TGIF 1/10/20

Just like that, it's Friday again...  Ready for this week's picks for the good week/bad week picks?

Let's give the president a bit of a pat on the back - he took out a terrorist, after all. It may have been for less than honorable purposes, if this Wall Street Journal reporting is true - but he did take out a terrorist.

Mr. Trump, after the strike, told associates he was under pressure to deal with Gen. Soleimani from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate, associates said.

The administration's team that went to talk to Congress to give the details about the mission that took Soleimani out had a mixed week. Secretaries Mike Pompeo (State) and Mark Esper (Defense) were joined by Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley and CIA Director Gina Haspel were well received by most Republicans, but less so by Democrats. Here's what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had to say.

As the questions began to get tough, they walked out. There were so many important questions that they did not answer. 

At least two Rs, though, were unhappy. Rand Paul was one of them. The other, Utah Senator Mike Lee, had a good week I think, given how forcefully he responded to the briefing. Calling it "probably the worst briefing I have seen, at least on a military issue, in the nine years I've served in the United States Senate," he specifically cited the administration's contention that debating or discussing the possibility of any additional military action against Iran would "be emboldening" the regime. 

One last thing on the whole terrorism issue: just today, we're learning that at the same time we successfully killed Soleimani, we unsuccessfully tried to take out another Iranian military leader in Yemen. According to this WaPo article,

On the day the US military killed a top Iranian commander in Baghdad, US forces carried out another top secret mission against a senior Iranian military official in Yemen, according to US officials. 

The strike targeting Abdul Reza Shahlai, a financier and key commander of Iran's elite Quds Force who has been active in Yemen, did not result in his death, according to four US officials familiar with the matter. 

I guess that means Shahlai had a good week? 

Who else is having a week?  Well, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for one. She's moving, finally - to the relief of many in the House, as well as many of us out here in citizen land - to choose the House Managers for the Senate trial, and to get the Articles of Impeachment that were approved in mid-December sent over for the next phase. In my opinion, Pelosi's had a bad week.

• Some of her own flock were suggesting publicly it was time to get this moving;
• having no say, really, in what happens in the Senate, she was merely sitting on the sidelines as Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer fought about what the trial would look like; 
• Several senators threatened to change the Senate rules to declare this all a nothingburger if the Articles weren't sent over timely; and
• McConnell voted his support for just such a proposal.

I can only guess that Pelosi was hoping the trial would still be going on come February when Trump is set to deliver his State of the Union address (need to get my drinking game board ready for that!) but instead, we're likely to have an even more emboldened and unhinged message from him. Honestly, much as I hate to say it, that bastage McConnell had another 'better than his opponent' week - and that makes two in a row.

And, from the Democrats on the campaign trail:

• Marianne Williamson, who back in December let her campaign staff go, today announced she was ending her campaign for President. It was hard to know she was still in the race, since she's not been on the debate stage and apparently hasn't been saying anything overly noteworthy out on the hustings. It's probably a good week for her, I think.
• That guy from Vermont is now leading likely caucus-goers in first place votes, coming in at 20%, with Elizabeth Warren (17%), Mayor Pete Buttigieg (16%) and Papa Joe Biden (15%) in results from the Des Moines Register poll released this evening. 
• Mayor Pete also picked up an endorsement this week, from Rep. Anthony Brown of Maryland; Brown is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. 

There's always more, but we'll leave it here for this week.