A Yale alumni has warned that Turks who believe Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is creating “Turkish greatness” should actually prepare themselves for a potential partition of their country because an independent Kurdistan could emerge with Greek support.

Turkey has “collective paranoia and […] xenophobia” because of European efforts a hundred years ago to divide Anatolia from complete Turkish rule, explained Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

In an article on The Center for the National Interest, Rubin explained that although the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and its offshoots seek autonomy rather than independence, Erdoğan’s “penchant for instigating fights with neighbors and regional states may soon make Turkey’s fears a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

After highlighting that “there is overwhelming evidence that Turkish government employees, the Turkish intelligence service, and members of Erdoğan’s own family supported, supplied, or did business with ISIS,” Rubin explained that Turkey invaded Syria to create “a zone for anti-Kurdish ethnic cleansing.”

Turkey has issues with its neighbors, especially when we consider its military interventions in Syria, Libya and Iraq, its direct war threats against Greece and Cyprus, as well as Ankara’s bombastic language against Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

Rubin says that with Saudi Arabia and Egypt opposing Turkey, “add Greece into the mix, and Kurdish insurgents in Turkey may soon have at their disposal the type of weaponry and funding about which in the past they could only dream.”

However, the American scholar would leave a chilling warning that Turkey’s aggressive actions could actual lead to its “ultimate partition” and the establishment of an independent Kurdistan in eastern Turkey.

“Turkish nationalists might react with umbrage and bluster, but they should also be realistic: Erdoğan is erratic and increasingly reckless. To pick one fight is bad; to pick simultaneous ones is idiotic: Once other countries even covertly begin supporting the Kurdish insurgency in Turkey, there will be no turning back. Any Turk who buys into Erdoğan’s bombast and regional aggression is not enabling Turkish greatness as Erdoğan’s enablers may claim, but rather its ultimate partition,” Rubin concluded.

By Nicholas Kristof | The New York Times,

Four years ago as a candidate, President Donald Trump made more than 280 campaign promises. Let’s see how he did:

“I will build a great, great wall on our southern border …” (speech, June 16, 2015)

While Trump so far has built 307 miles of walls along the 1,984-mile border, much of this replaces previous barriers that were dilapidated or blocked only vehicles.

“… and I will have Mexico pay for that wall.”

Mexico is not paying for it. The new wall is costing about $30 million per mile and will be expensive to maintain, for human smugglers have cut open the wall with $50 cordless saws.

“We will find them [all unauthorized immigrants], we will get them out.” (CNN interview, July 29, 2015)

Trump deported about 750,000 immigrants in his first three years in office, but most were trying to get into the country illegally, not already living here. He never tried to remove all immigrants who lack legal status. He did unleash a reign of terror directed at migrants, including separating young children from family members, and that may be one reason the total number of undocumented immigrants fell slightly. Still, Trump actually deported fewer people in his first three years than Barack Obama had — a comparison neither man will appreciate.

“We will also be a country of law and order. … The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon, and I mean very soon, come to an end. Beginning on Jan. 20 of 2017, safety will be restored.” (speech, July 21, 2016)

Trump himself implicitly acknowledges that he has failed to create law and order, saying, “There is violence and danger in the streets” (speech, Aug. 27, 2020). Periodically, he incites that violence.

“The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens. Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to lead.” (speech, July 21, 2016)

The United States has lost more than 185,000 people to the coronavirus pandemic. On a per capita basis, that’s more than twice as many as Canada and five times as many as Germany. America has 4% of the world’s population and 22% of the world’s confirmed COVID-19 deaths.

“We’re going to work with all of our students who are drowning in debt to take the pressure off these young people.” (speech, July 21, 2016)

Trump has sought to alter the terms of student loan repayments so that students would have to pay an additional $200 billion over a decade. He also attempted to cancel the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

“We will repeal and replace disastrous Obamacare.” (speech, July 21, 2016)

Trump has not succeeded in repealing the Affordable Care Act, although he is still pursuing a lawsuit that would overturn it. He has never explained what would replace it.

“You’re going to have great health care at a much lower price. It will cost the United States nothing.” (remarks, July 27, 2018)

Partly because of Trump’s assaults on the Affordable Care Act, the number of uninsured people in the United States has risen for the first time in a decade. An additional 400,000 children are without insurance.

“I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.” (speech, June 16, 2015)

Job creation continued during the Trump administration at roughly the same rate as in the Obama administration, but the pandemic ended that. There are now almost 5 million fewer Americans with jobs than when Trump took office. In raw numbers, this is the worst jobs record of any modern president.

“It is time to drain the swamp in Washington, D.C. This is why I’m proposing a package of ethics reforms to make our government honest once again.” (remarks, Oct. 17, 2016)

Eight of Trump’s associates have been charged with or convicted of crimes. Nonpartisan ethics watchdogs have repeatedly accused Trump and members of his administration and his family of serious ethics violations, and the Manhattan district attorney suggested last month that he was investigating Trump and his company for “possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct.”

“I’m going to put in … great conservative judges.” (remarks, March 20, 2016)

Trump has appointed conservative (and young) judges across the federal bench, and this will be a major element of his legacy. He was helped by the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who blocked Obama from filling vacancies; Trump thus inherited an unusually large number of positions to fill.

“We will honor the American people with the truth, and nothing else.” (speech, July 21, 2016)

Trump has made more than 20,000 false or misleading statements since assuming office, by the count of The Washington Post.

“We will build the roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, airports and the railways of tomorrow.” (remarks, July 21, 2016)

Trump never tried to pass an infrastructure bill.

“We’re going to cut taxes for the middle class. … We will ensure that the benefits are focused on the middle class, the working men and women, not the highest-income earners.” (speech, Sept. 27, 2017)

Trump did pass a tax cut, but it was focused on the wealthy. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimated that for the 2018 tax year, 20% of the benefits would go to the top 1%, and that by 2027, 82% of the benefits would go to the top 1%.

“We’ve got to get rid of the $19 trillion in debt. … I could do it fairly quickly … over a period of eight years.” (interview, March 31, 2016)

The debt has surged and may soon be larger than the American economy for the first time since 1946. That’s partly because of his tax cut for the wealthy and partly because of COVID-19.

“We will end our chronic trade deficits.” (remarks, Oct. 15, 2016)

The trade deficit is larger now than it was in Obama’s last year in office.

“We will completely rebuild our depleted military. … We will take care of our great veterans.” (speech, July 21, 2016)

Trump has increased the military budget, although he has also taken military funds for his wall. He expanded a program signed into law by Obama for veterans to choose private doctors, while reportedly scorning those who died in wars as “suckers” and trying to keep amputees from participating in a military parade.

“We are going to defeat the barbarians of ISIS.” (speech, July 21, 2016)

The United States did overthrow the caliphate of the Islamic State group — a process begun under Obama. But ISIS continues to operate at a reduced level.

“We want to create peace between Israel and the Palestinians. We will get it done.” (remarks, May 3, 2017)

Peace between Israel and the Palestinians is as elusive as ever. However, Arab states such as the United Arab Emirates have warmed to Israel.

“Nobody will be pushing us around.” (speech, June 16, 2015)

The obvious exception is Russia, which interfered in the 2016 presidential election and now appears to be interfering in the 2020 election as well. Russia has injured U.S. troops in Syria, and it is said to have paid bounties to Afghan militants for killing U.S. troops.

“Unlike so many who came before me, I keep my promises.” (speech, Feb. 4, 2020)

Well, no.

Contact Nicholas Kristof at Facebook.com/Kristof, Twitter.com/NickKristof or by mail at The New York Times, 620 Eighth Ave., New York, NY 10018.

Watergate reporter Bob Woodward’s new book is coming out next week — and the leaked excerpts in it contain multiple damaging bombshells for President Donald Trump.

The new book, entitled “Rage,” contains multiple revelations on a wide variety of topics ranging from the president’s handling of the novel coronavirus to his relationship with the American military to his strange affection for North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

Below are the five most damning details of Woodward’s new book.

1.) Trump said that he knew the novel coronavirus was five times more deadly than the seasonal flu — then admitted to playing it down in public.

Audio recordings show that Trump told Woodward in early February that COVID-19 spread through the air and was much more deadly than the flu. Despite this, he continued to downplay its significance in multiple public statements.

Just over a month after that, Trump admitted to Woodward that he deliberately downplayed the virus because he didn’t want to create a “panic.”

“I wanted to always play it down,” Trump said on March 19th, shortly after he declared a national emergency. “I still like playing it down.”

2.) Trump gushes over Kim Jong-un in lurid detail.

In the book, Trump tells Woodward that he finds the North Korean dictator to be “far beyond smart,” while also boasting that Kim “tells me everything,” including a detailed account of how he killed his own uncle.

The president also cited Kim to disparage former President Barack Obama, whom Kim reportedly described as an “assh*le.”

3.) Trump ranted about his own generals being “p*ssies.”

The president was apparently unhappy with the way that America’s military brass placed a premium on maintaining the country’s alliances with other nations, which the president said constrained his ability to cut trade deals.

“My f*cking generals are a bunch of p*ssies,” the president ranted. “They care more about their alliances than they do about trade deals.”

4.) Trump’s own former Director of National Intelligence suspected that the president may have been blackmailed by Russia.

Former DNI Dan Coats found himself puzzled by the president’s adoration of Russian President Vladimir Putin and came to believe that the only plausible explanation was some form of blackmail.

“[Coats] continued to harbor the secret belief, one that had grown rather than lessened, although unsupported by intelligence proof, that Putin had something on Trump,” Woodward wrote. “How else to explain the president’s behavior? Coats could see no other explanation.”

5.) Trump brushed off centuries worth of oppression against Black Americans by boasting about the low unemployment level before the pandemic hit.

In June, in the middle of national protests against the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Woodward asked Trump if he felt the need to understand the experience of being Black in the United States.

“No,” Trump replied. “You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn’t you? Just listen to you. Wow. No, I don’t feel that at all.”

Woodward pressed Trump about this by recounting the history of Black people in America, but the president refused to hear it and instead called Black Americans ungrateful of his supposed efforts to get them jobs.

“I’ve done a tremendous amount for the Black community,” he told Woodward. “And, honestly, I’m not feeling any love.”

The government of Artsakh is lifting the coronavirus-related shutdown of its border with Armenia.

Citizens of Artsakh are also no longer required to obtain permission to exit the country.

The requirement of undergoing a mandatory COVID-19 testing upon entering the country is also lifted.

However, arriving travelers will be screened for fever and other symptoms upon entering.

Minister of Territorial Administration and Development of Artsakh Zhirayr Mirzoyan, who heads the COVID-19 task force, said the reason for lifting the ban is the decrease of coronavirus transmission rates in Armenia.

At the same time, he called on Artsakhis to continue following safety precautions.

He places regular calls to the White House and plays to Trump’s idea of personal diplomacy. Trump bragged last month that a “top leader” had asked him to call the Turkish president, saying: “ ‘You’re the only one he respects. . . . You’re the only one he’ll listen to.’”

The author also noted that Turkey threatens regional stability, and Trump’s soft stance contradicts his criticism of his predecessor Barack Obama for being soft on Iran.

David Ignatius in his Washington Post article.

According to him, Turkey is moving away from its former position as a NATO member and Israel’s key ally in the Muslim world and is beginning to look more like Iran. Both Iran and Turkey “push radical versions of Islam at a time when moderate voices are rising in many Arab countries, such as the UAE, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia”.”

“That’s unseemly, but what worries regional leaders even more is Erdogan’s Iran-like push to project military power. A graphic posted recently by the Turkish news agency TRT listed 12 foreign countries where Turkish troops are operating: Northern Cyprus, Syria, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Somalia, Qatar, Afghanistan, Albania, Lebanon, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Sudan. That list doesn’t include Libya, where Erdogan has sent thousands of Turkish-trained Syrian mercenaries to support the Tripoli government. Critics say Erdogan also uses the network of the Muslim Brotherhood to advance his caus

By Jeff McCausland, retired U.S. Army colonel and former member of the National Security Council

Who exactly is President Donald Trump referring to, when he says America’s military dead and injured are “losers”?

My parents married in the spring of 1942. Shortly after the wedding, my father departed as a crew member aboard a Liberty Ship heading for Europe. A few months later, my mom received a telegram that his ship had been sunk, and he was missing in action. At roughly the same time, she received a second telegram — her brother’s plane had crashed while returning from a bombing raid in the Pacific. He was badly wounded. In 1950, her youngest brother, a Marine, was wounded multiple times in the Korean War during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. My older brother served in Vietnam, and my mom’s oldest grandchild later served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Sadly, he succumbed to post-traumatic stress disorder. He died for his country.

Service runs in my family — I commanded troops in combat during the first Gulf War. And our story is not unique. My family and millions of other veterans around this country are not “suckers” or “losers.” We know, personally, what it really means to sacrifice for your country. Which makes Trump’s criticism of military service so painful.

We know, personally, what it really means to sacrifice for your country. Which makes Trump’s criticism of military service so painful.

Jeffrey Goldberg’s recent article in The Atlantic alleges the president does not agree. Goldberg accuses Trump of rejecting a visit to Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial in France because he feared the rain would mess up his hair. “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers,” Trump reportedly asked. In a separate discussion, the president reportedly referred to Marines killed in World War I during the consequential Battle of Belleau Wood as “suckers.” Trump slammed the accusations as false, but this story and others have now been largely confirmed by several media outlets including Fox News.

At this critical moment, what the nation needs most is clarity. We need truth. We are tired of being shocked and tired of yet another cycle of presidential rage and denials.

We want to believe our commander in chief wouldn’t say such incredibly offensive things. But we also know, deep down, that it’s likely he did. Because he has before.

Upon reading the Atlantic article, I was angry. Sadly, I was not surprised. These allegations are consistent with numerous other comments and actions made by Trump over the past three years that, taken together, demonstrate a clear pattern of disrespect toward the military.

Even before he was elected in 2016, Trump argued that the Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. was “not a war hero.” He later described McCain, as well as President George H.W. Bush, as “losers” for being shot down in combat. Trump even resisted lowering the flag over the White House when McCain died.

In a Pentagon meeting in the summer of 2017, Trump blasted senior military leadership in front of junior officers and civilians as “losers” and a “bunch of dopes and babies.” In the aftermath of this meeting, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reportedly referred to the president as a “moron.”

The list goes on. Former Defense Secretary and retired Marine Gen. James Mattis observed that Trump used troops as political props for a photo op in Lafayette Park. Trump criticized Gold Star families and reportedly told the grieving wife of a soldier killed in combat that he “knew what he signed up for.” The president has also denigrated and directly interfered in court-martial actions against soldiers accused of war crimes.

These are not gaffes, nor are they the blunders of a man who simply lacks empathy. Rather, they reveal the president’s basic lack of understanding of the military — and even bigger than that, his lack of understanding of the concept of “service.” This is a man who, in a 1997 interview with Howard Stern, bragged about how avoiding sexually transmitted diseases in the 1960s and ’70s was his own “personal Vietnam.”

Trump is, at his core, a figure born of privilege who views people not as individuals, but as pawns. This transactional worldview explains the fact that he simply cannot fathom why anyone would volunteer to serve. It is incomprehensible to him. In Trump’s mind, nothing is worth doing without the possibility of a significant monetary reward or boost in status. As Goldberg noted, after then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joe Dunford had delivered a White House briefing, Trump asked aides: “That guy is smart. Why did he join the military?”

Theguardian.com A historian has discovered a royal decree issued to Donald Trump’s grandfather ordering him to leave Germany and never come back.

Friedrich Trump, a German, was issued with the document in February 1905, and ordered to leave the kingdom of Bavaria within eight weeks as punishment for having failed to do mandatory military service and failing to give authorities notice of his departure to the US when he first emigrated in 1885.

Kallstadt, Germany: on the trail of ‘the Donald’ in the Trump ancestral home

Read more

Roland Paul, a historian from Rhineland-Palatinate who found the document in local archives, told the tabloid Bild: “Friedrich Trump emigrated from Germany to the USA in 1885. However, he failed to de-register from his homeland and had not carried out his military service, which is why the authorities rejected his attempt at repatriation.”

The decree orders the “American citizen and pensioner Friedrich Trump” to leave the area “at the very latest on 1 May … or else expect to be deported”. Bild called the archive find an “unspectacular piece of paper”, that had nevertheless “changed world history”.

Trump was born in Kallstadt, now in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, in 1869. He emigrated to the US aged 16 initially to escape poverty, attracted by the gold rush.

He quickly turned his attention to catering for the masses of other gold hunters in Alaska, later allegedly running a brothel for them, and there made his fortune. He habitually sent the gold nuggets with which his customers regularly paid for their food to his sisters who had already emigrated to New York and had started trading in property.

Returning on a visit to Kallstadt in 1901, Trump fell in love with Elisabeth Christ, whom he married a year later, returning with her to the US. But when she became homesick and wanted to return to Germany, the authorities blocked his attempts to settle there.

Trump transition goes on after weekend meeting potential appointees – live

Read more

In an effort to overturn the royal decree dated 27 February 1905, Trump wrote an obsequious letter appealing to Prince Regent Luitpold, addressing him as “the much-loved, noble, wise and righteous sovereign and sublime ruler”.

But the prince rejected the appeal and the Trumps left Germany for New York with their daughter on the Hapag steamship Pennsylvania on 1 July 1905. Elisabeth was three months pregnant with Donald Trump’s father, Fred.

Residents of Kallstadt, a small wine-growing town of about 1,200 people in south-west Germany, joke that the blame for Trump becoming US president-elect lies with the German authorities who threw his grandfather out. They have so far shown little enthusiasm for claiming the businessman turned politician as their own.

Democracy is in peril …

… ahead of this year’s US election. Donald Trump is busy running the largest misinformation campaign in history as he questions the legitimacy of voting by mail, a method that will be crucial to Americans casting their vote in a pandemic. Meanwhile, the president has also appointed a new head of the US Postal Service who has stripped it of resources, undermining its ability to fulfill a crucial role in processing votes.

This is one of a number of attempts to suppress the votes of Americans – something that has been a stain on US democracy for decades. The Voting Rights Act was passed 55 years ago to undo a web of restrictions designed to block Black Americans from the ballot box. Now, seven years after that law was gutted by the supreme court, the president is actively threatening a free and fair election.

Through our Fight to vote project, the Guardian has pledged to put voter suppression at the center of our 2020 coverage. This election will impact every facet of American life. But it will not be a genuine exercise in democracy if American voters are stopped from participating in it.

At a time like this, an independent news organisation that fights for truth and holds power to account is not just optional. It is essential. Like many other news organisations, the Guardian has been significantly impacted by the pandemic. We rely to an ever greater extent on our readers, both for the moral force to continue doing journalism at a time like this and for the financial strength to facilitate that reporting.

You’ve read more than 6 articles in the last year. We believe every one of us deserves equal access to fact-based news and analysis. We’ve decided to keep Guardian journalism free for all readers, regardless of where they live or what they can afford to pay. This is made possible thanks to the support we receive from readers across America in all 50 states.

As our business model comes under even greater pressure, we’d love your help so that we can carry on our essential work.

Watch the video on: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/21/trump-grandfather-friedrich-banished-germany-historian-royal-decree?fbclid=IwAR2TA9ROm0B3VHvoJ3nhzlcK-rzmqM7etjC9c4Opqz_u3unsmzuyhXRVmX8

As he has done with other aspects of the presidency, Donald J. Trump has redefined the practice in ways that have unsettled even some Republicans.

By Eric Lipton

WASHINGTON — President Trump was proudly litigious before his victory in 2016 and has remained so in the White House. But one big factor has changed: He has drawn on campaign donations as a piggy bank for his legal expenses to a degree far greater than any of his predecessors.

In New York, Mr. Trump dispatched a team of lawyers to seek damages of more than $1 million from a former campaign worker after she claimed she had been the target of sexual discrimination and harassment by another aide. The lawyers have been paid $1.5 million by the Trump campaign for work on the case and others related to the president.

In Washington, Mr. Trump and his campaign affiliates hired lawyers to assist members of his staff and family — including a onetime bodyguard, his oldest son and his son-in-law — as they were pulled into investigations related to Russia and Ukraine. The Republican National Committee has paid at least $2.5 million in legal bills to the firms that did this and other legal work.

In California, Mr. Trump sued to block a law that would have forced him to release his taxes if he wanted to run for re-election. The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee have paid the law firm handling this case, among others, $1.8 million.

Mr. Trump’s tendency to turn to the courts — and the legal issues that have stemmed from norm-breaking characteristics of his presidency — helps explain how he and his affiliated political entities have spent at least $58.4 million in donations on legal and compliance work since 2015, according to a tally by The New York Times and the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute.

By comparison, President Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee spent $10.7 million on legal and compliance expenses during the equivalent period starting in 2007. President George W. Bush also spent much less, even taking into account his legal spending on the recount fight that went to the Supreme Court, records show.

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Presidential candidate Joe Biden spent an hour with Jacob Blake’s family and visited a local church to hear from community leaders. He also touched on the US’ history of slavery “and all the vestiges of it.”

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden visited the protest-hit city of Kenosha, Wisconsin on Thursday, two days after President Donald Trump’s visit earlier Tuesday. He spoke to Jacob Blake and his family, and also addressed a gathering of the community leaders at a local church.

The former vice president spoke to Blake, a Black man shot by police last month, over the phone for 15 minutes. The 29-year-old is hospitalized and may be paralyzed from the waist down, according to his lawyers.

Biden spent an hour with Blake’s family and visited the Grace Lutheran Church where a gathering of local community leaders talked about their struggle with racial discrimination and unrest.

“We’re finally now getting to the point where we’re going to be addressing the original sin of this country, 400 years old slavery and all the vestiges of it,” said Biden, adding that the president had not been able to sway the majority’s support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

A contrasting meeting

Biden’s trip was very different from his Republican rival’s. Trump’s visit revolved around extending support to local law enforcement and the police. He did not meet Blake or his family.

The United States has seen nationwide protests against racial violence and police brutality since the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis officer in May. With some protests turning violent, Trump has been quick to point out the role of left-wing activists in stoking unrest.

However, the president did defend a 17-year-old who opened fire at protesters at a rally in Kenosha, killing two people and wounding another.

see/aw (Reuters, AP, AFP)

President Donald Trump denied having ever called Sen. John McCain of Arizona a “loser,” despite having previously tweeted out a news article that described him doing exactly that. Trump denied a report from The Atlantic that said he called McCain and President George H.W. Bush losers. Trump acknowledged on Twitter that he “was never a big fan” of McCain, who died in 2018, but said that despite their differences he had “never called John a loser.” In 2015, Trump tweeted a link to a political blog that quoted him calling McCain a loser.

Trump and his senior officials on Thursday attempted to deflect the blowback from an article published in The Atlantic that quoted several unnamed sources who said the president had made disparaging remarks about US service members — including those who died in battle and those who went on to become notable politicians.