Oops Again

Impeach, Impeach, Impeach:  The impeachment process is still in limbo.  Yesterday’s big news was that former national security advisor John Bolton has decided that he will testify if subpoenaed by the Senate, notably he referred only to a  Senate subpoena, he did not say anything about what he would do if he got one from the House.  It’s not really clear why Bolton has decided to cooperate, whether it has to do with promoting his upcoming book, whether he thinks he’ll actually be called and what he will say if he’s called. His most recent comments on Trump have been complimentary since he’s a supporter of bombing Iran into oblivion. Nevertheless, on the face of it, Bolton’s decision sounds promising, it’s already been established that he was very disturbed by Trump’s Ukraine shenanigans, the quid pro quo that he called a “drug deal,” and given his previous proximity to Trump he must have witnessed quite a few other things that Trump can’t possible want revealed.  However, it still isn’t clear that Bolton will actually be subpoenaed by the Senate.  Last night it was reported that Senate Majority Leader McConnell has secured the votes to move forward with the impeachment trial without first committing to call any witnesses.  Apparently Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, two of the key “moderates” that Democrats had hoped would side with their plan to agree to a witness list before moving forward with trial proceedings have decided to vote to start the trial without any such commitment.  That would leave any decision to call Bolton and/or any other witnesses to be voted on only after both sides present their cases. Though Murkowski and Collins are still on record saying that they would consider voting for the calling of witnesses at that point, there is no guarantee that they will, nor is it clear that any other Republicans would join them.  As of now, the only other Republican willing to speak up about witnesses is Mitt Romney and he remains characteristically wishy-washy.  He said that he was open to hearing testimony from Bolton, who he acknowledged has “firsthand information” but did not say that he would vote with Democrats to subpoena him.  The next step is in Speaker Pelosi’s hands. She might spin Bolton’s willingness to testify as proof that her delay strategy has born the fruit she wanted and follow-up by sending the Articles over to the Senate or she could continue to delay, deciding to subpoena Bolton to appear before the House though it’s not clear that he would show up, even though he should be just as willing to appear there as he would be to appear before the Senate.  We should know soon what she decides to do.  As to other Republicans, Florida’s Senator Marco Rubio is taking some heat for his totally ridiculous statement that he would vote against a subpoena of Bolton because “our inquiry should be based on the testimony that they (the House) took, we are acting on articles of impeachment. We should be constrained by the information that those articles are based on."  And then there’s North Carolina’s Thom Tillis who is one of the vulnerable Republicans up for reelection this year.  Last week he sent a tweet inviting Americans to “add your name” to a birthday card for Eric Trump that “we’re putting together,” because “We’re so thankful for Eric Trump’s work in fighting for America.” It’s fair to assume that vulnerable or not, he won’t be voting for any witnesses even if Trump actually shoots someone on Fifth Avenue.

Iran and Iraq:  A few days ago VP Pence tried to rewrite history, alleging that one of the reasons that the killing of Iran’s General Soleimani was justified was because Soleimani had assisted in the “clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.”  The problem with that assertion is that it’s a fabrication.  First and foremost, 19 terrorists, not 12, were involved in the 9.11 hijackings and secondly the 9.11 report found no links between them, Iran or Soleimani.  Nevertheless alternative facts are so much more fun than real ones so for the most part Pence is standing by his statement. And though Secretary of State Pompeo asserted that Iranians were celebrating Soleimani’s demise in the streets, that doesn’t appear to be true either.  Yesterday, the crowd of Iranian mourners was so huge and emotional, larger than Trump’s often bragged about inauguration crowd, that 35 of them were killed in an accidental stampede.  As to Soleimani although most of our allies agree that he was a really, really bad guy, few of them want to be associated with Trump’s decision to take him out.  Yesterday, Israel’s Netanyahu told his cabinet that “The assassination of Soleimani isn't an Israeli event but an American event. We were not involved and should not be dragged into it." He’s told his ministers that the only thing they can say to the media is that “Israel supports the US and its right to defend itself."  

For his part Trump continues to tweet away, on Sunday night he claimed that those tweets are sufficient notice to Congress of any possible US military strike on Iran, a dismissal of his obligations under the War Powers Act of 1973, that’s the Act that mandates that presidents report to Congress within 48 hours of introducing military forces into armed conflict abroad. Such notifications generally detail an administration’s justification for intervention, as well as the constitutional and legislative rationale used to send troops. To date, tweet notice has not been acceptable but then again precedent or rationality isn’t really a Trump thing. The White House has sent Congress a justification for the attack on Soleimani but has taken the unusual step of classifying all of its contents so none of us are privy to what makes up the “imminent attack” rationale and many of those in Congress who’ve seen it, at least the Democrats and Rand Paul, aren’t convinced that the case was all that compelling. Speaker Pelosi plans to issue a War Powers Resolution this week to limit Trump’s ability to take further military actions regarding Iran, but I’m guessing that it won’t have much of an impact and we should all be very concerned about that.  This administration is so screwed up that yesterday after multiple media outlets reporting on a letter revealing US plans to withdraw from Iraq, Secretary of Defense Esper told reporters that no such decision has been made. The problem with Esper’s assertion is that the letter had already been sent from Marine Corps Brig. Gen. William Seely to the Iraqi military and it said that the coalition to fight ISIS would be "repositioning forces" and preparing to move "out of Iraq" in the coming days. That left Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley to declare that it was all a bigly oops, that the letter was “simply a draft, it was a mistake, it was unsigned, it should not have been released … poorly worded, implies withdrawal, that is not what’s happening." Remember when the generals were going to save us by constraining Trump, well that’s clearly not happening.  By the way Esper also did his best to walk back Trump’s assertion that the US would target Iranian cultural sites, saying that “we will follow the laws of armed conflict” which prohibits such attacks.  Lastly, Secretary of State Pompeo, a staunch supporter of war to affect Iran regime change, is likely to stick around as long as he can.  Yesterday, he advised Mitch McConnell that he will not be running for the open Kansas Senator seat because he’s too busy with other things, like war.  He could still reconsider, but it’s not likely; that could mean that extreme immigrant hardliner Kris Kobach, the guy who is all in on voter suppression and was supposed to find those millions of illegal 2016 voters but couldn’t because they didn’t exist will become the Republican’s Kansas candidate.

Democrats:  Julian Castro who is no longer running for president appears to think that his best chance of becoming a VP candidate, which is probably the reason he was running in the first place, is to team up with a white woman so he has endorsed Senator Elizabeth Warren and will now be joining her on the campaign trail.  So far only five candidates, Buttigieg, Biden, Klobuchar, Sanders and Warren, have qualified for the upcoming January 14 debate.