Syria - Turkish Invasion: Turkey and Russia run rings around Trump - by Jennifer Rubin

While the United States has been absorbed with a government shutdown and a debate about President Trump’s mental stability, Turkey — a NATO partner — has invaded Syria and is attacking our Kurdish allies, who have assisted greatly in the war against the Islamic State.

The Associated Press reports: Turkey’s air and ground offensive against Kurds in northwestern Syria has distracted from international efforts to finish off the Islamic State group and has disrupted humanitarian relief work, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Tuesday.

Mattis raised the matter in an exchange with reporters after unrelated meetings in the Indonesia capital with senior government officials. He made clear that while the U.S. sympathizes with Turkey’s concerns about border security, Washington wants the Turks to minimize their military action inside Syria.

Read more: Turkey and Russia run rings around Trump - The Washington Post

USA -Texas: Hurricane Harvey offers lessons Republicans will probably ignore

Hurricane Harvey has exposed the weakness of the three shibboleths that have been the guiding political philosophy for two generations of Republicans.

Those three shaky imperatives are that 1) lowering taxes is always a good idea, 2) government programs can always be cut and 3) economic growth must always be given priority over environmental concerns.

Until the hurricane hit, House Republicans were all set to chop $876 million from the disaster relief budget for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

That reduction would not produce a savings for taxpayers since the expectation was that the money would go toward buying President Trump’s border wall — the wall that Mexico, no matter what Trump claims, will never pay for. Now, reality has set in and the GOP congressmen realize there is a reason government needs to set money aside for disaster relief: Disasters always happen.

Note EU-Digest: Indeed the Republicans deserve a lot of the blame, but it also holds true for the presently very "wishy washy" Democrats. Bottom-line, unfortunately the US political system overall has become quite dysfunctional for some time now.. And, as the saying goes: "The proof is in the pudding", specially following the election of Donald Trump as the President of the US.

Read more: Hurricane Harvey offers lessons Republicans will probably ignore