monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

In detailed argument, that's a sterling contribution, george.

Motivation is, of course, impenetrable. There's simply no way to gauge it or make any judgement or statement about it that can be meaningful. There's full agreement on this. I'll give some examples using the numbering system:

1) police/courts/judges never concern themselves with this. If a prosecutor makes an argument that addresses theoretical motivation (life insurance money, say) the judge will have none of it and will instruct that jury to disregard what they've just heard.

2) the Hell's Angels build a high electrical fence around their clubhouse. Neighbor A asks, "I wonder why they built that fence". Neighbor B replies, "No way of knowing or even making a guess. We can't see inside a brain"

3) A forty year old male approaches an attractive 15 year old female and asks her if she'd like a ride in his Bugatti. Her friends, the school teacher walking by, and her mother and father who are waiting in their car for her pay no heed as motivation is impenetrable.

Syria has threatened to shoot down Turkish warplanes in its airspace, as Turkey prepares to carry out a possible assault on a Kurdish enclave.

Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said any incursion into Afrin would be considered an act of aggression.

It came as Turkey sought clearance for an air campaign from the Syrian government's allies, Russia and Iran.

Tanks are already massed on the border near Afrin, which is held by Kurdish fighters Turkey considers terrorists.

Kurdish leaders have promised to defend the enclave and urged the international community to prevent Turkey targeting what they said were its one million residents.

Turkey has for months said it would clear fighters from the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) from Afrin. It sees the militia as an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has fought for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey.

The YPG denies any direct links - an assertion backed by a US-led coalition whose air strikes and special forces have helped the militia and allied Arab fighters drive Islamic State militants from tens of thousands of square kilometres of Syria.

Turkey appeared to bring forward plans for assaults on Afrin and Manbij, another Kurdish-controlled area further east, when coalition officials said on Saturday that it was helping the YPG and its allies form a 30,000-strong "border security force".

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson later said the officials "misspoke". He explained that the US was not creating a new force. Rather, it was trying to ensure allied fighters were able to protect their territory from attacks by IS remnants.

But his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, said Ankara was not fully satisfied.

"The establishment of a so-called 'terror army' would cause irreversible damage in our relations," he told CNN Turk on Thursday. "It is a very serious situation."

Mr Tillerson's comments failed to end the build-up of Turkish tanks and troops in border areas west and north of Afrin. Turkish soldiers have also been shelling the enclave from positions to the south in the rebel-held Syrian province of Idlib.

On Thursday, Turkey's military and intelligence chiefs flew to Moscow to persuade their Russian counterparts to allow Turkish warplanes to support any offensive.

Despite supporting opposing sides of the conflict in Syria, Turkey and Russia have co-operated on the creation of "de-escalation zones" in Idlib and three other areas.

"We are meeting the Russians and Iran on the use of airspace," Mr Cavusoglu said. "The Russians should not oppose an Afrin operation."

But he noted that they needed to co-ordinate over a small number of Russian military observers already on the ground in Afrin "to avoid an accident".

Mr Cavusoglu accused YPG fighters in the enclave of attacking Turkish territory every day and insisted that it was his country's "right to self-defence in line with international law to take measures against a terror group".

But Syria's deputy foreign minister warned that a Turkish military incursion would be "no picnic" and that the Syrian Air Force was "ready to destroy Turkish air targets in the skies of Syria".

"We warn the Turkish leaders that if they start fighting in the region of Afrin, it will be seen as an aggression by the Turkish army against the sovereignty of Syria," Mr Mekdad added.

In Afrin, thousands of residents participated in a protest against the Turkish threats and shelling of the enclave, the Kurdish Anha news agency reported.

You have reduced your argument to a collection of absurdly pointed and exaggerated alternatives and fallaciously suggested that this proves something about the attitudes of the President's Chief of Staff - whom you don't know, have never met. and likely could not fathom based on your relative inexperience. Your attempt to mask this sophistry appears to be a deceptive but feeble attempt to be cute and clever. It didn't work.

Shutdown: Be careful what you wish for, President Trump

Anthony Zurcher
North America reporter


It was a busy morning for Donald Trump on Twitter, and his latest fusillade is creating headaches for his own party.

First, the president denied a statement from his chief of staff yesterday that his views on a Mexican border wall had "evolved" (despite the fact that he has, in fact, changed his position). Then he threw sand, a wrench, an entire toolbox into the gears of his party's efforts to pass a temporary spending bill to keep the government open past Friday night.

The Republican strategy, crafted by congressional leadership, was to pass a bill that would receive enough Republican support to overcome unified Democratic resistance in the House and then jam Senate Democrats into either grudgingly voting for the bill or forcing a politically fraught shutdown over protections for undocumented immigrants.

A key piece of this strategy was to include long-term funding for Chip, a health insurance programme for children from low-income families, in the measure. It's something most Republicans support and Senate Democrats would be reluctant to be seen voting against. The glide path to a temporary budget extension, while bumpy, was realistic.

Instead, the president shot down the Chip provision in a Thursday morning tweet.

"Chip should be part of a long term solution, not a 30 day, or short term, extension!" he wrote.

The White House press shop has since scrambled to insist the president supports the funding legislation, but in the meantime hardline House conservatives are dragging their feet and some Republican senators have said they're done with stopgap measures.

If they stick to their guns, Democrats will have all the cover they need to blow up the Republican plan and put immigration back on the table as a government shutdown looms at midnight on Friday.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan are insisting that it is congressional Democrats who are endangering efforts to keep the government open and reach long-term solutions on military spending, the federal budget, immigration and Chip.

Those types of assertions, however, are much more difficult when the president isn't reading from the same script, and members of the party - on the right and the middle - are pulling in different directions.

In the end, this could be a test of exactly how much influence the president, with his early morning tweets and contradictory public statements, wields over the legislative process. On Wednesday, Mr McConnell said he had no idea what the president wanted out of an immigration compromise.

"As soon as we figure out what he is for, then I would be convinced that we were not just spinning our wheels," Mr McConnell said.

That's a remarkable statement coming from a high-ranking Republican in the midst of a budget crisis. And the reality is that, whether they know what the president wants or not, Congress needs to do something by the end of Friday to prevent a government shutdown.

At present, Republicans - who control the White House and Congress - seem all over the map on how to stop everything from grinding to a halt.

When, in just over 10 months, the party will be making a pitch to voters across the US that you should be entrusted to continue running the country, that's a very dangerous place to be.

Democrats will certainly be quick to point out that, last May, the president tweeted that he thought the country needed a "good shutdown" to fix the Washington mess.

He might just get his wish.

BillW wrote:

The converse to the Yellow Dog changeover to the Republicans is the rise of the Blue Dog Democrats - of which I was one from birth:

Quote:

Wikipedia-
The Blue Dog Coalition, commonly known as the Blue Dogs or Blue Dog Democrats, is a caucus of United States Congressional Representatives from the Democratic Party who identify as conservative Democrats.

I wasn't born a Blue Dog. When I was young and foolish I was one of those weird delusional liberals.

But by my mid-20s I wised up and have been a Blue Dog ever since.

Very tricky. The West supports the Kurds, they've constantly been on the frontline against IS, but Turkey is a NATO member.

President Donald Trump will mark the first anniversary of his inauguration on Saturday with a celebration at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, with tickets starting at $100,000 a pair.

That amount, according to the invitation, will pay for dinner and a photograph with the president. For $250,000, a couple can also take part in a roundtable.