Okey dokey, Twitter this morning.

“What the process is” is a white man term meaning –  Wait to see what Mitch says.

Mitt, Honey, a subpoena is a piece of paper issued by the court or the congress or anybody who passed the bar that says, to bring your butt to court.  It was laid out in the Magna Damn Carta.  That’s the process. If you want to hear from a witness and he says he will only testify if under subpoena, you type up a piece of paper saying consider yourself subpoenaed and get somebody to deliver it to him.

There ya go. Go chew on that process and see if you can come up with something better.

The Associated Press has an interesting take on what the tit for tat (which is just quid pro quo that Trump can understand) from Iran might be.

“U.S. officials are also aware that Iran could try to strike a high-level American leader in a ‘tit-for-tat’ move, potentially a military commander.”

Okay, so I’m wondering which military commander they can take in a fair exchange.

Of course, Sean Hannity comes to mind first.  Let’s face it, he’s running the damn country.

I also think Stephen Miller would be fair.  Except for that shaved head he could be an exact match.

I’d be willing to offer up Mike Pompeo.  But who wouldn’t?

Or maybe Lindsey Graham, who spent six heroic tormented years in the Air Force JAG Corp, although I don’t think he saw any tort combat.

Got any other suggestions?

In its best imitation of Emily Litella, the Defense Department inflicted whiplash on millions of Americans by releasing a letter to the Iraqi government that US and coalition forces were repositioning in preparation of withdrawing from Iraq.  Amidst the uproar that followed, defense secretary Mark Esper held a news conference to claim the letter was “an honest mistake”.  An “honest mistake”?  Oh, please.  This letter could only be one of three things:

1. Gross incompetence under Trump’s fake presidency.
2. A trial balloon to gauge public response to withdrawal.
3. Sabotage by someone high up in the defense department.

In the old days, way back in 2016 and before, official government communications were carefully vetted, going through many layers of approval before being issued.  Even then things weren’t perfectly communicated (like the explanations of the Benghazi attack), but mistakes were kept to a minimum.  Under Trump there is apparently so much chaos that it seems just anyone can turn the US government on its head with an unapproved (or completely botched) official communication.

Geez.

In a letter to the Iraqi prime minister today, Marine Corps Brigadier General William H. Seely III, the commanding general of Task Force Iraq, announced that “in deference to the sovereignty of the Republic of Iraq,” US and coalition troops will withdraw from the country.  So, in the last month, Trump has turned Syria over to Turkey, who immediately murdered hundreds of our Kurdish allies, then killed the military leader of Iran.  Subsequently, Iran announced it was withdrawing from the multi country nuclear treaty and that it was restarting its full scale uranium enrichment program.  Then, Trump threatened to bomb cultural sites in Iran.  THEN, Iraq ordered US troops out of the country to which we just agreed.  Oh, and Chevron has announced it is withdrawing ALL expatriates out of the country immediately.  Most other companies have already done that.

So, through Trump’s bungling, Iran has greatly increased its influence over this region of the Middle East, making Iraq basically a satellite of their own country.  Without coalition forces on the ground anywhere in the Kurdish areas of norther Iraq and Syria, Trump has opened the entire region to expansion by ISIS and other Islamic extremists.

So much “winning”.

John Bolton popped up outta nowhere, literally nowhere, to say that he would be willing to testify at Trump’s impeachment hearing in the senate.

Okay.

Which way?

Is he gonna tell the truth about saying that he was not part of “whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up”? Or, is he gonna flip like Lindsey Graham and swear on Baby Jesus’ little tootsies that Trump is God’s ambassador on planet earth?

I mean, Bolton is a chickenhawk with a wingspan of aircraft carrier.

Trever Noah said of Bolton —

“Here’s the best example of how war-horny John Bolton is: He’s still defending the one war that everyone else agrees was a terrible idea,” Noah said. Sure, invading Iraq “destabilized the Middle East and brought us ISIS, but other than that, nailed it.”

Trump is the closest he’ll ever get to creating another Bush so ya think he’s gonna bite the hand that fills his bottle and burps him?

I wouldn’t gamble on it.

Every year, the Eurasia Group, a political risk management and consulting group, issues its report on the top ten global risks of international crisis.  This year’s report is profoundly disturbing, especially the largest risk it identifies.  Who is it? Is it Iran? Saudi Arabia? Russia?  Nope.  It’s the US and its broken political system.  Before we talk about this, let’s look at all ten:

1. Delegitimizing of our elections in US.
2. The decoupling of US and China technology cooperation.
3. US/China relations.
4. Multi-National Corporations in conflict with emerging nation/states.
5. Upheaval in India as social policies are causing economic downturns
6. Geopolitical influence of Europe as pushes back against the US and China.
7. Politics vs economics in climate change.
8. US policies toward Shia led nations.
9. Discontent in Latin America.
10. Turkey – pretty much everything.

These risks are all disturbing and obvious to geopolitical observers, but the first risk is scary in that it recognizes the shambles our own political system is in.  It talks about how Trump is greatly worsening the situation through his immoral and illegal behavior, but expresses great concern that he has already delegitimized the 2020 election by claiming that if he loses it’s because the election was “rigged”.  If he wins, the majority of Americans will believe it was rigged the other way (with the help of the Republicans and the Russians) and many won’t accept the result.  It is a lose-lose situation, and with Republicans enabling and protecting Trump, the crisis is unavoidable, especially since they’ll acquit him in the Senate trial emboldening him more if that’s even possible.  I mean, after all, he’s now announced that the only way he’s going to communicate with Congress is through Twitter.  Jesus.

None of this will end well, even in the remote chance that by some miracle he’s removed from office.