The Duce informed a few of his congressional supporters, but no Dems. Contrary to law.

Pelosi says Trump carried out strike on Iranian commander without authorization and she wants details

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is calling on the Trump administration to immediately brief lawmakers on the U.S. airstrike that killed a top Iranian commander in Iraq and what the White House plans to do next.

The strike in Iraq was directed by President Donald Trump and killed Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran's secretive Quds Force, the Department of Defense announced Thursday night.

The move, which is likely to provoke retaliation from Iran, comes amid heightened tensions between the Trump administration and Tehran over rocket attacks aimed at coalition forces in Iraq. 

U.S. officials have said those attacks were likely carried out by Iranian-backed militias with links to the Quds Force.

"Tonight's airstrike risks provoking further dangerous escalation of violence. America — and the world — cannot afford to have tensions escalate to the point of no return," Pelosi said in a statement late Thursday.

The strike was carried out without an "authorization for use of military force" against Iran and without the consultation of Congress, the speaker said.

Others are publicly saying "we need to presume we are in a state of war with Iran."

Apparently, Trump is now tweeting that he didn't tell the Dems in advance for the same reason he didn't tell the Iranians in advance.

He has in the past used this veiled accusation of complicity with the enemy to justify keeping the Dems, but not selected Republican congressional allies, in the dark in advance of a dangerous move.

Political Scientist Highlights New Military ‘Norm’ — Trump Consults Only With Those Who Praise Him

While Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the Gang of Eight in general, and other important members of Congress were left in the dark about President Donald Trump’s plans to attack a high-ranking military official from Iran, Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the president’s top defenders, told hosts on Fox & Friends that Trump did speak to him about the matter while he was at Mar-a-Lago.

“I was briefed about the potential operation when I was down in Florida,” Graham said, per a tweet from CBS News’ Alan He, who was watching the senator speak on the program in real-time. “I appreciate being brought into the orbit.”

Trump briefed Graham but not the Gang of Eight

Or put another way, we’re apparently moving away from the Gang of Eight reporting process and toward a process in which the president notifies an allied senator about national security decisions while sharing a tee time.

If this sounds at all familiar, Trump also kept the Gang of Eight in the dark on the mission targeting Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder and leader of ISIS, a few months ago. 

The president did alert Lindsey Graham – who is not a member of the Gang of Eight and whose Senate responsibilities do not require notifications like these.

The Duce hits Iran . . . in Iraq

US drone strike ordered by Trump kills top Iranian commander in Baghdad

US politicians have not said a lot, a couple Republicans defending and a couple Democrats protesting the move.

A US drone strike ordered by President Donald Trump on Baghdad airport has killed a top Iranian commander, in a major escalation in regional tensions that have pitted Tehran against Washington and its allies in the Middle East.

The Pentagon on Thursday confirmed a strike killed Qasem Soleimani, who as head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force became the architect of Tehran's proxy conflicts in the Middle East. 

A US defense official told CNN the strike was carried out with a drone.

Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis -- the deputy head of the Iran-backed Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) -- was also killed, according to a statement from the PMF, which said the pair "were martyred by an American strike."

How nuts are these fine, good-hearted Americans

Trump and Obama tied for the most admired men in the US this year.

The current and former presidents and their first ladies are the most admired people in the US, according to a new Gallup poll.

The analytics company polled more than 1,000 Americans about the men and women they most admired in the world.

President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama each scored votes from 18% of US adults, sharing the spot for the most widely admired men of the year.

This year marked Obama's 12th time as the most admired man in the US, Gallup reported.

Tied for third place were former President Jimmy Carter and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, followed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

Pope Francis, Sen. Bernie Sanders, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, the Dalai Lama and billionaire investor Warren Buffet rounded out the top 10.

It's already on

Viral Edited Video Of Biden Is A Warning Shot: Doubt Everything

On the first day of 2020, a disinformation campaign launched against Joe Biden was shared by journalists and other people on Twitter with a wide reach and high trust factor. 

The purpose of the edited video? To divide Democrats along racial lines.

The 19-second video, which was clipped from a 13-minute answer Biden gave with regard to his work on domestic violence, was deceptively edited to suggest Biden was really a closet white supremacist. 

Whatever one thinks about Joe Biden, it is preposterous to use a 19-second clip to contradict his actual record. 

Nevertheless, that's what happened.

Top 10 Obama Scandals

The Top 10 Obama Scandals from the Daily Show, uploaded today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MWxq80oze0

From the same Fox and other assholes who can swallow absolutely anything from Bozo.

Hilarious.

The money primaries on both sides

Bernie Sanders' $34.5 million haul leads Democrats' 4th quarter totals so far

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont raised more than $34.5 million for his White House bid during the final three months of 2019 -- a sign of his considerable financial strength a little more than a month before Democrats begin selecting their 2020 presidential nominee.

Sanders was the second candidate vying for the Democratic nomination to announce his fundraising numbers in the fourth quarter, a day after former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg announced raising $24.7 million. 

The other Democrats who have emerged in the top tier, former Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, have not yet announced their totals for the last months of 2019.

President Donald Trump also announced on Thursday that he raised $46 million in the fourth quarter, outpacing the Democratic candidates' individual totals so far.

Trump campaign blows past 2020 Dems with latest fundraising haul, sitting on over $100M

President Trump’s campaign raked in a whopping $46 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, fueled in part by a backlash from his base against House Democrats’ impeachment efforts and blowing past any of his would-be Democratic rivals.

The incumbent now starts the election year sitting on a nearly $103 million war chest.

Trump's reelection campaign touted their fundraising efforts Thursday, noting that the fourth quarter marked the best fundraising quarter for the campaign in the 2020 cycle.

Bullshit and camouflage

Gene Debs was exactly the kind of socialist who knew exactly what he was about, public ownership of all or nearly all means of production, the very opposite of the capitalist market system of private ownership of all or nearly all means of production.

Bernie and many others have been lying about what socialism is, not about their campaign agendas but their background ideology and aims.

Like this guy.

Millennials support socialism because they want to make America great — but for everyone

The truth is all this talk of socialism is not doing the Democrats much good and is for sure doing them harm, playing straight into Republicans' scare propaganda.

They have since the Great Depression campaigned against progressive innovations as socialism, communism, and Marxism and campaigned against advocates or defenders of them as socialists, communists, and Marxists.

They even did that to Obama.

With them, it's always time for a new red scare.

Trump and his minions have already started on this, most conspicuously at his most recent state of the union address.

There is no significant upside and too much downside to embracing even the word "socialism" when socialism is not on the Democrats' agenda and their misuse of the word to describe what is on it only validates Republican propaganda that does the same.

The utility of a ritual

Many people adhere to the ritual according to which a phone conversation doesn't end until the parties all agree by saying their good-byes.

But some people just hang up when they are done and they think the other party is (or parties are) done.

You can hang up too soon that way, and miss information the (or an) other party would have passed on, or even attempted to pass on but was prevented by your sudden hangup.

Will the US election of 2020 hinge on changes nearly as massive as did the Brit election of 1945?

Clement Attlee. Aneurin Bevan. The Labour victory and the birth of the NHS in 1948.

But at that time the Labour members were deeply committed, and even many Conservatives favored providing top quality and free health care for all.

But today it is questionable whether all or even most Democrats in the new Congress of 2021 would support any version, not of socialized medicine, but even of socialized health insurance.

And would any Republicans that year support it?

Will the "play nice" Democrats retain the filibuster thus enabling even a senate minority of Republicans to prevent it?

They shouldn't, but they likely will.

If the Supremes attack Medicare for All legislation, and perhaps also Obamacare, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, as unconstitutional will the Democrats be too cowardly to simply pack the court?

I take it for granted they will not immediately pack the court to eliminate the threat before it emerges, as well as the obvious and immediate threat to Roe and the sexual revolution in the law that rests on the version of the constitutional right to privacy resting on Griswold.

A sign of how he would play his role in an impeachment of the president?

Would he be a genuine opponent of disinformation and fake news, or a Jim Jordan / David Nunes / Lindsey Graham opponent?

Americans 'take democracy for granted', supreme court chief warns

Supreme court Chief Justice John Roberts has urged federal judges to promote public confidence in the judicial system, while warning that Americans have come to “take democracy for granted”.

In his annual report on the state of the judiciary, the George W Bush-appointee, who will preside over Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate, said civic education had “fallen by the wayside”.

“In our age,” he wrote, “when social media can instantly spread rumour and false information on a grand scale, the public’s need to understand our government, and the protections it provides, is ever more vital.”

Roberts did not mention Trump but his statement was widely interpreted as part of an ongoing effort to shield the judicial branch from executive harassment.