Israel’s solidarity with the Kurds is duplicitous, not only because it also arms one of the Kurdish people’s biggest oppressors, but also because it supports their independence while denying millions of Palestinians that same right.
via The hypocrisy of Israel’s alliance with the Kurds | +972 Magazine
So it must be TRUE Hannity only attacks the truth (ODT)
via Sean Hannity Freaks Out Over ‘Idiotic’ Mulvaney Presser | Crooks and Liars
Trump’s not bringing the troops home. He’s been haphazardly deploying more troops, drones, and dollars abroad, while waging a shadow foreign policy for his own benefit.
Donald Trump loves to talk about ending the endless U.S. wars that he inherited as president. He tweets about it. He endlessly criticizes his predecessors for their martial mistakes.
But like the old saw about the weather, Trump talks a whole lot about endless wars but doesn’t do anything about them.
Ch9 has taken over The AGE and we get Goebellian banners like this thrust in our faces. !4,000 fact checked lies since Trump took offce and I suuggest that’s being kind and our Age declares an American cross between Hitler and Mussolini as being “Brutally Honest”. Ch9 is set on outdoing Murdoch Media it seems. Tomorrow we’ll see editorials the racining is suffering badly for the lack of abbottoirs and Morrisson really is a working classman. Australia we’d all be wastage if it weren’t foe the ABC. Walpole’s irony escapes us all. (ODT)
Taking all this into account – most especially, what this pattern means in terms of Trump governing as he promised to do when he campaigned in 2016 – Trump has been the most ruthlessly honest president in modern times.
Which is why his base loves him.
via The most ruthlessly honest president of modern times: a thousand days of Trump
Many speculate the Illuminati, in concert with several other shadowy groups, were critical in delivering the U.S. presidency to the former reality TV star last year.
This unexpected move by the powerful cult is seen by most commentators as a severe blow to Trump’s chances of re-election in the presidential race next year.
via BREAKING: Illuminati disendorse Donald Trump for 2020 U.S. presidential race
The Kurds have a saying that their only friend is the mountains, and in the past few weeks, US President Donald Trump and his deputy, Mike Pence, have seemed determined to prove them right.
Kurdish forces fought alongside Americans to defeat Islamic State at the cost of 11,000 of their young fighting men and women’s lives. Despite this, almost two weeks ago the United States withdrew the 1000 troops who were keeping the peace along the border with the Kurds’ long-time enemy, Turkey.
Ankara responded almost immediately by invading territory the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces have effectively ruled over for several years.
On top of that, as is his habit, Trump insulted them. Their existential battle with Turkey “has nothing to do with us”, the President said, and Kurds were, by the way, “no angels”.
via Turkey-Syrian conflict: If you were American I would have told you this was all your fault
Now that’s an editorial banner worth praise and article worth reading (ODT)
The Age makes the industry execs sound like bank chiefs all claiming the Sgt Schultz excuse. All they wanted was the chamagne honour and glory without any responsibility for the gory. So kick the can down the road. (ODT)
Trump has bombed his own base lifted all sanctions and surrendered Syria to Turkey. As long as you can keep Americans confused with spin all is better than the reality. ODT)
This is a respite while we surrender to Turkish domination of Northeast Syria.
Finally, what would you like American audiences—our listeners—to keep in mind as they try to get their heads around this ongoing catastrophe?
The part about this that Americans are paying attention to is the ISIS threat, and this is a major concern. These people all breaking out of prison is obviously not going to be good for anybody. At the same time, it’s important for people far away from Syria to understand that this is a part of Syria that has had a relatively normal life. This is a place where children are going to school, families are working, people are meeting in cafes. It is the closest that Syria has had in a very long time to normalcy, and suddenly, people’s live are being ripped apart. People are having to flee, people are being killed. There have been civilians executed on highways or activists being killed. This is being perpetrated by our ally, Turkey. This is a member of NATO. This is not ISIS. These are people that are close to us, that we support.
Listen to the entire interview on The Mother Jones Podcast here:
via “A Stab in the Back”: How Trump and Turkey Blew Up Syria’s Most Stable Region – Mother Jones
Erdogan threw Trump’s ‘don’t be a fool’ letter in the trash – reports
Despite the odds stacked against them, the Kurdish forces managed to push back the attacks by Islamic State (IS) and other jihadist militias and emerged as the most effective ground force against IS in Syria. The support the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces received from the US and the anti-IS coalition allowed them to expand the areas under their control and build a coalition with other ethnic groups in northeast Syria.
That momentum was lost when US president Donald Trump abruptly declared his intention to withdraw American soldiers from Syria in December 2018. Although that withdrawal was delayed, since then, the long-term fate of the entity the Kurds call the Autonomous Administration of North-East Syria (NES) has been left in the balance, without a clear future strategy in sight.
Despite their battlefield sacrifices in the war against IS, the ongoing Turkish military operation in northeastern Syria has now pushed the Kurds into a corner. They have been left to choose between accepting the authority of Bashar al-Assad or facing a full-scale invasion by Turkey of the territory they control. They chose a deal with Assad.
via Syria: why the Kurds had little option but to do a deal with Bashar al-Assad
(“The United States and Italy are bound together by a shared cultural and political heritage dating back thousands of years to Ancient Rome.”)
The face of the interpreter of the white house that must translate to mattarella the words of trump while claiming that the United States and Italy share a cultural legacy that dates back to thousands of years ago, to say, since ancient Rome.
(“The United States and Italy are bound together by a shared cultural and political heritage dating back thousands of years to Ancient Rome.”)
Cruelty in Your Name – Colosseum and after (ODT)
From this moment on, whenever anyone asks my why – as a lifelong environmentalist – I continue to vote Labor and will never, *ever* vote Green again, I’m gonna refer them to this speech from the Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews.
It was in response to a question from a Greens MP asking if Andrews would support a “climate emergency”. I could not like this more if it turned up on my doorstep with LPs of the entire KLF back catalogue and ten boxes of doughnuts. If you are with m…
Kurds saved the Yazidis in Iraq. The Kurds saved America from ISIS and now for Trump’s sake they have been betrayed and they will never be allowed to enter the paradise he calls America (ODT)
As the Kurds defend democracy first against neighbouring countries in the region, ISIS and now Turkey, the West once again abandon their supposed allies. Behrouz Bouchani, a Kurd and journalist fleeing from Iran has been imprisoned on Manus and now PNG for the past 6 years, since 2013. He has become the offshore absent conscience of Australian politics. He is one of Australia’s many political prisoners and yet he has committed no crime, broken no law, there has been no charge, no lawful detention or justice. All he ever wanted was to report the abuse, to tell the truth, to live, to be free. He is one of the many. Morrison and Dutton look on.
We like to watch our TV, we witness, we gloss over and we allow this injustice to continue on all fronts, even in our own country, in the absent halls of our own conscience.
The Ethic Protestism/Capitalism Lost and forgot about (ODT)
You could be forgiven for not knowing this is anti-poverty week. The poor, as we know, are always with us – which is great because it means we can focus on our own problems and worry about the poor’s problems later. We can fight to protect our tax breaks, then get around to wondering about how easy we’d find it to be living on $280 a week from the Pollyanna-named Newstart allowance.
via If Scott Morrison adhered by Christian principles, he’d increase Newstart
It would not make any sense to have the competition build overlapping fibre infrastructure. However, when the Government changed the game and went for its second-rate multi-mix technology version, I agree with Telstra that at that stage it would have been better for the Government to abandon the NBN altogether and leave it to the industry. We would have had, in many areas, a far better network at lower costs than the one we have today. Thanks to Tony Abbott (ODT)
Key points:
Most key savings and term deposit rates are below the inflation rates, eroding savers’ purchasing power
Standard savings accounts returns at major banks drop to around 0.1pc once introductory rates expire after a couple of months
Looking for better returns for savings means taking on higher risk
The impeachment inquiry is moving at dizzying speed. The Axios website noted that if everyone agrees to appear, Democrats will have interviewed 11 administration officials by the end of next week. Every witness has “bolstered the case against Trump”, Axios added, leaving White House officials demoralised or panicked.
Trump impeachment inquiry gathers pace as more officials testify | US news | The Guardian
Could it be as simplistic as trying to wedge the Dems politically and having them come out ‘for war’.Trump after all wants desperately to say he fullfilled his election promises. Struggling with the both the Style and Meaning of a President both Internationally doing what he says others can’t all for his domestic image. After all all he does is Campaign, watch TV, Twitter, sue and sack People posture and play golf. Jerry Lewis couldn’t have played him better. (ODT)
Shell’s BUSINESS MODEL and MINDSET incapable of even TRANSITION. BHP can see a future without COAL (ODT)
Mental deterioration can afflict any of us quite suddenly. On the other hand, it can overcome us in a number of smaller steps. Could this be the case with Donald Trump?
Let’s recount some recent events that are indicative.
Take the devastating fires in Southern California that Vox described ”…as the single most destructive and third-deadliest fire in state history”. In its account of the fires, Reuters reported: ”Donald Trump is known for his fiery comments, but his recent tweet has outraged prominent celebrities who slammed it as ‘demented’.
What did he say? Did he empathise with those who had lost their houses? Did he express horror at the appalling loss of life? No. He reflected on the emergency, in a Tweet of course, with: “There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!” A dire threat as a proxy for empathy!
This example alone is sufficient to raise the suspicion of significant mental deterioration, even in someone as bizarre as Trump.
The president of the California Professional Firefighters assailed Trump with “The president’s message attacking California and threatening to withhold aid to the victims of the cataclysmic fires is ill-informed, ill-timed and demeaning to those who are suffering as well as the men and women on the front lines.” Celebrities lashed out at Trump’s ’ill-judged and out-of-touch’ tweet as an absolutely heartless response…there aren’t even politics involved. As you tweet, there are good American families losing their homes and evacuating into shelters.”
But that’s just the start. Read the rest of the piece here.
via Is Donald Trump mad? (Revisited) – » The Australian Independent Media Network
and
All US special forces personnel are being withdrawn from Syria after Turkish artillery targeted some of their bases to force them back from the border, and after Turkey cut off their supply lines. At the same time, Syrian Arab Army troops are advancing on the Kurdish northeast of Syria, raising the danger of US troops getting caught in the crossfire. A thousand such troops are too few even to defend themselves, and although no one is saying so, I suspect they also fear the anger of their betrayed allies, the People’s Protection Units or YPG, among whom they have been embedded, but whom Trump has now turned over to Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan’s abattoir.
olddogthoughts 
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