The US says its missile strike on the Syrian airbase was in retaliation for the chemical attack in Idlib province which killed scores of civilians on Tuesday. However, Damascus firmly rejects any involvement.

America's UN envoy Nikki Haley held up images, purporting to show child victims of the chemical incident. She said it bears all the hallmarks of the Assad regime's use of chemicals.

The Russian Foreign Ministry stressed that no probe into Syrian government involvement in the Idlib attack had been conducted yet. Spokesperson Maria Zakharova pointed out that, despite the US calling for an investigation, the country then went on to destroy the planes they wanted to investigate, adding that it has nothing to do with establishing the truth.

John McCain was on Face the Nation today, getting his neocon on, discussing the next steps that needed to be taken in Syria -- dealing with Assad.

He approved of the President's strikes -- calling it a good 'first step.' But, he wants MOAR -- accusing both Syria and Russia of war crimes, in addition to blaming Assad for the rise of ISIS. You cannot make this stuff up.

By February 2016, the humanitarian crisis in Yemen as a result of the Saudi blockade was already worse than Syria’s. The UN Security Council had a series of meetings about humanitarian access in both Syria and Yemen, and the members of the Council agreed that resolutions should guarantee humanitarian access — the ability to get food and other humanitarian assistance — to those in need in both countries. But once again, after the Saudis intervened with the United States and its European allies to oppose such a resolution on Yemen, the idea was dropped.

After concluding the flow testing phase, Afek Oil and Gas will now begin analyzing samples drawn from the Ness-2 drilling site, euphemistically dubbed “Deborah’s Well,” in the Israeli-occupied region of Syria known as the Golan Heights. New Jersey-based Genie Energy, Ltd., Afek’s parent company, claims a dubious cadre of investors cum war profiteers, including Rupert Murdoch, Dick Cheney, Lord Jacob Rothschild, James Woolsey — as well as a number of current and former U.S. politicians.

Prior testing at a separate Afek site did not meet expectations, so the company sought other “sweet spots” in the area. Analysis of samples from additional wells will be performed by Afek scientists in conjunction with “external international experts.”

To understand U.S. involvement in the quagmire in Syria, Afek’s oil exploration is of critical import.

April 2017 could turn out to be one of the most important months in U.S. history that we have seen in a very long time. On April 6th, Donald Trump attacked Syria on the 100th anniversary of the day that the U.S. officially entered World War I, and now at the end of this month we could be facing an unprecedented political crisis in Washington. On Friday, members of Congress left town for their two week “Easter vacation”, and they won’t resume work until April 25th. What this means is that Congress will have precisely four days when they get back to pass a bill to fund government operations or there will be a government shutdown starting on April 29th.

Senator Rand Paul is calling on the Senate Intelligence Committee to review the evidence linking Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to a chemical weapons attack that lead to Trump’s illegal missile strike on Syria.

Paul went on the “The Laura Ingraham Show” and noted that Assad is“either the dumbest dictator in the world, or it may be more confusing.”

“I would like to see the evidence…In all this rush, why don’t we at least look at the intelligence instead of getting somebody’s conclusion on TV second-hand from the president.”

“I don’t dispute the evidence, I just haven’t seen it.”
Paul told Laura Ingraham that ‘it makes no sense for Assad to use chemical weapons. He was winning the six-year-old civil war, had the support of Russian troops on the ground, and, just days earlier, received a public statement from U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that regime change was not America’s goal.’

US President Donald Trump is considering implementing new sanctions against Russia and Iran, the US ambassador to UN, Nikki Haley has said in an interview with CNN.

Speaking to Jake Tapper, the host of the State of the Union show, on Sunday, the US official said that the issue of the new sanctions is already being discussed.

“I think that’s conversations that he [Trump] will be having and have started to have, going forward. But I think he will have to look at the situation,” Haley told the CNN host when asked whether Trump “wants tougher sanctions on Russia and Iran.”

Nothing “is off the table at this point,” she added.

The discussions are linked to the situation in Syria, she said.

The Kremlin has warned the US it is ‘one step from war' over Syria - but the Trump administration hit back by saying it would be prepared to carry out airstrikes again.

In the first direct American raid on Bashar al Assad’s forces, President Trump authorised the firing of 59 cruise missiles at a military airfield.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev denounced the US for attacking ‘the legitimate government of Syria’ and for allegedly breaking international law without the approval of the UN.

Mr Medvedev said: ‘This military action is a clear indication of the US president’s extreme dependency on the views of the Washington establishment, the one that the new president strongly criticised in his inauguration speech.'

‘Soon after his victory, I noted that everything would depend on how soon Trump’s election promises would be broken by the existing power machine. It took only two and a half months.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking a buffer zone against Syria, Iran and Hezbollah on the borders with Syria to be part of any future deal to end the Syrian crisis, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Friday.

According to the Israeli newspaper, Netanyahu proposed this issue during meetings with American and other coalition countries.

Netanyahu wants to prevent Iran and Hezbollah from establishing a foothold and he intends to undermine future attacks against Israel, noting that he had suggested international forces to supervise his proposed buffer zone.

Last Friday, the Israeli Maariv revealed that Netanyahu sent messages to the international parties involved in the talks about Syria’s future.

President Trump earned neocon applause for his hasty decision to attack Syria and kill about a dozen Syrians, but his rash act has all the earmarks of a “wag the dog” moment.

Just two days after news broke of an alleged poison-gas attack in northern Syria, President Trump brushed aside advice from some U.S. intelligence analysts doubting the Syrian regime’s guilt and launched a lethal retaliatory missile strike against a Syrian airfield.

But a number of intelligence sources have made contradictory assessments, saying the preponderance of evidence suggests that Al Qaeda-affiliated rebels were at fault, either by orchestrating an intentional release of a chemical agent as a provocation or by possessing containers of poison gas that ruptured during a conventional bombing raid.

Johnson had planned to travel to Russia Monday on a trip intended to start fresh dialogue with the Russian government (which would have been the first visit by a UK foreign secretary in more than five years), but following this week's actions he said in a statement.

"Developments in Syria have changed the situation fundamentally,"

"We deplore Russia's continued defence of the Assad regime even after the chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians,"

"We call on Russia to do everything possible to bring about a political settlement in Syria and work with the rest of the international community to ensure that the shocking events of the last week are never repeated."

"My priority is now to continue contact with the U.S. and others in the run-up to the G7 meeting on 10-11 April - to build coordinated international support for a ceasefire on the ground and an intensified political process."

In an ironic twist given that many consider Trump's actions a symbolic show of strength to China's Xi, Reuters reports that North Korea said on Saturday U.S. missile strikes against a Syrian airfield on Friday were "an unforgivable act of aggression" that showed its decision to develop nuclear weapons was "the right choice a million times over."

Before I get into the meat of this post, I want to revisit something I wrote back in January.

From the post, Very Powerful People in the U.S. Government Want War – This is Their Sales Pitch:

We need to understand that those who want this war will be absolutely relentless. The sales pitch will not end until they get exactly what they want. This is where all of us critical thinkers need to play a key role. We must be prepared to diligently analyze all unsubstantiated official claims, and push back against the war-mongers, because we know for certain the oligarch-owned corporate media won’t. We must be prepared to inform our fellow citizens about what’s happening so that we don’t fall victim to a cheap sales pitch with devastating consequences. Unfortunately, we must also be prepared for a possible deep state false flag if the current sales tactic falls on deaf ears.

Opponents of President Nicolas Maduro are calling on demonstrators to flood the streets of Caracas on Saturday as part of a weeklong protest movement that shows little sign of losing steam.

Past demonstrations were sometimes planned weeks in advance to guarantee high turnout. But now the almost-daily churn of events in what's being called the "ongoing coup" — the government's alleged moves to accumulate more power — has energized and united the normally fractious opposition leading up to Saturday's march.

Authorities on Friday barred former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles from seeking office for 15 years for administrative irregularities as governor of Miranda state, a move decried by his supporters and foreign governments as another step toward dictatorship. It followed last week's decision by the Supreme Court to gut the opposition-controlled legislature of its last vestiges of power.

After President Bashar al-Assad of Syria once again attacked his own citizens with poison gas, the civilized world recoiled in horror at images of children writhing in pain and suffocating to death. President Trump voiced this justified outrage at a news conference on Wednesday, and the next day he took swift, decisive action against the outlaw Assad regime. But these strikes did more than simply punish Mr. Assad and deter future attacks; they have gone a long way to restoring our badly damaged credibility in the world.

It’s hard to overstate just how low the standing of the United States had fallen because of President Barack Obama’s failure to enforce his own “red line” against Mr. Assad’s use of chemical weapons in 2013. I was one of the few Republican members of Congress who supported strikes against Syria then. Because of that, I’ve heard from dozens of world leaders expressing their doubts about the security commitments of the United States.

Al-Qaeda and its sidekick Ahra al-Sham welcomed the U.S. strikes and Abu Ivanka al Amriki on their side. The theocratic dictatorship of Saudi Arabia offered its full support as did its British creators.

The U.S. airstrike delivers a message to al-Qaeda. Whenever under military pressure al-Qaeda can now stage or fake a “chemical attack” and the U.S. will act to destroy its enemy, the Syrian government. Acts as the one last night are then direct military support by the U.S. on al-Qaeda’s request.

Trump is the third U.S. president in a row who promised less belligerence during his campaign only to deliver more after the election. The “democratic” veil of the U.S. oligarchic rule thus rips further apart.

International law is being more and more discarded in favor of international anarchy

It is a sad fact that in totalitarian states, but also in our so-called democracies, it seems that wars of aggression are now based and sold with official lies and fraudulent fabrications in order to fool the people. Warmongers in government know that people do not like wars, especially illegal wars of aggression, against countries that have not attacked them. That is why their first choice is to attempt to drag the people along with lies and false pretexts for war, and by dehumanizing any potential enemy through crude propaganda.

People stand up and become disabler of the empire!

Syria is a mere square on this murderous chess board, as was Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, and many more to come. The purpose is not ‘winning a war’ – that would be too simple. The purpose is creating and leaving behind chaos, eternal chaos. In the case of Syria a balkanization of the country, what Clinton did to Yugoslavia. The old ‘divide to conquer’ – it still works after hundreds of years. People are still blinded to these oldest and most rudimentary of war strategies. They still fall for it; don’t notice; swallow the lies.

The pressures on anyone communicating with western media from such places can only be imagined.

And then there is this simple point. Why would the Syrian government use gas at this stage in a war it has recently begun to win with conventional munitions? You don’t have to believe that the Assad state is saintly to ask this question, and I don’t believe that. Please see http://dailym.ai/2h1XZAv Carla del Ponte, for the UN, has in the past accused the *rebels* of gas use http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10039672/UN...

Wicked and brutal they may well be, but they would have to be stupid and possibly mad to do such a thing, just as an important conference convenes in Brussels https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/news_corner/news/brusse... to discuss the future of Syria.

With Russia complaining that the US launched an illegal attack against Syria on Thursday night, based on unproven allegations of them launching a gas attack against northwestern Idlib Province earlier in the week, US officials have shifted to trying to blame Russia for the incident.

The Pentagon has announced that they are carrying out an investigation into the putative gas attack, saying that they want to see if Russian warplanes “took part” in the attack. Russia has insisted that no such gas attack took place to begin with, and that a Syrian conventional strike hit a rebel warehouse full of chemicals.

US officials don’t seem to be too worried about anyone proving anything, however, with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson insisting in comments today that Russia “bears responsibility” for the attack because they played such a major role in the 2013 chemical disarmament on Syria.

Last night, the United States attacked Syria, launching 59 Tomahawk missiles against a Syrian air base in a move that marked a dramatic reverse in Trump Administration policy toward Syria. What that policy actually is, however, is totally unclear.

Reporters unsurprisingly had a lot of questions, and the White House, also unsurprisingly, had no answers, dodging all questions about the goals of the new US intervention in Syria, and what the overall strategy or even next steps either militarily or diplomatically is.

All the White House would say is that the US attacks were “very decisive,” even if they aren’t all that clear what decision they even made. Beyond that, administration officials were talking up the idea that the US might launch more attacks in the near future.

Russian Defense Ministry suspends as of April 8 the operations of a communications hotline with the Pentagon, which the two sides established in line with a memorandum of understanding on prevention of incidents and ensuring of flight safety in Syrian airspace, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the Defense Ministry's official spokesman told reporters on Friday.
"About an hour ago, the US military attache in Moscow was summoned to the Defense Ministry to get an official note, which said the Russian side was suspending as of 00:00 hours on April 8 the observance of its obligations under the memorandum of understanding on prevention of incidents and ensuring of flight safety in the course of operation in the Syrian Arab Republic," he said.

Gen. Konashenkov refuted US media reports claiming Russia had decided to keep the hotline open.

The National Security Council has presented President Donald Trump with options to respond to North Korea's nuclear program — including putting American nukes in South Korea or killing dictator Kim Jong-un, multiple top-ranking intelligence and military officials told NBC News.

Both scenarios are part of an accelerated review of North Korea policy prepared in advance of Trump's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week.

The White House hopes the Chinese will do more to influence Pyongyang through diplomacy and enhanced sanctions. But if that fails, and North Korea continues its development of nuclear weapons, there are other options on the table that would significantly alter U.S. policy.

President Donald Trump announced the first serious military intervention of his young presidency on Thursday evening, a strike on a Syrian air base launched in retaliation for a horrific chemical weapons attack on civilians earlier in the week.

The strike was largely symbolic, and some critics of the move saw it as little more than a slap on the wrist for Syrian President Bashar Assad, whom the U.S. has accused of orchestrating the chemical attack. And while it raised a number of questions about a possible retaliation, civilian casualties, legality, and just how comprehensive the military strategy was, there was one constituency that, by and large, approved.

On cable news, Trump’s decision to take action was nothing short of heroic.

CNN’s Fareed Zakaria said Friday morning that “Donald Trump became President of the United States” the moment the bombs started dropping.

Conservative talk show host, Michael Savage, who fervently supported Trump during the Presidential campaign, soured on him today. Savage, referencing his background in science, having a PhD in epidemiology, said the alleged gas attack in the ISIS controlled city of Idlib was most likely phosgene and not sarin.

Backing up his claim that the attack did not contain sarin, Savage made reference to photos showing first responders attending to bodies without gloves or protective gear. Had sarin been used in the attack, all of those men in white helmets would be dead.

Unlike last month's unexpectedly week consumer credit report, which saw a plunge in revolving, or credit card, debt moments ago the Fed, in its latest G.19 release, announced that there were few surprises in the February report: Total revolving credit rose by $2.9 billion, undoing last month's $2.6 billion drop - the biggest since 2012 - while non-revolving credit increased by $12.3 billion, for a total increase in February consumer credit of $15.2 billion, roughly in line with the $15 billion expected.

The chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee told Breitbart News that he is very concerned about allegations that Susan Rice, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, abused her access to intelligence reports that included incidental collection of information about associates of President Donald Trump.

It’s being called bigger than Watergate – much bigger. While Democrats and the corporate media chase Russian phantoms, there is mounting evidence the Obama administration did spy on Donald Trump and his team. Is the intelligence community unhinged and out of control?

Rumors of war are percolating in Washington D.C., and if the Trump administration is not extremely careful it may find itself fighting several disastrous wars simultaneously. Just one day after threatening North Korea with war, Donald Trump has committed to taking military action against the Assad regime in Syria. Trump is blaming the chemical attack in Syria’s Idlib province on Tuesday on the Syrian government, and he is pledging that the United States will not just sit by and do nothing in response. Unfortunately for all of us, military contingents from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah are mixed in among the Syrian forces, and so any strike on the Syrian military could potentially spark World War 3.

In this article, I am going to share with you several quotes from President Trump and members of his team over the past couple of days, and if you read them carefully you will see that Trump has clearly painted himself into a corner.

The Pentagon has briefed President Trump on various military options the US can conduct in response to the poison gas attack in Syria that killed scores of civilians, and which Washington has blamed on the Syrian government, a U.S. official told Reuters.

Options include things like implementing a "no fly zone" or grounding aircraft used by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces, an official quoted by Reuters said.

Another option also includes the use of Tomahawk cruise missiles to overwhelm Russian air defense systems used by the Syrian military. The official did not comment on how likely military action might be which, if any, options might be recommended by the Pentagon. According to the Intercept, this would be a “saturation strike” using dozens of cruise missiles designed to hit Syrian military targets —including military air fields — in an effort to limit future Syrian Air Force attacks on rebel positions, according to the two U.S. military officials.

Ostensibly a trade deal, Bill C-30 will forever prevents the Bank of Canada from creating debt free currency.

“These heinous acts by the Assad regime cannot be tolerated.” Thus spoke the President of the United States.

Instant translation; Donald Trump – and/or the alphabet soup of US intelligence agencies, with no detailed investigation – are convinced that the Russian Ministry of Defense is simply lying.

SGT Report, along with many other independent media outlets, is now asking for Patreon donations as Google / YouTube demonetizes their videos, forcing them to look for alternative sources of operating revenue. But here’s the thing: SGT Report isn’t a Jiahid recruitment hub. They don’t promote terrorism. They simply have an independent point of view on politics and current events. For this reason alone, Google has demonetized them by labeling their videos “extreme.”

Google labels independent media “extremist” by conflating critical thinking with Jihadi terror

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Judge Gloria Navarro made a mockery of the judicial system today.

The first Bunkerville trial is underway in Las Vegas, Nevada. The prosecution has had over five weeks to present their case. Now that the defense is ready to put on their case, Judge Gloria Navarro has shut them down.

Out of the entire witness list, there is one witness, other than the defendants, that she will allow to testify. Garrett Frenner was a witness to the slaughter of the Bundy cattle. However, Judge Navarro will not allow him to testify to those events. The prosecutors and the FBI spent a couple of hours harassing this man, threatening him with prosecution if he dared to testify. She has made it clear that he can ONLY testify to which of the defendants he saw with guns.

Every witness that the defense tried to proffer today was questioned by the Judge. She stressed to each one of them that she was ready to have them removed from the courtroom in handcuffs, if she thinks they are committing perjury.

Speaking next to Jordan’s King Abdullah, Donald Trump said that the chemical weapons attack changed his position on Syria. He seemed to believe the fake news story that it was the Syrian government that dropped chemical weapons, rather than the forensically realistic explanation provided by Russia which explained that an illegal chemical weapons depot, where terrorists hoarded their explosives, was hit during an airstrike.

When asked about his sudden about face, Trump relied,

“I do change, and I am flexible. I am proud of that flexibility”.

Yesterday, we reported on a breaking story by GotNews that Sean Hannity and Blackwater founder, Erik Prince were also spied on and unmasked by the Obama administration.

GotNews has just revealed that it was Obama’s CIA Director, John Brennan who was targeting them and other Trump supporters for surveillance.

The USA is already a Totalitarian State with a Ministry of Propaganda that works overtime to generate a flimsy illusion of "democracy."

Is your "democracy" (or republic) actually a Totalitarian State? That is, is it a "democracy" or "republic" in name only? To find out, take this quick quiz.

Recently, Pakistan’s former army chief, General Raheel Sharif, has been appointed to lead a 40 member military alliance of Muslim nations dubbed as “the Muslim NATO.” Although the ostensible purpose of the alliance is to combat terrorism but in fact, the alliance of Sunni Muslim nations has been cobbled together by Saudi Arabia as a counterweight to Iran’s meddling in the Arab World.

Moreover, it should be kept in mind that Pakistan’s military and Saudi Arabia have very deep and institutionalized ties: thousands of Pakistani retired and serving army officers work on deputations in the Gulf Arab States. Furthermore, during the ‘80s, when Saudi Arabia lacked an efficient intelligence set-up, Pakistan’s Inter-services Intelligence (ISI) virtually played the role of Saudi Arabia’s foreign intelligence service.

Imagine men in bleach white bio suits with medical masks show up at your door. You are suspected of carrying a communicable disease. You will now be arrested and held without due process, indefinitely.

The government could do this any day.

They have the “authority”. They have the personnel. They have the funding. Now all they need is the excuse.

The federal government claims the right to quarantine anyone who they suspect has or has come into contact with a communicable disease.

On January 19th of this year, a regulation was passed by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The regulation is meant to allow the HHS and other departments of the federal government to stop the spread of contagious diseases, like Ebola or bird flu. But the regulation is obscure enough to be a serious threat to liberty.

The IRS seized millions dollars from innocent individuals and businesses because it was easier than targeting terrorists and drug dealers, a new report from the Treasury Department’s internal watchdog has revealed.
A report from Treasury’s Inspector General found that the IRS misused a law aimed at cracking down on organized crime and terrorism to target innocent individuals and businesses. Agents adopted a policy of seizing cash before investigating for other wrongdoing because it was just easier to seize the money of innocent people than hardened criminals and terrorists.

“One of the reasons why legal source cases were pursued was that the Department of Justice had encouraged task forces to engage in ‘quick hits,’ where property was more quickly seized and more quickly resolved through negotiation, rather than pursuing cases with other criminal activity (such as drug trafficking and money laundering), which are more time-consuming,” according to the report .

Two former Barclays traders have been cleared by a London jury of manipulating the key interest rate benchmark in a retrial which started six weeks ago.

Ryan Reich, a 35-year-old American, and Greek national Stylianos Contogoulas, 45, were both freed on unanimous verdicts at Southwark Crown Court.

It was their second trial on a charge of conspiracy to defraud after a jury last year could not reach a verdict. Four co-defendants have been jailed.

Both men had denied any wrongdoing when charged three years ago, reacted emotionally to the verdicts Thursday.

"For the last eight years I have consistently explained that I acted appropriately, honestly, and in accordance with the rules at the time," Reich said. "I am relieved and delighted to have been acquitted."

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has accused Reich and Contogoulas of plotting with other Barclays staff between June 2005 and September 2007 to skew the London interbank offered rate (Libor).

In just two weeks, over $8 billion military and industrial deals have been announced, amid a financial crisis that the country has been suffering due to its security and political situations and falling oil prices.

A US congressional source revealed last Wednesday that Donald Trump's administration informed the Congress of its plan to pursue the $5 billion sale to Bahrain of 19 Lockheed Martin F-16 aircraft and related equipment.

This deal was pulled back last year because of concerns that Bahrain had not made promised improvements to its human rights record. However, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker sees that "there are more effective ways to seek changes in partner policies than publicly conditioning weapons transfers in this manner."

Did former President Obama’s National Security Advisor Susan Rice demand details of the “unmasked” identities of those with whom then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and his aides spoke by phone? A former U.S. attorney claims she ordered intel agencies to reveal extensive information, an action one former deputy director for intelligence at the U.S. Central Command calls a “potential constitutional crisis.” Could this be the smoking gun that proves Trump was correct when he said the Obama administration spied on him?

Here it comes again. As the enemies of peace continue to pressure a new US President into deeper war commitments overseas, and as Washington’s Deep State works relentlessly opposing Russian moves in Syria at every turn, the war drums have started again – beating harder than ever now, clamouring for a new US-led attack on Syria. This morning we saw the familiar theme emerge, and just in time to provide a convenient backdrop to this week’s Brussels’ ‘Peace Talks’ and conference on “Syria’s Future”.

The US-led ‘Coalition’ prepares to make its end-run into Syria to ‘Retake Raqqa,’ and impose its Safe Zones in order to partition Syria, more media demonization of the Syrian government appears to be needed by the West.

Former commander in charge of US Army Military Police in Iraq says President Trump’s new National Security Adviser, Gen. H.R. McMaster, ‘ordered’ criminal abuse of hundreds of Iraqi detainees in 2005

“Detainees were abused at Tal Afar under orders and command and control of H.R. McMaster,” said Col. Arnaldo Claudio, a retired senior U.S. Military Police officer who served as 18th Airborne Corps Provost Marshal and Chief of Police of the Multinational Coalition Forces in Iraq in 2005.

The US never really stopped launching airstrikes in Yemen, but during the early part of the Saudi invasion, they certain reduced the number of direct US strikes. They seem to be picking up the pace substantially, with the Pentagon saying more than 70 strikes were launched just in March.

The Pentagon described this as nearly double the number of US strikes in Yemen in all of the previous year, saying they will “continue to target al-Qaeda in Yemen,” claiming the group poses a “significant threat to the United States” and needed to be disrupted.

Details on what the US actually targeted in most of those strikes was unclear, with a handful of individual strikes reportedly aimed at targets in the mountains. Two children were reported killed in one of the strikes, and several other civilians were wounded in other strikes

Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “The First 100 Days,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told fill-in host Dana Perino that he backed the Senate Intelligence Committee conducting a query headed by Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Mark Warner (D-VA) into former National Security Adviser Susan Rice’s handling of raw intelligence.

Rice in recent days has been in the spotlight amid reports she ordered the unmasking of American citizens’ identities in surveillance collected while she was the NSA. McConnell said it was his hope the Senate Intelligence Committee could make findings and offer a report created on a bipartisan basis.

“You know? I think there is even more to this story than is being revealed right now,” said Massie, who is the only Republican to have voted against Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) at the beginning of this session of Congress. “For over three years, I have been offering legislation to fix this problem.”

Massie said he agrees with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who told reporters Monday that Rice needs to be brought before Congress and asked questions under oath.

“Oh, I think we should, but if we express all this righteous indignation about these programs? We are obligated to fix these programs,” he said.

Last week, US officials suggested what was seemingly a major policy change, insisting that the future of Syrian President Bashar Assad was up to the Syrian people, and that the US was accepting “reality” in moving away from demands for Assad’s ouster.

Today, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley dialed that change back quite a bit, insisting that “Assad is always a priority,” and that the US wants to see him changed as a war criminal. She also dismissed the idea of Assad participating in future elections, insisting that the Syrians “don’t want” Assad anymore.

This may result in the US policy change being a distinction without a difference, as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s call to respect the will of the Syrian people doesn’t count for much if it is the Trump Administration themselves who get to decide what the Syrian people’s will is.

This photo provided Tuesday, April 4, 2017 by the Syrian anti-government activist group Edlib Media Center, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows victims of a suspected chemical attack, in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, northern Idlib province, Syria. The suspected chemical attack killed dozens of people on Tuesday, Syrian opposition activists said, describing the attack as among the worst in the country's six-year civil war. Edlib Media Center, via AP)

The Latest on the suspected chemical attack in Syria (all times local):

4 a.m.

The Russian Defense Ministry says a rebel-held town in northern Syria has been exposed to toxic agents from a rebel arsenal hit by a Syrian air strike.

Although many details are still hazy because of secrecy – and further befogged by politics – it appears House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes was informed last week about invasive electronic surveillance of senior U.S. government officials and, in turn, passed that information onto President Trump.

This news presents Trump with an unwelcome but unavoidable choice: confront those who have kept him in the dark about such rogue activities or live fearfully in their shadow. (The latter was the path chosen by President Obama. Will Trump choose the road less traveled?)

Mike Whitney has written an excellent expose of the “Russiagate” cover story for Obama’s political use of national security to help his party oppose Republicans. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46775.htm

Covert surveillance of politicians on Obama’s Nixon-like “Enemies List” has been going on for many years, but is only now being unmasked as a result of the failure of Obama’s cover story–“We weren’t spying on political opponents; only on Russians to protect America.”

The presstitute media has passed on the cover story authored by former Obama-administration officials led by CIA director John Brennan, FBI director James Comey, the DNC, and Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff. The loose ends in this cover-up have now been so widely exposed as hearsay and political that only 13% of Republicans believe the fact-free story – but 67% of Democrats cling to it.

Venezuela security forces on Tuesday clashed with anti-government protesters seeking, in part, to remove justices from the Supreme Court accused of unconstitutionally favoring the ruling party, while supporting lawmakers locked in a bitter dispute with the administration of President Nicolas Maduro and the Supreme Court.

Previously, the opposition-controlled National Assembly had called for the march ahead of a vote by lawmakers to remove members of the country’s top court, less than a week after judges attempted to seize the power of Congress. The protest was the most violent since hundreds of thousands flooded the capital last year demanding the embattled president’s ouster.

A majority of Americans are unwilling to share their personal emails, text messages, phone calls and records of online activity with U.S. counter-terrorism investigators - even to help foil terror plots, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Tuesday.

The poll showed Americans were more reluctant to share personal information than when the poll last asked the question four years ago.

For instance, 75 percent of adults said they would not let investigators tap into their Internet activity to help the U.S. combat domestic terrorism. That's up from 67 percent who answered the same way in June 2013.

An audit refers to an official financial examination, to which every person, corporation, and government organization in the United States is subject. To be exempt from an audit or to not be audited on an annual basis is practically unheard of, even if a business makes a small amount of money. So, why doesn’t the Pentagon, the headquarters for the United States Department of Defense — which accounts for 54% of the U.S. government discretionary spending — get audited?

To be clear, this is illegal. Legislation that was passed in the early 90s states that all government agencies must be audited on an annual basis. The Pentagon has not been audited for the past 20 years, yet there have been no legal consequences. Instead, the U.S. government awards the Department of Defense with billions of dollars annually. Why does the Pentagon get special treatment from the U.S. government and what exactly is it hiding?

WHY THE PENTAGON IS LONG OVERDUE FOR AN AUDIT

US Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) claims RT and Sputnik are “designed to undermine our democracy” and even compared them to Nazi propaganda while promoting her bill, a reaction to alleged Russian hacking of the 2016 election.

Shaheen took to the Senate floor on Tuesday to promote her bill, entitled “Foreign Agents Registration Modernization and Enforcement Act,” which she says would provide the Justice Department with “new and necessary authority to investigate potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act by RT America.”

Shaheen says her bill was written in response to Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 election and deliberately spreading false news stories that she related to Nazi propaganda.

The Senator claims RT has violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which was passed “in response to concerns about Nazi propaganda being disseminated in the United States without people knowing what it was.”

Trump has chosen retired US Air Force Colonel Rudolph Atallah to serve as Africa director on the National Security Council (NSC). Attalah was previously director of the US Special Operations Command Sub-Saharan Africa Orientation Course, which prepares US soldiers and government officials for deployment to the region. Trump’s leading choices to head the State Department’s Africa Bureau include Jeff Krill, the former vice president of Kosmos Energy, a company with substantial financial interests throughout West Africa, and retired US Army intelligence officer Charles Snyder.

During his first three months in office, Trump approved major expansions of the US Africa Command’s (AFRICOM) interventions in Somalia, Libya, Nigeria, and several other unnamed Central and West African countries.

Connecticut's legislature has managed to back into legalizing law enforcement use of weaponized drones. In writing a new drone law, lawmakers banned the use of weaponized drones, but made an exception for police. It's not a case of "Hey, let's give the cops weaponized drones!" as much as it is a case of not wanting law enforcement to be unable to have that option.

As for how police will or won't be able to deploy weaponized drones, that's still up in the air (I am so sorry):

Details on how law enforcement could use drones with weapons would be spelled out in new rules to be developed by the state Police Officer Standards and Training Council. Officers also would have to receive training before being allowed to use drones with weapons.

A Democratic Congressman whose committee is investigating alleged links between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia has predicted that someone will “end up in jail” once the probe is completed.

Joaquin Castro, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, which is looking into Moscow’s alleged cyber-meddling in the 2016 election, declined to say which individuals may have been guilty of crimes.

However, speaking on CNN, he predicted that “when all is said and done some people will end up in jail”.

There is only one reason the U.S. economy has thus far avoided a completely devastating collapse that threatens to end life in America as we have come to know it. According to former intelligence operative and author of Jim Rickards, it has everything to do with confidence. Slow but surely, however, that confidence is eroding and it is only a matter of time before the machinations and manipulations of central banks, governments and financial institutions lead to a total destabilization of the system.

And when that day finally comes – when credit markets lock up, stock markets crash, or the U.S. dollar collapses – Rickards, the author of The Road To Ruin: The Global Elites Secret Plan For The Next Financial Crisis, warns in a recent interview with Greg Hunter’s USA Watchdog that access to your assets will be heavily restricted.

France and Germany, along with a host of up to 21 other countries, are set to demand Hungary and Poland either accept migrants under the quota system or leave the European Union (EU).

The two nations have ignored Brussels’ insistence that they take migrants presently residing in great numbers in Italy and Greece. Public opinion in Hungary and Poland is also strongly against being forced to accept thousands of migrants from non-European cultures.

France and Germany, along with a host of up to 21 other countries, are set to demand Hungary and Poland either accept migrants under the quota system or leave the European Union (EU).

The two nations have ignored Brussels’ insistence that they take migrants presently residing in great numbers in Italy and Greece. Public opinion in Hungary and Poland is also strongly against being forced to accept thousands of migrants from non-European cultures.

CENTCOM commander Army Gen. Joseph Votel channeled his full Dr. Strangelove in front of the US House Armed Services Committee this past Wednesday.

Iran 'Precedent' for Middle East Countries 'Imposing Sanctions Against US'
"We need to look at opportunities where we can disrupt [Iran] through military means or other means."

As Orwellian as our times may be, this still ranks as a declaration of war. With the inbuilt consequence of smashing to bits the UN nuclear deal struck with Iran in the summer of 2015.

The easy way out would be to characterize this juvenile mobster-style outburst as brought to you by the House of Saud petrodollar fund.

Or to be reminded that Joseph Strangelove was addressing the very same crowd who despite acronym-laden 17 multibillion dollar intel agencies telling them over and over, via National Intelligence assessments, that Iran did not have, and was not planning to have, nuclear weapons, still mightily denounced Iran's "nuclear threat."

For those of you who have completely fallen in line with the thought that President Trump is the panacea to all our problems, it’s advisable that you rethink that stance. Firstly, there are interests behind the throne that are neither controlled by nor parallel to the interests of the administration. Secondly, the “transition period” is not over. It is far from over, and the lines that are developing…both of intra and inter-party dissension domestically…and the “Second Cold War” lines throughout the world…have materialized. They are beginning to solidify, and they are becoming fortified.

Since the 1990s rape of Yugoslavia, US wars were waged to replace independent governments with pro-Western puppet ones.

Strategy involves destroying, partitioning, occupying and controlling one country after another.

Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo is America’s largest European military base since the Vietnam War era – established for regional control, US bases in other war theaters for the same purpose.

Washington intends a permanent military presence in all its war theaters. The Brookings Institution’s policy paper laid out a strategy for Syria, applicable for other nations America attacked, titled “Deconstructing Syria: Towards a regionalized strategy for a confederated country.”

It’s a diabolical destroy, divide, partly occupy and control scheme – unknown to the public, unexplained by media.

Other countries America attacked face the same possible diabolical fate, part of a grand plan to redraw the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia maps.

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, one country stood out: Iceland was the one nation in the world which not only let its banks fail, but convicted the bankers responsible for the collapse of the country's financial system (incidentally, since then Iceland has been one of the world's economic success stories, with the economy growing over 7% last year). Now, nearly a decade later, Iceland’s ex-bankers, once reviled as symbols of crony and rogue capitalism, say they were scapegoats: and having been "improperly" jailed for their roles in the 2008 financial crisis, they’re now taking their cases to the European Court of Human Rights.

Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah has granted the country’s military tribunals the right to try civilians, initiating yet another wave of crackdown against the opposition in the island country.

Krugman believes — or at least wants his Democratic followers to believe — that supporting and praising savage despotism in Egypt is a new development that only happens in “Trump’s America.” The Washington Post’s neoconservative columnist Jackson Diehl this morning encouraged Post readers to believe in the same fairy tale, complaining in his column about the “ugly scene” of a “love-in” between Trump and “the most repressive dictator in Egypt’s modern history.”

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed cohorts of Israel loyalists in the United States by video link last week at the annual conference of Aipac, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. They should, he said, follow his government’s example and defend Israel on the "moral battlefield" against the growing threat of the international boycott divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. In Mr Netanyahu’s simple-minded language, support for Palestinian rights, and opposition to the settlements, is equivalent to "delegitimisation" of Israel.

The current obsession with BDS reflects a changing political environment for Israel.

Former President Barack Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice ordered U.S. spy agencies to produce “detailed spreadsheets” of legal phone calls involving Donald Trump and his aides when he was running for president, according to former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova.

“What was produced by the intelligence community at the request of Ms. Rice were detailed spreadsheets of intercepted phone calls with unmasked Trump associates in perfectly legal conversations with individuals,” diGenova told The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group Monday.

“The overheard conversations involved no illegal activity by anybody of the Trump associates, or anyone they were speaking with,” diGenova said. “In short, the only apparent illegal activity was the unmasking of the people in the calls.”

Sam Girod is a peaceful Amish farmer from Kentucky who made and sold homemade salves, the type that anyone could make in their kitchen. These salves have never hurt anyone (did I mention, NO ONE?), and his “crime”? Rape? Murder? Drug dealing? Nope, not even close. His crime was mislabeling his homemade “product”, according to the FDA. So he changed the label. They said it wasn't good enough. He changed it again. Years later they came after him again. Then he missed a court hearing that he didn't even realize he was supposed to attend. It went from bad to worse from there…

Ok, it was a crazy weekend with lots of things sensitive to national security taking place. Let's get you up to speed.

The fake news main stream media is ignoring the real scandal, which is the unmasking of Trump during 'incidental' surveillance by our intelliegence agencies. When Chairman Nunes came out and told you that some very troubling surveillance had been taking place against Trump, which was not related to national security, the DNC controlled media tied themselves into little pretzels of rage because it validated what Trump was saying all along -- that he'd been 'wiretapped.'

What happened next is lunacy prevailed inside the democratic party, amplified by the media. Instead of investigating who ordered the unmasking of Trump and who leaked this information, the media wanted to know who told Nunes. You can't make this stuff up. Ignore the crime, go after the whistleblower.

But now the pieces are beginning to fall into place.

GEO incarcerates more immigrants (and receives more public money to do so) than any other detention center operator, according to an analysis by the anti-detention group CIVIC. And its business detaining immigrants for ICE is only expected to grow "with this increased and expanded approach to border security," CEO George Zoley said in a February earnings call.

According to the lawsuit, there were two ways GEO cashed in on cheap labor from detainees. There was the facility's sanitation policy, under which detainees like Ortiz were required to work as janitors without pay. If they didn't, they risked being punished with solitary confinement, according to GEO's local detainee handbook. Detainees could also apply for a job in Aurora's voluntary work program, which paid them exactly $1 a day to keep the facility running.

A story which promising you something “the media” does not want you to know is almost certainly fake.