Last Call For It's Nobody's Business But The Turks

We've reached the point now where the Trump regime is coming apart, and the wall of silence that protected Trump until now has cracked wide open and the White House is leaking like Niagra Falls with stories of Trump's previous misdeeds flowing out into the DC swamp.

President Donald Trump pressed then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to help persuade the Justice Department to drop a criminal case against an Iranian-Turkish gold trader who was a client of Rudy Giuliani, according to three people familiar with the 2017 meeting in the Oval Office. 

Tillerson refused, arguing it would constitute interference in an ongoing investigation of the trader, Reza Zarrab, according to the people. They said other participants in the Oval Office were shocked by the request. 

Tillerson immediately repeated his objections to then-Chief of Staff John Kelly in a hallway conversation just outside the Oval Office, emphasizing that the request would be illegal. Neither episode has been previously reported, and all of the people spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the conversations. 

The White House declined to comment. Kelly and Tillerson declined to comment via representatives. Another person familiar with the matter said the Justice Department never considered dropping the criminal case. 

Zarrab was being prosecuted in federal court in New York at the time on charges of evading U.S. sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program. He had hired former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Giuliani, who has said he reached out repeatedly to U.S. officials to seek a diplomatic solution for his client outside the courts. 

The president’s request to Tillerson -- which included asking him to speak with Giuliani -- bears the hallmarks of Trump’s governing style, defined by his willingness to sweep aside the customary procedures and constraints of government to pursue matters outside normal channels. Tillerson’s objection came to light as Trump’s dealings with foreign leaders face intense scrutiny following the July 25 call with Ukraine’s president that has sparked an impeachment inquiry in the House. 

The episode is also likely to fuel long-standing concerns from some of Trump’s critics about his policies toward Turkey and his relationship with its authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Zarrab’s release was a high priority for Erdogan until the gold trader agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in New York.

This by itself would be a massive scandal under any other circumstances: a sitting Oval Office occupant asking the Secretary of State to get Justice to drop an ongoing federal case involving a foreign national who was allegedly helping Iran evade sanctions would be the death knell of any administration.

It's simply "Wednesday" here in Trumpland.

Both Tillerson and Kelly need to be subpoenaed immediately about this.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

With all the impeachment news, the fact that the Senate Intelligence Committee's final report on Russian interference in the 2016 election came out this week was missed by most folks, and it's brutal.

A bipartisan panel of U.S. senators Tuesday called for sweeping action by Congress, the White House and Silicon Valley to ensure social media sites aren’t used to interfere in the coming presidential election, delivering a sobering assessment about the weaknesses that Russian operatives exploited in the 2016 campaign.  

The Senate Intelligence Committee, a Republican-led panel that has been investigating foreign electoral interference for more than 2½ years, said in blunt language that Russians worked to damage Democrat Hillary Clinton while bolstering Republican Donald Trump — and made clear that fresh rounds of interference are likely ahead of the 2020 vote.  

“Russia is waging an information warfare campaign against the U.S. that didn’t start and didn’t end with the 2016 election,” said Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the committee’s chairman. “Their goal is broader: to sow societal discord and erode public confidence in the machinery of government. By flooding social media with false reports, conspiracy theories, and trolls, and by exploiting existing divisions, Russia is trying to breed distrust of our democratic institutions and our fellow Americans.”

Though the 85-page report itself had extensive redactions, in the visible sections, lawmakers urged their peers in Congress to act, including through the potential adoption of new regulations that would the disclosure of ad buyers more transparent. The report also called on the White House and the executive branch to adopt a more forceful, public role, warning Americans about the ways in which dangerous misinformation can spread while creating new teams within the U.S. government to monitor for threats and share intelligence with industry.

The recommendations call for Silicon Valley to more extensively share intelligence among companies, in recognition of the shortage of such sharing in 2016 and also the ways that disinformation from Russia and other countries spreads across numerous platforms — with posts linking back and forth in a tangle of connections.

“The Committee found that Russia’s targeting of the 2016 U.S. presidential election was part of a broader, sophisticated and ongoing information warfare campaign,” the report says. The Russian effort was “a vastly more complex and strategic assault on the United States than was initially understood... an increasingly brazen interference by the Kremlin on the citizens and democratic institutions of the United States."

The report found that the bulk of social media efforts by Russians to hurt Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump were targeted at conservative voters to get them angry, but again the efforts were also targeted at African-American voters, to either get us to vote third-party or to not vote at all.

It's information we've been told before, and again the Trump regime is ignoring it, choosing instead to blame the Obama administration for "doing nothing to stop the Russians" when of course Mitch McConnell made it clear that preventing the Russians from helping Trump would be viewed as war. He won't allow a vote on any of these recommendations, either.

Again, we're already seeing efforts by Russia, Iran, and other foreign countries to disrupt our elections, and the Trump regime knows allowing them to continue is the best shot they have of winning in 2020.

Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

It seems like every day we get new information on Trump's Ukraine efforts to pressure the country into fabricating evidence against Joe Biden in order to affect the 2020 race, and today is no different. 

CNN is reporting now that Trump ordered Energy Secretary Rick Perry and both the State Department diplomats at the heart of the mess, former Ukraine special envoy Kurt Volker and EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland, to all meet with Rudy Giuliani in May, well before the July 25th call with Ukraine's president, in order to coordinate a plan of attack against Biden.

President Donald Trump directed Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and two top State Department officials to deal with his private attorney Rudy Giuliani when the Ukrainian President sought to meet Trump, in a clear circumvention of official channels, according to two sources familiar with the conversation. 

Trump believed Ukraine was still rampantly corrupt and said that if President Volodymyr Zelensky wanted to meet with him, Giuliani would have to be convinced first, one source said. 

"If they can satisfy Rudy, they can satisfy the President," a person familiar with the meeting said. 

Trump's push to have Giuliani as gatekeeper is more direct than what was previously disclosed by one of the meeting's participants in his statement to the House last week. It also further demonstrates how significant Giuliani was in brokering access to the President regarding Ukraine policy and in passing messages to other administration officials. 

CNN has reached out to the White House for comment. 

A key accusation in the whistleblower's complaint that has prompted the impeachment probe into the President's dealings with Ukraine is that Giuliani, a private citizen, had been presenting to Ukraine a US policy different than that from US diplomats. 

At the May 23 meeting, Perry, US Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker, then the State Department's special representative to Ukraine, were reporting back to Trump after they returned from Zelensky's inauguration. 

Their goal was to tell Trump that they had a favorable impression of Zelensky and his government, and that he was a reformer who Trump should trust and engage with, according to three sources familiar with the meeting. 

They were hoping to set up a meeting between Trump and Zelensky, the sources said. They believed Ukraine under Zelensky was a more trusted ally than previous Ukrainian regimes, and that a visit between Trump and Zelensky could demonstrate to the Russian government that the US embraced a free Ukraine, according to two of the sources. 

Notably, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Washington on May 23 but he did not attend the meeting with Trump. 

Perry had led the delegation who attended Zelensky's inauguration, and was a central figure in the May meeting with Trump. 

It became clear to the Trump administration officials, the sources said, that they would have to deal with Giuliani. 

Volker hinted last week in speaking to the House how central Giuliani was in the President's foreign policy approach to Ukraine.

So this backs up the AP reporting from a few days ago that Rick Perry was instrumental, and that the carrot was Zelensky's meeting with Trump in DC if Zelensky could deliver something on Biden. And we know that Ambassador Sondland spoke with Donald Trump directly after his now infamous "no quid pro quo" text.

In other words, these bozos have been caught red handed, Rick Perry and Mike Pompeo need to resign at the bare minimum, and Sondland's testimony was pulled at the last minute because it would have been fatal to Trump.

Again, it's up to the Dems to figure out where they want to go on inherent contempt, court fights, and impeachment.

StupidiNews!

• As many as 900,000 power customers in San Jose, California may be without power for up to a week as Pacific Gas & Electric says it will be shutting off power to avoid sparking wildfires.
• The Trump regime says it plans to sue Minneapolis's Target Center ahead of a scheduled Thursday rally as Mayor Jacob Frey is asking the campaign to pay costs up-front.
• More than 100 are dead and thousands wounded as Iraqi protests enter their second week, demonstrators are calling for the removal of PM Adel Abdul Mahdi and his government.
• Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders says he will "scale back" his presidential campaign appearances after his heart attack last week in Las Vegas, Sanders say he has no plans to drop out. 
• Sony is confirming the PlayStation 5 console will launch in 2020 in time for the holidays, the console will use 100GB optical discs as well as Sony's 4K Blu-Ray format. 

Last Call For Two Murders And Five To Ten

Yesterday I talked about the murder of Joshua Brown, the witness whose testimony against ex-Dallas cop Amber Guyger in the murder trial of Botham Jean was key to her conviction.

Brown ended up mysteriously dead in the parking lot outside his apartment building Friday night just days after Guyger was sentenced, and now Dallas police have a lead in the killing.

And by "lead" I mean the cops just happened to find a bunch of drugs in Brown's apartment and the suspects are from out of state.

Dallas police officials on Tuesday said at a news conference at Dallas Police headquarters that they have three suspects in connection with the shooting death of Joshua Brown. 

All three suspects came from Alexandria, La., to purchase drugs from Brown, police said. One suspect is in custody, and warrants have been issued for two other suspects. 

Brown was fatally shot Friday at an apartment complex on Cedar Springs Road.
Assistant chief Avery Moore identified the suspects as Thaddeous Charles Green, 22, Jacquerious Mitchell, 20, and Michael Diaz Mitchell, 32. Jacquerious Mitchell is in custody at Parkland hospital, Moore said. 

The announcement came as pressure increased from community leaders for an independent investigation into Brown's case. Brown was a witness in the murder trial of former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, which ended last week in her conviction. The timing of Brown's death raised public speculation about whether the shooting was tied to his testimony. 

Moore gave condolences to the Brown family and said the department was working "diligently" to get the two suspects who are at-large. Moore then addressed the conspiracy theories and said they "simply are not true." 

Without pointing to specific statements, he issued a warning to community leaders. 

"I encourage those leaders to be mindful of their actions moving forward because their words have jeopardized the integrity of the city of Dallas as well as the Dallas Police Department," he said.

It's an open-and-shut case, you see. Three black suspects and a dead black man in a drug deal gone wrong.  Or, you'd better see, or else the Dallas cops will make you see.

According to police, the three suspects were in the same car when they arrived at Brown's apartment complex on Friday night. Green got out of the car and had an argument with Brown that escalated. Jacquerious Mitchell told police when he got out of the car, Brown shot him first. 

Jacquerious Mitchell told police he heard two more gunshots that Green fired as he lay inside the vehicle. 

Green took Brown's backpack and gun, police said. Michael Mitchell was the driver and dropped off Green at an unknown location. Michael Mitchell then dropped off Jacquerious, who is his nephew, at the hospital.

So according to the cops and the witness who was shot, Brown is not only a drug dealer but an attempted murderer.  Surely this means Amber Guyger is due some leniency on appeal, right?  Maybe that conviction gets overturned?

Surely a scared black kid found with a bullet in him around the same time as Brown's death wouldn't be pressured into making a statement like this in order to cooperate with the cops, right?

And surely, the Dallas PD wouldn't be lying about a dead black witness who helped to convict a cop, right?

Police said when they searched Brown's apartment, they confiscated 12 pounds of marijuana, 143 grams of THC cartridges and $4,000 in cash.

Pretty open and shut case, right?  The information that Brown was a notorious drug dealer never came up in the Guyger trial, a drug dealer who was fearing for his life from three guys from Louisiana, one who jumped at the chance to testify against a cop, and was pushing 12 pounds of weed at the time, but hey, I'm sure that was an oversight.

Right?

The Reach To Impeach, Con't

The Trump regime today made it clear what their strategy is going forward: obstruction of justice and daring Nancy Pelosi to do anything about it.

The White House all but declared war on the House impeachment inquiry on Tuesday, intervening for the first time to block the testimony of a key witness as President Trump signaled his administration would try to starve investigators of more witnesses and documents. 

The decision to block Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, from speaking with investigators for three House committees came just hours before he was to appear on Capitol Hill, provoking an immediate conflict with potentially profound consequences for the inquiry and for the president himself. 

Mr. Trump, defiant as investigators dig further into his efforts to pressure Ukraine to find dirt on his political rivals, declared the inquiry illegitimate in a signal that he plans to stonewall Congress, an act that could itself build the case for charging him in an impeachment proceeding with obstruction. 

“I would love to send Ambassador Sondland, a really good man and great American, to testify,” Mr. Trump wrote on TwitterTuesday morning around the time Mr. Sondland was to appear, “but unfortunately he would be testifying before a totally compromised kangaroo court, where Republican’s rights have been taken away.”

Trump openly tweeting that the decision to block Sondland came from himself here.  Again, open obstruction of justice, with a dare to do anything about it.

House Democrats quickly said they would regard the president’s stance as amounting to obstruction. Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said the administration’s refusal to allow Mr. Sondland to appear was “strong evidence” of “obstruction of the constitutional functions of Congress, a coequal branch of government.” 

Mr. Schiff told reporters that the State Department was also withholding text messages Mr. Sondland had sent on a private device that were “deeply relevant” to the inquiry. 

“The American people have the right to know if the president is acting in their interests, in the nation’s interests with an eye toward our national security, and not in his narrow personal, political interests,” Mr. Schiff told reporters. “By preventing us from hearing from this witness and obtaining these documents, the president and secretary of state are taking actions that prevent us from getting the facts needed to protect the nation’s security.” 

In a statement, Mr. Schiff and the chairmen of the two other committees leading the investigation said they would promptly issue a subpoena for Mr. Sondland’s testimony and documents. 

The decision to block Mr. Sondland from being interviewed was delivered at the last minute, after the ambassador had already flown to Washington from Europe, and lawmakers had returned from a two-week recess to observe the questioning.

From Trump's cynical, purely transactional viewpoint, it's a good strategy considering that additional impeachment charges won't matter as long as Mitch McConnell is there to simply dismiss the charges in a Senate trial.  The White House is selling the impeachment proceedings as "illegitimate if not illegal" on FOX State TV, and they've reached the point where additional testimony against Trump would be more damaging in the long run than covering it up.

From the Democratic side, this is the rubicon being crossed.  House Democrats have to decide what to do at this point because no further cooperation of any kind will be coming from the executive branch or its agencies.  A lengthy court battle during an election year could allow Trump to run out the clock, because at some point Nancy Pelosi is going to have to make the decision to go forward with articles of impeachment or shelve them.

So far, her response has literally been a sternly-worded letter. 

Now, having said that, Senate Republicans no doubt want those articles as soon as possible so that Mitch and 50 other GOP senators can vote to dismiss the charges as I said, calling them illegitimate.  Plenty of people say Pelosi's response must be drawing up and voting on articles now.  I think that's playing directly into McConnell's hands.

Dismissing the articles as soon as they are sent to the Senate is their best-case scenario if they feel they can get away with it, and McConnell has enough GOP senators to do that right now, especially if they use the "illegitimate" argument as a fig leaf.  The outcry would be massive, but then it becomes taking the matter to SCOTUS and hoping for a 5-4 ruling or better that confirms the Senate can make its own rules regarding a Senate impeachment trial.

And it all ends with a whimper.  That's still where I see all of this going.  We don't even get a Senate trial.

But for Pelosi and the Democrats, the longer things go forward now with Trump's obvious cover-up happening in real time, the worse the numbers get for him.  If support flags enough though, and multiple GOP senators say there has to be a rigorous trial, that starts leading down the path of Trump's removal.  The polls say half the country now wants Trump impeached by the House and removed by the Senate.

So, she has to thread the needle. She has to wait until the cry to remove Trump becomes overwhelming, and this obvious obstruction move will go a long way towards getting us to a maximum for removal.  But if Pelosi times things badly, this all blows up and Trump gets away, possibly to a second term.  We'll see how Dems respond, particularly to witnesses.  Inherent contempt for Sondland, for instance, won't help that much.  Inherent contempt for Mike Pompeo on the other hand, well...

Dems have come this far.  I trust they have the guts to finish it, because they have to or we lose the republic.

Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

Yesterday I talked about how Energy Secretary Rick Perry apparently was trying to get two Giuliani associates on the board of Ukraine's biggest natural gas company.  Those two associates are now at the center of the latest fight between House Democrats at the Trump regime, with the two men, Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, having lawyered up in record time and saying they will not comply with any House Democratic requests for documents or depositions.

Two South Florida businessman who peddled supposedly explosive information from Ukraine about corruption involving Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton will not comply with a request for documents and depositions from three House committees overseeing an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman will not respond to a Monday deadline for documents and do not plan to appear for depositions scheduled for Thursday and Friday, their attorney John Dowd told the Miami Herald.

“No response planned,” Dowd, who helped defend Trump during part of the recently concluded Russia investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, said in email.

Democrats working on the burgeoning impeachment inquiry said Parnas and Fruman’s decision to ignore a request issued last Monday will lead to subpoenas, which would compel them to testify and provide documents or face criminal charges. 

At this point, with a former White House lawyer representing the pair, the odds of the two of them having a letter that says "Attorney General Barr advised us not to talk" claiming executive privilege and refusing the subpoenas is pretty high, and I don't expect House Democrats to have the balls to do anything about it.  Certainly they're not going to bother to refer them to the DoJ for criminal prosecution, they won't lift a finger.  Besides, the White House has to protect them.

“While we have engaged with counsels for these witnesses, they have so far refused to agree to testify or turn over relevant documents. If they continue to fail to comply, they will be served with subpoenas in short order,” an official working on the impeachment inquiry said.

Dowd sent the House Intelligence Committee an email on Oct. 3 detailing his objections to the request for documents and depositions. In the email, which was released on Monday, Dowd said getting up to speed on Parnas and Fruman’s legal situation “will take some time” and that their discussions with Giuliani regarding Trump would be covered by “attorney-client, attorney work and other privileges.” Dowd began representing Parnas and Fruman last week.

He also called the request for documents “overly broad and unduly burdensome,” saying he has reached the “inescapable conclusion that the Democratic Committee members’ intent is to harass, intimidate and embarrass my clients.”

Parnas told the Miami Herald last month that Ukraine’s government has access to information on alleged wrongdoing by Joe Biden and his son Hunter and other U.S. officials overseas — but that the U.S. government proved indifferent to receiving it through official channels. Parnas said his and Fruman’s friendship with Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani was their avenue to get the information into the Trump administration’s hands.

“I got certain information and I thought it was my duty to hand it over,” he told the Miami Herald on September 26.

So of course any subpoena by House Democrats would be part of the plot to "protect Joe Biden".  Hell, I'm betting Parnas in particular will be considered a "whistleblower" by the end of the week.

Giuliani himself won't comply either, it looks like.

Congressional Democrats asked Parnass and Fruman for documents on Sept. 30. They also subpoenaed Giuliani that same day for documents. Giuliani told The Daily Beast he has not decided whether or not to comply.

"I have a real question about whether I should recognize their legitimacy,” he said. “I think they are totally illegitimate... I’m going to go in front of a committee with a chairman who is a liar.”

Going on offense against congressional investigators is a central part of the strategy that Trump’s allies are using to defend him. Chairman Adam Schiff of the Intelligence Committee has become their top foe. And the president himself has also lambasted the California Democrat, calling him “Shifty Schiff.”

“I haven't made up my mind,” Giuliani continued, “but one of the issues is, do you acknowledge an illicit committee?”

Democrats aren't going to get a word out of any of these crooks as this mobster lawyer stuff drags on, unless they start using some muscle.

StupidiNews!

• NASA's Mars Curiosity rover has found more evidence that the Red Planet was home to saltwater crater lakes some 3.5 billion years ago.
• Socialist Prime Minister Antonio Costa emerged as the winner in Sunday's national elections in Portugal, right-wing conservatives were trounced and Costa is expected to form a coalition.
• A federal judge ruled that the White House had to release Donald Trump's tax returns to Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance, an emergency appeal to the 2nd Circuit blocked the order pending review.
• Hong Kong city administrator Carrie Law vowed to end the "limitless and lawless" protests in the city, in what could signal a major military crackdown coming for demonstrators.
• The 2019 Nobel prize for Medicine has gone to two Americans and a British researcher for their shared, decades-long work on how the human body senses that it needs oxygen.

Last Call For The Coming Kurdish Catastrophe

Turkish build-up along the border with Syria has been growing for months now, and a few weeks ago our Syrian Kurdish allies made it known that they were very nervous.

Despite the creation of a security zone on the border between Turkey and northeast Syria that has defused some tension in recent weeks, Syrian Kurds still fear the movement of Turkish ground and aerial forces in their backyard could be a prelude to an assault on the country’s Kurdish minority population. 

“If they can, they will go to Damascus,” said Ilham Ahmed, a co-chair of the Syrian Democratic Council, the political arm of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that are responsible for liberating northeastern Syria from the Islamic State, told Foreign Policy through an interpreter in a recent interview in Washington. 

The debate over the area—which U.S. officials have labeled a “security mechanism” rather than a safe zone—is deeply personal for Ahmed, who grew up in the northwest Syrian town of Afrin. The Turks and their proxy forces swept into Afrin last year, waging a violent campaign on the Kurdish-controlled town. Ahmed’s entire family was forced to flee and now lives in tents outside the city, she said. 

U.S. support to the Syrian Kurds has been a major source of tension between Ankara and Washington since the U.S. military began arming the group in 2014. The military arm of the SDF is led by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a mostly Kurdish militia that Ankara views as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. Both Turkey and the United States have designated the PKK, which has waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey, a terrorist group.

Ankara has been pushing for a Turkish-controlled “safe zone” on the border for months as a necessary measure to address its security concerns. U.S. President Donald Trump even promised a 20-mile safe zone in a January tweet, which officials later walked back. But the Syrian Kurds fear a Turkish assault on the area’s civilian population, which Ahmed has said could be a “catastrophe” for her people.

Since the security mechanism—which involves joint U.S. and Turkish ground and aerial patrols between the Syrian border towns of Tell Abyad and Ras al-Ain—was established earlier this month, Ahmed said the SDF has kept to its side of the bargain. YPG fighters have surrendered the area to local security forces, removed fortifications and tunnels on the border, and withdrawn heavy weapons such as tanks and artillery by 12 miles.

But the presence of Turkish troops and military equipment on the border is still a threat, Ahmed said. The Kurds are particularly concerned about Turkish surveillance drones operating in the area as part of the joint patrols, she noted.

“Unless the border goes back to normality, where things on the border are normal with no troops on the two sides, then we cannot say that the problem is solved,” she said. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s threat to resettle 3 million Syrian refugees currently residing in Turkey into the safe zone is also “troubling,” Ahmed said. Most of the refugees in Turkey are not native to northeast Syria, and their presence there could displace the Kurdish residents in that area, she added. 

“Every day, there is escalation from Turkey and threats,” she said. 

U.S. defense and military officials expressed cautious optimism that an uneasy peace between the Turks and the Kurds can be maintained. But experts say continued U.S. presence on the ground as a “credible interlocutor” will be key to assuring both sides.

Over the weekend, Turkish President Erdogan upped the threats considerably.

Turkey’s president, in his strongest warning yet, threatened Saturday to launch a military operation into northeastern Syria, where U.S. troops are deployed and have been trying to defuse tensions between Washington’s two allies — Turkey and the Syrian Kurds. 

Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s threats were a warning that a U.S.-Turkish deal to secure Syria’s troubled border with Turkey was faltering. He said a Turkish military operation against the U.S-backed Kurdish forces could begin “maybe today, maybe tomorrow.” 

The Turkish military has been dispatching units and defense equipment to southeastern Sanliurfa province in the past month. Erdogan had expressed frustration, threatening a unilateral operation, but this was his most specific threat amid concerns from the Syrian Kurdish forces of a limited military operation. 

“We have given all kinds of warning regarding the (area) east of the Euphrates to the relevant parties. We have acted with enough patience,” Erdogan said. 

A Turkish military operation, however limited, would put major pressure on the more 1,000 U.S. troops in northeastern Syria and who operate closely with the Kurdish-led forces, whether to implement the security mechanism or in fighting IS. 

The Turkish leader has repeatedly expressed frustration with Washington’s support for Kurdish groups in Syria. His threats continued despite a deal reached with Washington in August to carry out joint patrols and move Syrian Kurdish fighters away from the border. 

Last night, the Trump regime issued a response to this that cannot be categorized as anything other than an invitation to Turkey to begin the wholesale slaughter of Syrian Kurds.

The White House said Sunday that Turkey will soon invade Northern Syria, renewing fears of a slaughter of Kurdish fighters allied with the U.S. in a yearslong campaign against the Islamic State group. 

For months, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been threatening to launch a military assault on the Kurdish forces in Northern Syria, many of whom his government considers terrorists. The Kurdish forces bore the brunt of the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State militants, and Republicans and Democrats have warned that allowing the Turkish attack would send a troubling message to American allies across the globe. 

U.S. troops “will not support or be involved in the operation” and “will no longer be in the immediate area,” in Northern Syria, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in an unusual late-Sunday statement that was silent on the fate of the Kurds. 

It was not clear whether that meant the U.S. would be withdrawing its 1,000 or so troops completely from northern Syria. 

The announcement came after a call between President Donald Trump and Erdogan, the White House said.

Donald Trump just sold out Syrian Kurds to Erdogan, Assad, and Putin.  And today that price came in blood.

Turkish forces carried out attacks against Kurdish forces and the anti-Assad Syrian Democratic Forces militia in Syria and Iraq near the Turkish border on Monday evening. 

Turkish forces attacked SDF positions in the city of al-Malikiyah in the Hasakah area in northern Syria, according to Syrian state news agency SANA. 

The SDF includes Kurds and others in eastern Syria which the US has helped train, assist and advise during the war on ISIS. 

Earlier on Monday, the United States announced that it would be withdrawing from Syria. 

Turkey will move forward with its long-planned military operation to create what it calls a "safe zone" in northern Syria and U.S. forces will not support or be involved in it, the White House press secretary announced early Monday morning. 

"The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial 'Caliphate,' will no longer be in the immediate area," said the White House press secretary on Monday morning. 

The SDF withdrew from an oil field in the Deir ez-Zor area and headed towards the Turkish border on Monday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The SDF lead protests against Iranian-backed militias in the Deir ez-Zor area in September.

Not only has Donald Trump created a hot war as a distraction to help himself, he's done it by betraying US Kurdish allies.  Again.

It will be a lifetime before anyone trusts the US again.

Two Murders And Five To Ten

Last week, former Dallas PD officer Amber Guyger got ten years for the murder of Botham Jean, an unarmed black man who was killed by Guyger when she went into the wrong apartment, thinking it was hers after a shift, and she shot him dead on the couch.  

A conviction was surprising enough, the ten year sentence for murder shouldn't shock anyone a fraction of the time other convicted murderers got in the state of Texas.  Still, people don't convict cops without overwhelming evidence, and that's still no guarantee.

Part of the evidence against Guyger was provided by the testimony of Joshua Brown, Botham Jean's neighbor from across the hall.  On Friday night, Brown was found dead from multiple gunshots in the parking lot of his new apartment complex.

Authorities say that, on Friday, Dallas police were called to Brown’s new apartment complex, about five miles from where Jean was murdered, at about 10:30 pm local time, where they found Brown lying in the parking lot with multiple gunshot wounds. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead from his injuries.
Throughout the murder trial against Guyger, Brown testified, sometimes emotionally, about the moments when he heard gunshots ring out as he approached his apartment, and about Guyger’s behavior immediately after she killed Jean on September 6, 2018. Guyger has said she believed the apartment was her own, and that she mistook Jean for an intruder.

Brown said that he saw Guyger enter the hallway from Jean’s apartment, crying, and speaking on the phone. Attorney Lee Merritt, who represented the Jean family in the trial, wrote on Facebook that Brown’s testimony played a key role in challenging Guyger’s account of the incident and her claims that she had shouted commands at Botham before shooting him.
“She didn’t. No one heard that. No neighbors. No passerby’s. Not Joshua as he walked down the corridor. No one,” Merritt wrote.

Dallas police officials have not yet identified Brown as the victim of Friday’s shooting, but his mother confirmed his death through Merritt. Officials have also not yet identified a suspect or potential motive, and autopsy details have not yet been released. Witnesses have said that a four-door sedan was seen speeding away from the scene of the shooting.

On social media, Merritt, the attorney, called for answers.

“Brown deserves the same justice he sought to ensure the Jean family,” Merritt wrote. “The Dallas County criminal justice system must [be] mobilized to identify his killer and see that he is held accountable for this murder.

There are unsubstantiated rumors that Brown was shot in the mouth, which would be a clear message killing that Brown was gunned down because he dared to testify against a white female cop in Texas, a modern lynching.  Even if he wasn't shot in the mouth however, a dead black witness in a trial where a cop was convicted based in no small part on the testimony of that witness is still a clear message of fear and hatred.

If you are black in America like me, this is a stark reminder that you draw breath only because the police haven't decided to take your life.

Not-So-Slick Rick, Con't

The completely applicable adage of "The Trump Regime is always actually doing what they accuse Democrats of doing" is an adage not necessarily because it was was Nazi propagandist Joeseph Goebbels most cynical and effective tactic, but because Trump regime folks simply lack the imagination to come up with anything creative other than "Well, what illegal things are we up to?"

As Rudy Giuliani was pushing Ukrainian officials last spring to investigate one of Donald Trump’s main political rivals, a group of individuals with ties to the president and his personal lawyer were also active in the former Soviet republic.

Their aims were profit, not politics. This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine’s massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies, according to two people with knowledge of their plans.

Their plan hit a snag after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko lost his reelection bid to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whose conversation with Trump about former Vice President Joe Biden is now at the center of the House impeachment inquiry of Trump.

But the effort to install a friendlier management team at the helm of the gas company, Naftogaz, would soon be taken up with Ukraine’s new president by U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, whose slate of candidates included a fellow Texan who is one of Perry’s past political donors.

It’s unclear if Perry’s attempts to replace board members at Naftogaz were coordinated with the Giuliani allies pushing for a similar outcome, and no one has alleged that there is criminal activity in any of these efforts. And it’s unclear what role, if any, Giuliani had in helping his clients push to get gas sales agreements with the state-owned company.

But the affair shows how those with ties to Trump and his administration were pursuing business deals in Ukraine that went far beyond advancing the president’s personal political interests. It also raises questions about whether Trump allies were mixing business and politics just as Republicans were calling for a probe of Biden and his son Hunter, who served five years on the board of another Ukrainian energy company, Burisma.

On Friday, according to the news site Axios, Trump told a group of Republican lawmakers that it had been Perry who had prompted the phone call in which Trump asked Zelenskiy for a “favor” regarding Biden. Axios cited a source saying Trump said Perry had asked Trump to make the call to discuss “something about an LNG (liquefied natural gas) plant.”

While it’s unclear whether Trump’s remark Friday referred specifically to the behind-the-scenes maneuvers this spring involving the multibillion-dollar state gas company, The Associated Press has interviewed four people with direct knowledge of the attempts to influence Naftogaz, and their accounts show Perry playing a key role in the effort. Three of the four spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. The fourth is an American businessman with close ties to the Ukrainian energy sector.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Energy Department said Perry, a former Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate, was not advancing anyone’s personal interests. She said his conversations with Ukrainian officials about Naftogaz were part of his efforts to reform the country’s energy sector and create an environment where Western companies can do business.

The Trump and Giuliani allies driving the attempt to change the senior management at Naftogazt, however, appear to have had inside knowledge of the U.S. government’s plans in Ukraine. For example, they told people that Trump would replace the U.S. ambassador there months before she was actually recalled to Washington, according to three of the individuals interviewed by the AP. One of the individuals said he was so concerned by the whole affair that he reported it to a U.S. Embassy official in Ukraine months ago.

So the mystery of Rick Perry's resignation is now quite clearly solved.  Following up on Saturday night's Last Call, we know that Perry was trying to get Americans on the board of Ukraine's biggest natural gas company.

Among other changes, Perry pushed for Ukraine’s state-owned natural gas company Naftogaz to expand its board to include Americans, two people familiar with the matter said. Two long-time energy executives based in Perry’s home state of Texas were among those under consideration for that role, one source familiar with the administration’s dealings with the company said.

Perry was in deep on the whole Ukraine mess, hence his sudden resignation last week.  Do read the entire piece, Giuliani was in on it too, and the plan is laid out here in rich detail by AP's reporters, Desmond Butler, Mike Biesecker, and Rich Lardner.

StupidiNews!

• Legendary comedian and character actor Rip Taylor has died at age 84 after being hospitalized for a seizure, Taylor's stage and screen career spanned nearly five full decades.
• Pope Francis is blaming wildfires in the Amazon basin on destructive corporate "interests" and warns that humanity needs to do a better job of stewardship of the planet.
• Talks between GM and United Auto Workers' union have hit a wall as the auto worker strike enters its third week, the UAW says GM's latest offer was one the union had previously rejected.
• Backlash against Hong Kong's latest emergency powers decree has set off a new round of violence as police are arresting those wearing face masks to protest.
• Researchers at Stanford are working on a fire-retardant gel that can be spread over dry forest to prevent wildfires, the non-toxic gel can survive light rain and can last several months.

Last Call For It's All About Revenge Now, Con't

It's incredible to note that while the focus in the Ukraine impeachment case has been on Trump, Giuliani, and Mike Pompeo, the real enabler here is Attorney General Bill Barr, who is continuing to take a personal hand in punishing those responsible for the Mueller investigation.

Attorney General William P. Barr has taken an interest in a mysterious European professor whose conversation with an adviser to President Trump’s 2016 campaign helped launch the FBI investigation into possible coordination with Russia — and who has since become the focal point of an unproven conservative theory that the entire inquiry was a setup, people familiar with the matter said.

Those involved in the FBI investigation said they are mystified by the attorney general’s activities and interest in the professor, Joseph Mifsud, and they suspect that Barr might be using Justice Department resources to validate conjecture that Mifsud was deployed against a Trump adviser by Western intelligence to manufacture a basis to investigate the campaign.

“It just seems like they’re doing everything they can to delegitimize the origins of that investigation,” said one person involved the Russia probe, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the politically sensitive matter that is still being reviewed. “I just don’t think there’s any real basis to disparage it.”

But Barr’s inquiry has heartened Trump and his conservative allies. Trump, who at times has inquired about the origins of the Russia investigation and the professor in particular, has bragged that Barr will get to the bottom of the case and is doing a good job as the country’s top law enforcement official, a White House official said.

Barr’s defenders assert that he is exploring what he views as possible problems.

“He’s not a conspiracy theorist. He’s a realist,” said George Terwilliger, a former deputy attorney general and longtime friend of Barr’s. “And I’m confident that if he has a concern that justifies his personal involvement, it’s based on fact, not conjecture.”

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.

Sure he is.  He's not chasing down right-wing conspiracy theories like a nutjob in order to justify coming legal action against the intelligence community.

Unproven or vague allegations about impropriety in the origins of the FBI’s Russia probe have long been passed between Trump, his conservative allies on Capitol Hill and the conservative media ecosystem — with the country’s top law enforcement official and conservative lawmakers sometimes helping to fuel them.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) wrote in recent days to Australian, Italian and British officials, asking them to cooperate in Barr’s review of the Russia investigation and asserting that the attorney general was “simply doing his job.” Graham said in an interview that he expected Mifsud to be a significant part of the investigation.

“He’s a curious character in this whole deal, and we need to know more about him,” Graham said, adding that he had not talked to Barr about the matter.

Graham is helping Barr get his pound of flesh as chair of the Senate Judiciary.  But Barr is doing all this to defend Trump, not to pursue justice.  Remember, Barr has two investigations going, one from IG Michael Horowitz, the other from Connecticut US Attorney John Durham.  They've been on the back burner until the last month.

The Horowitz IG investigation is said to be completed.  The Durham investigation has been going on nearly as long as the Mueller probe at this point.  The closer we get to a scenario where Trump is in real trouble -- and we're rapidly approaching that point now -- the more I fear that Barr will radically change the game and start prosecuting Mueller investigators and FBI, CIA, and NSA personnel.

We'll see.

The Whistle Sounds A Second Time

As expected over the weekend, the rumored second Ukraine whistleblower has now come forward to corroborate the first whistleblower's claims.

Mark Zaid, the attorney representing the whistleblower who sounded the alarm on President Donald Trump's dealings with Ukraine and triggered an impeachment inquiry, tells ABC News that he is now representing a second whistleblower who has spoken with the inspector general.

Zaid tells ABC News' Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos that the second person -- also described as an intelligence official -- has first-hand knowledge of some of the allegations outlined in the original complaint and has been interviewed by the head of the intelligence community's internal watchdog office, Michael Atkinson.

The existence of a second whistleblower -- particularly one who can speak directly about events involving the president related to conversations involving Ukraine -- could undercut Trump's repeated insistence that the original complaint, released on Sept. 26, was "totally inaccurate."

That original seven-page complaint alleged that Trump pushed a foreign power to investigate his political rival, Joe Biden, and Biden's son, Hunter, and that unnamed senior White House officials then tried to "lock down" all records of the phone call.

"This set of actions underscored to me that White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call," the first whistleblower stated, in a complaint filed Aug. 12.

Zaid says both officials have full protection of the law intended to protect whistleblowers from being fired in retaliation. While this second official has spoken with the IG -- the internal watchdog office created to handle complaints -- this person has not communicated yet with the congressional committees conducting the investigation.

The New York Times on Friday cited anonymous sources in reporting that a second intelligence official was weighing whether to file his own formal complaint and testify to Congress. Zaid says he does not know if the second whistleblower he represents is the person identified in the Times report.

Zaid’s co-counsel, Andrew Bakaj, confirmed in a tweet Sunday that the firm is representing "multiple whistleblowers." Zaid later confirmed in a tweet that two are being represented by their legal team.

According to the first whistleblower, more than a half a dozen U.S. officials have information relevant to the investigation -- suggesting the probe could widen even further.

From a legal standpoint this is devastating to Trump, but I'm not sure politically how much of a difference a second whistleblower will make at this point.  Trump partisans aren't going to believe a word of the second individual's complaint against their Orange Emperor, and let's remember, the impeachment and trial process will be 100% political.  But for 99% of Republicans, their mind is made up, and we get ridiculous conversations like this one between Chuck Todd and Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson.



Still, this puts additional political pressure on Trump's partisans and the ridiculous "it's hearsay!" defense, now that we have a second source with first-hand evidence.  How much pressure, we'll see in the days and weeks ahead.  And as Chuck Todd shows above, the media is actually fighting back because of how ridiculous defending Trump looks.

Understand though the base accusations are still the same: Trump used foreign aid and pressured foreign leaders into fabricating intelligence on his political allies to help him in 2020.
 

Sunday Long Read: Dorian's Devastation

The destruction from Hurricane Dorian is still very much evident on the Grand Abaco island of the Bahamas, and in this Sunday postcard from the Miami New Times, the island and the nation may never recover.

Five days after Hurricane Dorian stalled over the Abacos and nearby Grand Bahama, pummeling the islands for 24 hours with its 185 mph winds, the runway of the Leonard M. Thompson International Airport had been cleared. But the buildings that ringed the landing strip had been ripped open like Christmas presents. The control tower remained upright, but the attached office building was stripped to its skeleton. Once our twin-prop six-seater touched down, I realized the airstrip was being operated by U.S. Navy personnel who were orchestrating the traffic from the tarmac via radios.
The strangest sight: Blackhawk helicopters, C-130 Hercules transport planes, and untold millions' worth of gleaming Gulfstream jets parked scant steps from hundreds of people who, having made it this far, had no idea when — or whether — they'd be able to get out.

"I don't know where I'm going to go — no idea. Maybe somewhere where I can have a job, but who knows," said Benghy Delotte, a 35-year-old carpenter who'd been waiting outside the airport for four days with scarcely any food or water. "We've had to survive on our own. Whatever we find on the ground is what we eat."

Delotte and several dozen other men were clustered outside the airport's powder-blue-trimmed main terminal. Women and children had been allowed inside, where they'd transformed the space into a musty shelter ripe with the stink of dirty diapers. The security checkpoint had all but lost its former identity: A conveyor belt that once scanned the luggage of moneyed tourists had become a triage station littered with discarded medical supplies; the cafeteria was the domain of a burgeoning swarm of flies.

In stark contrast to Delotte, my three fellow travelers and I were well equipped. We had clean clothes. Our employer, Reuters news service, had outfitted us with plenty of water, ready-to-eat meals, mountains of batteries, portable solar panels, powdered electrolytes, and fruit juice. We had cigarettes, mesh bug nets, camera equipment, functioning smartphones, and portable satellite dishes to beam back images and interviews from the aftermath.

For the next three days, it would be our discomfiting task to point our recording equipment at piles of rubble that days earlier had been houses, and to extract stories from the occupants who'd abandoned them to the hurricane, who now were reduced to convulsive sobs at the sight of what had become of their homes and their lives.

When I deplaned in the tourist-thronged capital of Nassau late the previous afternoon, September 5, the Holiday Inn Express on Bay Street across from Junkanoo Beach was already one of the de facto headquarters for personnel arriving on behalf of relief agencies and news organizations. The lobby bustled with blue-vested United Nations workers; the thumping of Dutch, Canadian, and U.S. military boots; and the chatter of Japanese, French, Italian, and Mexican journalists.

The 700 islands that compose the Bahamas archipelago dot a swath the size of Texas in the western Atlantic Ocean. (Bimini is closest to the U.S. mainland, about 70 miles southeast of Miami.) Dorian had spared all but two of the former British colony's 16 major islands: Grand Bahama, where the city of Freeport is located, was hit hard, while Great Abaco was nearly obliterated — the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) estimated 90 percent of that island's structures were destroyed. According to the WFP, 70,000 people were in need of housing and shelter on the two islands, respectively the second- and third-most-popular tourist destinations in the Bahamas. Nassau, meanwhile, remained a veritable Disneyland, with cruise ships arriving and departing regularly.

My plan was to board a charter to Great Abaco the next morning. But the promised plane didn't materialize. Nor did a helicopter service that had accepted a $5,000 wire transfer for two rides.

Marooned in Nassau, I walked to Princess Margaret Hospital, a pastel-yellow complex styled in the imposing manner of the country's onetime British colonial overlords and the only large medical facility in the Bahamas that was fully functioning after the storm. Victims had begun arriving the day before, yet the lobby was eerily calm. I found Leon Lazard, a 42-year-old contractor from Abaco who'd been airlifted in after he was injured while rescuing his mentally handicapped brother Lawrence. Lazard and about 30 others had been caught for hours in a horrifying relay race, running from one flooded house to another, fleeing each as the winds ripped off roof after roof.

"Every time we tried to go outside, the weather would show its might," Lazard said, speaking quietly while staring off into the distance. "It would pick up something and throw it at us — like it was saying, 'If you come out here, all of you are dead.'"

Trump may be the biggest hurricane in the news right now, but he's far from the only one.  We can't forget that.