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With only a few weeks until Election Day, voters are feverishly hearing from candidates running for offices from your local town board to president of the United States.

Though rallies, town halls and campaigning are mostly virtual this election season, candidates are articulating their visions and appealing to voters interests. As an electorate, we are being demographically portioned into groups the suburban voter, the millennial voter and the Second Amendment voter.

However, one major constituency is not being highlighted in the current debate, which is why, as a pediatrician, I plan to vote like childrens futures depend on it in November. Children are 20% of the population but 0% of the vote, and their problems dont get addressed unless physicians, parents, teachers and those who care for kids make their issues our own.

Nothing is more fundamental to child health than health insurance and the ability to see a doctor when your child is ill. For healthy children, insurance coverage allows kids to access preventive care like autism screening, vision/hearing/dental screening and life-saving immunizations.

But while the current Covid pandemic has highlighted disparities in childrens access to internet and quality virtual education, long-standing income-based gaps in childrens health insurance coverage have gone largely unnoticed.

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Another Voice: Cast a vote for kids and ensure Medicaid is protected - Buffalo News

Opinion | LetterThe Democrat solution is to raise taxes and grow government

By Verdell Jackson // Oct 12, 2020

Vote to enhance our freedom and make sure our government is fiscally responsible. Excellenceinvoting.org is a web site that provides honest information on candidates. We need a governor and legislators with skill and expertise to deal with the funding deficit we will have as the result of COVID-19. The Democrat solution is to raise taxes and grow government, which will not build a strong economy. Greg Gianforte is a proven Montana job creator. He continued his work in Congress by protecting our freedom and securing federal relief and health care. He gives most of his income away each year. As governor he will have the support of conservative Senate legislators in the Flathead such as Carl Glimm, SD2, who chaired House appropriations last session, Keith Regier, SD3, who chaired Judiciary, Bob Brown, SD 7 who chaired Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and holdover senators Bob Keenan and Mark Blasdel.

Conservative House candidates are Rep. Mark Noland, HD10, Matt Regier, HD4, John Fuller, HD8, and Derek Skees, HD11. Their voting records demonstrate that they strongly support the constitutions of Montana and the United States, freedom, jobs, and protection of our water from aquatic invasive species. They opposed the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Compact, which would give the tribe off reservation water rights to control use of water in western Montana.

New conservative candidates are Braxton Mitchell, HD3, who is making a huge positive impact on young people in his fight to protect our property rights, Second Amendment, public lands and our constitutional republic. Catherine Owens, HD5, supports lower property taxes by coming up with creative ways to generate revenue, protecting our public lands and water and does not support the CSKT Compact which her opponent supported. Amy Regier, HD6, also does not support the CSKT Compact and will work to lower property taxes, support the Second Amendment, promotes family values and access to public lands.

Verdell JacksonKalispell

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Elections Determine Our Freedom and Wealth - Flathead Beacon

Recep Tayyip Erdogan with member of the Turkish Army behind him, image via Wikipedia

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,769, October 5, 2020

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: After the infamous Mavi Marmara incident of May 2010, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoan and then foreign policy tzar Ahmet Davutolu (later PM and now an Erdoan opponent) pledged to internationally isolate Israel. This was intended to help them advance their Islamist agenda and augment an emerging unity in the umma, preferably under Turkish leadership. A decade later, pragmatic Arab states are lining up to normalize relations with Israel, leaving state actors Iran and Turkey as well as non-state actor Hamas in a punishing position of international isolationexactly where Turkey wanted to push Israel.

Neither the Ottoman nor the modern Turkish language has ever been short of racist proverbs denigrating Arabs and their culture. No more, said Recep Tayyip Erdoan, the Islamist leader who has been at the helm in Turkey since 2002. He made it a habit to publicly refer to Arabs, including his then regional nemesis Syrian president Bashar Assad, as my Arab brothers. His goal was to build a Muslim-Arab pact, a modern umma under Turkish leadership as in Ottoman times, to challenge Israel in the region and, more broadly, Western civilization. In 2010, Turkeys state broadcaster TRT even launched an Arabic language channel, TRT Arabi. Sadly for Erdoan, his attempt to fuse Islam and anti-Zionism seems to have fallen apart.

Turkish diplomats officially said the recent normalization deal between the UAE and Israel meant Abu Dhabi was betraying the Palestinian cause. This response from Ankara looked ridiculous, as it appeared to have forgotten that Turkey itself has had diplomatic relations with Israel since 1949. Turkish Islamists apparently do not care about looking ridiculous.

In its September 10 edition, Yeni Akit, a staunchly pro-Erdoan and Islamist militant newspaper, said the Saudis were competing with the UAE in treason [against the Palestinian cause]. Yeni Akit was referring to the decision by Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, in a landmark change of policy, to allow all flights to and from Israel to use their airspace. The trouble with that criticism is that there too, Israel is one of the 138 countries with which Turkey has mutual accords for the use of airspace.

According to this logic, diplomatic relations with Israel and flights using the airspace of both countries are privileges that should be accorded to one Muslim country alone: Turkey. If other Muslim countries sign identical accords with Israel, its treason.

This rhetoric reflects Turkeys increasing loneliness in the Muslim/Arab world (with the sole exception of Qatar) after several years of loneliness within the NATO alliance. Turkey can thus claim the bizarre title: Odd man out in both NATO and the Muslim world.

This state of affairs has been coming on for years, but Erdoan has stubbornly refused to recalibrate his policy.

In early 2019, six nations, including the Palestinian Authority (Erdoans ideological next of kin), agreed to found the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum. At a July 2019 meeting in Cairo, the energy ministers of Egypt, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Italy, and the PA, as well as a representative of the energy minister of Jordan, said they would form a committee to elevate the Forum to the level of an international organization that respects the rights of its members to their natural resources. Erdoan privately felt betrayed by this act of treason from his Palestinian brothers, comforting himself that the traitors were not members of his beloved Hamas.

In October 2019, the Arab League condemned Turkeys cross-border military operation in northeast Syria as an invasion of an Arab states land and an aggression on its sovereignty. The League would consider taking measures against Turkey in the economic, investment, and cultural sectors, including tourism and military cooperation. It also called on the UN Security Council to take the necessary measures to stop the Turkish aggression and [enforce] the withdrawal from Syrian territory immediately. To Ankaras deep embarrassment, its closest regional ally, Qatar, did not block the Leagues communique condemning Turkey.

Turkeys reaction was characteristically childish. Fahrettin Altun, Erdoans communications director, said the Arab League do not speak for the Arab world. An angry Erdoan said, All of you [Arab nations] wont make one Turkey. Thats quite a drift from his our Arab brothers rhetoric.

Apparently in the Turkish world of make-believe, only Turkeys Islamists or those with a seal of approval from Ankara can speak for the Arab world. Worse, Erdoan et al believe this idea can sell on the Arab street if it is dressed up in nice anti-Zionist, pro-Hamas rhetoric.

On September 9, the Arab League condemned Turkey (along with Iran) for interference in the region and the Palestinian cause. At the Leagues foreign ministers meeting, Egypts FM Sameh Shoukry said Cairo will not stand motionless in face of the Turkish greed that is especially being shown in northern Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Once again, Ankara totally rejected all the decisions taken at the meeting.

Murat Yetkin, a prominent Turkish journalist and editor of Yetkin Report, recently wrote: With the exception of [currently ambiguous] Libya and Qatar, what unites the Arabs now is no longer anti-Israeli sentiment but anti-Turkish sentiment.

Thats quite a long political journey to travel, and a tough destination for Erdoan.

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Burak Bekdil is an Ankara-based columnist. He regularly writes for the Gatestone Institute and Defense News and is a fellow at the Middle East Forum.

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Erdoan and His Arab Brothers - besacenter.org

Redeploying an energy survey vessel into Greece's exclusive economic zone, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has proved that he requires sanctioning.

It is obvious that Erdogan is challenging the European Union to live up to its sanction threats. Following the Oruc Reis' previous survey in August, the Turkish leader agreed to keep the vessel in port so as to facilitate dialogue with the EU and Greece. But his motives werent altruistic. Recognizing that Turkey's actions are incompatible with Greece's sovereign rights, the EU had threatened sanctions if Erdogans surveys continued. Erdogan, for a time, seemed to be inclined toward compromise. But this new survey proves that Erdogan has chosen to double down on escalation.

The central concern here is Erdogans belief that he can shred European security with impunity. As with his policy toward the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, Erdogan sees a conflict with Greece or the threat thereof as a means to advance his interests. His rationale is ultimately imperial in nature. Determined to build a neo-Ottoman empire centered in Sunni Islamic populism, Erdogan sees the public subjugation of his competitors as fuel to his legacy agenda. Hated by Turkish nationalists, Greece presents unique appeal in this regard. Erdogan appears to have used the pretense of a diplomatic resolution to this crisis in order only to make Greece and the EU appear desperate for compromise and reciprocally weak.

Erdogan must not be allowed to succeed in this gambit.

Moving to shred the territorial rights and energy reserves of another European nation and fellow NATO ally, Erdogan is degrading a central tenet of the post-Second World War international order. To allow his imperial gambit to succeed would be to accept that European territorial inviolability no longer matters. It took two terrible wars and a Cold War standoff to preserve that sacred principle. And the principle must be upheld. After all, there's more at stake here than Erdogan's destabilizing activity. Were he allowed to proceed unchecked, the West would invite new aggression not just by Erdogan but by other actors, including Vladimir Putin. We should note here that Putin sees his compression of the Mediterranean Sea from Libya and Syria as a way to undermine NATO's southern flank.

In turn, the EU must now move expediently to impose sanctions on Erdogan. The EU should find overt American support. While the United States has a key strategic interest in maintaining its alliance with Turkey, that cannot come at the expense of European security. Nor can it come at the cost of sacrificing another American ally, Greece. To be sure, the U.S. and EU have issues of significant disagreement. But as with China and the South China Sea, the maritime stability of the Mediterranean Sea must be upheld.

Erdogan must be sanctioned. If he escalates this situation further, the U.S. and EU should escalate right along with him.

The rest is here:
Sanction Turkey - Washington Examiner

Ten years ago, the government of Turkey was claiming to be the force of stability and order in its volatile region. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had a name for this policy: Zero problems with neighbours.

This week, as Mr. Erdogan plunged his country into a brutal new war between two of his neighbours while fighting active battles in at least two others and antagonizing half a dozen more, it is fair to say he has become the major problem for most of his neighbours. It is harder to say that he has any sensible goal or strategy or plan.

Even in 2010, there was reason to doubt he did. To become a broker of stability, Mr. Erdogan needed to reach a peaceful settlement with his own Kurdish minority, reconcile long-standing conflicts around Armenia and Cyprus, support the right forces in Syria, Egypt and Libya, keep a pathway open to Europe, maintain good relations with Israel and Iran, and avoid antagonizing both Russia and his countrys fellow NATO members.

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He has spent the decade doing precisely the opposite on every one of those files.

In the 2010s, he worked to transform himself into a president for life in the Vladimir Putin mould, and appears to be parroting the Russian Presidents method of becoming a regional strongman by stirring up chaos and instability in neighbouring countries. Hes doing this by using the Syrian uprising as an opportunity to wage war on Kurdish territory there, sending fighters to back Tripolis faction in the struggle for Libyan power and sending floods of refugees into Europe through Greece. Its what you might call a strategy of all problems with neighbours.

He calls it neo-Ottoman, promoting himself as a pan-Islamic influencer across a region roughly coincident with the Istanbul-centred empire whose collapse a century ago created modern Turkey. More plausibly, he is trying to rescue his countrys flailing economy by turning Turkey into a pipeline empire, expanding lines across his country to carry gas and oil to Europe from Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Russia, and potentially Qatar and Israel, and making unlikely attempts to lay claim to parts of the eastern Mediterranean gas fields.

Still, it was possible to imagine Mr. Erdogan had some larger vision of Turkish influence and power at least, until recent weeks. Whatever his long-term strategy may actually be, there is no way his latest military engagement could contribute to it.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a mountainous region of Azerbaijan where the 150,000 people who live there are mostly ethnic Armenian and Christian, and have generally governed themselves as a distinct society for the past 25 years. Shortly after the breakup of the Soviet Union created the modern country of Azerbaijan its people are mostly Muslim and Turkish-speaking the region endured an ugly guerrilla war between Azerbaijan and Armenia over its status, killing 30,000 people.

This should be one of the worlds more easily resolved conflicts. Nagorno-Karabakh has little strategic or economic value; Armenia isnt interested in claiming it as territory; negotiations toward some formal semi-autonomous status have been dragging on for years.

But over the summer, Azerbaijans dictator Ilham Aliyev declared hed had it with talks, and that all the occupied lands must be freed without exception a chilling suggestion of ethnic warfare. The past week has seen attacks on civilians; some credible reports, though not all, suggest those attacks are deliberate and co-ordinated, in the vein of Russias wars in Chechnya.

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Although it is not surprising that Turkey is more aligned toward its long-time partner Azerbaijan, it would make far more strategic sense for Mr. Erdogan to attempt to play the peacemaker, as Russia did when a similar conflict flared up in 2016, only to be resolved fairly quickly with more talks.

Instead, Mr. Erdogan has plunged into the conflict with a fervour that has surprised even Turkish observers inured to his actions in the region. Turkish jets, tanks and munitions are pounding the area. Mr. Erdogan has egged on the Azerbaijani forces, declaring that the country had to take matters into its own hands, and even urging Armenians to overthrow their government (which came into power after a peaceful democracy uprising in 2018). Reporters from the BBC, Reuters and independent human-rights agencies have interviewed Syrian jihadi fighters in Nagorno-Karabakh who say theyre being paid by Turkey (whose officials deny this).

Turkeys role is unquestionably central in turning an avoidable conflagration into a far larger war that has a real danger of provoking conflicts across several countries. But Mr. Erdogan clearly expects this unnecessary war to benefit him. How it will help him, his country or his neighbours is a question that has mystified even seasoned observers of the Turkish Presidents methods and this time, they are unlikely to find an answer. This time, the chaos and bloodshed really have no larger purpose, real or imagined.

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Turkeys Erdogan has stirred up another cruel and senseless war - The Globe and Mail