GOP senator who erupted over Iran briefing shares awful new details (Ayatollah assassination?)

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/09/gop-senator-who-erupted-over-iran-briefing-shares-awful-new-details/

By Greg Sargent
Opinion writer
Jan. 9, 2020 at 10:05 a.m. EST

If President Trump made the decision to assassinate the Supreme Leader of Iran, would he need to come to Congress to get authorization for it?

The Trump administration won’t say.

That remarkable claim is now being made by a Republican Senator -- Mike Lee of Utah. He offered it in a new interview with NPR, in which he shared fresh details about why he erupted in anger on Wednesday over the briefing Congress received from the administration on Iran.

As you know, Lee’s comments went viral Wednesday after he ripped into the briefing given to lawmakers about Trump’s decision to assassinate General Qasem Soleimani.

Lee, echoing the complaints of many Democrats, blasted the briefing on the intelligence behind the assassination as the “worst” he’d ever seen. He also fumed that officials refused to acknowledge any “hypothetical” situations in which they would come to Congress for authorization for future military hostilities against Iran.

</snip>

If they refuse to answer, it makes me wonder... what are they planning next???

[magicarpet]

1. This is a Strong Man dictator administration,...

Sit down and shut up !

Any more questions ?

[Kaiserguy]

12. No this is a very weak little man child

playing at being a tuff guy. A real strong secure man doesn't act like Trump.

[dchill]

14. No, but a strong-man dictator does...

They're a type.

[bronxiteforever]

2. This administration & its toadies use the Constitution

as toilet paper. The Republic is dying day by day.

[Moostache]

6. That nasty stench around the country IS the rotting corpse of the Republic.

The Republic died in 2016 and the carcass has been being beaten with sticks ever since...once Merrick Garland was kept off the SCOTUS and the seat stolen by McConnell and his flying monkeys, then Trump colluded with Russians to steal the election, the rule of law was executed and nothing has been done to hold any of them accountable for this crime.

To borrow from my comedic heroes in Monty Python:

It's not pinin'!
It's passed on!
This republic is no more!
It has ceased to be!
It's expired and gone to meet it's maker!
It's a stiff!

Bereft of life, it rests in peace!
If you hadn't nailed it to a perch, it'd be pushing up the daisies!
It's metabolic processes are now 'istory!
It's off the twig!
It's kicked the bucket, shuffled off it's mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!!

THIS IS AN EX-REPUBLIC!!

[mahina]

13. I love to laugh as much as the next person but there's nothing funny about this

[marble falls]

3. Secret footage from the WH situation room ...

[Dennis Donovan]

4. Ha!

[marble falls]

5. The longer cut would have conversation about a weapon that because it was forbidden ...

by law and funded under a black budget as both illegal and unethical, and another where a general was asked how it felt knowing that this weapon was almost operational and he replies, saying he wouldn't know, that he hadn't had an operational weapons system since Viet Nam.

[bucolic_frolic]

7. It's sort of below the general public's radar

but Lee as a LDS, and Utah, have a long history of independence from government. Mormon's historically produced goods and exchanged them among themselves and still do, some refused and probably more than a few still refuse to use the USPS to deliver mail or packages. So yes, Senator Mike Lee, like Mitt Romney, might be expected to resist government authoritarianism, and if there's any more authoritarian than refusing to answer questions and evading Congressional oversight and potentially starting a war and refusing to obey existing checks on the government, it's hard to imagine what it would be.

This is like Gestapo applied to foreign policy.

[Dukkha]

8. That's a fast track pass to WWIII

Assassinating the Ayatollah would be an equivalent similar to bombing the Kaaba. It would be total Jihad and all out war with the US with zero change of an exit.

[pangaia]

9. I am glad Lee said what he did in the video....... BUT.......

He only said it AFTER qualifying his position by licking trumps ass for all the world to see.

[usaf-vet]

10. Gawd damn it. It time to send the crazy man in the WH packing.

The House and Nancy Pelosi have queued him up with Articles of Impeachment.

If Mike Lee listens to his own words last night "we have a duty to the Constitution".

THEN do it! You have taken an oath to the Constitution.
You will take another oath in the Senate for the impeachment trial.

Stop lying to us about your duty to the Constitution.

Honor both oaths and kick the crazy bastard to the curb.

Otherwise STFU because your words mean nothing.

[Javaman]

11. just the mere mention of a hypothetical assassination attempt on the Ayatollah

would push Iran over the edge.

if indeed that is part of the maggot riddled brain's "master plan", he and the rest of us will be in a world of hurt that won't let up for generations

[Lonestarblue]

15. Jon Meecham made a good point recently.

He equated the killing of Soliemani, Iran’s top general with someone killing Dwight Eisenhower, our top general before he became president. Imagine the outrage had a country with whom we were not at war murdered General Eisenhower. Critics might say that Eisenhower was a good man, while Soliemani was not. But both were fighting for their countries. Iran and the US have a long history of bad relations, and neither side is innocent. Iran had a generally positive relationship with the US before and during World War II, but the US overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected leader in 1953 started hostilities that we continue to live with today. The CIA overthrew Mossaddegh not because he had attacked us but because he threatened to nationalize their oil and force British and US companies to pay them more than the pittance they had received for decades. The US installed the Shah of Iran, and his Savak force tortured and murdered many Iranians, so yes they have a right to hold a few grudges.