ET Williams

The Doctor of Common Sense

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Trump Warns: War With Russia ‘One Step Away’

WTF is Trump thinking?

Donald Trump warned he is ‘one step away from military clashes with Russia’ after Syria blitz

US president insisted it was time the Assad regime was reined in from its attacks on innocent Syrians

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump were last night urged to hold emergency talks as growing tensions in the Middle East ­threatened to explode into war.

The Russian president sent the missile warship Admiral Grigorovich to Syria after the US leader yesterday unleashed 59 ­Tomahawk cruise missiles on the airfield from where Bashar al-Assad launched a sarin gas attack on his own people.

A British nuclear submarine is patrolling the Mediterranean and Nato forces were on high alert throughout the region.

As the region teetered on the brink, world leaders, including Theresa May, backed the American strikes at al-Shayrat base, but there were calls for talks in a bid to prevent the crisis turning into a wider conflict.

Russia’s Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev claimed the US missile strike was illegal and warned Mr Trump had been “one step away from military clashes with Russia”.

But the US president insisted it was time the Assad regime was reined in from its barbarous attacks on innocent Syrians.

Tuesday’s gas strike at the city of Khan Sheikhoun killed 86 ­civilians, including 30 children and 20 women.

Mr Trump said: “Using a deadly nerve agent, Assad choked out the life of innocent men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many, even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror.

“I ordered a targeted military strike on the airbase in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched. There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons and ignored the urging of the UN Security Council.

“Years of previous attempts at changing Assad’s behaviour have all failed dramatically.As a result, the refugee crisis deepens, and the region continues to destabilise, threatening the United States and its allies.

“I call on all civilised nations to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria.”

Downing Street said Mrs May was kept “fully informed” of the US airstrike, which killed nine people and destroyed nine fighter jets as well as several buildings.

A spokesman added: “The ­Government fully supports the action, which we believe was an appropriate response to the barbaric chemical weapons attack launched by the Syrian regime, and is intended to deter further attacks.”

It first appeared No 10 had no idea the raid was about to happen when officials insisted on Wednesday “nobody is talking about that”.

But Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon yesterday insisted his US counterpart James “Mad Dog” Mattis told him about it on Thursday night.

He added: “He called to advise us of the president’s decision and to give us notice of the attack.”

Mr Fallon revealed Britain took no part in the raid but refused to confirm it would have joined in if asked.

He added: “The United States made it clear that this was to be a United States operation.”

Lib Dem leader Tim Farron also supported the US attack. But Labour chief Jeremy Corbyn warned the action “risks escalating the war in Syria still further”. Britain’s Nato allies, including Germany, France and Canada, backed Mr Trump’s raid.

In a joint statement, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande said Assad “bears full responsibility” for the attack following his use of nerve gas against his own people.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault added: “Here we have an action that is a condemnation of what this criminal regime is doing.”

The EU also supported the raid. President Donald Tusk tweeted: “US strikes show needed resolve against barbaric chemical attacks.

“EU will work with the US to end brutality in Syria.”

Western allies in the Middle East including Saudi Arabia and the UAE hailed the strike as a “courageous decision”. Turkey and Israel also praised it. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said it was a “positive” first step but demanded an escalation against Syria from the West.

He added: “We find it a positive and concrete step taken against the war crimes of the Assad regime. Is it enough? I don’t find it enough.

“It is time to take serious steps for the protection of innocent Syrian people.” The airstrike was the first direct US assault on Assad’s ­government in the six years of a civil war that has killed as many as 400,000 and displaced millions of people.

White House officials insisted the raid was a “one-off” intended to deter future chemical weapons attacks, and not an escalation of the American role in Syria. But the swift action is thought also to be a big warning to Russia, as well as to other countries such as North Korea, China and Iran to steer clear of gas warfare.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson added: “This clearly ­indicates the ­president is willing to take decisive action when called for. I would not in any way attempt to extrapolate that to a change in our policy or our posture relative to our military ­activities in Syria today. There has been no change in that status.”

But Jane’s analyst Reed Foster said while the airstrike will further weaken the Syrian air force’s ­capabilities, he warned “it will not significantly diminish the ability of the Assad regime to conduct further chemical weapons attacks”.

Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov condemned the raid, insisting the gas attacks were as a result of a direct hit on a rebel base hiding chemicals.

The Kremlin said: ­“President Putin views the US strikes as ­aggression against a ­sovereign state in violation of the norms of ­international law and on a made-up pretext. This step by Washington will inflict major damage on US-Russia ties, which are already in a lamentable state.” Only Iran and terror group Hizbollah supported Assad after the attack. Tehran’s foreign ministry spokesman Bahrem Qasemi said: “Such measures will strengthen terrorists in Syria.”

The American raid, with missiles fired from destroyers USS Porter and USS Ross in the ­Mediterranean, took place in the early hours and under the cover of darkness and with little warning. Although Russia was tipped off before the missiles hit.

Moscow has suspended ­communication with US forces designed to stop planes colliding over Syria.

The RAF temporarily halted operations in the country amid fears of a mid-air crash.

Russia and the US have been co-operating over the safe use of airspace in Syria since 2015 in a protocol that involves military planners sending daily reports to each other about areas they intend to operate in. The battered airfield, near Homs, has also been used by Putin’s attack helicopters in support of ground operations. But none of Putin’s aircraft were there when it was hit.

Assad’s military strength is bolstered by Russian S-300 and S-400 surface-to-air missile systems, which threaten US manned strike aircraft on missions against IS.

Britain has more than 16 Tornado and Typhoon fighter aircraft supporting Operation Shader, from its base in Cyprus, as well as Rivet Joint and Sentinel surveillance planes.

  • Oil prices yesterday leapt after the US air strikes. Brent crude rose 2% to more than $56 a barrel in a knee-jerk reaction to the attacks. It could put up the price of petrol and diesel.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/donald-trump-warned-one-step-10181568?service=responsive

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Moscow Warns US: Don’t Strike Syria

UN: Russian UN ambassador denies reports that air strikes hit Sarmin hospital in Syria

Russia warns of ‘negative consequences’ if U.S. targets Syria

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Russia’s deputy U.N. envoy,, warned on Thursday of “negative consequences” if the United States carries out military strikes on Syria over a deadly toxic gas attack.

“We have to think about negative consequences, negative consequences, and all the responsibility if military action occurred will be on shoulders of those who initiated such doubtful and tragic enterprise,” Safronkov told reporters when asked about possible U.S. strikes.

When asked what those negative consequences could be, he said: “Look at Iraq, look at Libya.”

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/russia-warns-negative-consequences-u-targets-syria-005056501.html

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US Strikes Syria With Cruise Missiles

U.S. Launches Cruise Missiles at Syrian Air Base in Response to Chemical Attack

Strikes represent first time a U.S. military operation deliberately targeted the regime of President Bashar al-Assad

WASHINGTON—The U.S. military launched dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles against a Syrian air base Friday, responding to mounting calls for a display of force in the wake of this week’s suspected chemical-weapons attack in Syria.

The strikes represented the first time a U.S. military operation deliberately targeted the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and came a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said the chemical attack in Idlib province earlier this week had changed his thinking on Syria and Mr. Assad.

Expect this to escalate

Speaking inside his Mar-a-Lago resort, President Trump said he ordered targeted missile strikes at a Syrian airfield as a response to the “barbaric” chemical weapons attack, saying they were in the interest of U.S. national security to prevent and deter the use and spread of such weapons. The Assad regime, Mr. Trump said, “choked out the lives of helpless” people in Syria.

“It is in the vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons,” Mr. Trump said. “There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons.”

The U.S. strikes targeted the Shayrat Airfield near Homs, Syria, and were meant to cripple the base’s airfield and other infrastructure, preventing the regime from using the facility or fueling its planes. But the strikes also were intended as a signal—a limited U.S. strike to indicate that the chemical attack by Mr. Assad was unacceptable to the U.S.

 

The air base was thought by U.S. officials to be connected to the chemical attack. A U.S. military official said earlier Thursday that the U.S. had intelligence that traced the attack to a particular plane, and therefore might have sought to target the plane’s air base.

Russia, which had troops on the targeted air base, was warned in advance of the U.S. strike and the military took pains to target only the parts of the base where the Russians weren’t located, a military official said.

Asian stock markets erased their early gains on news of the airstrikes, as investors looked for lower-risk places to park their cash. Safe-haven assets like the Japanese yen and gold gained, while oil prices jumped on concerns that the U.S. military action could disrupt production in the Middle East.

The Nikkei Stock Average was down 0.1%, after opening up 0.6%. The yen rose 0.6% against the U.S. dollar in the minutes after the strikes were announced. London spot gold prices spiked to their highest level since November, and Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was up 1.4% at $55.66 a barrel.

More than 50 Tomahawk missiles were launched from two American destroyers, the USS Porter and the USS Ross, both in the Mediterranean Sea, the Pentagon said. The cruise missiles struck aircraft, a runway, fuel pumps and other infrastructure, military officials said.

The pro-regime media outlet Al Masdar News on Friday said the attack caused significant damage to the air base and multiple casualties.

The attacks came as Mr. Trump was hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Florida resort, and planned a full day of meetings Friday with Chinese official focusing on economics, trade and security issues including North Korea’s nuclear program.

In Washington, senior Defense Department staff and other top officers were meeting late Thursday in the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon basement regarding the military operation.

U.S. lawmakers had urged Mr. Trump to strike the Assad regime. There is a growing consensus that the regime used banned chemical weapons in the attack, which killed at least 85 people, including 27 children, and injured about 550.

The strike drew praise from lawmakers, who drew a contrast to former President Barack Obama’s decision to cancel a planned airstrike in 2013 in response to a similar chemical attack. That strike was called off after the U.S. and Russia agreed on a deal to dismantle Syria’s chemical weapons program.

“Unlike the previous administration, President Trump confronted a pivotal moment in Syria and took action,” Sens. John McCain (R., Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said in a joint statement.

The two said that the U.S. needed a “new, comprehensive strategy” and that the first such step “must be to take Assad’s air force—which is responsible not just for the latest chemical weapons attack, but countless atrocities against the Syrian people—completely out of the fight.”

The United Nations Security Council on Thursday evening canceled a planned vote on a resolution backed by the U.S. and European allies condemning the attack and calling for a full U.N. investigation.

Diplomats said the U.S. and Russia exchanged heated words with neither side compromising on their views of what occurred on Tuesday in Syria. The meeting concluded without a concession and with no scheduled vote planned for a resolution.

Planning for a possible military strike accelerated after Mr. Trump said Wednesday the suspected Syrian regime strike went “beyond a red line” for him, Pentagon officials said.

U.S. defense officials had said that they have little doubt that the attack was carried out by Mr. Assad’s air force.

Pentagon officials said that radar imagery showed Syrian bombers carrying out a strike on the village of Khan Sheikhoun in northwestern Syria, and added that the victims were killed by chemical weapons. The strike, Pentagon officials said, hit a hospital used by al Qaeda-linked militants, not a rebel chemical depot, as Russia has contended.

“The case is pretty concrete,” one U.S. military official said Thursday.

The Turkish health ministry said Thursday that autopsy results of three victims of Tuesday’s attack suggest the banned chemical agent sarin was the cause of death.

Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem reiterated his government’s claim that the Syrian army has never used chemical weapons in the country. He repeated accusations that extremist groups fighting the government possessed such banned weapons.

Graphic images and video of dead and dying Syrian children hit by the strike galvanized world anger and triggered a swift policy reversal from the Trump administration, which indicated last week that it wasn’t pushing for the Syrian leader’s removal.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has been more explicit than Mr. Trump in calling for Mr. Assad’s removal, saying the U.S. would be working with international partners on a transition plan.

“With the acts that he has taken, there would be no role for him to govern the Syrian people,” Mr. Tillerson said.

The U.S. military already had plans for striking the Assad regime that it can use as a template for hitting Syria, U.S. officials said. In 2013, the Pentagon crafted plans to hit Mr. Assad’s chemical weapons storage sites after the Syrian regime used sarin gas in a strike near Damascus, killing 1,400 people, according to U.S. estimates.

One big concern for the U.S. military is the potential for a backlash from a U.S. strike on Mr. Assad for American forces operating in Syria. The U.S. has been sending more forces into northern Syria as part of an intensifying campaign against Islamic State.

Another major complication is Moscow, which is aiding Mr. Assad. Russia has created a sophisticated air defense system for the Syrian regime. Russian pilots and soldiers work side by side with their Syrian counterparts. President Vladimir Putin, during a telephone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, criticized what the Kremlin called “baseless” accusations against the Syrian leader.

“There are a lot of things you have to consider,” a U.S. military official said.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-launches-cruise-missiles-at-syrian-regime-airbase-in-response-to-chemical-attack-1491528268

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Obama Abused Intelligence to Smear Opponents To Get Iran Nuclear Deal

One of satan’s little helpers: Bathhouse Barry

Did Team Obama Abuse Intelligence Collection During the Lead-up to the Iran Deal, Too?

Trump and his associates may not have been the first political opponents the Obama White House targeted with a campaign of spying and illegal leaks, Tablet reported today.  The Obama administration may have used information from classified foreign surveillance to smear and blackmail its political opponents during the lead-up to the Iran nuclear deal, too.

In a bombshell report in December of 2015, the Wall Street Journal alleged that Team Obama had spied on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials in order to stay one step ahead of their domestic opponents during the months-long debate about the unpopular deal. According to the Journal, the surveillance of the Israelis “also swept up the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups,” which may have been the whole point of the surveillance to begin with.

During the long and contentious lead-up to the Iran Deal the Israeli ambassador was regularly briefing senior officials in Jerusalem, including the prime minister, about the situation, including his meetings with American lawmakers and Jewish community leaders. The Obama administration would be less interested in what the Israelis were doing than in the actions of those who actually had the ability to block the deal—namely, Senate and House members. The administration then fed this information to members of the press, who were happy to relay thinly veiled anti-Semitic conceits by accusing deal opponents of dual loyalty and being in the pay of foreign interests.

This is exactly how Ben Rhodes’ infamous “echo chamber” worked as described by David Samuels in the The New York Times Magazine:

Rhodes has become adept at ventriloquizing many people at once. Ned Price, Rhodes’s assistant, gave me a primer on how it’s done. The easiest way for the White House to shape the news, he explained, is from the briefing podiums…. ‘But then there are sort of these force multipliers,’ he said, adding, ‘We have our compadres, I will reach out to a couple people, and you know I wouldn’t want to name them—‘

‘I can name them,’ I said, ticking off a few names of prominent Washington reporters and columnists who often tweet in sync with White House messaging.

The echo chamber was Team Obama’s insidious way of keeping politicians in line.

It didn’t take much imagination for members of Congress to imagine their names being inserted in the Iran deal echo chamber’s boilerplate—that they were beholden to “donors” and “foreign lobbies.” What would happen if the White House leaked your phone call with the Israeli ambassador to a friendly reporter, and you were then profiled as betraying the interests of your constituents and the security of your nation to a foreign power? What if the fact of your phone call appeared under the byline of a famous columnist friendly to the Obama administration, say, in a major national publication?

“At some point, the administration weaponized the NSA’s legitimate monitoring of communications of foreign officials to stay one step ahead of domestic political opponents,” says a pro-Israel political operative who was deeply involved in the day-to-day fight over the Iran Deal. “The NSA’s collections of foreigners became a means of gathering real-time intelligence on Americans engaged in perfectly legitimate political activism—activism, due to the nature of the issue, that naturally involved conversations with foreigners. We began to notice the White House was responding immediately, sometimes within 24 hours, to specific conversations we were having. At first, we thought it was a coincidence being amplified by our own paranoia. After a while, it simply became our working assumption that we were being spied on.”

This is what systematic abuse of foreign-intelligence collection for domestic political purposes looks like: Intelligence collected on Americans, lawmakers, and figures in the pro-Israel community was fed back to the Obama White House as part of its political operations. The administration got the drop on its opponents by using classified information, which it then used to draw up its own game plan to block and freeze those on the other side. And—with the help of certain journalists whose stories (and thus careers) depend on high-level access—terrorize them.

Once you understand how this may have worked, it becomes easier to comprehend why and how we keep being fed daily treats of Trump’s nefarious Russia ties. The issue this time isn’t Israel, but Russia, yet the basic contours may very well be the same.

As Lee Smith explains in Tablet, the Obama administration “redefined America’s pro-Israel community as agents of Israel” in making its case for the Iran deal and they used the same basic template to smear Team Trump, turning innocuous meetings and phone calls with the Russian ambassador into something far more nefarious.

Where the Israeli ambassador once was poison, now the Russian ambassador is the kiss of death—a phone call with him led to Flynn’s departure from the White House and a meeting with him landed Attorney General Jeff Sessions in hot water.

Obama changed the rules on distributing intercepted communications during his last weeks in office so that the intelligence could be “preserved” — which is apparently another way of saying “leaked.” Team Obama’s trail of breadcrumbs may also lead investigators to their systematic abuse of foreign-intelligence collection.

 At least two Republican senators have called on Congress to investigate whether Rice had political motives for the “unmasking” Team Trump officials.

“I’m not going to prejudge here, but I think every American should know whether or not the national security adviser to President Obama was involved in unmasking Trump transition figures for political purposes,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Fox News. “It should be easy to figure out, and we will.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) called for Rice to be subpoenaed. “The facts will come out with Susan Rice, but I think she ought to be under subpoena, and she needs to be asked, ‘Did you talk to the president about it? Did President Obama know about this?’ ” said Paul on MSNBC.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/04/05/team-obama-abused-intelligence-collection-during-the-lead-up-to-the-iran-deal-too/

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Mooslim Woman Films Black Maid Plummet to Her Death Instead of Helping Her

GRAPHIC!

VIDEO: Kuwaiti Woman Films Her Maid Falling From 7th Story Building Instead Of Helping Her…

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Ben Carson Audits HUD: Obama Made $520 BILLION In Bookkeeping Errors

Good work, Ben. Now arrest the bastards who stole the money.

Ben Carson Finds $500 Billion (Billion!) In Errors During Audit Of Obama HUD

Ben Carson was the first neurosurgeon to successfully separate conjoined twins, so, he’s kind of a super hero.

But apparently, he’s also not a bad accountant.

President Trump picked Carson to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development, whose budget grew by leaps and bounds under Barack Obama.

In one of his first acts as HUD Secretary, Carson ordered an audit of the agency. What he found was staggering: $520 billion in bookkeeping errors.

“The total amounts of errors corrected in HUD’s notes and consolidated financial statements were $516.4 billion and $3.4 billion, respectively,” the auditors wrote.

But there were plenty of other problems, too.

There were several other unresolved audit matters, which restricted our ability to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to express an opinion. These unresolved audit matters relate to (1) the Office of General Counsel’s refusal to sign the management representation letter, (2) HUD’s improper use of cumulative and first-in, first-out budgetary accounting methods of disbursing community planning and development program funds, (3) the $4.2 billion in nonpooled loan assets from Ginnie Mae’s stand-alone financial statements that we could not audit due to inadequate support, (4) the improper accounting for certain HUD assets and liabilities, and (5) material differences between HUD’s subledger and general ledger accounts. This audit report contains 11 material weaknesses, 7 significant deficiencies, and 5 instances of noncompliance with applicable laws and regulations.

The same problems were detailed for each of the last three audits, and the auditors say the continued problems “were due to an inability to establish a compliant control environment, implement adequate financial accounting systems, retain key financial staff, and identify appropriate accounting principles and policies.”

So, look for Carson to get out his scalpel and start operating. Or perhaps he’ll use a machete.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/15163/ben-carson-finds-500-billion-billion-errors-during-joseph-curl