Every day, Trump finds a new way to make things worse

Since last we spoke about Ukraine, much has been learned about Rudy, his scumball partners, and their corrupt antics in Ukraine. Turns out Rudy laid into Ihor Kolomoisky back in May, because Mr. K had some nasty things to say about the aforementioned scumball partners. I toldja Mr. K would play a role in this tale!

We'll have much more to say about all of that soon. Right now, some good news...

Trump's taxes. A judge has ordered Trump to turn over eight years of tax documents to the Manhattan DA. Don't huzzah yet: "Lawyers for Mr. Trump quickly told the court they would appeal the ruling from Judge Victor Marrero of Manhattan federal court." If they can, they'll take this all the way to the Supreme Court. And you know what will happen there.

In a previous post, I said that we can't trust Cyrus Vance. Well, I still don't trust him. But he is ambitious, and he's in New York -- a place where voters will reward anyone who helps brings down Trump.

Update: Trump's lawyers have won a stay. 

And now: The bad news.

Trump screws the Kurds. At one point, long ago, Trump accused Obama of treating the Kurds shabbily. Now Double-Faced Donnie has given our allies in the fight against Isis the rogering of the century.

In a major shift in United States military policy in Syria, the White House said on Sunday that President Trump had given his endorsement for a Turkish military operation that would sweep away American-backed Kurdish forces near the border in Syria.

Turkey considers the Kurdish forces to be a terrorist insurgency, and has long sought to end American support for the group. But the Kurdish fighters, which are part of the Syrian Democratic Forces, or S.D.F., have been the United States’ most reliable partner in fighting the Islamic State in a strategic corner of northern Syria.

Now, Mr. Trump’s decision goes against the recommendations of top officials in the Pentagon and the State Department who have sought to keep a small troop presence in northeast Syria to continue operations against the Islamic State, or ISIS, and to act as a critical counterweight to Iran and Russia.

Obviously, this was done at Putin's behest. Turkish strongman Erdogan is going to slaughter the Kurds, whom he views as a threat to his own hold on power.

The White House statement is unabashedly ominous:

Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria,” the White House said in a statement released just before 11 p.m. in Washington. “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.”

ISIS was not defeated by U.S. Forces. That's a fantasy that everyone in this country -- right and left -- feels obligated to repeat, but it isn't true. The real fighting was done by the Iranians, the pro-Assad Syrians, Russia and the Kurds. Sorry to pierce the agreed-upon hallucination!

Now go here:

Turkey has made no secret of its planned targeting of Kurdish fighters in the past.

In January, Turkey said it would go ahead with its military offensive against Kurdish militias in northeastern Syria regardless of whether the U.S. withdraws its troops from the country. Ankara has already amassed thousands of Turkish troops along its border with Syria.

Days later, Trump warned Turkey, a NATO ally, it could face devastating sanctions if it attacked Kurds after U.S. troops pull out of Syria.

Since everything is transactional with this president, we must presume that Erdogan did something for Trump -- not for the United States, but for the man himself (or his family). The question is: What?

Brett McGurk, who was basically running America's anti-ISIS efforts in the region, resigned last December when he understood that Trump wanted to screw over the Kurds. (Bipartisan domestic opposition forced Trump to hold off for a while.) McGurk's Twitter feed is worth reading. Example:

Donald Trump is not a Commander-in-Chief. He makes impulsive decisions with no knowledge or deliberation. He sends military personnel into harm’s way with no backing. He blusters and then leaves our allies exposed when adversaries call his bluff or he confronts a hard phone call.

The Turkish proposed “safe zone” would effectively extend Turkey’s border 30km into Syria, including areas of Christians, Kurds, and other vulnerable minorities. Our diplomats were working on a plan to forestall such a debacle. Where’s Pompeo?

That whole area is about to become Death Central. McGurk retweeted this message from Yaroslav Trofimov of the Wall Street Journal. It sums up everything.

Basically the US persuaded the SDF Kurds to dismantle defensive positions that deterred Turkey, promising security guarantees in exchange. Then once the SDF Kurds became defenseless, Trump gave Erdogan the green light to invade. Hard to imagine a more sinister sequence of events.

Trump's decision tens of thousands of our allies to slaughter. Although the Kurds themselves are admirably secular, it should be noted that many Christians live in the region Trump just handed over to Erdogan's tender mercies. Their fate will not be happy, yet our own "Christians" blindly continue to applaud everything Trump does.