At this time, any delegation sent to Iraq would be dedicated to discussing how to best recommit to our strategic partnership—not to discuss troop withdrawal, but our right, appropriate force posture in the Middle East.
They can’t survive without our money. So this response is saying: get your act together, clear out or grab power back from the pro-Iranians. Because if we just walk out, Iran takes over.
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi requested the U.S. make plans to withdraw forces from the country Friday, but the U.S. State Department has unequivocally refused.
Abdul-Mahdi told reporters he had called Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking the U.S. to send a delegation to plan for a U.S. withdrawal, NBC News reported. Pompeo quickly pushed back on that idea, however, saying not only will the U.S. remain in Iraq, but Iraq will have to start paying more for them to stay.
Just in time to pull Warren and Sanders back from the campaign trail to D.C. for the trial and help Biden. At what point to Republicans say that the five running for president should recuse?
BREAKING: @SpeakerPelosi says in letter to House Dems that a resolution to transmit impeachment articles to Senate and appoint managers will be brought to House floor next week
Democratic New York Rep. Max Rose said Thursday that he would not support new legislation aimed at restraining President Donald Trump in Iran.
Rose, who won his seat in 2018 in a district that voted for Trump in 2016, spoke with Fox News host Neil Cavuto about the recent tensions with Iran and the strike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.
“Congressman, you place your limits here,” Cavuto prompted. “You are against this measure to limit the president’s powers here.”
“Absolutely,” Rose replied, and after wishing his host a happy new year, he got straight to the point.
U.S. Attorney John Huber effectively concluded a sprawling investigation into several matters related to the Clintons without a finding of criminal wrongdoing, according to a Washington Post report.
In November 2017, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions tapped Huber to investigate the Clinton Foundation as well as Hillary Clinton’s actions as secretary of state toward Uranium One, an energy firm linked to Clinton Foundation donors. Huber was also tasked with investigation matters related to the Russia probe, but that part of his investigation was ceded to the Justice Department’s office of the inspector general.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell signed onto Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-MO) resolution to change the Senate’s rules which would allow the Senate to vote to dismiss Democrats’ articles of impeachment if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not submitted the articles of impeachment within the next 25 days.
New York Times reporter Nicholas Fandos reported on Thursday that McConnell had signed onto the resolution as a co-sponsor to the resolution “to change Senate impeachment rules to allow the chamber to dismiss the House’s articles if they are not sent over within 25 days.”
Declare, ‘We’ve got ten years to save the planet,’ and you never have to recant.
It is a founding principle of Boogeyman alarmism that it be couched in vague terms. Only a novice at scaremongering would tell a little brother, “Give me your candy or the Boogeyman will come and sew your eyelids closed Thursday night at 6:07 p.m. Central Time.” Boogeyman leverage relies heavily on uncertainty. All predictions of Boogeyman activity must be non-falsifiable. Just say, “The Boogeyman will get you” and leave it at that.
Some understand this principle better than others. Back in the years before 2010, federal workers at Glacier National Park in Montana put up signs warning that all of the glaciers would be gone by 2020 because of climate change. Now 2020 has arrived, and about 60 percent of the glaciers remain. Someone pointed this out to park employees, so they have started taking down the signs. While doing so, they complained (in a CNN story) that there is not enough federal money authorized for them to perform the arduous sign-taking-down. (It costs $35 per car to drive into the park. Buses pay $200.)
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL): “In classified briefing, it appeared defense & intelligence reps held back info out of concern too many Congressmen can’t be trusted to keep classified info from USA enemies.”https://t.co/vvvr0rDhdwhttps://t.co/Zao3rWC5Wj
The House of Representatives on Thursday voted in favor of a War Powers resolution meant to limit President Trump’s military action toward Iran following an escalation in tensions between Washington and Tehran.
The resolution passed, 224-194, mostly along party lines, but both parties had some defectors with eight Democrats voting against the measure and three Republicans voting in favor ot it. Independent Rep. Justin Amash – who left the Republican Party last year – also voted for the measure.
“We deserve the respect from the administration and that Congress deserves under the Constitution,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said on the House floor. “The Constitution of the United States calls that there be cooperation when initiating hostilities.”
The resolution is non-binding, but is meant to reassert congressional authority and rebuke Trump’s decision to take out Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike last Friday while he traveled to an airport in Baghdad, Iraq. Trump did not consult with congressional leaders ahead of the attack that killed the Iranian general and afterward sent Congress a notification explaining the rationale but kept it classified.
The resolution “requires the president to consult with Congress ‘in every possible instance’ before introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities.”
Iraqi-American Sheikh Ibrahim Kazerooni of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Mich., said in a Jan. 3 sermon that America’s killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi Shi’ite militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis earlier that day was a “cowardly and heinous act,” and that the only countries celebrating his death were the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
He led a prayer for the souls of Soleimani and al-Muhandis, and told the congregation that Soleimani had “brought hope to the marginalized [and] hatred and fear to the enemies of Islam, particularly the United States.”
Soleimani, he said, had been instrumental in keeping the Syrian regime in power, despite “American and Zionist” attempts to destabilize it.
GABBARD: “It was an assassination. I’m not an international law attorney, so I’ll leave that to the experts to assess, but it was absolutely an illegal and unconstitutional act of war. Congress should have acted long ago to prevent this administration from being able to further abuse those constitutional powers, taking that responsibility away from Congress. I introduced provisions both last year in 2018 as well as 2019 to prohibit this administration from acting against Iran militarily without congressional authorization. Unfortunately those provisions were ultimately stripped out of legislation that was finally passed.”
