[guest post by JVW]

This Twitter thread from a freshman Democrat Congresswoman from Michigan is very interesting, and gives you some good insight into conventional thinking among the intelligence community over the past two decades:

If you worked on the Middle East over the past 20 years, you dealt with the growing organization and sophistication of Soleimani’s covert and overt military activities, which have contributed to significant destabilization across the region.

— Rep. Elissa Slotkin (@RepSlotkin) January 3, 2020

You can click on the embedded tweet to read all ten of the posts in her thread, but to conserve space I am going to omit some of them. I am not trying to misrepresent her point, which I think is valid and well-argued, so please forgive me if you think my omissions remove important context.

What always kept both Democratic and Republican presidents from targeting Soleimani himself was the simple question:

Was the strike worth the likely retaliation, and the potential to pull us into protracted conflict?

— Rep. Elissa Slotkin (@RepSlotkin) January 3, 2020

Against our diplomats and service members or high-ranking military officers, against our allies and partners in the region, or through targeted attacks in the Western world.

— Rep. Elissa Slotkin (@RepSlotkin) January 3, 2020

This Admin., like all others, has the right to act in self-defense. But the Administration must come to Congress immediately and consult.

If military engagement is going to be protracted — which any informed assessment would consider — the Administration must request an AUMF.

— Rep. Elissa Slotkin (@RepSlotkin) January 3, 2020

It isn’t too surprising that Rep. Slotkin, who narrowly beat an incumbent Republican in the midterm election to win the seat for Democrats for the first time since 2001, is playing this close to the vest, questioning the wisdom of this successful attack yet not directly criticizing it, while demanding that the Administration brief Congress (she serves on both the House Armed Service and Homeland Security Committees) on the matter. She’s certainly not beclowning herself in the manner that Obama Administration alumni are by attempting to salvage their dignity and pretending that their Iran strategy was honest and coherent.

Earlier today, Trump antagonist David French persuasively argued that yesterday’s attack was permissible and did not require Congressional authorization, because General Soleimeni was in Iraq where U.S. troops lawfully were stationed under Congressional authorization, and because Soleimeni and his crew sought to direct attacks against our forces. But like Congresswoman Slotkin, he wonders if the Trump Administration has thought through all of the potential consequences and has plans in place to protect our personnel, allies, and interests in that part of the world. If the Congresswoman is correct, then the CIA and military intelligence brass — at least as she knew it from 2003-2016 — likely had a great deal of trepidation over this bold and decisive move.

On the other hand, perhaps our nation’s spies, spooks, and analysts had reached the conclusion that attempts to contain General Soleimeni and his terrorist pals were failing, and the time had come to neutralize him as a threat. One of the most interesting, frightening, and exciting (all at the same time!) aspects of the Donald Trump Presidency is his administration’s willingness to chuck conventional wisdom out the window and chart a new course. If this is indeed a decision that was not particularly well-received within the intelligence community, no doubt that the New York Times and Washington Post will have lots of “background sources” kvetching about it in time for the Sunday editions.

What’s done is done, and now we have to face the consequences. It’s interesting that President Trump, who seemed to be so cautious about entangling the U.S. in yet another overseas adventure, now finds himself ordering 3,000 troops back into the region, eleven months before facing the voters. Though it is unlikely that the Iranian military would attempt to wage a full-scale war against our armed forces, it is to be expected that ambush attacks against our troops will continue which, should they prove successful, will certainly bring about the “I told you so” chorus from the usual suspects.

– JVW

[guest post by JVW]

UPDATE: The Pentagon has confirmed that it was a U.S. attack and that Gen. Soleimani is dead. I am changing the title of this post accordingly, from “U.S. Attacks Possibly Kill. . . ” to “U.S. Attacks Kill Iranian. . . .”

—- Original Post —-

Breaking news:

At least three rockets were fired at Baghdad International Airport Friday killing at least seven people, including Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force, according to multiple reports early Friday.

Soleimani is the military mastermind whom Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had deemed equally as dangerous as Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed in a strike by U.S.-led forces in October.

Soleimani was the long-running leader of the elite intelligence wing called Quds Force – which itself has been a designated terror group since 2007, and is estimated to be 20,000 strong. Considered one of the most powerful men in Iran, he was routinely referred to as the “shadow commander” or “spymaster.”

“Soleimani is our leader” had been photographed spray-painted on windows by Iran-backed militiamen at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

The strike also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, three Iraqi officials told The Associated Press. Iraqi TV reported the deaths as well.

As usual with these events in that part of the world, there is all sorts of conflicting information. Iraqi security initially reported that the projectiles were Katyusha rockets, a Soviet-era model that is a favorite of Hezbollah, and that no deaths had resulted from the attack. At the same time, however, local media reported seeing U.S. attack helicopters flying near the Baghdad Airport at the time of the strike. And now acknowledgement of the deaths is apparently leaking out.

So maybe we’ll have a wartime President seeking reelection after all.

– JVW

[guest post by JVW]

Reported earlier this morning:

Julian Castro, the former Obama housing secretary and San Antonio mayor, has dropped out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The only Latino in the field, Castro established himself as one of the more progressive members in the primary race but had been struggling to raise money and fight his way back onto the debate stage.

This may yet turn out to be the Year of the Latino Voter, but it sure as heck ain’t gonna be the Year of the Latino Candidate, at least not on the donkey side of the ledger. Here’s a friendly reminder that despite their constant genuflecting at the twin idols of youth and diversity, the Democrats remain a party run by elderly white folks.

Belated wishes for a healthy and fruitful 2020.

– JVW

[guest post by Dana]

I’m still trying to recover from the flu but wanted to put up a fresh thread. I typically don’t make a list of resolutions at the beginning of a new year because I find it’s just another opportunity for personal failure and disappointment. It’s better for me to simply try and do my best each day. With that said, while I don’t agree with everything here, there are some sensible ideas. Read the whole thing for context. This is just a quick abbreviation of the resolutions because my bed is calling:

Nationalists to the right of us and progressives to the left of us sneer at the idea that people should be left alone to do their own thing. It can be a little demoralizing. But another year dawns, and with it comes the opportunity for a fresh take on the world in which we live. Yes, New Year’s resolutions are a bit of a cliché, but they can help us break bad habits and reboot our lives. What you do is up to you, of course. But you might resolve to:

Get some perspective…

Work on your self-reliance…

Get out…

Reach out…

Stay firm…

Resolve to take this new year in stride. You might as well, since it’s coming no matter what. Realize that it could be a lot worse, make sure you’re prepared for a rough ride, enjoy the world around you and the people in it, and stay true to yourself!

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

[guest post by JVW]

It wouldn’t be a Presidential election year without at least some candidate or other coming up with rather stupid ideas. No, I’m not referring to “Medicaid for All” or “free” college, I am thinking here of the truly trivial and small-potatoes initiatives, such as Bill Clinton’s school uniform fixation (though, to be fair, I suppose in retrospect we can view this as a possible sexual fetish). So let’s take a look at brand-new Democrat candidate Michael Bloomberg, who is either closing out 2019 or kicking off 2020 by bringing the dumb:

As president, I'll turn the East Room into an open office plan, where I’ll sit with our team.

I’ll use the Oval Office for some official functions – never for tweeting – but the rest of the time, I’ll be where a leader should be: with the team. https://t.co/zIU3ZL5uIv pic.twitter.com/jLwWKJCmxw

— Mike Bloomberg (@MikeBloomberg) December 30, 2019

Because making the White House function more like a WeWork office will no doubt fix a whole number of our problems.

This promises to be a truly insipid year ahead of us.

– JVW

It is the first Sunday after Christmas. Today’s Bach piece is Part VI of his Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248:

Today’s Gospel reading is Matthew 2:13-23:

The Escape to Egypt

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”

So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

“A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”

The Return to Nazareth

After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”

So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.

The text of today’s piece is available here. It contains these words:

Then Herod summoned the sages secretly and cleverly discovered from them when the star had appeared. And he directed them towards Bethlehem and said:
— Go there and seek diligently for the infant, and when you find it, report to me, so that I can also come and pay my devotions to it. —

. . . .

Liar, you seek only to destroy the Lord;
You employ all false trickery
to supplant the Savior;
yet He, whose power no man can measure,
remains in secure hands.
Your heart, your false heart is already,
with all its deceit, very well known
to the Son of the Highest whom you seek to crush.

. . . .

And God commanded them in a dream that they should not journey back to Herod, and they travelled by another way back to their own land.

Happy listening! Soli Deo gloria.

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]

[guest post by Dana]

I’m 7 days into a cold/flu, so the weekend open thread is bare bones.

Feel free to talk about anything you think is newsworthy or might interest readers.

I’ll start.

First news item: Joe says no:

Former Vice President Joe Biden (D) said Friday that he would not comply with a Senate subpoena to testify in President Trump’s impeachment trial.

“What are you going to cover?” Biden said when asked about a subpoena in an interview with the Des Moines Register’s executive editor Carol Hunter. “You guys are going to cover for three weeks anything that I said. And (Trump’s) going to get away. You guys buy into it all the time. Not a joke.”

He went on to say it would be part of Trump’s tactic to “take the focus off” himself.

Second news item:Eddie Gallagher’s fellow SEALs had harsh words for platoon leader:

The Navy SEALs who served beside Special Operations Chief Eddie Gallagher described their platoon leader as “toxic,” “freaking evil” and a “psychopath,” in new video recordings…

The recordings are part of the Navy’s investigation into Gallagher, who was accused of war crimes stemming from a 2017 deployment to Iraq. Gallagher in July was found not guilty of murder and premeditated murder but was convicted of a lesser charge of posing for a photo with an Islamic State (ISIS) fighter’s corpse.

In one of the recordings, Special Operator 1st Class Craig Miller, one of the most experienced SEALs in the group, can be seen weeping.

“The guy is freaking evil,” Miller told investigators.

In a separate interview, Special Operator 1st Class Joshua Vriens, a sniper, called Gallagher “toxic.”

The platoon’s medic, Special Operator 1st Class Corey Scott, described Gallagher as the type of person who was “perfectly OK with killing anybody that was moving.”

Third news item: Radio legend dies:

Don Imus, the radio personality whose insult humor and savage comedy catapulted him to a long-lasting and controversial career, has died at 79. His three-hour radio program, Imus in the Morning, was widely popular, especially with the over 25-male demographic.

Imus died Friday morning at Baylor Scott and White Medical Center in College Station, Texas, after being hospitalized on Christmas Eve, a representative said.

…

Imus was loved or hated for his caustic loudmouth. Outspoken in an age of political correctness, his often coarse satire offended sensibilities. Yet his listeners included those whom he often ridiculed. His call-in guests included President Clinton, Dan Rather, Tim Russert, Bill Bradley, David Dinkins, Rudy Giuliani and political analyst Jeff Greenfield, who once remarked, “He’s out there talking the way most of us talk when we’re not in public.”

He sparked national outcry in 2007 when he made derogatory, racist remarks about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. CBS Radio and MSNBC then dropped his show.

He rebounded by signing a multiyear contract with the Fox Business Network in 2009 to simulcast Imus in the Morning from 6-9 a.m., with Fox anchors appearing during the program.

Fourth news item: Federal judge says no:

A federal judge on Friday denied an effort to restore 98,000 Georgia voters who were removed from the state’s voter rolls this month because they haven’t participated in elections for more than eight years.

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones’ ruling upholds the cancellation of these inactive voters under Georgia’s “use it or lose it” law, which allows election officials to remove people who didn’t vote or respond to mailed notification letters.

Jones wrote in a 32-page order that the plaintiffs, led by the voting rights group Fair Fight Action, failed to show that the cancellations violated the U.S. Constitution. Jones wrote that the plaintiffs could still ask the Georgia Supreme Court to interpret the state law about inactive voters.

In all, nearly 287,000 registrations were canceled this month because those registered either moved away or stopped participating in elections. An additional 22,000 inactive voters were initially removed but reinstated by the secretary of state’s office because those voters had contacted election officials in early 2012, before the cancellation cut-off date.

Have a great weekend.

–Dana

Hope you all have a great Christmas. Thanks to Dana and JVW for everything they do, and thanks to longtime readers and any newer ones.

[guest post by JVW]

Merry Christmas to all Patterico’s Pontifications readers.

I have lots of fond memories of Christmas through the years. When I was a teenager we had amazing 70-degree weather one sunny Christmas Day, so my dad and I went out and played a round of golf that afternoon. I also remember the year that I conned my entire family, including aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandmother, into spending Christmas in Las Vegas, because that is where Jesus was born.

Feel free to share Christmas memories here. Peace on Earth and goodwill towards men.

– JVW

UPDATE BY PATTERICO:

Enjoy.

It is the fourth Sunday of Advent. Today’s Bach cantata is “Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben” (Heart and mouth and deed and life):

Today’s Gospel reading is Matthew 1:18-25:

Joseph Accepts Jesus as His Son

This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

The text of today’s piece is available here. It contains these words:

Heart and mouth and deed and life
must give testimony of Christ
without fear or hypocrisy,
that He is God and Savior.

Blessed mouth!
Mary makes the inmost part of her soul
known through thanks and praise;
she begins to narrate to herself
the miracle of the Savior,
which He has worked in her as His handmaiden.
O human race,
slave to Satan and to sin,
you are freed
through Christ’s reassuring appearance
from this burden and servitude!
However your mouth and your stubborn spirit
supresses, denies such goodness;
yet know, that according to the scripture,
an all-too-harsh judgment will be yours!

Happy listening! Soli Deo gloria.

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]