Well, this was quite the week. It was the week almost I decided to stop recapping the news, because, seriously, who can make sense of things anymore? Iran threw me off my game. To summarize:

• Last week, Iran killed an American contractor in an airstrike.
• So we retaliated with strikes of our own that killed 25 Iranian-backed Iraqi troops.
• So then this week, Iraqi protestors storm our embassy.
• Trump kills Iran’s top general in a drone strike.
• Iran vows revenge by striking our military sites.
• Trump threatens to bomb Iran’s cultural sites if Iran seeks revenge. If you’re wondering what he’s talking about, take a look here. Also, that’s a war crime.
• The Iraqi parliament votes to expel U.S. troops.
• Trump threatens to sanction Iraq and demands that they pay us for their own bases that we use to house U.S. troops if they expel us.
• The U.S. temporarily suspends counterterrorism activities to fight ISIS.
• Iran says they’ll no longer abide by the nuclear proliferation limits of the JCPOA.
• The U.S. sends 10,000 more troops to the Middle East in less than two weeks.
• Tens of thousands of mourners in Iran take to the streets to protest Soleimani’s killing. These streets have been filled with anti-government protestors up until now.

 

Here’s what else happened in politics for the week ending January 5…

Shootings This Week:

There were SIX mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 4 people and injure 24 more.

1. A shooter in St. Louis, MO, kills 3 people and injures 2 more at a New Year’s Eve party.
2. A shooter in Huntington, WV, injures 7 people in a bar on New Year’s Eve.
3. A shooter in Cleveland, OH, injures 4 people at a New Year’s Eve party in a nightclub.
4. A drive-by shooter in Brooklyn, NY, injures 4 people.
5. A shooter in Ocala, FL, kills 1 person and injures 4 more.
6. A shooter in Atlanta, GA, injures 4 people after an argument outside a nightclub.

Russia:

1. Vladimir Putin became Russia’s president 20 years ago this week.

Impeachment:

It was a short week on impeachment news, but I still moved it out into its own post for consistency. You can skip right over to it if that’s your focus.

Healthcare:

1. 207 mostly Republican members of Congress urge the Supreme Court to reconsider Roe v. Wade. They submit an amicus brief supporting a highly restrictive Louisiana abortion law. Two Democrats, Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Dan Lipinski of Illinois, sign on.
2. Last month, 197 members of Congress wrote to the Supreme Court in support of Roe v. Wade, citing individual autonomy and the right to private healthcare free from politics.
3. Trump signs a law to help fund rape kit testing to help get through the backlog of evidence.
4. The Trump administration announces a ban on all flavored e-cigarette cartridges except tobacco and menthol flavors.
5. Trump personally stepped into the budget process to make sure Medicaid funding for Puerto Rico got cut by more than half of what the bipartisan agreement in Congress called for.

International:

1. At a Hong Kong protest, a police officer took off a politician’s protective goggles and pepper-sprayed him. And then he did it again.
2. Police arrest around 400 Hong Kong protestors during a New Year’s Day march and rally. The march started out peaceful but became violent after just a few hours.
3. Kim Jong Un says that as long as the U.S. maintains this “hostile” policy toward North Korea, North Korea will never get rid of its nuclear weapons. Kim also says North Korea will reveal a “new strategic weapon” soon.

Iran:

1. After U.S. airstrikes on Iran-backed forces killed 25 people last week, protestors storm the U.S. embassy compound in Iraq, trapping diplomats inside. Most of the staff evacuates the compound.

• • The embassy goes on lockdown, but the protestors don’t manage to breach the facility. They do start a couple of fires, though).
  • The siege ends when the militia orders them to withdraw, and everyone is pretty relieved that things didn’t escalate. Everyone except maybe Trump.
  • The U.S. strikes were in retaliation for an airstrike that killed an American contractor.
  • The Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia has been pushing for a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, and they’re seen to be behind the embassy protest.
  • The Pentagon sends additional troops to Iraq just in case things do escalate.
  • Trump compares the storming of the embassy to what happened in Benghazi. Except he forgets that the Iraq embassy is one of the most highly secured and defended embassies in the world, and Benghazi was a small CIA outpost.

2. In retaliation for the attack on our embassy, Trump authorizes a drone strike targeting General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force. The strike kills both Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of an Iran-backed militia in Iraq.

• • Soleimani was Iran’s top general. (So liken this to a foreign country killing the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the U.S. Or maybe the Secretary of the Army or Navy.)
  • Soleimani was behind multiple military attacks on U.S. personnel and troops. He’s also alleged to be behind some of what we call state-sponsored terrorism in the Middle East. He advised militias fighting on behalf of Syria’s President Assad.
  • He also advised forces fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

3. This sets off a shit storm in the U.S. where everyone is fighting over whether the killing was justified under U.S. or international law. Trump says they had evidence of an imminent threat posed by Soleimani, but doesn’t back it up. If there was no imminent threat, this act would be considered an assassination and probably illegal.

• • Sources in the administration say they presented Trump with several alternatives to respond to the attack on the U.S. embassy in Iraq, with killing Soleimani being the most extreme response.
  • Since 9/11, Pentagon officials include improbable options along with more palatable ones in cases like this as a way to guide the president toward the better options.
  • That Trump chooses the most extreme option was something that surprises his advisors and stuns U.S. military leaders (but they should’ve known better).
  • Trump initially rejected killing Soleimani as an option last week in retaliation for the contractor’s death. But watching the Iraqi protestors in front of the embassy angered him and he changed his mind.

4. Trump sends additional troops to the Middle East, bringing the total U.S. troops in the region to 60,000. There are more troops there now than when Trump took office.
5. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declares three days of mourning, and tens of thousands of Iranians take to the streets to mourn and protest the death of one of their military leaders. They chant, “America is the great Satan!”

• • Others in Iran are glad Soleimani is gone (these would be the people who’ve been out protesting the government for the past two years).
  • Protestors fill the streets of Baghdad as well, calling on the Iraqi government to eject U.S. troops.

6. Previous presidents did consider targeting Soleimani, but all thought it was too risky and not worth the potential retaliation and getting pulled into yet another protracted war in the region.
7. The State Department urges all U.S. citizens who are not government personnel to leave Iraq immediately.
8. The State Department also designates an Iraqi militia backed by Iran as a foreign terrorist organization, loosening restrictions on the military actions we can take against them (under the Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF). They also designate two leaders of that militia as terrorists.
9. The general who replaces Soleimani, Esmail Ghaani, vows revenge. Ghaani was Soleimani’s longtime deputy and has already been sanctioned for his work with the Quds Force. Yet another reason that killing Soleimani over an imminent threat doesn’t make sense — he had a deputy who could just pick up where he left off and his death didn’t decapitate the Quds Force.
10. Iran announces they will no longer abide by the remaining limits of the JCPOA and will enrich uranium without restrictions. This, of course, opens up the possibility they’ll develop nuclear weapons.
11. Trump threatens Iraq with sanctions “like they’ve never seen before” if they eject U.S. troops.

Confusion Over Imminent Threat:

There’s confusion over the reasons for killing Soleimani and a raging debate over whether it was warranted or even legal.

1. First Trump says Soleimani “killed or badly wounded thousands of Americans” and was planning to kill more. It’s probably true that Soleimani was the mastermind behind attacks that killed many of our troops over the decades he’s been in power, but that’s not imminent.
2. Then Trump says Soleimani was planning “imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel.”
3. The DOD says that our strike was “aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.”
4. Mike Pompeo, General Mark Milley (Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), and Robert O’Brien (national security advisor) all repeat Trump’s remarks. But none of them could describe any threats that were any different from what Soleimani has been doing for years. Maybe that’s classified.
5. Trump says he did it to stop a war, not start one.
6. Mike Pence says that Soleimani assisted some of the 9/11 terrorists, although there’s no evidence to back that up; the evidence indicates that Soleimani never crossed paths with any of the terrorists.

• • Carol’s advice: Soleimani was a bad guy. You don’t have to make shit up to make him sound like a bad guy.

7. U.S. officials who had intelligence briefings after the strike say the evidence of an “imminent” attack is “razor thin.”
8. Some officials say there was a stream of intelligence pointing to threats to American embassies and military personnel. Other officials dispute the significance of that intelligence. According to one official, intelligence showed a normal situation in the Middle East.
9. By the end of the week, neither Congress nor the public receives any specific evidence that Soleimani posed an imminent threat.

Aftermath:

1. Amid the protests at the embassy in Iraq, Mike Pompeo cancels his trip to Ukraine, where he was scheduled to meet with Ukraine President Zelensky.
2. Mike Pompeo blames the current tensions with Iran on Obama. He says Obama’s administration appeased the Iranians, even going so far as to say the “war” started when the JCPOA was signed.

• • Factcheck: The JCPOA was designed to hold Iran’s nuclear development in check, which was successful until the U.S. withdrew from the agreement. The JCPOA was not designed to fight state-sponsored terrorism, which has been the biggest GOP complaint about the agreement.

3. Trump didn’t warn our allies about the strike on Soleimani ahead of time, even though they have troops in the region (at our behest) who could’ve been in danger because of it.
4. Our European allies call the killing an “extremely serious and dangerous escalation.” They urge both the U.S. and Iran to de-escalate.
5. Our Middle Eastern allies react with concern over their own safety, fearing that being a U.S. ally makes them a target for Iranian retribution.
6. Israel reacts cautiously, not really wanting war with Iran. Also, Trump notifies Israel prior to the attack. It’s the only country that was notified, AFAIK.
7. Putin and France’s President Macron have a call to strategize how to de-escalate the situation.
8. Mike Pompeo talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. According to Russia’s printout of the call, “Lavrov stressed that targeted actions by a UN member state to eliminate officials of another UN member state, and on the territory of a third sovereign country without its knowledge grossly violate the principles of international law and deserve condemnation.”
9. Oil prices rise and the stock market falls in response to the killing. But the market recovers quickly; it was just a blip.
10. Trump alerts multiple Republicans in Congress of the strike Soleimani, but doesn’t brief any Democratic leaders. The bipartisan Gang of Eight was created for just this sort of thing, and it includes senior Republicans and Democrats who are trustworthy and responsible. Lindsey Graham, who is not a member of the Gang of Eight, says he learned about it before the strike happened.

• • When Democratic leaders complain that the strike was authorized without consulting Congress or even letting them know, Trump tweets a picture of Chuck Schumer in a turban next to Nancy Pelosi in a headscarf. So presidential.

11. Right-wing pundits and Republican lawmakers accuse Democrats of mourning Soleimani’s death. At least one Member of Congress issues an apology on Twitter for saying it. It’s possible to know that Soleimani was an enemy of the U.S. and a bad guy while also questionning whether killing a foreign military leader was the best course of action. This is not the same as mourning, and I shouldn’t have to point that out.
12. CBP detains and questions around 200 Iranian Americans at the Peach Arch Border Crossing between Canada and the U.S. Most of the detainees are American citizens, and some were born in the U.S. They report being questioned about their feelings about Iran and Iraq, their extended families, and any military service.
13. According to people hanging out at Mar-a-Lago, Trump started dropping hints to his associates and guests at the resort about something big going on with the Iranian regime.
14. Young adults start worrying about a draft and people start talking about WWIII… a little prematurely. What we do know now is that Iran will retaliate in some way.
15. Companies and governments tighten security at their oil fields in the Middle East.
16. After getting pushback for not notifying Congress about the Soleimani strike, Trump tweets that his tweets serve as notice to Congress that we’ll strike back if Iran strikes first. That’s not how any of this works.
17. Point of interest for those people defending the Soleimani killing by saying he was one of our top enemies. Before this week, there was hardly a mention of Soleimani in the media or the social media posts of people who are now calling him our number one enemy.
Trump mentioned Soleimani exactly once, in 2015, when he said that he didn’t know who the guy was.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. The Interior Department removes “sexual orientation” from parts of their ethics guide about workplace discrimination. The department argues that sexual orientation is covered in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Ironically, just last August, the Department of Justice argued before the Supreme Court that Title VII does NOT cover sexual orientation.
2. West Virginia’s governor approves a recommendation to fire all the cadets who posed for a picture while executing a Nazi salute. PS: We need better classroom education on Nazis and the holocaust.
3. The House passes a new agricultural bill (its first major ag bill in three decades) called the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. It would create a new temporary legal status for undocumented farmworkers and give them a path to permanent legal status.
4. Antisemitic crimes increased by 21% in New York City in 2019. Antisemitism is on the rise across the country and in Europe as well.
5. Senate Republicans continue to hold up the Violence Against Women Act, for which approval has been bipartisan for years. The reason they’re holding it up is that Democrats in the House closed the “boyfriend loophole.”

• • In the current version of the bill, boyfriends who perpetrate domestic violence against their partner can still obtain a gun. Husbands in the same situation cannot obtain a gun. What’s the difference?

Climate:

1. While Amazon says it’s committed to reducing its carbon emissions and to fighting climate change, the company also punishes employees who criticize the company’s environmental policies. They’ve fired at least two people who’ve spoken out.
2. In case you’re having a hard time picturing how much forest the Amazon has lost over the past decade, picture 10 million football fields. Because that’s how much.
3. The fires in Australia have burned nearly 20,000 square miles, have destroyed more than 1,000 homes, and have killed at least 17 people and millions of animals.

• • The fires strand thousands of people, who are forced to shelter near the ocean in New South Wales and Victoria provinces. Ships come to help evacuate.
  • The fire and heat danger continues to be elevated.
  • The smoke and dust from the fires cause New Zealand snow-capped glaciers to turn brown.

4. Federal data indicates that 81% of Southwestern streams will lose clean water protections under Trump’s changes to the Clean Water Act. That number is 96% in New Mexico alone, where the affected waterways are tributaries to the Rio Grande.
5. The Trump administration proposes changes to the National Environmental Policy Act that would make it easier to ram through infrastructure projects without complete environmental impact reviews. The changes would also mean that agencies no longer have to take climate change impacts into account when designing projects. So, for example, they could build projects in areas likely to flood because of climate change without implementing any flood protections.
6. And here’s one you just can’t make up. Big fossil fuel companies, whose own internal papers show they’ve known about climate change and its effects since at least the 1980s, ask the federal government to help protect their Texas facilities from the effects of climate change. Despite their scientific knowledge of climate change, the fossil fuel industry has continually pushed climate change denier theories and worked to miseducate American students and the American public at large.

• • Texas wants at least $12 billion to create a “coastal spine” in the gulf. The spine consists of 60 miles of concrete seawalls, earth barriers, floating gates, and steel levees in the Gulf of Mexico. We may be starting to see costs that could’ve been mitigated by implementing an actual climate plan decades ago, when scientists started telling us what was going to happen.

Budget/Economy:

1. Nearly every sector of the market ended the year up: S&P, gold, corporate bonds, emerging market, U.S. bonds, etc. Any simple market strategy worked in 2019.

Elections:

1. A federal judge rules that a new voter ID law in North Carolina was at least partially motivated by racial discrimination, and strikes the law down. At least for now.
2. Tennessee Representative Phil Roe is the 26th Republican member of the House who won’t run for re-election this year.

Miscellaneous:

1. Illinois legalizes marijuana, becoming the 11th state to do so.
2. Representative John Lewis (D-GA) announces he’s fighting pancreatic cancer. Lewis is a civil rights icon who’s in his 17th term in Congress.

Polls:

1. Trump and Obama tie for America’s most admired man in 2019, both with 18% of the vote. Michelle Obama was the most admired woman, followed by Melania Trump in second place.