Today is Monday, January 29, 2024.     Yesterday the United States learned that U.S. service members were killed and wounded by a drone attack in Jordan.  Three service members were killed in the surprise attack.  This action will result in a retaliatory response by America, officials told CNN, though the Pentagon and the White House are being careful not to telegraph their plans.

This new development is covered in an online CNN article by Oren Libermann, Natasha Bertrand, and Kate Bo Lillis entitled “Biden’s response to Jordan attack is likely to be powerful, but US is wary of triggering a wider war with Iran, officials say.”

Because of this attack on U.S. service members, President Biden is under increasing pressure to respond in a way that stops these attacks for good.   It seems that Iran-backed militants have targeted U.S. military facilities in Iraq and Syria over 160 times since October, and several Republican lawmakers have called for the country to hit inside Iran directly to send a clear message.

The biggest challenge for Biden, however, is how to respond to the drone strike – the deadliest attack on U.S. forces in the region since the bombing at Abbey Gate killed 13 U.S. service members in the closing days of the Afghanistan withdrawal – without sparking a regional war.

In recent months, the United States has carried out several strikes targeting Iranian proxies’ weapons depots in Iraq and Syria.  To date, those strikes have not deterred the militants, whose 165 attacks have injured over 120 U.S. service members across the region since October.

Officials have suggested, however, it is unlikely that the United States will strike within Iran, which could spur a more wider conflict in the Middle East.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the environment in the Middle East is as dangerous as it’s been in the region “since at least 1973, and arguably even before that.”

The Secretary of State added that the U.S. response “could be multileveled, come in stages and be sustained over time.”

John Kirby, the strategic communications coordinator for the National Security Council, told CNN today that “We don’t seek a war with Iran.    We’re not looking for a wider conflict in the Middle East.”

Kirby added that Biden has been primarily interested in deescalating the situation, not bringing the tensions up.   

While the country holds Iran ultimately responsible for the attacks, given Tehran’s financial and military support for its proxy groups, there are no indications yet that Iran explicitly directed the deadly attack on Sunday or intended it as a deliberate escalation against the United States, multiple sources told CNN.

The Iranian government has also denied being involved.

This particular attack, according to officials, bore many of the hallmarks of the previous 160-plus strikes by the Iran-backed militants.  The only difference with this one is that it successfully hit a housing container at the U.S. base, called Tower 22, early on Sunday when service members were still in their beds and had little time to evacuate. 

The drone also flew low, potentially allowing it to evade the base’s air defenses, and approached the base around the same time as an American drone was returning from a mission.  That likely resulted in confusion and may have delayed an appropriate response, officials indicated.

Act a briefing today, Sabrina Singh, deputy Pentagon press secretary, said, “We know these groups are supported by Iran, and therefore they have their fingerprints on this, but I can’t tell you more in terms of who directed it.”

After the Israel-Hamas war started after October 7, 2023, Iran has grown increasingly closer to China and Russia, and Iraqi officials have recently begun to more loudly call for an end to the U.S. military presence in the country.

So this new development with Iran does not bode too well for the international scene, given that there is a war in Ukraine raging on and another conflict in Israel, with no end in sight for either of them.   Next month marks two years for the war in Ukraine.   And the republican assholes in Congress are holding up giving aid to this embattled country that is fighting to preserve democracy.   There is no goddamn reason for doing this other than to hand another victory to Vladimir Putin. 

On the recently adjudicated E. Jean Carroll case in which this trailblazing journalist socked it to the subhuman known as Donald J. Frumpf to the tune of $83.3 million, the winning plaintiff talked about her fantastic victory over a consummate bully for CNN in an online article by Kristina Sgueglia and Karl de Vries entitled “E. Jean Carroll says courtroom was a ‘campaign stop’ for Trump.”

Carroll told CNN today that the court proceedings were little more than a “campaign stop” for the former president.

Talking on CNN This Morning, Carroll said “The courtroom was not a courtroom to him, it was a campaign stop.  That was clear.”

She indignantly stated, “He’s using me to win votes. Sexual assault. A man found liable for sexual assault is using the woman he sexually assaulted to get votes.”

Despite being terrified in the days leading up to the trial, Carroll said when she saw the former president for the first time since the assault in the 1990s, “he was nothing.”

Speaking to CNN’s Poppy Harlow and Phil Mattingly, Carroll said, “He was just – no power.  He was zero.”

I love this quote, which should be used by the Democratic Party against the repugnican frontrunner in the campaign leading up to the 2024 presidential race, as Carroll said this of Drumpf, “He’s an emperor without clothes (not that I can picture him without clothes on – it’s too disgusting!).  It’s like looking at nothing.”  This is how she characterized her allegedly rich defendant as she made eye contact with Dump “many times” during the trial.

Regarding the enormous sum of money awarded to her, Carroll said, “We’re inspired to not waste a penny of this, and we have some good ideas that we’re working on.”

Carroll then said that she might want to restore reproductive rights for women after Herr Drumpf took it away in June 2022.  That would certainly be a fuck-you to Drumpf if this could be carried out.

Friday’s verdict comes ahead of a judge’s expected decision soon in Drumpf’s civil fraud trial that could threaten the former insurrectionist’s business empire, along with the four criminal indictments that are awaiting trial and a U.S. Supreme Court hearing on whether the frontrunner for the repugnican presidential nomination can appear on the ballot.    I’m afraid that this “Extreme” Court will not do the right thing, which is to disqualify him from running altogether.  

Oh, Ms. Carroll is actually now on the Rachel Maddow show talking about her new celebrity after winning her case against the Orange-Haired bully.    She just said, “This bodes well for the future.”    This woman should be venerated by this country for her deep courage, at age 80, to take him on when no one else dared do it before her!

I’m going to sign off to listen to her interview with Maddow.

Tomorrow Atticus makes his first appearance at the vet at 10:30. We hope it goes well and we see no reason why it shouldn’t.   He might actually be charmed by him – unless he’s very apprehensive; I don’t know.  

Stay safe and be well.