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CNN reported Thursday: "For the first time, the United States launched manned airstrikes from a base in Turkey against ISIS forces in Syria, the Pentagon said Wednesday."
CNN reported Thursday: "For the first time, the United States launched manned airstrikes from a base in Turkey against ISIS forces in Syria, the Pentagon said Wednesday."
Also, see Washington Post piece on Thursday by David Ignatius: "Kurdish Leader Blasts Turkey's President," which states: "Turkey's political tensions were sharply evident Thursday, as the country's leading Kurdish politician accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of 'supporting ISIS' in the past. He said that Erdogan wants early elections as part of a strategy of 'attacking the Kurdish movement' and reversing its recent political gains."
KANI XULAM, kani at kurdistan.org, @AKINinfo
Xulam is director of the American Kurdish Information Network. He said today: "The U.S. use of bases in Turkey follows Ankara breaking a three year truce with the Kurds -- and the U.S. government is not stopping that. This is in line with prior U.S. government policy. Three years ago, the U.S. provided Turkey with "actionable intelligence," which resulted in the death of 34 Kurdish villagers.
"While Kurdish forces have been quite effective in fighting ISIS in Syria, the Turkish government has turned its back to ISIS fighters crossing its borders. This is partly driven by an incredible animosity toward [Syrian President] As'ad -- partly out of an anti-Alawite sectarianism.
"With elections coming up and with the Erdogan restarting a low-intensity conflict in Turkey, the ongoing war in Syria and Iraq could easily spread to Turkey."
Xulam recently wrote the piece "Calling all John Browns in Turkey."
Also, see, by Patrick Cockburn: "Turkey conflict with Kurds: Was approving air strikes against the PKK America's worst error in the Middle East since the Iraq War?"
A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.
"I wouldn’t even call it the Justice Department anymore. It’s become Trump’s personal law firm."
Dozens of former US Department of Justice attorneys have now gone on record to describe the unprecedented corruption of federal law enforcement taking place during President Donald Trump's second term.
In a lengthy story published on Sunday by the New York Times, the former DOJ attorneys described rampant politicization of prosecutions, directives to dig up evidence on Trump's political foes, and orders to drop investigations into potential terrorist plots and white-collar crimes.
Several attorneys told the paper that the corruption of the DOJ began on Trump's very first day in office when he issued a blanket pardon to everyone who had been convicted of rioting at the US Capitol building on his behalf on January 6, 2021, in a last-ditch effort to prevent the certification of former President Joe Biden's electoral victory.
Gregory Rosen, who oversaw the unit at the DOJ that prosecuted January 6 rioters, told the Times that he felt "numb" seeing the pardons of the rioters, but he nonetheless facilitated the pardons because he understood they were within the president's constitutional powers.
Mike Romano, a prosecutor who worked on January 6 cases, said that he had to resign as soon as he saw the broad scope of the pardons, which included rioters who were guilty of assaulting police officers.
"It’s incredibly demoralizing to see something you worked on for four years wiped away by a lie—I mean the idea that prosecution of the rioters was a grave national injustice," he said. "We had strong evidence against every person we prosecuted."
The mass pardon of the Capitol rioters was only the beginning, as prosecutors said that this politicization soon swept over the entire department.
In early March, for instance, Trump signed an executive order targeting law firms that had in the past represented prominent Democrats. Among other things, the order demanded federal agencies cancel government contracts with the firms and strip the firms' employees of their security clearances.
The orders also accused some of the firms in engaging in supposed racial discrimination for maintaining policies related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
Dena Robinson, a former attorney at the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, told the Times that the DEI investigation into law firm Perkins Coie was a particularly extreme example of the department's politicization under Trump.
"The idea of the investigation was that Perkins Coie supposedly engaged in illegal discrimination against white men," she explained. "But Perkins Coie is an extremely white firm—only 3% of the partners are Black. When my colleague pointed that out, the leadership didn’t care. They’d already reached their conclusion."
Robinson said that this attitude was emblematic of how Trump appointees conducted investigations: They begin with desired conclusions and systematically ignore evidence that undermines them.
"I wouldn’t even call it the Justice Department anymore," she said. "It’s become Trump’s personal law firm. I think Americans should be enraged."
Another aspect of the DOJ under Trump that has drawn scrutiny has been his use of pardons for political allies, including his decision last month to pardon Changpeng Zhao, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, who pleaded guilty to money-laundering charges in 2023, and who had helped boost the value of the Trump family's own cryptocurrency venture.
A new investigation from ProPublica found that Trump's use of the pardon hasn't just been relegated to prosecutions that took place during Democratic administrations.
The ProPublica report found Trump had wiped out convictions in "at least a dozen criminal cases that originated during his first term," many of which involved politicians convicted of taking bribes or engaging in kickback schemes.
Frank O. Bowman III, a professor emeritus of law at the University of Missouri, told Pro Publica that the Trump pardons taken together are part of what he described as "the systematic destruction of the Justice Department as an objective agency that seeks to uphold the law and fight crime."
In addition to this, Joseph Tirrell, former director of the Departmental Ethics Office, told the Times that the Trump DOJ has been hacking away at rules that bar law-enforcement officials from accepting gifts.
In one instance, Tirrell said he tried to intervene to stop DOJ employees from accepting cigars given by mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor and a soccer ball from the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).
"I felt like I really had to go to the mattress to convince the AG’s office: You can pay for the item or you can return the item or you can throw the item away," he said. "There’s no other way to do this."
Shortly after this, Tirrell said he got a call from the FBI general counsel inquiring "about changing exceptions to the gift rules because his boss, [FBI Director] Kash Patel, felt like he should be able to accept more expensive gifts."
Tirrell said that he then reminded the counsel that "his client was not Mr. Patel, but the United States."
Patel in recent weeks has come under scrutiny for some of the perks he's taken during his time as FBI director, including using the FBI's private jet to fly to a wrestling event where his girlfriend, country music singer Alexis Wilkins, was performing the national anthem.
MS NOW reported on Monday that Patel has also given Wilkins "a security detail made up of elite FBI agents usually assigned to a SWAT team in the FBI field office in Nashville," an unprecedented arrangement for the girlfriend of the FBI director.
Christopher O’Leary, a former senior FBI agent and MS NOW law enforcement contributor, said that there is "no legitimate justification" for granting Wilkins this level of security.
"This is a clear abuse of position and misuse of government resources," he said. "She is not his spouse, does not live in the same house or even the same city."
"The law is clear," said one advocacy group, "what's been missing is the political will to use it."
The US Department of Justice shuttered an antitrust probe into the heavily consolidated meatpacking industry shortly before President Donald Trump announced that he had asked the department to investigate whether companies are unlawfully colluding to push up beef prices.
Bloomberg reported late last week that Trump administration officials "formally notified companies recently that they were closing a probe into sharp price increases" during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The probe began during Trump's first term and continued through the Biden administration, which used executive action to target price gouging in the meatpacking industry.
The Trump Justice Department's decision to close the antitrust investigation came weeks before Trump, in a post on his social media platform, said earlier this month that he had instructed the DOJ to "immediately begin an investigation" into meatpacking companies. Just four corporations—Tyson, Cargill, JBS, and National Beef—control roughly 80% of the beef market in the United States.
Critics viewed the president's announcement as a performative move intended to deflect criticism of his failure to take substantive action to bring down beef prices. Trump has falsely claimed that the prices of all grocery products are down except for beef.
The advocacy group Food & Water Watch noted that Trump's call for a price-fixing probe came just three months after the Republican president "rescinded a Biden administration executive order meant to tackle these exact meatpacker abuses."
"Farmers and consumers need real action to bring down prices and protect producers—not performative announcements," said Tarah Heinzen. "If Trump is serious about investigating beef packers, his [US Department of Agriculture] must also vigorously defend the prior administration’s Packers and Stockyards Act rules."
Farm Action, a watchdog that fights corporate abuses in the agriculture sector, said that DOJ probes of the kind ordered by Trump often "end quietly" without any meaningful action.
"For this one to matter, it must end with enforcement," the group said last week. "If investigators uncover anticompetitive behavior, the DOJ has powerful tools to act. Under the Sherman Antitrust Act, it can take the packers to court, break them up, prosecute executives, force changes that protect farmers, and prevent further consolidation."
"The law is clear," Farm Action added, "what's been missing is the political will to use it."
"It is, to date, the Noboa government’s biggest electoral defeat."
Ecuador's voters on Sunday delivered a major blow to right-wing President Daniel Noboa by decisively rejecting the proposed return of foreign military bases to the South American country's soil—including installations run by the United States.
Around two-thirds of voters opposed the measure with most ballots tallied, a result that was widely seen as a surprise. Voters also rejected a separate effort to rewrite the country's progressive 2008 constitution, which enshrined strong labor and environmental rights.
The stinging defeat for Noboa, an ally of US President Donald Trump, comes as the United States carries out an aggressive military buildup and deadly airstrike campaign in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific—and weighs a direct attack on Venezuela. The BBC reported that the Trump administration "had hoped the referendum would pave the way to opening a military base in Ecuador, 16 years after it was made to close a site on its Pacific coast."
"The former US military base on Ecuador's Pacific coast was closed after left-wing President Rafael Correa decided not to renew its lease and pushed for the constitutional ban," the outlet noted.
Correa celebrated Sunday's results in a social media post, expressing hope that the vote would mark "the beginning of a definitive constitutional stability for the country."
"Our constitution is one of the best in the world; we just need to comply with it," he wrote.
The American people are grateful to the people of Ecuador for blocking the attempt by @SecRubio @SecWar to install US military bases in Ecuador!
Unlike DC elites, working class Americans want to bring our troops home, not send more abroad.
Thank you to the people of Ecuador! https://t.co/Emt4OBsHdt pic.twitter.com/J35z77iaSJ
— Just Foreign Policy (@justfp) November 17, 2025
The vote followed a recent trip to Ecuador by US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, a prominent figure in the Trump administration's lawless assault in immigrants in the United States. The Trump administration and Noboa's government have ramped up cooperation efforts in recent months, and both governments have unleashed military forces on their own citizens, illegally repressed protests, and carried out enforced disappearances and other grave human rights violations.
During her visit to Ecuador earlier this month, Noem toured the site of what Noboa's office described as a potential US military base in the port city of Manta.
The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) said in a statement late Sunday that "by inviting direct US military involvement and permanent presence in military bases—framed as a partnership to combat drug trafficking and organized crime—Noboa has tied the country’s safety and sovereignty to Washington’s regional ambitions."
"Today’s 'no' vote therefore underscores widespread public unease with that approach and reflects the Ecuadorian people’s skepticism toward the government’s heavy reliance on the Trump administration’s support," CEPR continued. "More generally, this vote raises questions about the effects and popularity of the last few years of security rapprochement and cooperation between Ecuador and the United States, which include, among other agreements, a Statute of Forces Agreement signed in 2023 that enables the presence of—and grants immunity to—US forces in Ecuador."
"It is, to date, the Noboa government’s biggest electoral defeat," the group added.