CIA Director Pompeo Admits Convincing Trump Over ‘Disproven’ Chem Weapons Attack in Syria

Ever since the tragic launch of 59 Tomahawk missiles into Syria by the United States took place in April, the entire incident has been represented as a one-man show by the corporate and even by the alternative media. The corporate press, which virtually never gives Trump a break on any issue real or imagined, was strangely approving of The Donald after his war crime while his detractors in the alternative media were presenting the act as that of a madman who is frighteningly close to the red button.

On June 25, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh released a bombshell article revealing a number of facets regarding the alleged chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun, Syria and the resulting volley of Tomahawk missiles fired by the United States at the al-Sha’aryat airbase in response. Hersh’s article provides the reader with what many of us already knew and wrote about at the time; i.e. that the Syrian military did not conduct a chemical weapons attack and that the United States was fully aware of that fact. Still, the U.S. government opted to use the attack as a justification for launching 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airbase that resulted in the deaths of Syrian soldiers, civilians, and children from the nearby village.

Hersh’s article shows that not all key personnel were on board with the decision to launch Tomahawk missiles at al-Sha’aryat or even of the whole Syria/Iraq mission. The article reveals real concerns amongst knowledgeable personnel that the Russians will not continue to act as the cooler heads and that Russia has long wanted peace in the region. Most notably, it reveals the fact that there is a “secret agenda” moving forward in regards to Syria, Iraq, and Russia. Hersh’s article also points to the President as the individual who made the decision to launch attacks in Syria, against the advice of the military and intelligence community. In fact, Hersh’s article makes the entire incident appear as if it were the Trump show from beginning to end.

While Hersh’s article provides valuable information, it is becoming more and more evident that what Hersh came across was either an intentional leak or, perhaps even more accurate, only part of the story.

I wrote at the time that what is most likely here is not the situation that Hersh presents. It is more likely that the U.S. military and intelligence apparatus colluded with their corporate media department and capitalized on this incident and Trump’s narcissism and perceived political necessity. It is more likely that “advisors” like Trump’s rabid Zionist son-in-law who has been given frightening levels of access to the President and the government in an official capacity as Trump’s senior advisor, simply told the President that launching missiles was what he was expected to do by the Deep State and Trump complied. Trump could also have been told by advisors that the story was already out and the narrative already accepted and therefore he had to do something to appease the pro-war leftists, Democrats, and Republicans.

In this regard, Hersh’s article is possibly a limited hangout operation, not on the part of Hersh, but on the part of the intelligence community who wish to do more damage to the President’s public support and his ability to act independently of the “deep state.” It is their ability to announce the tragic massive fraud of Khan Sheikhoun while looking like the level heads and the good guys of the situation. Trump, of course, comes off looking like the lone assassin, the lone madman so eaten up with narcissism that he is putting the country at risk. But while Trump is undeniably a narcissist and he is undeniably putting the country at risk, it is the fact that he is listening to and obeying the deep state apparatus that is the danger, not that he is ignoring them.

While most of the above is informed speculation, it is also put into proper historical context, not only in the Trump administration but also in the history of other administrations over the past several decades, most notably that of Kennedy and Nixon, neither of which point to a promising end for Trump.

Backing up my own suspicions is the current Director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo. In a recent speech to the INSA Leadership Dinner on July 11, Pompeo was giving a typical dinner speech about the harrowing world of the intelligence community, how tough it is to have his position, the importance of it, etc. During the course of the speech, however, Pompeo let a very interesting tidbit slip. Pompeo said:

I got a call from the President one afternoon back in April. He wanted to talk about some disturbing images that were coming in from Syria. I’m sure you saw many of them yourselves—scenes of innocent civilians writhing in agony, the apparent victims of a chemical weapons attack.

The President had a very direct message for me: Find out what happened. So we immediately assembled a crack team of Agency experts. They began piecing together the evidence, working closely with some outstanding partners from across the Intelligence Community.

The next day the President called his cabinet together. As we sat down, he turned to me and asked what we had learned. I told him that the IC had concluded that a chemical weapon had indeed been used in the attack, and that it had been launched by the Syrian regime.

The President paused a moment and said: Pompeo, are you sure? I’ll admit that the question took my breath away. But I knew how solid the evidence was, and I was able to look him in the eye and say, Mr. President, we have high confidence in our assessment.

The President never looked back. Based on the Intelligence Community’s judgment, he made one of the most consequential decisions of his young administration, launching a strike against the very airfield where the attack originated.

So I can assure you that when it comes to having the confidence of the Commander in Chief, CIA and the Intelligence Community are in great shape.

In other words, Pompeo is directly contradicting Hersh’s sources, saying it was not Trump who led the show but the intelligence community. Of course, Trump, being President is ultimately responsible for making the wrong decision but notice that, according to Pompeo himself, Trump demanded answers as to whom committed the attack. It was the intelligence community that came back to the President with assurances Assad was responsible.

Obviously, given all of the evidence surrounding Khan Sheikhoun, the idea that Assad committed a chemical weapons attack is ludicrous. It simply did not happen. The United States has no evidence that the incident was what it claims and all of the evidence produced by the Syrians, Russians, and independent researchers points to the contrary, even toward the fact that the entire incident may have been planned to set up the Syrian government so as to provide justification for an attack on Syria by the United States.

So what Pompeo is admitting to is, at best, providing the President with faulty intelligence. However, we know from the Hersh leaks that the intelligence community was already well aware of the fact that the Syrian government did not commit a chemical weapons attack. With that in mind, it appears that Pompeo has admitted to lying to Trump regarding the guilty party in Khan Sheikhoun and the existence of chemical weapons. At the very least, he managed to create a paper trail that leads right to the door of the CIA.

Is anyone surprised? (For more from the author of “CIA Director Pompeo Admits Convincing Trump Over Disproven Chem Weapons Attack in Syria” please click HERE)

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Another NYT Anonymous ‘Bombshell’

ANOTHER ANONYMOUS BOMBSHELL …

NYT “email” bombshell … If you’ve turned on cable news this morning, you are probably hearing about a “bombshell” email report from the New York Times. That’s when I went to the Times website to read the email for myself. Except they don’t have it. What they have is “three people,” who are never named, telling the Times about the email. Color me skeptical.

What they leave out … The Russian lawyer in question had a relationship with the DC firm that hired someone to prepare the infamous unconfirmed dossier on Trump, at the behest of Democrats. The Independent, a left-leaning online newspaper in the UK, reported on the connection regarding Fusion GPS. For the record, the Independent is now owned by a Russian oligarch, which is not disclosed in their reporting.

Stelter is giddy (again) … CNN’s media critic is again acting more like a lapdog than a watchdog regarding his media brethren. In his daily email, he touted the NYT “bombshell” and how Fox didn’t cover the “reporting.” There was no mention by Stelter of the anonymous sourcing the story was based upon.

Levin explains the real bombshell … CR Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin explained on his radio program last night that the real story the media should be reporting is that James Comey brought classified material home. Take a listen. (For more from the author of “Another NYT Anonymous ‘Bombshell'” please click HERE)

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State Passes GOP Senator’s Bill Allowing Gun Seizure Order Without Gun Owner’s Knowledge

Oregon lawmakers passed legislation co-sponsored by Sen. Brian Boquist (R-Dallas) that allows a judge to issue an ex parte ruling for the confiscation of an individual’s firearms.

The bill is SB 719, and it has now passed Oregon’s House and Senate. It creates an Extreme Risk Protection Order, which forces the subject of the order to hand over all firearms, as well as his concealed carry permit if he possesses one.

NRA-ILA reports:

Based on a California law enacted in 2014, SB 719A would create a so-called “Extreme Risk Protection Order” (ERPO) that could be obtained by a law enforcement officer, family member, or household member in an ex parte hearing to deprive someone of their Second Amendment rights without due process of the law.

The ex parte aspect of the law means the bill does not require the gun owner to be present for part of the hearing in which the judge decides whether guns should be taken from him. (Read more from “State Passes GOP Senator’s Bill Allowing Gun Seizure Order Without Gun Owner’s Knowledge” HERE)

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Consider Obama’s Legacy and Democrats’ Obamacare Arguments WRECKED

The rate of uninsured Americans is ticking up again, and some of the explanations offered fall somewhere between the failures of Obamacare itself and the failure of Republicans to repeal it.

According to the latest Gallup/Sharecare index, the percentage of American adults without health insurance has increased from 10.9 to 11.7 percent since the end of last year, which translates to almost 2 million people without coverage.

And the researchers at Gallup aren’t even bothering to hide the reasons why.

“Several marketplace factors could be contributing to the uptick in the uninsured rate since the second half of 2016 […] Rising insurance premiums could be causing some Americans to forgo insurance, especially those who fail to qualify for federal subsidies. Furthermore, some insurance companies are leaving the ACA marketplace, and the lack of competition could be driving up the cost of plans for consumers,” the report states.

The report goes on to suggest that uncertainty about Obamacare’s future could also be causing people to stay away from the markets — at least until they know what they’ll be dealing with once a bill is passed.

Such hesitation would make sense. Given last year’s rampant premium increases, the ever-increasing number of insurers disappearing from the individual market, and GOP leadership hesitant to repeal the worst portions of the law, naturally people are casting a wary eye at the insurance market.

The goal of Obamacare was to increase coverage with greater government control of the insurance industry, forcing Americans to buy into the industry, and then offset the rest of the cost with a mixture of subsidies and entitlements.

But, as the Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon explains, throwing everybody into the same health insurance pot and expecting things to somehow balance out is precisely why Obamacare has been so disastrous.

The dire state of the insurance market strikes a blow against the liberals’ narrative that Obamacare is somehow the only thing holding down the current insurance rate, as millions of Americans are also going without insurance with the current law in place. It also serves as a stark reminder of what Americans will still be dealing with, should the GOP fail to deliver on a substantive repeal.

As a counterpoint to the woes of the millions of people losing or going without insurance under the current system, Obamacare boosters in the policy world have been pointing to a recent study that shows how the insurance markets are “stabilizing.” However, stable doesn’t always mean good for consumers, as Conservative Review’s Daniel Horowitz explains:

“The insurance market has indeed stabilized … the same way a dead body is ‘stable’ and no longer in critical condition, the same way someone in a free fall has stabilized at the bottom of the trajectory. There is no longer any private sector left in the insurance market. The few remaining insurers have stayed in the market through a guaranteed flow of government subsidies — a regulation-controlled monopoly that has driven out competitors lacking economies of scale and tripled premiums, with endless rate hikes in sight.”

“When, thanks to insolvent government regulations but endless government subsidies, only a handful of insurers are left with a monopoly on the market, they will find a way to make a profit,” Horowitz writes.

But when that profit has not been earned on a level playing field, but through government manufacturing, he states, “Consumers are left holding the bag.” (For more from the author of “Consider Obama’s Legacy and Democrats’ Obamacare Arguments WRECKED” please click HERE)

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Voice-Activated Smart Home Technology Used to Make Arrest in Assault Case

A new type of court case is slowly but demonstrably taking shape within the American legal system: alleged crimes being detected from data supplied by smart home devices.

In December of last year an Arkansas murder case made headlines not so much for the death itself, but how a suspect was brought into custody. James Bates hosted a party at his Bentonville home on the night of November 21st, 2015. At some point during the event a man drowned in a hot tub on the property. Bates claimed to have found the victim the next morning when he awoke, stating that it was a tragic accident, but Arkansas police obtained smart water meter readings that showed an anomaly between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. Based solely on this data – and obtained without a warrant – Bates was arrested and charged with 1st degree murder.

Somewhat ironically, James Bates subsequently requested recordings from his Amazon Echo to defend himself against these charges. So far Amazon appears to be fighting this request. At stake could be the very nature of the 1st, 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution in addition to the freedom or incarceration of James Bates.

Meanwhile, another case has presented itself in New Mexico where a voice-activated smart device called law enforcement during an alleged altercation. As reported by ABC News:

Eduardo Barros was house-sitting with his girlfriend and her daughter Sunday night at a residence in Tijeras, some 15 miles east of Albuquerque. The couple got into an argument and the altercation became physical, according to the Bernalillo County Sheriff Department’s spokesperson, Deputy Felicia Romero.

Barros allegedly wielded a firearm and threatened to kill his girlfriend, asking her: “Did you call the sheriffs?” A smart speaker, which was hooked up to a surround sound system inside the home, recognized that as a voice command and called 911, Romero said.

(Emphasis added)

After an hours-long standoff, the suspect was taken into custody and charged. In this case, law enforcement is touting smart technology as having “saved a life.” And apparently the presiding judge is accepting the evidence regardless of how it was obtained, saying that there was indeed probable cause for the arrest – no warrant needed.

Vin Armani and Aaron Dykes cover this emerging privacy crisis in the following two videos and how the American legal system might adjust to a modern life filled with pervasive surveillance devices.

(For more from the author of “Voice-Activated Smart Home Technology Used to Make Arrest in Assault Case” please click HERE)

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Drain the Scandal Swamp: Fox News’ Eric Bolling Spills Secrets on D.C.

Fox News host Eric Bolling says corruption in Washington has been around since D.C. became the nation’s capital but it’s getting worse, is a plague on both parties and President Trump is in a unique position to uproot the system.

That’s the focus of Bolling’s latest book, “The Swamp: Washington’s Murky Pool of Corruption and Cronyism and How Trump Can Drain It.”

Bolling, an unabashed Trump supporter, told WND and Radio America politicians have been corrupted by all sorts of vices since America’s founding, but he said the infusion of big-time lobbying money really changes the game into what Americans witness today.

“As more and more money got introduced, the type of scandal changed, and they all became money scandals,” Bolling explained. “Literally hundreds of billions of dollars come to D.C. on an annual basis to find a home in lawmakers’ pockets for votes. Everyone became corrupt. Everyone became up for sale.”

He said many lawmakers come to Washington with the best of intentions, but the system quickly swallows them up. (Read more from “Drain the Scandal Swamp: Fox News’ Eric Bolling Spills Secrets on D.C.” HERE)

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‘Refugee’ Infectious Diseases Sparking Alarm

Minnesota pays out millions every year in welfare for refugees, but there are secondary costs that never get tabulated.

In fiscal 2017, which ended last last week, the state spent $1.5 million to combat three infectious disease outbreaks — including the largest measles outbreak in three decades, which was concentrated in the Somali refugee community. And health officials notified legislative leaders this week that they want to tap a special public-health fund to offset additional costs.

Dr. Ed Ehlinger, Minnesota Health commissioner, told the Star-Tribune his department will need another $600,000 for fiscal 2018 to help control the spread of measles, drug-resistant tuberculosis and syphilis.

The state has had 78 confirmed cases of measles this year, in an outbreak that began in March. Of those 78 cases, 64 have been in the Somali refugee community. The outbreak is now showing signs of being under control, with no new cases reported this month. But the costs continue to pile up.

Health Department officials want $100,445 to continue prevention work. About half the money would go toward hiring a “temporary employee” to conduct outreach to the Somali community, including efforts to increase measles vaccination rates, the Star-Tribune reported. (Read more from the author of “‘Refugee’ Infectious Diseases Sparking Alarm” HERE)

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Charlie Gard Ally Optimistic Baby Will Live

Charlie Gard has found a powerful ally in the United States.

Just days ago, the March for Life held a news conference along with other pro-life leaders in the U.S. to show support for the 11-month-old British infant who suffers from a rare genetic mutation of mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome . . .

In the past two weeks, a highly successful social media campaign has promoted awareness for Charlie and his tragic situation. And last Thursday, March for Life, which has a high social-media profile, joined the campaign, drawing up a petition to the hospital to let Charlie live and allow his parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, to take him abroad for treatment.

March for Life President Jeanne Mancini told WND she sees the issue as a crucial one for advocates of parental and family rights, especially when it comes to end-of-life care.

“At its crux, what’s happening over in England is the broader question about who has the right to make that decision about when to end treatment. Is it the state, or is it the family?” Mancini said. “We hold that the family are the best caregivers, and that the responsibility of such a critical life-or-death situation like that should not be left in the hands of the state.” (Read more from “Charlie Gard Ally Optimistic Baby Will Live” HERE)

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Trump Jr. Offers to Testify Under Oath

Donald Trump Jr. said Tuesday he would be willing to testify under oath about his election-year meeting with a Russian lawyer who offered compromising information about Hillary Clinton.

“And you have nothing to hide,” Fox News host Sean Hannity told Trump Jr. during an interview that aired Tuesday night. “That means you’ll testify under oath, all of that?”

“All of it,” Trump Jr. responded.

Lawmakers investigating Russian election meddling are expected to ask President Trump’s eldest son to testify about his June 2016 meeting with lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who has close ties to the Kremlin.

Trump Jr. has previously said he was willing to cooperate with the probe, but had not said whether he would offer hist account under penalty of perjury. (Read more from “Trump Jr. Offers to Testify Under Oath” HERE)

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A Bizarre Story About Hunt for Hillary Clinton’s Deleted Emails Gets Even Weirder

New details have emerged about a Republican opposition researcher’s failed attempt to get Hillary Clinton deleted emails from Russian computer hackers who claimed to have the documents.

Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal broke the story that a longtime political operative named Peter Smith formed a team of researchers, investigators, computer experts and attorneys to obtain 33,000 emails that Clinton deleted from the email server she used as secretary of state.

Smith hoped to show that Clinton’s server had been hacked, an allegation she repeatedly denied during the campaign.

The Journal report was particularly intriguing because Smith, who died in May at the age of 81, suggested to associates that retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn may have been involved in the Clinton email hunt.

As the newspaper reported, the details of Smith’s operation matched one discussed in intelligence agency reports “that describe Russian hackers discussing how to obtain emails from Mrs. Clinton’s server and then transmit them to Mr. Flynn via an intermediary.” (Read more from “A Bizarre Story About Hunt for Hillary Clinton’s Deleted Emails Gets Even Weirder” HERE)

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