The US State Department on Friday announced it would cut $200m in aid for the occupied West Bank and Gaza, apparently at the direction of US President Donald Trump.

middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-d… On Saturday, the Israel Television News Company reported that Trump intends to demand the number of Palestinians recognised as refugees by 90 percent.

Earlier this month it was reported that Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, had put pressure on Jordan to strip the refugee status of more than two million registered Palestinians residing there.

middleeasteye.net/news/trump-cal… Following that report, Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee, said Kushner's move was part of a broader effort by him and the Trump administration to render UNRWA irrelevant and halt its work.

That is the problem with personalizing the war against groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State: We inflate our enemies into larger-than-life villains who reflect our fears rather than their own capabilities.

theatlantic.com/international/… We did it with Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki, and now we are doing it with Ibrahim al-Asiri.

"It's the beginning of a planetary catastrophe...I was too slow to become vocal about it."

cnn.com/interactive/20… "Somewhere between a quarter and a third of all marine species everywhere has some part of their life cycle in coral reefs,"

The United States is certainly aware of how poorly the coalition is prosecuting the war.

How can it not be?

theguardian.com/commentisfree/… The US provides aerial targeting assistance to the coalition, for Pete’s sake, along with intelligence sharing and mid-flight aerial refueling for coalition aircraft.

“You’re going to see some increase in prices. The supply chain is going to become more costly and you’ll pay more in the short term, but here’s the way I look at China: Pay now or pay later.”

politico.eu/article/donald… Risk of a double-cross

The problem for Brussels is that no one can tell for sure whether the U.S. president will stick to that plan described by Senator Graham.

The charges could land Cohen up to 65 years in jail, but his deal with prosecutors is likely to knock his sentence down to about five years. It may also have serious repercussions for President Donald Trump.

theconversation.com/theres-a-dark-… Weisselberg's ties to the president go back decades: He has overseen the Trump Organization's finances, been involved in the Trump Foundation, the president's charity, and has managed Trump's private trust alongside his eldest sons..

cnbc.com/2018/08/24/lon…

"We are extraordinarily concerned with this dangerous, and what we believe to be, unlawful proposal under consideration to supply teachers with federal funds to buy gun for their classrooms, instead of books and school supplies,"

nbcnews.com/politics/polit… Teachers are already complaining they don’t get paid enough..how can anyone force them to buy liability insurance?

This week, President Donald Trump used Tibbetts' killing to promote his claim that unauthorized immigrants bring "tremendous crime" into the country. He posted a video online in which he blamed the young woman's death on the country's immigration laws.

businessinsider.com/geraldo-rivera… Citing Turning Point USA’s embrace of anti-immigrant rhetoric, the group concluded its letter by announcing the resignation of its executive board members.

thedailybeast.com/tpusas-univers…

"While there is some degree of risk that we assume with any category of immigrants, our recent experience has not shown that the refugee population presents a particular threat from a terrorism perspective,"

nbcnews.com/politics/immig… "While terrorist organizations sometimes mused about the idea of using refugee and other immigration programs to try and move people into the United States, it was our assessment that this was actually quite difficult for them."

"What's going to happen down the road is very simple — prices will go up, sales will go down, jobs will be lost. This will have a negative impact on the economy,"

cnbc.com/2018/08/24/tra… "We are watching the Titanic sail out of port here; this is not a good thing,"

Through late 2017 and early 2018, the idea of South African white genocide was picked up by ostensibly more mainstream figures.

theguardian.com/world/2018/aug… The conspiracy theory of “white genocide” has been a staple of the racist far right for decades. It has taken many forms, but all of them imagine that there is a plot to either replace, remove or simply liquidate white populations.

The U.S. economy was forecast to grow 3 percent in the current quarter and 2.7 percent in the next, a slight upgrade from the previous poll.

reuters.com/article/us-usa… Boosted in part by $1.5 trillion of tax cuts passed late last year, the U.S. economy expanded at an annualized rate of 4.1 percent in the second quarter, its strongest performance in nearly four years.

Trump owes much of his legitimacy among Republicans to the few lawmakers who dared to break ranks with their peers to endorse him.

nbcnews.com/think/opinion/… Trump’s B team has not only failed to protect him from his and their legal improprieties.

They’ve also executed some spectacularly inept policy failures.

Netanyahu, a pessimist who always needs external pressures and demons that comprise existential threats on the state, reads the situation differently than everyone else.

al-monitor.com/pulse/original… Bibi doesn't have a Space Force..so there's a new idea for a scam!

Apparently people think security clearances are issued on a permanent basis..they are not..just like need to know (justification) and access, an individual’s status can change for a number of reasons. The minute clearence is adjudicated, a countdown clock is simultaneously initiated..time remaining depends on level of clearence..in the event it isn’t renewed, it will simply expire..of course SSO/SCIF will handle admin requirements like read in/out and renewal.

Certainly Suleimani would be a tempting target for Trump, who might try to portray the Iranian general’s termination as a more important deed than Barack Obama’s elimination of Osama bin Laden.

thedailybeast.com/is-the-iranian… “He’s not just a senior military commander but also a senior political leader inside of Iran,”

Known for operating under a wartime mentality and a willingness to take risks, experts say the culture of the GRU has been influenced by its inclusion of Spetsnaz special forces and experience in war zones, including Syria and Ukraine.

theguardian.com/world/2018/aug… “The GRU regards itself as a war-fighting instrument. Yes, it gathers conventional intelligence … but its culture is much more military,”

“Although only a minority of GRU officers are Spetsnaz, it has an impact when part of your service are commandos.”

Hardliners in Iran do not fear sanctions and a ratcheting up of tensions, which will harm and divide the Iranian people and enable the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to expand its political and economic power.

defenseone.com/ideas/2018/08/… Rather, hardliners fear an Iran connected to the outside world, an empowered middle class and an organized civil society pushing for a government that truly reflects its wishes—all of which are undercut by U.S. sanctions.

"DHS faces an increased risk that the Border Wall System Program will cost more than projected, take longer than planned, or not fully perform as expected,"

cnn.com/2018/08/06/pol… The report also said DHS does not consider costs when deciding where to build. That means it "does not have complete information to determine whether it is using its limited resources in the most cost-effective manner."

European firms have been instructed that they should not comply with demands from the White House for them to drop all business with Iran.

theguardian.com/business/2018/… Those who decide to pull out because of US sanctions will need to be granted authorisation from the European commission, without which they face the risk of being sued by EU member states.