability.  Not that additional evidence means much to Trump’s Republican base or any of those knowing Republican Senators.

Democrats:  Yesterday Julian Castro, the Democrats sole Hispanic candidate ended his run for the presidency.  The former HUD secretary wasn’t doing that well, he’d failed to make the last debate stage, so his decision wasn’t that surprising.  That said, he’s probably raised his profile and, given his relative youth, it’s like that he’ll show up again as a candidate in another election cycle.  Though she hasn’t dropped out and few realize that she’s still in the race Marianne Williamson, the Oprah guru, has dismissed all of her staff, an indication that she’s out of money and due to exit stage left shortly.  On the money raising front, it turns out that Mayor Pete who raised $24.7 last quarter isn’t the only money raising machine, Bernie Sanders’ dedicated army of small donators contributed $34.5 million to his campaign, Biden brought in $22.7 million and Andrew Yang took in $16.5 million.  Other candidates including Senator Warren have yet to  announce the results of their quarterly fund raising efforts.  Trump’s take was largest, somewhere around $46 million, but was dwarfed by the combined total raised by the Democratic wannabees, not to mention the amount being spent by Michael Bloomberg who in addition to running on his own dime has been paying for anti-Trump ads in swing states. If only the Democrats could consolidate their efforts their combined take would be really significant but right now with no apparent leader, it’s looking like their battle could go on and on with the possibility of a contested convention on the horizon.     

Et Cetera: Yesterday 205 Republican lawmakers, including 39 senators, weighed in on June Medical Services v. Gee, an abortion-related case out of Louisiana that is scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court in March.  In an amicus brief, they asked the Supreme Court to reconsider and overrule Roe V Wade because who needs reproductive rights anyway.  Two Democrats, Congressmen Dan Lipinski of Illinois and Collin Peterson of Minnesota also signed the brief.  Republican Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Dan Sullivan, Martha McSally, Shelly Moore Capito, Cory Gardner, Mitch McConnell, Lamar Alexander, Lindsey Graham, David Perdue, Rick Scott and Richard Shelby did not sign on.  Nor did Josh Hawley, but that’s because he previously provided his own anti-abortion screed to the Court.  Notably many of those absent from the list are running for reelection in hotly contested states.  So if anyone thinks that voting Trump out is just about getting a self-interested, crazy, Putin loving guy out of office, think again.