"...why Obama would choose the Islamic Republic as a partner and encourage tactics typically employed by third-world police states remain a mystery."

In Tablet, Lee Smith writes in part,

...Obama saw Flynn as a signal threat to his legacy, which was rooted in his July 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Flynn had said long before he signed on with the Trump campaign that it was a catastrophe to realign American interests with those of a terror state. And now that the candidate he’d advised was the new president-elect, Flynn was in a position to help undo the deal. To stop Flynn, the outgoing White House ran the same offense it used to sell the Iran deal—they smeared Flynn through the press as an agent of a foreign power, spied on him, and leaked classified intercepts of his conversations to reliable echo chamber allies.

...for Obama the purpose of Russiagate was simple and direct: to protect the Iran deal, and secure his legacy.

...As former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s spy service, and a career intelligence officer, Flynn knew how and where to find the documentary evidence of the FBI’s illegal spying operation buried in the agency’s classified files—and the FBI had reason to be terrified of the new president’s anger.

...Flynn told friends and colleagues he was going to make the entire senior intelligence service hand in their resignations and then detail why their work was vital to national security. Flynn knew the USIC well enough to know that thousands of higher-level bureaucrats wouldn’t make the cut.

Flynn had enemies at the very top of the intelligence bureaucracy. In 2014, he’d been fired as DIA head. Under oath in February of that year, he told the truth to a Senate committee—ISIS was not, as the president had said, a “JV team.” They were a serious threat to American citizens and interests and were getting stronger. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers then summoned Flynn to the Pentagon and told him he was done.

“Flynn’s warnings that extremists were regrouping and on the rise were inconvenient to an administration that didn’t want to hear any bad news,” says former DIA analyst Oubai Shahbandar. “Flynn’s prophetic warnings would play out exactly as he’d warned shortly after he was fired.”

...Evidence that Tehran was coordinating with a terror group that had slaughtered thousands in Manhattan and at the Pentagon would make it harder to convince American lawmakers of the wisdom in legitimizing Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

...“Al-Qaeda was working on chemical and biological weapons in Iran.”

...In return, Obama confronted Iran Deal skeptics in his own party with a hard choice—either support the deal, or you’re out. There would be no room in the Democratic Party for principled disagreement over the keystone of Obama’s foreign policy legacy. Opponents were portrayed in harsh, uncompromising terms: They had been bought off, or were warmongers, or Israel-firsters.

...In 2012, the administration began secret negotiations with Iran. At the same time, the administration called off a multi-agency task force targeting the billion-dollar criminal enterprise run by Iran’s Lebanese ally, Hezbollah. The administration told Congress that the nuclear deal would not grant Iran access to the U.S. financial system, but a 2018 Senate report showed how the Obama White House lied to the public and was secretly trying to grant Iran that access. The Obama administration had misled Congress about secret deals it made regarding verification procedures, and then secretly shipped $1.7 billion in cash for Iran to distribute to its terror proxies.

...Obama was simply bribing the Iranians with hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief and hundreds of billions more in investment to refrain from building a bomb until he was safely gone from the White House, when the Iranian bomb would become someone else’s problem. The Obama team thought that even the Israelis wouldn’t dream of touching Iran’s nuclear program so long as Washington vouchsafed the deal. They called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “chickenshit.”

...In June 2015, a month before the deal was struck in Vienna, Michael Flynn was on Capitol Hill testifying about Iran and the deeply flawed deal on the table. He described Iran’s destabilizing actions throughout the region, how the regime killed American troops in Iraq and later Afghanistan. He warned about Iran’s ties to North Korea, China, and Russia. Flynn emphasized that Iran’s “stated desire to destroy Israel is very real.” He said Obama’s Iran policy was one of “willful ignorance.”

...The two hit it off and Flynn traveled with the candidate regularly. He was vetted for the vice presidency, but Trump decided instead on Mike Pence, a congressman from Indiana who could help win both the evangelical and the Midwestern vote. Still, outside of Trump’s own family, Flynn was his closest adviser. The foreign policy initiatives he articulated were the president-elect’s and when he spoke to foreign officials, he was speaking for Trump.

...Notably, Russia weighed in on the Obama team’s side. It would be “unforgivable,” according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, if the incoming Trump administration forfeited the JCPOA. The White House agreed to let Russia export more than 100 tons of uranium to Iran—enough to make more than 10 bombs, according to some estimates. “The point was to complicate any effort to tear up the deal,” says a senior U.S. official involved in the fight over the JCPOA. “It gave Iran an insurance policy against Trump.”

...Sure, John Kerry told the Iranians not to worry about sanctions, but what could the Obama team do to counter Trump if he was planning to restore them?

...Russiagate was not a hoax, as some conservative journalists call it. Rather, it was a purposeful extension of the Obama administration’s Iran Deal media campaign, and of the secret espionage operation targeting those opposed to Obama’s efforts to realign American interests with those of a terror state that embodies the most corrosive forms of anti-Semitism.

It’s not hard to see why the previous president went after Flynn: The retired general’s determination to undo the Iran Deal was grounded in his own experience in two Middle Eastern theaters of combat, where he saw how Iran murdered Americans and threatened American interests. But why Obama would choose the Islamic Republic as a partner and encourage tactics typically employed by third-world police states remain a mystery.

Read more here.

..."gangster socialist Barack Obama and his weaponization of the intelligence community and FBI against domestic political opponents"

More from Ace of Spades:

Mark My Words: The Final Form of NeverTrump will be making impassioned defenses of, and testimonials to, the honor and integrity of gangster socialist Barack Obama and his weaponization of the intelligence community and FBI against domestic political opponents.
And as they sing hymns to the communist, they'll tell us how conservative they are; and as they defend a lawless, fascist deployment of IC and LEO resources against opponents, they'll tell us they're fighting for liberty and the rule of law.

Humpty had a great fall

Libya, Syria, ISIS, Clinton, Obama

Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton: "Oh, yes, Benghazi is tied to Syria and the rise of ISIS!" Tom reads from a Defense Intelligence Agency document. The DIA was run by General Flynn! "No wonder Obama didn't like him!"

BIG ARMS SCANDAL: Smoking gun docs uncovered by @JudicialWatch show Obama/Clinton were aware arms going to Syria through Benghazi and were warned about rise of ISIS, and they were supporting terrorists in Syria. Obama/Clinton created Syria/Iran mess. https://t.co/2L30dJSmpn … pic.twitter.com/iPQYkX11YP

— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) June 21, 2019

"There is going to have to be a grand jury!"

Biden says he asked Barack not to endorse him!

Have you heard? Joe Biden has announced as a candidate for the 2020 Democrat primary. He also announced that he asked Barack Obama not to endorse him! Read more here.

Clapper implicates Obama!

Have you noticed that James Clapper is blaming Obama for starting the investigation of President Trump? Jon Dougherty writes about it here.

Obama is proud of her

She expressed hatred of President Trump and attacked pro-Israel senators, so what is her reward? Barack Obama tells her, "I'm proud of you!" Jeffrey Cimmino reports in the Free Beacon,

Former president Barack Obama allegedly told Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) he was "proud" of her during a meeting yesterday.

The freshman Democrat tweeted a picture of her standing with Obama, writing that he "met with us new members of Congress and we had a thoughtful discussion about serving our country."

"The best part was when he looked straight at me and said, ‘I'm proud of you,'" Tlaib continued.

In January, the Michigan Democrat promised attendees at a left-wing MoveOn reception in Washington, D.C., that Democrats would "impeach the motherfucker," referring to President Donald Trump.

Less than a week later, Tlaib attacked pro-Israel senators, suggesting "they forgot what country they represent," as the Senate prepared to vote on legislation that would permit the federal government to refrain from working with groups that refuse to work with Israel's government. Tlaib's remark was widely condemned as anti-Semitic, the Free Beacon reported:

...Tlaib once contributed an article to the Final Call, the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan's publication known for promoting anti-Semitism. Tlaib also supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which advocates for the boycott of Israeli organizations and companies to support Palestinian interests.

Earlier this week, Tlaib introduced a resolution urging the impeachment of Trump, despite House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying impeachment is "not worth it" in an interview earlier this month.

Read more here.

What if?

In American Greatness, Victor Davis Hanson wrote on January 20 an imaginary scenario in which all of the things that the Deep State has done to President Trump would have been done to President Obama. Imagine here.

"Obama relieved Mattis as commander of CENTCOM without so much as a phone call, a factoid typical of Obama's disdain for the military, its missions, and its heroes."

In the American Thinker, Daniel John Sobieski reminds us,

...Iran is the head of the snake. Syria and ISIS are the tail. Strike at the head, and you kill the snake. President Trump is doing that by nixing Obama's nuclear deal and reimposing sanctions, including prohibitions on Iranian oil exports. That, arguably, is a better way to deal with a very real threat than chasing random jihadis through the Syrian desert.

Critics of our Syrian withdrawal forget that under President Trump, American-backed forces liberated the ISIS capital of Raqqa. They forget the hundreds of Russian mercenaries killed in clashes with U.S. forces. They forget the cruise missile strikes against Syrian targets under the nose of Vladimir Putin. Trump's moves in Syria were hardly under a white flag.

Obama, by contrast, didn't want to win anywhere and waged his own war against the U.S. military, purging it of generals, admirals, and commanders who dare to talk of victory. President Obama began a military purge not dissimilar to those routinely conducted by third-world despots, with the goal of eliminating voices that might oppose his withdrawing from the world stage. ...Obama relieved Mattis as commander of CENTCOM without so much as a phone call, a factoid typical of Obama's disdain for the military, its missions, and its heroes. As Investor's Business Daily editorialized:

[W]hat has happened to our officer corps since President Obama took office is viewed in many quarters as unprecedented, baffling and even harmful to our national security posture. We have commented on some of the higher profile cases, such as Gen. Carter Ham. He was relieved as head of U.S. Africa Command after only a year and a half because he disagreed with orders not to mount a rescue mission in response to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi[.] ...

From Breitbart.com's Facebook page comes a list of at least 197 officers that have been relieved of duty by President Obama for a laundry list of reasons and sometimes with no reason given.

Okay, maybe Mattis was saying things Trump didn't want to hear about tactics and strategies, but we have only one commander-in-chief at a time, and the one we have now is trying to rebuild the military, so we can win wars, not letting the military atrophy while generals who want to win are purged.

We have not only ISIS jihadis to worry about. We have the Iranian nuclear threat, an expansionist China with sub-launched nuclear missiles capable of hitting U.S. cities, and a belligerent Russia developing hypersonic missiles we might not be able to stop as it negotiates with a crumbling Venezuela to base its nuclear-capable bombers on an island not far from Caracas.

So chill out, Chicken Littles of the left and right. There is an adult in the room. His name is Donald J. Trump.

Why is life expectancy of Americans continuing to decline?

Roger L. Simon writes at PJ Media,

...Despite all the miraculous advances in modern medicine, a large percentage of which emanate from American laboratories, the life expectancy of our citizens has declined for the second year in a row, according to the Centers for Disease Control. This is unprecedented in recent times. Principle reason? We all know it -- drugs. 72,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2017 alone, up from 63,000 in 2016.

Is Hezbollah responsible for all of this? Of course not. Some are coming over the Mexican border, some arriving from China and some from who knows where. But Hezbollah has no doubt been involved with enough of the supply to give it credit for a death count way in excess of those who died in 9/11. That was slightly less than three thousand people and certainly did not move the actuarial tables the way the opioid scandal does year in and year out, not even close.

So props to Barack Obama. Not only did his Iran Deal enrich the mullahs' coffers so Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guard could murder tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands in Syria, it primed the pumps for the Hezzies to keep on drugging Americans as well.

Will the wall cure this? Again, of course not, not by itself. It will only do some as yet undetermined amount. And Hezbollah, as we are learning, has plenty of experience tunneling under walls -- though there are those who have experience dealing with those tunnelers.

Nevertheless, the objections to building a wall along our Southern border are ludicrous. The five billion dollars, though large to us private citizens, is a trivial number in the federal budget, well worth the money if it saves even one life. It will undoubtedly save a lot more than that.

Pelosi and Schumer must know that. Well, maybe not. They certainly don't act that way, on or off TV. They seem like blind political automatons. Desperation for partisan advantage is its own kind of Alzheimer's disease.

Read more here.

Obama's latest outrageous claim

JJ Sefton reports at the Ace of Spades blog about

Barack Obama now loudly and publicly boasting that it is he that deserves all of the credit for the boom in fossil fuel production. The man who engaged in a half billion dollar taxpayer swindle with solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, who promised to wipe out the coal industry and mocked Sarah Palin for her position that oil and gas were plentiful and that we can't drill our way out of our energy problems is now boasting about the fossil fuel boom? I really and truly think that putting the purely political garbage aside, this guy has some very deep psychological illness(es).

Read more here.

Comments on Chicoms, Obama, Khashoggi, Saudis, Marine reservists, Antifa, allies and the media

More from commenters at the Ace of Spades blog.
Circa (insert year here) commented,

How many people do the Chicoms disappear on a daily basis?

Blago commented,

...I honestly see more outrage over this from the media than all the people from Saudi Arabia that perpetrated 9/11,

x commented,

if you're a mouthpiece for al quada I'm not going to give two shits if someone cuts lips off and dices you into insinkerator size chunks

Jane D'oh commented,

Marine reservists were maced and attacked by Antifa activists in Philly. Caught on video. Jane also wonders if Khashoggi's name is on the White House logs when Barry was president. Another comment from Jane: Remember Barry bowing (deeply) to the Saudi's? I do.

Boswell commented,

The media are every bit as cold and hard bitten as the house of Saud - and every bit as conniving.

TexasDan commented,

...If you want any leverage at all with your marriage of convenience ally, you absolutely keep your mouth shut.

citizen cake commented,

The Saudis are not our friends, and a lot of the modern strain of Islamic radicalism can be directly traced back to them.

BUT...

They're our allies because there's a bigger menace than the Islamists right now - a nuclear Iran running unfettered in the Gulf.

The least transparent administration in history…

At 100percentFedUp.com we learn,

In addition to being the most divisive President in America’s history, it appears as though Barack Obama and his regime will also go down as the least transparent administration in history…

According to CBS -The Obama administration in its final year in office spent a record $36.2 million on legal costs defending its refusal to turn over federal records under the Freedom of Information Act, according to an Associated Press analysis of new U.S. data that also showed poor performance in other categories measuring transparency in government.

For a second consecutive year, the Obama administration set a record for times federal employees told citizens, journalists and others that despite searching they couldn’t find a single page of files that were requested.

And it set records for outright denial of access to files, refusing to quickly consider requests described as especially newsworthy, and forcing people to pay for records who had asked the government to waive search and copy fees.

The government acknowledged when challenged that it had been wrong to initially refuse to turn over all or parts of records in more than one-third of such cases, the highest rate in at least six years.

In courtrooms, the number of lawsuits filed by news organizations under the Freedom of Information Act surged during the past four years, led by the New York Times, Center for Public Integrity and The Associated Press, according to a litigation study by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. The AP on Monday settled its 2015 lawsuit against the State Department for files about Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state, at AP’s request, and received $150,546 from the department to cover part of its legal fees.

The AP has pending lawsuits against the FBI for records about its decision to impersonate an AP journalist during a criminal investigation and about who helped the FBI hack into a mass shooting suspect’s iPhone and how much the government paid to do it.

Of the $36.2 million in legal costs fighting such lawsuits last year, the Justice Department accounted for $12 million, the Homeland Security Department for $6.3 million and the Pentagon for $4.8 million. The three departments accounted for more than half the government’s total records requests last year.

The figures reflect the final struggles of the Obama administration during the 2016 election to meet President Barack Obama’s pledge that it was “the most transparent administration in history,” despite wide recognition of serious problems coping with requests under the information law. It received a record 788,769 requests for files last year and spent a record $478 million answering them and employed 4,263 full-time FOIA employees across more than 100 federal departments and agencies. That was higher by 142 such employees the previous year.

"Operating largely in the shadows" ..."a scandal that dwarfs Watergate"

Doug Ross@Journal features this statement by Lee Smith as the Quote of the Day:

"To date the investigation into the Fusion GPS-manufactured collusion scandal has focused largely on the firm itself, its allies in the press, as well as contacts in the Department of Justice and FBI. However, if a sitting president used the instruments of state, including the intelligence community, to disseminate and legitimize a piece of paid opposition research in order to first obtain warrants to spy on the other party’s campaign, and then to de-legitimize the results of an election once the other party’s candidate won, we’re looking at a scandal that dwarfs Watergate—a story not about a bad man in the White House, but about the subversion of key security institutions that are charged with protecting core elements of our democratic process while operating largely in the shadows." --Lee Smith

Barack Obama placed the interests of foreign powers above the interests of the United States

Do you know about Project Cassandra? Jonathan Tobin writes in the New York Post,

Project Cassandra was built upon previous efforts by the Drug Enforcement Agency and US intelligence agencies to deal with the growing reach of Hezbollah around the globe. By the time Obama took office, Hezbollah’s crimes financed terrorism to the tune of more than $1 billion while also furthering the interests of the ayatollahs pulling their strings in Tehran.

But the Obama administration wasn’t interested. By the time Obama’s second term began, he had in place CIA Director John Brennan, who had long advocated better relations with Hezbollah “moderates,” and Secretary of State John Kerry, who was determined to make every conceivable concession to Iran — including legalizing their nuclear program and allowing restrictions on it to eventually lapse — in order to get an agreement. That was the beginning of the end for Project Cassandra.

Orders from on high precluded indictments and operations designed to hinder Hezbollah. Ali Fayad, a Lebanese arms dealer who was indicted on charges of planning the murders of US government workers, had been captured in the Czech Republic. But, bowing to Russian pressure, the US made no effort to extradite him and Fayad was allowed to evade justice and go back into business in Lebanon.

Another top Hezbollah operative involved in chemical weapons also got a pass. Possible indictments of Hezbollah personnel were quashed. A top operative involved in trafficking chemical weapons also got a pass and requests to lure others involved in this mafia-style group to countries where they could be apprehended were denied.

Those US agents who protested this were told not to “rock the boat.” While the CIA was leery of DEA efforts to prosecute a group they sought to influence, the Obama administration was interested in neither law enforcement nor covert operations against Hezbollah as their push for an agreement with Tehran became more serious. Meanwhile, the terrorists were sending planeloads worth of cash from Latin America drug trafficking and even the proceeds from Islamist-run used-car companies in the US back to Lebanon. Cash reserves in a Beirut account that was awash in Hezbollah drug money doubled. A regular shuttle flew from Venezuela to Iran, with illegal drugs and cash flowing one way and Hezbollah and Iranian agents (who were then supplied with fake identities by Venezuela) the other. But to the frustration of those involved in Cassandra, the US didn’t act when it could to capture those in the scheme.

...the US stood by as Iran’s quest for regional hegemony became a reality, endangering American allies as well as making the world safer for Islamist narcoterrorists.

...Congress and the Department of Justice should investigate these revelations. They ought to light a fire under US efforts to renegotiate a nuclear deal so as to end its sunset provisions as well as to reinvigorate efforts to crack down on Hezbollah. But it may be that the country is so obsessed with Trump’s uncivil discourse that it may not care much about Obama aiding and abetting terrorism. If so, you don’t have to be a fan of Trump’s to understand there is something deeply wrong with giving Obama a pass for decisions that look far worse than anything Trump is accused of doing.

Read more here.
Read Josh Meyer's original reporting in Politico about this Obama scandal here.

Recognize these fellows?

I found this picture at The Federalist but was unable to read the article when I clicked on it. I hope they have not been hit with a cyber attack.

Andrew McCarthy's take: "the decisive scandal is Hillary Clinton’s alone, and the key decisions were never Jim Comey’s to make."

At PJ Media Andrew McCarthy writes (excerpts here),

In Clinton World, self-absorption always triumphs over self-inspection, so nothing could be more predictable than Hillary Clinton’s scapegoating of Comey, a diversion from acknowledging what really cost her the election: her own manifest flaws. Congressional Democrats are along for the ride: those who were swooning over Comey in July when he announced that Clinton would not be charged, then ripped him in October when he reopened and quickly reclosed the FBI’s investigation, and then branded him a Trump partisan hack after the votes were counted, are suddenly back in swoon mode.

Mrs. Clinton was hoping to put the e-mail scandal behind her by arguing that she had been vindicated by a thorough, highly professional FBI investigation. But she lost, so the investigation that was to be her credential for office became the downfall that denied her. Comey thus became Rationalization 1 for her defeat … at least until Rationalization 1A, Russia, got some media traction. So now, Comey has gone from villainous J. Edgar Hoover to valiant Elliot Ness again – not out of anything he did, but because Democrats calculate that framing his termination as part of a “cover-up” may resuscitate the Trump-Russia narrative, which has grown stale in the absence of concrete evidence of collusion.

...The Obama Justice Department was never, ever going to indict Hillary Clinton. Even if he had wanted to push against that outcome, Comey had to know doing so would have been futile. But as long as he accepted the inevitable – as long as he defended the decision with dizzying disquisitions on mens rea and other criminal law esoterica – he would be given a wide berth.

That is what enabled him to do some highly irregular things: e.g., the July press conference describing the damning evidence but recommending against criminal charges, and the late October letter informing Congress that the investigation had been reopened (but, significantly, not suggesting that any charges were anticipated). The point, if I may speculate, was to protect the reputation of the FBI as much as possible under circumstances in which the Bureau was unavoidably embroiled in a political controversy. Comey knew there would be no indictment. That meant the FBI was vulnerable to charges of participation in a whitewash. The director no doubt convinced himself that it was essential, for the sake of the rule of law, to show that the FBI had not been corrupted – that it had investigated as thoroughly as the constraints imposed by the Justice Department allowed.

Comey’s agenda to protect the FBI happened to coincide with the political agenda of Obama and Lynch. They, too, needed to show that there had been a thorough, professional investigation – they knew they could prevent any charges from being filed, and they reckoned that a solid FBI investigation would make their non-prosecution decision look like good-faith law enforcement rather than partisan politics. With a little help from their media friends, the general public would remain in the dark regarding the instances in which Lynch’s Justice Department frustrated the FBI’s ability to investigate: the close working relationship with Clinton team defense lawyers, the cutting off of salient areas of inquiry, the bizarre immunity grants.

What the public would see was Hillary “exonerated” after the FBI “left no stone unturned.”

Undoubtedly, Obama and Lynch were not thrilled by Comey’s press conference, laying out the FBI’s investigation. They may even have been quite angry about it. But they also realized that Comey remained a net positive in the equation. Because of their vulnerabilities – Obama because he could not be seen as interfering with law-enforcement, and Lynch because of her bone-headed meeting with Bill Clinton – they needed the decision not to indict to appear to be made by someone with bipartisan credibility. Comey fit the bill, so they were willing to put up with a lot … as long as he held firm on the bottom line.

But make no mistake: If Comey had gone the other way, his recommendation to file charges would have been rejected, and his wings would have been clipped in a hurry. He is being cast as the official responsible for key decisions in the Clinton case and the fate of the Clinton candidacy. But the decisive scandal is Hillary Clinton’s alone, and the key decisions were never Jim Comey’s to make.

Read more here.

Trying to understand Syria

Sundance at The Last Refuge must be the hardest working blogger. Today he gives us much more background information on Syria.

...If the Russian military and the entire Syrian military wanted to eliminate ISIS in Syria (said to be approximately 30k +/-), they could do so rather quickly. They’ve had over a year to assemble enough military personnel and military armament to defeat that enemy.

They have not done so because it doesn’t fit the current agenda: keeping Assad in power.

President Trump is breaking up the availability of Assad (Russia and Iran) to hide behind the useful foil of their opposition to ISIS.

If another chemical attack takes place, Bashir Assad runs the risk of being removed. And the entire world, sans Russia and Iran, will see the removal action as justified.

Remember, the primary goal of Russia and Iran is to keep Assad in power.

♦ If Bashir Assad did not carry out the prior chemical attack, he, and Russia, is now in a position of having to make sure that another attack doesn’t take place, ever. This means Russia and Assad need to re-engage the fight against whomever ‘might’ carry out another chemical attack. (Trump wins)

♦ If Bashir Assad did carry out the prior chemical attack, he and Russia, are now unable to use that action against Assad’s political opposition. (Trump wins)

President Trump has assigned responsibility, and given consequences. President Trump is forcing Assad (and Russia/Iran) to: #1) fight ISIS, and #2) stop targeting Assad’s political opposition; at least with chemical weapons.

And THAT is the exact response Assad gave after the 59 tomahawk missiles struck the Syrian airbase. See: “Assad promises to fight ISIS harder.” This is also one of the reasons why the targeted airbase is still operational.

Now pay attention to Secretary Tillerson:

Overall, the situation in Syria is one where our approach today and our policy today is, first, to defeat ISIS. By defeating ISIS we remove one of the disruptive elements in Syria that exists today.

That begins to clarify for us opposition forces and regime forces. In working with the coalition — as you know, there is a large coalition of international players and allies who are involved in the future resolution in Syria.

So it’s to defeat ISIS; it’s to begin to stabilize areas of Syria, stabilize areas in the south of Syria, stabilize areas around Raqqa through ceasefire agreements between the Syrian regime forces and opposition forces. Stabilize those areas; begin to restore some normalcy to them. Restore them to local governance — and there are local leaders who are ready to return, some who have left as refugees — they’re ready to return to govern these areas.

Use local forces that will be part of the liberation effort to develop the local security forces — law enforcement, police force. And then use other forces to create outer perimeters of security so that areas like Raqqa, areas in the south can begin to provide a secure environment so refugees can begin to go home and begin the rebuilding process.

In the midst of that, through the Geneva Process, we will start a political process to resolve Syria’s future in terms of its governance structure, and that ultimately, in our view, will lead to a resolution of Bashar al-Assad’s departure.

~ Secretary Tillerson during Air-Strike Debrief

And Obama and Kerry? Sundance has a video in which Kerry admits arming oppositon groups.

Read more here.

Did Obama wiretap Trump?

Ace of Spades writes about the Trump/Russia collusion story:

Clinton Ally and CIA Benghazi Talking Points Massage Therapist Mike Morrell: There's Smoke But "No Fire, At All" In Claims of Russia-Trump Collusion
—Ace

That should be the end of the matter, but then, Clapper's statement that there was absolutely no evidence of such a deal also should have been the end of the matter, but wasn't.

As some wag -- maybe a commenter here -- hinted, the media is going to go through an endless cyle:

Pound the Russia drum.

When that fails, pound the tax drum.

When that fails, pound the Russia drum.

Occasionally mix in a Pussy March and then repeat.

On Trump's counter-suit (feels like a counter-lawsuit, anyway) that Obama wiretapped him:

Ryan and the Senate Intel committee say there's no evidence of surveillance at Trump Tower.

But that's Trump Tower. Trump's accusation was broad and sloppy, but I notice these denials are very specific and very precise.

For his part, Trump doubles down and promises that "evidence" will be coming soon, maybe in the next two weeks.

Meanwhile, Judge Napolitano claimed on FoxNews that three sources had told him that people in the Obama Administration had asked Britain's NSA, the GCHQ, to do the spying.

That's a routine and plausible practice -- it's well known that the US cannot spy on its own citizens, so it occasionally (and illegally) asks the British to do it for them, who are not barred from spying on US citizens. And the US performs the same favor in return for them.

Whether that happened here, who knows. But the general practice of "you spy on the ones we're not allowed to, and we'll spy on the ones you're not allowed to" isn't a well-kept secret. (See section titled "Concerns."

I have no idea on these claims. I do know, without a doubt, that Obama changed the rules regarding "minimization" (blacking out) of the names of US citizens "incidentally" caught in surveillance captures, and then disseminated this information all around the government. I also know that that information was subsequently leaked -- which I surmise was the plan all along.

The strident belief held by some that this didn't happen seems to rely chiefly on a belief that Obama wouldn't do something like that -- an opinion I don't share in -- and the claims of Obama's top ranking spymasters who say they wouldn't do something like that.

A claim I also don't put much stock in.

I'm increasingly baffled by what the rules are concerning propagating suspicions for which there is "no evidence" -- apparently one is officially a member of the Smart Set for propagating evidence-free suspicions about Trump collusion with Russian intelligence, but one is an unhinged conspiracy monger lunatic for entertaining evidence-free suspicions about Obama collusion with British intelligence.

Help me out, fellas -- what is the basis for this distinction, other than some of you seem to like Obama a lot more than Trump?