So, yeah, we assassinated an Iranian general Friday, and that went well.
- Trump threatened to bomb Iranian cultural sites, which is a war crime. (New York Times)
- Iran announced they were flushing all the remaining restrictions from the Iran Nuclear Deal on developing nukes, Iraq’s parliament voted to expel US troops (it was a non-binding resolution, but still, not good), our European allies are all “WE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT,” we’ve temporarily halted fighting ISIS, and other bad consequences of Trump’s idiot decision to kill Soleimani. (CNN)
- Oil prices shot up. (CNN)
- Even Israel’s Netanyahu is like, “THIS WASN’T OUR IDEA.” (Twitter)
The Trump administration claims there was an imminent attack that assassinating Soleimani prevented, but there’s exactly no proof of that and of course you can’t believe a word the Trump administration says because they’re pathological liars.
Meanwhile…
NPR: Bolton Says He Would Testify In Senate Impeachment Trial If Subpoenaed
John Bolton announced this morning via Twitter (because I guess that’s how we do now) that if the Senate subpoenas him for the impeachment trial, he’ll testify.
Which, yeah, obviously, if you get a subpoena you testify, that’s how the law works. Or how it’s supposed to work, at any rate. I guess it doesn’t apply if you kiss Trump’s ass enough.
But also, this is a largely meaningless announcement because the Senate isn’t going to call any witnesses. So, y’know. Thanks John.
TPM: Iranian-Americans Are Being Detained At The Border, Muslim Advocacy Group Alleges
CAIR (Washington state chapter) did a press release this weekend saying that Iranian-Americans were being held at the Canadian border for 10+ hours. To be clear, these are American citizens not being allowed into America because they’re of Iranian descent.
NPR: House To Vote On Measure Limiting Trump’s Military Actions In Iran
House Democrats are whipping up a resolution to curtail Trump’s ability to wage military actions in Iran, and it’ll probably pass the House, but that’s about it. It would have to pass the Senate, too, which obviously isn’t going to happen. In fact, the Senate brought a similar resolution up last year and it failed.
AP: Homeland Security Will Share Citizenship Data with Census
You might remember Trump wanted a citizenship question on the 2020 census, which, no, bad idea, do not. This idea got shot down, and it should have, because it’ll kill responses to the 2020 census, particularly in areas that are generally blue, which will harm government aid, voting, representation, and just generally all kinds of things.
But hey, don’t worry, because Homeland Security will be sharing their citizenship information with the census, so everyone can get screwed that way, instead.
Image credit: Newspapers, JonS on Flickr.
Notes & Thoughts 