Bolton calls for U.S. to support Kurdish independence – and other news

Bolton calls for support of Kurdish independence

Former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton calls for support of Kurdish independence and blasts the State Department for its opposition. “Independence could well promote greater Middle Eastern security and stability than the collapsing post-World War I order,” Bolton writes.

He also repeats his earlier call for a new Sunni state in Syria and Iraq.

Kurdish independence is opposed by Turkey, Syria, Iran, Russia, and Iraq, all of whom are issuing military threats against the Kurds.

Turkish hostility

Turkey, a NATO member and once a strong U.S. ally, under President Erdogan has turned against both Europe and the U.S.

After one of its employees was arrested by Turkey, the U.S. embassy in Istanbul said it would no longer process non-immigrant visas for Turkish citizens to visit the U.S. Turkey retaliated with the same restriction against U.S. citizen visits to Turkey and arrested a second Turkish employee at the American embassy.

Erdogan’s anti-U.S. moves have triggered a plunge in Turkish financial markets.

While Russia is partially conflicted with some investments in Iraq’s Kurdish region, its economic interests there are taking a back seat to its strategic interests in Syria and collaboration with Iran.

Israel is the only state strongly supporting the Kurds in the Mideast or beyond. Given the assistance the Kurds have rendered the U.S. military in fighting ISIS and other jihadists, that is a betrayal on the same order as the earlier U.S. betrayal of Kurds and Marsh Shiites at the end of First Gulf War (1991).

Other news

A NY Times – Wall Street Journal merger in bad economics journalism?

One expects economics journalism at the left-Progressive New York Times to be filtered through class warfare rhetoric. A recent Times op-ed savages the centerpiece of the Republicans’ tax plan, a corporate tax cut. It “Won’t Create Jobs,” the Times headline warns. It provides the “vast majority of benefits to the very rich” the op-ed continues. No surprise there.

Which brings us to our next exhibit, today’s Wall Street Journal. In an article titled “Why Investors Should Care About Trump Tax Cuts’ Fairness (paywall),” the Journal writer brings himself to conceding that the middle class would eventually benefit from a corporate tax cut. But the immediate benefit would go to the rich, and this wouldn’t be fair, would it? The article concludes by urging that tax cuts go directly to the middle class — to boost to consumer spending.

Both articles rely on the analyses of the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution — both closely tied to the Democratic Party.

Neither article makes reference to the most important motivation for the tax plan’s proposed tax cut from 35% to 20%: to make U.S. corporations competitive in international trade. (President Trump’s original proposal of a cut to 15% would have been even better.) Without such a tax cut, U.S. job losses, corporate flight abroad, and foreign takeovers of U.S. companies will continue at breakneck pace. How good will that be for the poor, middle class, and rich?

Missing matter no longer missing

Casual readers in cosmology may have noticed frequent allusions to the three “missing entity” mysteries: ordinary matter, dark matter, and dark energy. Happily the first, missing ordinary matter, is missing no longer.

Health

Far-sighted children may have problems with reading acquisition and maintaining attention, researchers at Ohio State University report.

A study in the U.K. reports that teenagers are more likely to exhibit behavioral disorders if their mothers followed vegetarian diets during pregnancy.

Enough farmland in China has toxic soil that consumers may wish to limit consumption of food and beverages grown there.

Classical music in movies

The Washington Post has a thoughtful essay on the subject. Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon would have made a good addition to the Post piece.

Click here to go to the previous Founders Broadsheet (“No real difference between Obama and Trump in foreign policy – and other news”)