In the latest Brexit drama, the Scottish appeals court has ruled unanimously that UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s prorogation (i.e., suspension) of parliament until October 14 is unlawful. Courts in England, however, have rejected a similar challenge, saying that prorogation is a political matter over which they have no say. The courts in Northern Ireland are considering a similar case. So the situation is murky to say the least and it is not clear what comes next.

The starkly divergent conclusions of the English and Scottish courts are due to be resolved in a series of supreme court hearings next week. Northern Ireland’s judges are due to deliver their decision on a similar application on Thursday morning.

Johnson’s government has said that they would not be bound by the decision of the Scottish court (which has put further strain on England-Scotland relations) and would only bring back parliament if the Supreme Court ordered them to.
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John Bolton, an incredibly ruthless neoconservative warmonger who seemed eager to use the US military to attack and invade any and all perceived enemies of the US, especially if they were also designated enemies of Israel, has been fired by Donald Trump from his influential position as National Security Advisor.

As is the case with this chaotic administration, there are conflicting reports of why he was fired and how. Bolton claimed he resigned while Trump insists he was fired. The days are long gone when firings were papered over with fake expressions of regret.

Trump tweeted: “I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the administration, and therefore I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning. I thank John very much for his service.”

He added: “I will be naming a new National Security Advisor next week.”

Bolton instantly tweeted back: “I offered to resign last night and President Trump said, ‘Let’s talk about it tomorrow.’”

Bolton’s dismissal was unexpected in the White House, which about an hour earlier had announced a press conference involving Bolton and the secretaries of state and treasury.

Bolton had taken consistently hawkish positions on major foreign policy issues that had frequently clashed with Trump, who had sought close relationships with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un.

What does it mean about US policy? Who knows? There seems to be no coherent policy, just the whims of an impulsive and erratic president. It may be that Trump just got sick of seeing Bolton’s walrus mustache up close, since it is known that he likes people to be clean shaven.

But one fewer ultra-aggressive warmonger who has the ear of the president has to be considered a positive development.

The surprise announcement by Donald Trump that he had canceled the secret meeting he had scheduled at Camp David with the leaders of the Taliban and the Afghan government has led to a lot of speculation as to what the deal might have contained and the real reasons for the cancellation. No one really buys Trump’s reason that it was because of the bombing on Thursday that killed a US soldier, because there had been no agreement about a ceasefire and both sides had been continuing hostilities anyway.
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It has been an open secret that Donald Trump’s envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalizad has been having ‘secret’ talks with the Taliban about the withdrawal of some of the 13,000 US troops from that country as part of a larger peace deal. Ending US involvement in wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria were Trump’s key promises in his election campaign and the lack of achieving any of those may have been heavy on his mind so the fact of there being negotiations over troop withdrawals were not a surprise.
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