Thursday Reads: What does it mean when the prevailing cooler heads are in Iran?
Posted: January 9, 2020 Filed under: Afternoon Reads | Tags: Cadet Bonespur's Iran War, impeachment 15 Comments
Good Afternoon Sky Dancers!
I continue to be gobsmacked by exactly how lawless the Trumpist regime has become. Fortunately, Iran decided to signal what it could do to US bases with a warning shot at US Troops rather than providing a full show of force. The second and third order conditions are now playing out. It appears that an Iranian missile may have accidentally taken down that Ukrainian commercial airliner killing all on board.
Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, a Boeing 737–800 en route from Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airpot to Kyiv’s Boryspil International Airport, stopped transmitting data Tuesday just minutes after takeoff and not long after Iran launched missiles at military bases housing U.S. and allied forces in neighboring Iraq. The aircraft is believed to have been struck by a Russia-built Tor-M1 surface-to-air missile system, known to NATO as Gauntlet, the three officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, told Newsweek.
One Pentagon and one U.S senior intelligence official told Newsweek that the Pentagon’s assessment is that the incident was accidental. Iran’s anti-aircraft were likely active following the country’s missile attack, which came in response to the U.S. killing last week of Revolutionary Guard Quds Force commander Major General Qassem Soleimani, sources said.
U.S. Central Command declined to comment on the matter when contacted by Newsweek. No reply was returned from the National Security Council or State Department.
Of the 176 people on board, 82 were Iranian, 63 were Canadian and 11 were Ukrainian (including nine crewmembers), along with 10 Swedish, seven Afghan and three German nationals. None survived.
The Senate is getting anxious to deal with Trump’s impeachment. Here are some of the latest headlines.
Allan Smith / NBC News:
Top House Democrat: ‘Time to send’ articles of impeachment to Senate
Some Democrats in the House and Senate have joined Republicans in recent days in saying it’s time for Pelosi to send the articles to the Senate.
After initially saying in an interview Thursday morning that he thought Pelosi should submit the articles, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., backtracked, tweeting that he “misspoke.”
The initial comments from Smith, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, came as several Democratic senators this week called on Pelosi to send the articles to Senate Majority Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., so the impeachment trial can begin.
“I understand what the speaker is trying to do, basically trying to use the leverage of that to work with Democratic and Republican senators to try to get a reasonable trial, a trial that would actually show evidence, bring out witnesses,” Smith told CNN. “But at the end of the day, just like we control it in the House, Mitch McConnell controls it in the Senate.”
The sticking point continues to be allowing witnesses to Testify that were blocked from testifying before the House. Also, if the Republicans will be able to force the country to go down the Biden/Ukraine conspiracy theory by bringing both Bidens in and subjecting them to the Benghazi treatment
Paul Rosenzweig / The Atlantic:
Trials Are for Evidence
There was no pre-impeachment criminal investigation of Trump’s efforts to compel Ukraine to pursue the alleged corruption of his political opponent. There were no lawyers and FBI investigators interviewing witnesses. There was no grand jury—merely the cumbersome House-committee process. That process didn’t last nine months; it lasted less than three. Rather than produce tens of thousands of documents, the White House and the executive branch withheld almost all those subpoenaed by the House. Likewise, rather than eventually allowing executive-branch witnesses to testify, the White House stonewalled the House inquiry: President Trump successfully frustrated the House’s efforts to hear from witnesses like former White House Counsel Don McGahn and former National Security Adviser John Bolton. And of course, President Trump never told his side of the story under oath.
So, unlike with Clinton, the Trump impeachment investigation is incomplete. Far from being given an exhaustive record on which to make a determination, the Senate has received only part of the story from the House. The Senate is not in the position of wondering whether, for example, John Bolton was truthful in what he has said already. Rather, if he is called to testify, the Senate will hear what he has to say for the first time. The process now isn’t about credibility; it’s about establishing facts.
Senator McConnell’s proffered analogy to the Clinton impeachment is ill-considered, if not disingenuous. While the Senate might, with some justification, have thought that the evidence was complete and that no witnesses were necessary to decide the Clinton matter, it cannot reasonably make the same claim now. Though the analogy of a House impeachment to a grand-jury indictment is rather strained, it does carry a bit of truth: The House has found sufficient evidence to start an impeachment trial, and it is up to the Senate now to conduct a more in-depth inquiry—a trial. Trials are for hearing evidence. That task lies before the Senate.
Clearly, Speaker Pelosi is not impressed by McConnell’s posturing to date.
And, members of both Houses are not impressed with the briefing by the Trumpist regime on the assassination of Soleimani.
Greg Sargent / Washington Post:
GOP senator who erupted over Iran briefing shares awful new details
If President Trump made the decision to assassinate the supreme leader of Iran, would he need to come to Congress to get authorization for it?
The Trump administration won’t say.
That remarkable claim is now being made by a Republican senator — Mike Lee of Utah. He offered it in a new interview with NPR, in which he shared fresh details about why he erupted in anger on Wednesday over the briefing Congress received from the administration on Iran.
As you know, Lee’s comments went viral Wednesday after he ripped into the briefing given to lawmakers about Trump’s decision to assassinate Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani.
Lee, echoing the complaints of many Democrats, blasted the briefing on the intelligence behind the assassination as the “worst” he’d ever seen. He also fumed that officials refused to acknowledge any “hypothetical” situations in which they would come to Congress for authorization for future military hostilities against Iran.
Now, in the interview with NPR’s Rachel Martin, Lee has gone into more alarming detail. Lee reiterated that officials “were unable or unwilling to identify any point” at which they’d come to Congress for authorization for the use of military force.
Trumpist Regime officials warned Congress to not ask too many questions and not to debate war powers. This is really surreal since the Constitution is clear on this. It’s just another pretzel we find ourselves in over the Constitutionality of a lawless president and the people protecting him.
On the eve of a House vote Thursday, Defense Secretary Mark Esper urged Congress not to debate limits to President Donald Trump’s power to strike Iran because doing so might embolden Tehran and hurt U.S. troops, multiple sources tell ABC News.
The suggestion by Esper, in a classified briefing for lawmakers on Wednesday, enraged some members, including Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, who swiftly marched to the television cameras following the 75-minute briefing to declare it “insulting.” Lee said the briefing felt like being told to be “good little boys and girls and run along and not debate this in public.”
“I find that absolutely insane,” he said.
Pence is now justifying holding information back from even the Gang of Eight which is virtually unprecedented. The rationale? Congress might compromise methods and sources. That’s rich coming from the shadow of the man whose speech just–and once again–presented highly classified information on sonic weapons under development.
Vice President Mike Pence responded Thursday to lawmakers, including Republicans, who criticized the lack of information shared by the Trump administration during classified congressional briefings on the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, saying the intelligence was too sensitive to share.
On NBC’s “TODAY,” Pence told Savannah Guthrie that the administration could not provide Congress with some of the “most compelling” intelligence behind the administration’s decision to kill Soleimani because doing so “could compromise” sources and methods.
“Some of that has to do with what’s called sources and methods,” Pence said. “Some of the most compelling evidence that Qassem Soleimani was preparing an imminent attack against American forces and American personnel also represents some of the most sensitive intelligence that we have — it could compromise those sources and methods.”
Pence said “those of us” who were made aware of the intelligence “in real time know that President Trump made the right decision to take Qassem Soleimani off the battlefield.” He added that Soleimani “was planning imminent attacks against American forces.”
In killing Soleimani, leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Trump administration said it launched the attack because of intelligence that showed Soleimani was planning “imminent” attacks on U.S. personnel. But the administration has yet to make public the evidence behind that assertion and, according to Democratic and two Republican senators, it did not detail that intelligence in a classified setting on Wednesday.
Trump–in a scrum today–mentioned it was because of attacks on the Baghdad Embassy even though it was clear all of that was coming from Iraqi proxies and there is still no real evidence of any actual bigger plans of an attack.
https://twitter.com/sam_vinograd/status/1215316867767832577
This increasing looks likes Benghazi reaction formation. He doesn’t want to be seen by any one in the same light as Clinton or Obama seriously overreacts at anything that might leak up to what he perceives as their weakness. However, his January speech definitely showed his continual physical and mental decline.
So, I really am revisiting more of those things that I assumed would remain as characteristics of our nation. Clearly, we are not in the position of claiming to be the temperament and thoughtful nation. Maybe it’s because I finally got used to the No Drama Obama model where we sometimes took what seemed like ages to arrive at actions and policy. Now, it’s totally a shoot from the hip of a psychologically and neurologically challenged individual surrounded by End Times Nutters who lie the majority of the time. Fact Checking that speech gave us peek Pinocchio numbers. It’s a very long list. Sit down with a good cup of coffee.
Anyway, I have to prep for a Financial Engineering class I teaching starting next Wednesday so I need to switch from the real weapons of mass destruction to the financial ones (h/t to Warren Buffet). It is quite math and a bit like teaching physics so it’s that too. My hair will be totally gray by the end but at least it’s all good students from seniors to mbas to doctoral students so there’s that. AND, it’s back on the ground at my old University so I will have a G/A. Yippie!
What’s on your reading an blogging list today?
Monday Reads: The Official End of the American Century is Here
Posted: January 6, 2020 Filed under: Iran, Iraq, Middle East, morning reads, Nancy Pelosi 48 Comments
Félix Vallotton, Landscape of Ruins and Fires, 1914
Good Morning Sky Dancers!
I miss my Dad every day. I miss talking to him and the way he used to call out baseball games to me in his last days including the little league championship. He was many things but perhaps more than any thing he was defined by his service in the Army Air Corps during World War 2 where he flew missions that sped the Allies movement on the ground to Berlin and Victory and freed the French and Belgian people from German Occupation.
He never spoke about it much but when he did the stories were fascinating. My favorite was when his squad flew under Jimmy Stewart and he described how that rich voice filled the com. He had a picture of his crew that he kept by his favorite reading chair along with family pictures. He would always tell me that the solider that took that picture never came back the day after he took the photo from a mission that was particularly harrowing. The unstated truth was that Dad’s bomber and crew were fortunate to get back to England.
I suppose it’s only fitting that we are seeing the last of the so-called “greatest generation” during every patriotic event. They are aging and dying as is the fate of all humans. The dynamics of the 20th century ended with a world order established by the dynamics of both World Wars but definitely the War against Fascism. It’s odd that I always thought so much of what was dubbed the American Century would last through at least my lifetime if not my children with modifications and improvements. I still figured that the US would be firmly planted as the standard bearer as more joined those ranks. As of this weekend, I no longer believe this to be the case.
Michelle Possum Nungarrayi (Australian, b. 1968), Bush Fire Dreaming, 2010. Acrylic on canvas, 120 x 91 cm
We currently have no standards to bear under the Trumpist regime and I now believe that we have fallen beyond any grace we may have earned during the American Century. The world forgave us many sins from Vietnam to even the disastrous invasion of Iraq. They may have actually had some hope for us as we signed with other nations agreements to trade, address climate change, and work with Iran to find a more stable situation with less fear of nukes.
We have lost whatever grace we earned now because we have allowed a group of aggrieved white nationalists with a twisted version of Christianity to grab power. They brought us Trump. They plotted and planned a cleansing of the Republican Party who rolled over with belly up to get their votes for policies supporting the rich and greedy. Establishment appeasement failed and now End Timers and White Nationalists have that party wholesale.
As we lose our grip on world leadership, I can only hope that its future hands are not those of Russia and China although Chinese dominance of the global economy will only grow and the multilateral agreement to keep that in check was also one of the things Trump tossed out even though it was the product of a few administrations and not solely that of Obama’s. Just as we left so many nuclear pacts, we have also left the Paris Accord and Australia is burning with no aid from us. It is likely a harbinger to what may happen in California and other of our southwestern states.
I had this realization last night as some of the inevitable things happened as a result of Trump’s desperation to become a war time president to possibly boost his re-election chances and his ego during impeachment. We–as a nation–must find a new way eventually but one that will not put us as a shining city on the hill. Let us hope we will not stay firmly in pariah nation status. I do know this. A country should NEVER put into power a group of people whose vision of redemption and heaven includes the end of the world. Iran chose that path 40 years ago. We have joined them in that same messianic, deluded vision and Fuck Pence and Pompeo and all they stand for.
Eugene von Guerard, Bush Fire between Mt. Elephant and Timboon, Australia, 1857
With those depressing thoughts on my mind, let’s get to my suggested reads. My Thanks to author Rabih Aalameddine (@rabinhalameddine) whose tweets those morning provided these hellish versions of war and fire.
No one knows what’s coming next. However, every one that’s every had anything to do with the markets the last four decades knows that when these things happen it will leader to higher oil prices and stock prices for defense firms. Everything else will head downwards. This is from Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance.
Oil extended its gains, briefly surpassing $70 a barrel in London for the first time since September, as Middle East tensions flared after the U.S. assassinated one of Iran’s most powerful generals.
Futures rose as much as 3.1% on Monday as the U.S. State Department warned of a “heightened risk” of missile attacks near energy facilities in Saudi Arabia. Prices later gave up some of the gains. President Donald Trump reiterated threats of retaliation should Iran “do anything” and vowed heavy sanctions against Iraq if American troops are forced to leave OPEC’s second-biggest producer.
The clash is fanning fears that a wider conflict could disrupt supply from the region, which provides almost a third of the world’s oil. Prices haven’t hit these levels since an attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities in September — which the U.S. blamed on Iran — briefly halted about 5% of global output.
“Crude has some more risk pricing to do,” said Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group in Bethesda, Maryland, and former White House oil official under President George W. Bush. “We are going to grind through the $70s up toward $80 Brent as Iran calibrates and executes its retaliation.”
John Martin, The Great Day of His Wrath, 1851
As I just said, fuck Pompeo. a chief messianic delusionism advocate and all around horrid person. This is from WAPO: “Killing of Soleimani follows long push from Pompeo for aggressive action against Iran, but airstrike brings serious risks”.
The greenlighting of the airstrike near Baghdad airport represents a bureaucratic victory for Pompeo, but it also carries multiple serious risks: another protracted regional war in the Middle East; retaliatory assassinations of U.S. personnel stationed around the world; an interruption in the battle against the Islamic State; the closure of diplomatic pathways to containing Iran’s nuclear program; and a major backlash in Iraq, whose parliament voted on Sunday to expel all U.S. troops from the country.
For Pompeo, whose political ambitions are a source of constant speculation, the death of U.S. diplomats would be particularly damaging given his unyielding criticisms of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton following the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and other American personnel in Benghazi in 2012.
But none of those considerations stopped Pompeo from pushing for the targeted strike, U.S. officials said, underscoring a fixation on Iran that spans 10 years of government service from Congress to the CIA to the State Department.
“We took a bad guy off the battlefield. We made the right decision,” Pompeo told CNN. “I’m proud of the effort that President Trump undertook.”
Pompeo first spoke with Trump about killing Soleimani months ago, said a senior U.S. official, but neither the president nor Pentagon officials were willing to countenance such an operation.
For more than a year, defense officials warned that the administration’s campaign of economic sanctions against Iran had increased tensions with Tehran, requiring a bigger and bigger share of military resources in the Middle East when many at the Pentagon wanted to redeploy their firepower to East Asia.
Trump, too, sought to draw down from the Middle East as he promised from the opening days of his presidential campaign. But that mind-set shifted on Dec. 27 when 30 rockets hit a joint U.S.-Iraqi base outside Kirkuk, killing an American civilian contractor and injuring service members.
On Dec. 29, Pompeo, Esper and Milley traveled to the president’s private club in Florida, where the two defense officials presented possible responses to Iranian aggression, including the option of killing Soleimani, senior U.S. officials said.
Trump’s decision to target Soleimani came as a surprise and a shock to some officials briefed on his decision, given the Pentagon’s long-standing concerns about escalation and the president’s aversion to using military force against Iran.
One significant factor was the “lockstep” coordination for the operation between Pompeo and Esper, both graduates in the same class at the U.S. Military Academy, who deliberated ahead of the briefing with Trump, senior U.S. officials said. Pence also endorsed the decision, but he did not attend the meeting in Florida.
by Elbert Hubbard, published 1914
So, the push to assassinate an Irani general. was made by two proponents of heaven comes if we blow up the right people and then the world and a former Defense Lobbyist. Isn’t that just ducky? So, in game theory, we frequently speak of second and third order conditions which basically occur in a game that occurs over time when one party makes a move and then there are more moves to come. “Stategery” was never a strong point for any of the Neocons who just wanted to “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran”. It continues to look the same way with the Trumpists. This is from Axios that is part of the media trying to chase the next moves that have so far included expulsion of US and allied troops from Iraq and Iran annoucing it will take revenge and it will ended its nuclear pause.
The Trump administration tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade top Iraqi officials to kill a parliamentary effort to force the U.S. military out of Iraq, according to two U.S. officials and an Iraqi government official familiar with the situation.
Why it matters: The Iraqi parliament passed a resolution today calling on the Iraqi government to expel U.S. troops from Iraq, after the U.S killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani and a leader of an Iraqi militia with a drone strike near Baghdad airport.
- This resolution could ultimately lead to the U.S. military being forced out of Iraq. But the outcome remains uncertain, and the prime minister who needs to sign it recently resigned.
“I think it would be inconvenient for us, but it would be catastrophic for Iraq,” said a U.S. official familiar with the Trump administration’s effort to block the vote. “It’s our concern that Iraq would take a short-term decision that would have catastrophic long-term implications for the country and its security.”
- “But it’s also, what would happen to them financially,” the official added, “if they allowed Iran to take advantage of their economy to such an extent that they would fall under the sanctions that are on Iran?” (Countries can be subject to the sanctions if they engage in certain kinds of trade with Iran.)
- “We don’t want to see that. We’re trying very hard to work to have that not happen,” the official said.
“The United States is disappointed by the action taken today in the Iraqi Council of Representatives,” said State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus.
Rufino Tamayo – Children Playing with Fire – 1947
The NYT has more information on the Iranian decision to ends its participation in Nuclear Restrictions.
When President Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, he justified his unilateral action by saying the accord was flawed, in part because the major restrictions on Iran ended after 15 years, when Tehran would be free to produce as much nuclear fuel as it wanted.
But now, instead of buckling to American pressure, Iran declared on Sunday that those restrictions are over — a decade ahead of schedule. Mr. Trump’s gambit has effectively backfired.
Iran’s announcement essentially sounded the death knell of the 2015 nuclear agreement. And it largely re-creates conditions that led Israel and the United States to consider destroying Iran’s facilities a decade ago, again bringing them closer to the potential of open conflict with Tehran that was avoided by the accord.
Iran did stop short of abandoning the entire deal on Sunday, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and its foreign minister held open the possibility that his nation would return to its provisions in the future — if Mr. Trump reversed course and lifted the sanctions he has imposed since withdrawing from the accord.
That, at least, appeared to hold open the possibility of a diplomatic off-ramp to the major escalation in hostilities since the United States killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the second most powerful official in Iran and head of the Quds Force.
But some leading experts declared that the effort to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions through diplomacy was over. “It’s finished,” David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that tracks nuclear proliferation, said in an interview. “If there’s no limitation on production, then there is no deal.”
Paul Klee, Fire in the Evening, 1929
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced an initiative to address the Authorization of Use of the Military or the so-called War Powers Act today. This is from the Speaker’s web page.
Last week, the Trump Administration conducted a provocative and disproportionate military airstrike targeting high-level Iranian military officials. This action endangered our servicemembers, diplomats and others by risking a serious escalation of tensions with Iran.
As Members of Congress, our first responsibility is to keep the American people safe. For this reason, we are concerned that the Administration took this action without the consultation of Congress and without respect for Congress’s war powers granted to it by the Constitution.
This week, the House will introduce and vote on a War Powers Resolution to limit the President’s military actions regarding Iran. This resolution is similar to the resolution introduced by Senator Tim Kaine in the Senate. It reasserts Congress’s long-established oversight responsibilities by mandating that if no further Congressional action is taken, the Administration’s military hostilities with regard to Iran cease within 30 days.
The House Resolution will be led by Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin. Congresswoman Slotkin is a former CIA and Department of Defense analyst specializing in Shia militias. She served multiple tours in the region under both Democratic and Republican Administrations.
Henry Darger’s hands of fire
Here’s some news on the responses from Congress at NBC News: “Pelosi announces war powers resolution as tensions with Iran escalate. Pelosi said “the Trump administration conducted a provocative and disproportionate military airstrike targeting high-level Iranian military officials.”
On Sunday, Iraq’s Parliament voted to ask its government to end the presence of U.S. troops in the country, while Iranian state TV reported that Iran will no longer abide by any limits of the 2015 nuclear deal — an agreement Trump withdrew from in 2018.
In the Senate, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Menendez, D-N.J., wrote to Trump asking him to “immediately declassify in full the January 4, 2020, war powers notification you submitted to Congress following the U.S. military operation targeting” Soleimani.
“It is critical that national security matters of such import be shared with the American people in a timely manner,” the senators wrote. “An entirely classified notification is simply not appropriate in a democratic society, and there appears to be no legitimate justification for classifying this notification.”
Speaking to reporters in the White House briefing room, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said members of Congress “will be briefed, but they should also calm down” and “celebrate” Soleimani’s death.
She said it was “fine” for Trump to order an airstrike killing Soleimani without congressional authority, comparing it to former President Barack Obama ordering the mission to kill al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
There’s some news from the Democratic Primary Front. Former Candidate Julian Castro has endorsed Elizabeth Warren.
Mr. Castro announced his endorsement on Monday morning, just days after he ended his own bid for the White House. In a statement, Mr. Castro cast Ms. Warren as the logical extension of his campaign’s social-justice-driven message, which seeks to correct inequities through targeted policy proposals. He will campaign with Ms. Warren this week, joining her Tuesday night at a rally at Kings Theatre in Brooklyn.
Ralph Albert Blakelock (American, 1847-1919), Forest Fire, ca. 1890
David Leonhardt argues that Amy Klobucher is the candidate that can beat Trump. He likens her to Harry Truman of all people.
So where are you supposed to find a comfortably electable, qualified candidate who won’t turn 80 while in office?
Senator Amy Klobuchar has become an answer to that question in the final month before voting begins. She has outlasted more than a dozen other candidates and has two big strengths: A savvy understanding of how to campaign against President Trump and a track record of winning the sorts of swing voters Democrats will likely need this year.
Klobuchar, to be sure, is not a finished product as a presidential candidate. Too often, she sounds like a senator speaking in legislative to-do lists rather than a future president who can inspire voters. That tendency — along with too much needling of other candidates, instead of focusing on her own message — was evident in the most recent debate.
Yet she still emerged as one of the debate’s winners, and she is enjoying a burst of new attention. She raised more than twice as much money, $11.4 million, in the fourth quarter of 2019 than the third quarter. When I ask top Democrats which candidate has the best chance of beating Trump, Klobuchar is often their answer. If party leaders still chose nominees, she might now be the favorite.
In that way, she reminds me of another Midwestern senator who once seemed too ordinary to be president: Harry Truman. In the summer of 1944, an even more perilous time for global democracy than now, Democratic Party grandees chose Truman as vice president with the belief that he would soon be president, given Franklin Roosevelt’s declining health.
Truman was (as Klobuchar is) a loyal Democrat with populist leanings whom many Republicans, both senators and voters, nonetheless felt some affection for. He had a folksy manner and heartland accent. He was also a long shot for the nomination when the process began. The analogy extends to Klobuchar’s best-known weakness: Truman had a temper, too.
And it’s epiphany, you may now eat king cake!!!
I’m haunted by dreams of fire and animals. It’s been three nights in a row now and the horror of Australia is getting to me. Here are some suggestions on where you can donate funds if you feel so inclined and you are able.
And now, what’s on your reading and blogging list today?
He Finally Did It Friday Reads
Posted: January 3, 2020 Filed under: Middle East, morning reads | Tags: Cadet Bonespur's Iran War, Qassim Suleimani assassination 22 Comments
Shop for Machining 15-inch Shells by Anna Airy. © IWM (Art.IWM ART 2271)
Happy New Year!
I wish I could say this with a lot of hope in my heart but after last night’s late news we’ll be lucky at this point if we avoid World War III. Also, this time there will be no allies because Cadet Bone Spurs thinks we can just go it alone and has managed to offend every friendly country in the world. His Maximum Pressure approach to the world has not only left us friendless but more likely facing increased violence around the world.
Trump’s freaky christofascists have been frothing at the mouth for their mythical end times. I suggest they grab a bucket and go help Australia if they’re really all concerned about the earth ending in fire. Problem is my freakish friends, according to your specific mythology, a Temple has to exist that no one’s built yet so I’d think twice about travelling any where around the world or signing up for the diplomatic corps or the marine corps for that matter. We are just one target rich environment now.
Since this assassination reminds me a bit of the Arch Duke Ferdinand one that kicked off World War I I decided to give you some paintings from the period. This collection comes from the UK’s Imperial War Museum: “6 STUNNING FIRST WORLD WAR ARTWORKS BY WOMEN WAR ARTISTS.” You can read the backstories on the painters and their work at the site. Basically, the IWM commissioned the women to capture the women’s effort in the so-called War to End all Wars.
So, here’s what’s gone down so far. The U.S. directly targeted and killed an Iranian general that was, in fact a very bad man. However, there are a lot of very bad men in the world that need to disappear and if they did, no one would care. This one has quite a few people that care about him and they all have no problem with dying for a cause as they’ve proven over the last 40 years. This is from the NYT: “U.S. Strike in Iraq Kills Qassim Suleimani, Commander of Iranian Forces”.
Iran’s top security and intelligence commander was killed early Friday in a drone strike at Baghdad International Airport that was authorized by President Trump, American officials said.
The commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, who led the powerful Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, was killed along with several officials from Iraqi militias backed by Tehran when an American MQ-9 Reaper drone fired missiles into a convoy that was leaving the airport.
General Suleimani was the architect of nearly every significant operation by Iranian intelligence and military forces over the past two decades, and his death was a staggering blow for Iran at a time of sweeping geopolitical conflict.
The strike was also a serious escalation of Mr. Trump’s growing confrontation with Tehran, one that began with the death of an American contractor in Iraq in late December.
Christmas Day in the London Bridge YMCA Canteen, 1920, by Clare Atwood. © IWM (Art.IWM ART 3062)
Please tell me we didn’t do all this for a Defense Department Mercenary Contractor. I have yet to hear who this person actually was but if it’s the result of Rumsfeld’s war privatization efforts I’d totally believe it.
It took awhile for the Defense Department to take credit for the assassination of Suleimani and others so we all got our news from Iraqi and then Irani state TV. Sort’ve like we always hear about news about Russia from Russian State TV first. The Spawn of the Orange Swamp Thing seemed to know more about the attack than just about any one but definitely more than Congress and the all important Gang of 8 who handle that sort’ve thing for the country. Here’s a bit from Hill Reporter: “Deleted Tweet From Eric Trump Hints He May Have Known About Strike Against Iranian Military Leader Days Ahead Of Time’. Doesn’t that bring you comfort and joy or the season? You know, Peace on Earth, Good Will to Man and all that jazz?
The protests that broke out around the embassy got an off the cuff tweet from Eric the Dim.
Those protests broke out on December 31 of last year, according to the New York Times. On that same date, Eric Trump sent out a tweet, which has since been deleted. Twitter user @realTuckFrumper had a screengrab of the tweet, which suggested military action was coming forth.
Why (the better question is HOW) did @EricTrump know anything about this in advance…and why has he since deleted… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…—
#TuckFrump (@realTuckFrumper) January 03, 2020
“Bout to open up a big ol’ can of whoop ass,” Eric Trump’s tweet read. It was followed with a flag emoji.
Other users on social media also verified the tweet as being legitimately posted by Eric Trump on that date. There’s no indication or confirmation that he was indeed aware of military action occurring later on in the week, but the words from Eric Trump caught many people’s attention after the airstrikes were announced.
The Scottish Women’s Hospital: In The Cloister of the Abbaye at Royaumont, 1920, by Norah Neilson-Gray. © IWM (Art.IWM ART 3090)
The UK Guardian has a subtle lede this morning over an Op Ed penned by Mohammad Ali Shabani. “Donald Trump’s assassination of Qassem Suleimani will come back to haunt him. The Quds force leader had the status of national hero even among secular Iranians. His death could act as a rallying cry”
The US has assassinated Qassem Suleimani, the famed leader of Iran’s Quds force, alongside a senior commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Units, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. To grasp what may come next, it is vital to understand not only who these men were but also the system that produced them.
Nicknamed the “Shadow Commander” in the popular press, Suleimani spent his formative years on the battlefields of the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s, when Saddam Hussein – who at the time enjoyed the support of western and Arab powers – was attempting to destroy the emerging Islamic Republic. But few remember that his first major mission as commander of the Quds force – the extraterritorial branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards – was involved in implicit coordination with the United States as it invaded Afghanistan in 2001. The Taliban were, and to some extent remain, a mutual enemy. That alliance of convenience ended in 2002 when US president George W Bush notoriously branded Iran a member of the “Axis of Evil”.
In the years after, Suleimani laboured to bleed the US military in places like Iraq. He succeeded. After having spent trillions of dollars and lost thousands of troops, Washington withdrew from Iraq – partly as a result of Iranian pressure on the Iraqi government – in 2011.
But Suleimani had little time to celebrate. His attention was turned to containing fallout from the Arab spring, focusing his energy on propping up the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. That development saw the creation of a region-wide network of Iran-backed militias numbering more than 100,000 men, unprecedented Iranian military collaboration with Russia and the transformation of Hezbollah into a force capable of operating on significant scale outside Lebanon’s borders.
By 2014, when he successfully halted Islamic State’s attempt to overrun Iraq, Suleimani was feted as a hero among Iraqis, alongside the local commanders including al-Muhandis. The same response was evident in Iran, where he quickly became a household name and was rumoured as a potential future president – a trend that was strengthened by the Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.
So the US has not merely killed an Iranian military commander but also a highly popular figure, viewed as a guardian of Iran even among secular-minded Iranians. And with the assassination of al-Muhandis, the Trump administration has put itself in the position of having killed the operational commander of a large branch of the Iraqi armed forces.
Some will characterise the killings as a huge blow to Iran’s proxy capabilities and wider policy in the region. But such an approach ignores how the Iranian system is structured.
In an Ambulance: a VAD lighting a cigarette for a patient, by Olive Mudie-Cooke. © IWM (Art.IWM ART 3051)
As reported last night on MSNBC by a very shaken Andrea Mitchell on The Last Word, this is exactly why Israel–who could’ve taken him out at a moment’s notice–never gave it a second thought. The second and third order conditions were considered to be worse than any benefit from the assassination. Mitchell actually interviewed SOD Mike Esper in what turned out to be an interview worth dissecting.
Even more disturbing was an interview later on a special Rachel Maddow with “Brett McGurk, who served as special envoy on the global coalition to defeat ISIS under Pres. Obama and Pres. Trump, talks to Rachel Maddow about the serious implications of the strike on Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force.” You may watch the video but here’s the bottom line: ” McGurk on US strike on Soleimani: ‘We need to presume that we are now in a state of war with Iran’.”
Iraq is truly in a bad place now. And, I know, it’s not like we haven’t put them in a bad place since Dubya’s adventures there at the behest of all those Chicken Hawk Cabinet members of his. But, this Op Ed from the UK Independent describes the situation in more detail “Iraq’s worst fears have come true – they are now at the centre of a proxy war between the US and Iran. General Qassem Soleimani made a terrible mistake in the final weeks of his life by underestimating the popular protests across Iraq. Donald Trump has made a bigger one in killing the influential commander.” This is written by Patrick Cockburn.
I spoke to Abu Alaa al-Walai, the leader of Kata’ib Sayyid al Shuhada, a splinter group of Kata’ib Hezbollah, one of whose camps had been destroyed by a drone attack in August. He said that 50 tonnes of weapons and ammunition had been blown up, blaming the Israelis and the Americans acting in concert. Asked if his men would attack US forces in Iraq in the event of a US-Iran war, he said: “Absolutely yes.” Later I visited the camp, called al-Saqr, on the outskirts of Baghdad where a massive explosion had gutted sheds and littered the burned-out compound with shattered pieces of equipment.
I saw other pro-Iranian paramilitary leaders at this time. The drone attacks had made them edgy, but I got the impression that they did not really expect a US-Iran war. Qais al-Khazali, the head of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, told me that he did not think there would be a war “because Trump does not want one.” As evidence of this, he pointed to the failure of Trump to retaliate after the drone attack on Saudi oil facilities earlier in September that Washington had been blamed on Iran.
In fact, events developed very differently from what both I and the paramilitary commanders expected. A few days after I had spoken to them, there was a small demonstration in central Baghdad demanding jobs, public services and an end to corruption. The security forces and the pro-Iranian paramilitaries opened fire, killing and wounding many peaceful demonstrators. Though Qais al-Khazali later claimed that he and other Hashd leaders were trying to thwart a US-Israeli conspiracy, he had said nothing to me about it. It seemed likely that General Soleimani, wrongly suspected that the paltry demonstrations were a real threat and had ordered the pro-Iranian paramilitaries to open fire and put a plan for suppressing the demonstrations into operation.
All this could have been disastrous for Iranian influence in Iraq. Soleimani had made the classic mistake of a successful general in imaging that “a whiff of grapeshot” will swiftly repress any signs of popular discontent. Sometimes this works, often it does not – and Iraq turned out to belong to the second category.
General Soleimani died in the wake of his greatest failure and misjudgement. But the manner of his killing may convince many Shia Iraqis that the threat to Iraqi independence from the US is greater than that from Iran. The next few days will tell if the protest movement, that has endured the violence used against it with much bravery, will be deflated by the killings at Baghdad airport.
Women’s Canteen at Phoenix Works, Bradford, 1918, by Flora Lion. © The rights holder (Art.IWM ART 4434)
This Dexter Filkins piece in The New Yorker from September 2013 is a good place to read a profile on Soleimani. The NYT also has a profile “Qassim Suleimani, Master of Iran’s Intrigue, Built a Shiite Axis of Power in Mideast. The commander helped direct wars in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, and he became the face of Iran’s efforts to build a regional bloc of Shiite power.” This link is for that article which was published today.
General Suleimani was at the vanguard of Iran’s revolutionary generation, joining the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in his early 20s after the 1979 uprising that enshrined the country’s Shiite theocracy.
He rose quickly during the brutal Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. And since 1998, he was the head of the Revolutionary Guards’ influential Quds Force, the foreign-facing arm of Iran’s security apparatus, melding intelligence work with a military strategy of nurturing proxy forces across the world.
In the West, he was seen as a clandestine force behind an Iranian campaign of international terrorism. He and other Iranian officials were designated as terrorists by the United States and Israel in 2011, accused of a plot to kill the ambassador of Saudi Arabia, one of Iran’s chief enemies in the region, in Washington. Last year, in April, the entire Quds Force was listed as a foreign terrorism group by the Trump administration.
But in Iran, many saw him as a larger-than-life hero, particularly within security circles. Anecdotes about his asceticism and quiet charisma joined to create an image of a warrior-philosopher who became the backbone of a nation’s defense against a host of enemies.
He was close to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who on Friday issued a statement calling for three days of public mourning and “forceful revenge,” in a declaration that amounted to a threat of retaliation against the United States.
“His departure to God does not end his path or his mission,” he said.
All this means is that many Shia Islam followers in quite a few countries are not going to let him go quietly into the great night. It also means that Congress will have another likely investigation on its hands which means a lot more on Nancy Peolosi’s To Do LIst.
So, this is a long post and it has taken me a good deal of time to compile but I hope it will give us a basis for conversation today. I hope that your New Year will be wonderful and that you will be surrounded by all the family, love, and happiness you deserve!!! May all Goodness in the Universe protect us on this where yet another war seems inevitable!
What’s on you reading and blogging list today?
Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it.
Monday Reads: It’s beginning to look a lot like Impeachment
Posted: December 30, 2019 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: tRump Ukraine memo 13 Comments
Good Morning Sky Dancers!
Welcome to the last few days of 2019! The NYT has a story up today that describes how every Republican Talking point on the Ukrainian Aid Freeze is basically obfuscation and may foil McConnell’s plan to prevent key witnesses being called to provide information supporting the political quid pro quo narrative. This is the headline today “Behind the Ukraine Aid Freeze: 84 Days of Conflict and Confusion. The inside story of President Trump’s demand to halt military assistance to an ally shows the price he was willing to pay to carry out his agenda.” Here’s the key take away.
It was June 27, more than a week after Mr. Trump had first asked about putting a hold on security aid to Ukraine, an embattled American ally, and Mr. Mulvaney needed an answer.
The aide, Robert B. Blair, replied that it would be possible, but not pretty. “Expect Congress to become unhinged” if the White House tried to countermand spending passed by the House and Senate, he wrote in a previously undisclosed email. And, he wrote, it might further fuel the narrative that Mr. Trump was pro-Russia.
Mr. Blair was right, even if his prediction of a messy outcome was wildly understated. Mr. Trump’s order to hold $391 million worth of sniper rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, night vision goggles, medical aid and other equipment the Ukrainian military needed to fight a grinding war against Russian-backed separatists would help pave a path to the president’s impeachment.
The Democratic-led inquiry into Mr. Trump’s dealings with Ukraine this spring and summer established that the president was actively involved in parallel efforts — both secretive and highly unusual — to bring pressure on a country he viewed with suspicion, if not disdain.
…
Interviews with dozens of current and former administration officials, congressional aides and others, previously undisclosed emails and documents, and a close reading of thousands of pages of impeachment testimony provide the most complete account yet of the 84 days from when Mr. Trump first inquired about the money to his decision in September to relent.
What emerges is the story of how Mr. Trump’s demands sent shock waves through the White House and the Pentagon, created deep rifts within the senior ranks of his administration, left key aides like Mr. Mulvaney under intensifying scrutiny — and ended only after Mr. Trump learned of a damning whistle-blower report and came under pressure from influential Republican lawmakers.
In many ways, the havoc Mr. Giuliani and other Trump loyalists set off in the State Department by pursuing the investigations was matched by conflicts and confusion in the White House and Pentagon stemming from Mr. Trump’s order to withhold the aid.
Opposition to the order from his top national security advisers was more intense than previously known. In late August, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper joined Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and John R. Bolton, the national security adviser at the time, for a previously undisclosed Oval Office meeting with the president where they tried but failed to convince him that releasing the aid was in interests of the United States.
By late summer, top lawyers at the Office of Management and Budget who had spoken to lawyers at the White House and the Justice Department in the weeks beforehand, were developing an argument — not previously divulged publicly — that Mr. Trump’s role as commander in chief would simply allow him to override Congress on the issue.
And Mr. Mulvaney is shown to have been deeply involved as a key conduit for transmitting Mr. Trump’s demands for the freeze across the administration.
The interviews and documents show how Mr. Trump used the bureaucracy to advance his agenda in the face of questions about its propriety and even legality from officials in the White House budget office and the Pentagon, many of whom say they were kept in the dark about the president’s motivations and had grown used to convention-flouting requests from the West Wing. One veteran budget official who raised questions about the legal justification was pushed aside.
It’s now obvious we need to hear from Pompeo, Bolton, Esper, and Mulvaney at the very minimum. This completely weakens the Trumpist Defense as outlined here in WAPO by Greg Sargent.
McConnell badly needs the media’s both-sidesing instincts to hold firm against the brute facts of the situation. If Republicans bear the brunt of media pressure to explain why they don’t want to hear from witnesses, that risks highlighting their true rationale: They adamantly fear new revelations precisely because they know Trump is guilty — and that this corrupt scheme is almost certainly much worse than we can currently surmise.
That possibility is underscored by the Times report, a chronology of Trump’s decision to withhold aid to a vulnerable ally under assault while he and his henchmen extorted Ukraine into carrying out his corrupt designs.
The report demonstrates in striking detail that inside the administration, the consternation over the legality and propriety of the aid freeze — and confusion over Trump’s true motives — ran much deeper than previously known, implicating top Cabinet officials more deeply than we thought.
Among the story’s key points:
- As early as June, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney worked to execute the freeze for Trump, and a top aide to Mulvaney — Robert Blair — worried it would fuel the narrative that Trump was tacitly aiding Russia.
- Internal opposition was more forceful than previously known. The Pentagon pushed for the money for months. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-national security adviser John Bolton privately urged Trump to understand that freezing the aid was not in our national interest.
- Trump was unmoved, citing Ukraine’s “corruption.” We now know Trump actually wanted Ukraine to announce sham investigations absolving Russia of 2016 electoral sabotage and smearing potential 2020 opponent Joe Biden. The Times report reveals that top Trump officials did not think that ostensibly combating Ukrainian “corruption” (which wasn’t even Trump’s real aim) was in our interests.
- Lawyers at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) worked to develop a far-fetched legal argument that Trump could exercise commander-in-chief authority to override Congress’ appropriation of the aid, to get around the law precluding Trump from freezing it.
- Michael Duffey, a political appointee at OMB, tried to get the Pentagon to assume responsibility for getting the aid released, to deflect blame away from the White House for its own role in blocking it. This led a Pentagon official to pronounce herself “speechless.”
- Duffey froze the aid with highly unusual bureaucratic tactics, refused to tell Pentagon officials why Trump wanted it withheld and instructed them to keep this “closely held.” (Some of this had already been reported, but in narrative context it becomes far more damning.)
It’s impossible to square all this with the lines from Trump’s defenders — that there was no pressure on Ukraine; that the money was withheld for reasonable policy purposes; and that there was no extortion because it was ultimately released. As the Times shows, that only came after the scheme was outed.
Capitol Hill is still empty due to the hols but we can be assured that talking points will be made available as soon as they come back. I cannot wait to see Mitch McConnell wiggle out of this one and one wild card continues to be Justice Roberts. How much of a sham trial will he allow?
Congressman and Civil Rights Legend John Lewis will be undergoing treatments for Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer. His office announced this over the weekend and it was reported on all news outlets including CNN.
Lewis, 79, said he was diagnosed following a routine medical visit with subsequent tests that reconfirmed the diagnosis. The long-time Georgia congressman will undergo treatment for the cancer.“I have been in some kind of fight — for freedom, equality, basic human rights — for nearly my entire life. I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now,” Lewis, who in March 1965 joined forces with Martin Luther King Jr. to lead a voting rights march out of Selma, Alabama, said in a statement.He continued later: “While I am clear-eyed about the prognosis, doctors have told me that recent medical advances have made this type of cancer treatable in many cases, that treatment options are no longer as debilitating as they once were, and that I have a fighting chance.”
Let’s hope more people see this for the threat to our democracy that it is! Last time I posted, we reflected on the huge gender gap facing Trumpist candidates. Black Voters are not only anti Trump as a general rule, but it looks like turnout may be high this year.
https://twitter.com/DearAuntCrabby/status/1211686957572673536
Several hate crimes have been focused on the Jewish Community. We’ve seen anti-Semitic attacks many places but this one targeting the heart of New York’s Hasidic community was brutally carried out with a knife which is why the victims have survived. They’ve found more about the attacker who has now been labelled the Hanukah stabber. This is from TPM.
A Hanukkah party at the house of an ultra-Orthodox rabbi outside New York City on Saturday night was interrupted by a man with a machete.
Five were stabbed, though none fatally, and the suspect is now in custody. Two remained hospitalized on Sunday.
Here’s what we now know about the attack.
The alleged stabber, Grafton Thomas, had obscured his face with a scarf when he barged into the home of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg home in Monsey, New York. He immediately began attacking people inside the home, who’d gathered to celebrate the seventh night of Hanukkah.
“Nobody is going anywhere!” Thomas reportedly announced.
“Hey you, I’ll get you,” Josef Gluck, who attended the gathering, recalled Thomas telling him.
Thomas pleaded not guilty to five counts of attempted murder and one count of burglary in court Sunday
The motive still remains unclear but is the second stabbing attack on people of Jewish faith this year. The last one was on November 20th. The stabber’s family has detailed a long history of mental illness which may have been a contributing factor. You may read more at the link. It is just really fortunate that all are on the mend.
So, I won’t waste a lot of your Monday today. Just have a safe New Year’s Eve Tomorrow!
What’s on you reading and blogging list today?
Friday Reads: Get ready for 2020! Out with the Olds!
Posted: December 27, 2019 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: 1984, IOWA is six weeks away!!!, mona eltahawy 29 Comments
Good Morning Sky Dancers!
It’s hard to believe we’re careening towards 2020. I’m reading for the year to get started in many ways because I really would like us to find a way to dump Trump. My New Year’s resolution is just plain “Out with the Olds”. However, I realize that it’s likely to be a brutal year because thugs never go quietly into the night no matter which way they’re turned out and that’s if he gets turned out at all.
We’re going to have to take the bad with the good and hope that the good outweighs the bad.
The political season will be brutal. I can only wonder what horrid lies and diatribes we’ll get at the State of the Union Address. There are a few early trends on what may be ahead.
First, it appears that 2020 is stacking up for a historical gender gap in voting. This comes via CNN. Women hate Trump. They really hate him and in increasing numbers.
If President Donald Trump loses in 2020, it will be at the hands of women.
An examination of recent CNN polls reveal that we could be looking at a record gender gap in the 2020 presidential election. For simplicity’s sake, I’m comparing Former Vice President Joe Biden (the leader in the Democratic primary polls) to Trump. In general election matchups against all the leading Democratic candidates, a greater than 25-point gender gap existed.
Biden has held a 60% to 36% lead over Trump among women in an average of our last two (October and December) CNN/SSRS polls. The same polling put Trump up 52% to 42% among men voters. When you combine Biden’s 24-point lead among women and Trump’s 10 point lead among men, this makes for a 34-point gender gap.
Gender gaps have been getting larger in recent years. From 1952 to about 1980, there really wasn’t a gender gap in presidential elections. So this isn’t just about Trump.
Still, this 34-point gender gap would be a significant increase from what we saw in 2016. In that election, the gender gap was 25 points. This, itself, was a record gender gap for any presidential election dating back to 1952. In fact, no presidential election had previously featured a gender gap of even greater than 20 points.
The gender gap becoming larger would fit with what we’ve seen in the Trump era. There was a larger gender gap in the 2018 House midterm election (23 points) than in any previous midterm.
But what’s causing an escalation in the gender gap from even 2016 and 2018? It’s women turning even more against Trump than they were previously.
That’s some really good news right there except the Biden part. The Hill reports that it will be a “bloody primary” season and that no one candidate appears to have a lock on it as of right now.
Democrats are bracing for a long, drawn-out primary season.
With just six weeks until the Iowa caucuses, some Democrats say they don’t expect a likely nominee to emerge anytime soon after early-voting states hold their contests. Instead, they’re preparing for a bruising four-way match-up that could drag on for months as candidates compete for the chance to challenge President Trump.
Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have consistently topped nationwide polls, but Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg remain key contenders who show no signs of slowing down.
“It’s going to be uglier than ugly,” one Democratic strategist said, pointing to surveys showing there is no clear winner across the first four states in the nominating process. “It’s going to be a bloody slugfest. And the thing a lot of us fear is that Trump will benefit from all of it.”
Democrats have focused their efforts on electability, making the case for rallying behind the kind of candidate who can topple Trump. Some Democrats say that while a progressive candidate can energize the party’s base and win in the primary, it would be much more difficult for that same White House hopeful to win the general election against Trump.
Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, argued that because the top candidates each have strong pockets of support, the primary may even lead to a brokered convention in July.
“Although people always say that, this time it could be true,” Zelizer said. “Democrats are so desperate to defeat Trump they have very different visions of how to do this and won’t concede easily.”
The party’s top four candidates — two progressive candidates and two moderate candidates — are indicative of where the Democratic Party is right now, said Democratic strategist Michael Trujillo.
Maybe more of us need to adopt Mona’s policy . “I refuse to allow those who don’t recognize my full humanity to expect politeness of me,” she said.
Over time, she’s developed a reputation for telling the patriarchy and its footsoldiers—as she calls the white women who believe in polite feminism—to fuck off, literally. Cursing is a very important aspect of Eltahawy’s feminism; the third chapter in her latest book is titled “profanity.” On Twitter, where Eltahawy is known for telling people to “fuck off, kitten,” she’s amassed a following of over 300,000.
“I will not be civil to those who do not recognize my full humanity,” she explains.
But Eltahawy’s rhetoric is driven by more than shock value. It is rooted in her own horrific sexist experiences across the globe, and her commitment to eradicate them for herself and other women in the future. We spoke to Eltahawy about what the last decade taught her about feminism and what needs to happen in the next decade for a true feminist revolution.
VICE: Take me back to a decade ago. What did your feminism look like and what brought you there?
MONA ELTAHAWY: I always say I was traumatized into feminism. I go all the way back to when my family moved from Cairo to London, and then we moved from the U.K. to Saudi Arabia and what I learned on those journeys. Very quickly, what I learned in the U.K. was that very little was expected of Arab-looking women because my white teachers kept asking me, “What does your father do that brought you to London from Cairo?” They never bothered to ask what my mother does, and both my parents were on government scholarships to study for a PhD in medicine. It never occurred to my white teachers in London in the mid 70s that my mother could be studying her PhD. And then when we moved to Saudi Arabia, I saw what happened. My mother couldn’t drive anymore. We were utterly dependent on my father to take us everywhere. So those experiences in the U.K. and Saudi Arabia back to back were a reminder of how universal patriarchy is everywhere you go.
But the years 2009 and 2010 brought me to a really pivotal moment in my life, and that was when the revolution in Egypt started. For me personally, the revolution led to the dying of the old Mona and this coming out of this new Mona because in November of 2011, almost exactly eight years ago, Egyptian riot police beat me and broke my left arm and my right hand and sexually assaulted me. I was detained for 12 hours. You very rarely get a before-and-after moment in your life where you can actually point to a moment and say, this is my moment. But that was my moment. The last decade was that moment when I survived. And I survived by the old Mona dying and this Mona coming to be.
And, this from Mashable, just about sums up the last decade: “2010s = 1984: The decade we finally understood Orwell” written by Chris Taylor.
Don’t call him Winston Smith. Call him Mr. 2019. Because it’s looking increasingly like we live in Oceania. That fictional state was basically the British Isles, North America, and South America. Now the leaders of the largest countries in each of those regions — Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro — are men who have learned to flood the zone with obvious lies, because their opponents simply don’t have the time or energy to deal them all.
As we enter 2020, all three of them look increasingly, sickeningly, like they’re going to get away with it. They are protected by Party members who will endure any humiliation to trumpet loyalty to the Great Leader (big shout-out once again to Sen. Lindsay Graham) and by a media environment that actively enables political lies (thanks, Facebook).
All the Winston Smiths of our world can see what the score really is. It doesn’t seem to make any difference. But hey, at least we’re all finally aware of the most important line in 1984, which is now also its most quote-tweeted:
Yes, Virginia, there is no impeachment! Huhn?
And as we approach New Year’s Eve and Day and the entire freaking year, let’s just think, out with the old, in with the new. That includes old white dudes like Trump, Biden, and Bernie. Out out OUT!!!
And I continue to debate the folks that say just vote for whoever looks bestest to beat Trump regardless of the fact that some one like Bernie has no plans, past history of accomplishment, or for that matter real grasp of anything beyond what the wobbles thought about way back when. OR, that Biden has actively written and passed legislation hurting women, the black community, and every one that’s ever incurred a debt. You want to trade one dotard for another?
So, here’s USA Today with a riff on the thought that just elect some one to Dump Trump. “Beating Donald Trump in the 2020 election isn’t everything; it’s the only thing”.
But there is also a warning in it: Few of the ideas being debated are getting much traction beyond Democratic true believers. And even many Democrats are ready to see some winnowing of the field in the early caucus and primary states.
This is a pretty good indication that the party’s voters should focus largely on one overriding issue: which of the candidates is best equipped to defeat Donald Trump next November.
In just a few short years, Trump has promoted the interests of U.S. foes, needlessly run up massive government debts, thwarted progress on climate change, done palpable harm to America’s health care system, and turned the once-proud party of Abe Lincoln and Ronald Reagan into an adulation cult.
Ridding the nation of his unfit leadership is far more important than who has the most extensive plan to hand out free money (we’re looking at you, Andrew Yang) or require everyone to get their health care through an expanded Medicare (Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders).
The Democrats need a nominee who can go toe-to-toe with Trump, explain to the electorate why he is so wrong in so many ways, and build a consensus on taking the nation in a new direction.
But tell me, do we really know who that is at this point? Voters in Iowa sent Biden packing two times already? Are we supposed to wait for South Carolina to put his pasty ass first? I’m pretty sure neither Iowa or New Hampshire is going to do that.
But, any way, I digress, and I just want some peace and quiet a few days before the 2020 hell realm breaks lose. Meanwhile, point me to the wine cave for poor people.
What’s on you reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
jjlo
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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