Monday, April 30, 2018

Everything A Disaster But For His Teleprompter. More Things Unresolved and Up In The Air. Mueller In Search Of A Crime?


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https://www.lifezette.com/popzette/an-open-letter-to-the-white-house-correspondents-association/
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I have not had time to do a lot of reading. I wrote about "Sapiens" now I am reading Harari's sequel: "Homo Deus."  It is a brief history of tomorrow.  Only on page 53 but very provacative.
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A lot happening on the political scene but have lost touch with a lot that has been going on because of so much travel.
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U.S verifies what Netanyahu revealed regarding Iran. Obamacare a disaster, The Iran Deal a disaster . Everything Obama touched turned out to be a disaster.  Where would he have been without his teleprompter?(See 1 below.)
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Do you agree with this comment? (See 2 below.)
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The leaking of the 50 questions Mueller wants to ask Trump suggests to me  he is setting Trump up for his ultimate impeachment by The House should the Democrats win in 2018.

Mueller has shifted from Russian Collusion to finding something he can then call a crime involving obstruction just like Fitzgerald did against Libby..
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We are entering a period when more things are up in the air than are being resolved.  Perhaps that is always the way.  Yes, N Korea is making positive comments but it will be months before we really know whether they are willing to actually give up nuclear ownership and are also willing to allow a full investigation to verify.

When it comes to Iran, in the next several days Trump will decide what position he will take regarding Obama's disastrous deal.  Even if Trump withdraws nothing will be resolved.  In fact, more potential problems could surface ultimately resulting in another Middle East War.

Mueller's investigation is growing more legs as he seeks to entrap the president in a long list of open ended type questions that expose Trump to a variety of risks.  What Mueller seems to be doing is creating/constructing a crime he can lay on Trump.

The economy is growing but so are costs so corporate earnings could rise but fall short of expectations.  On the other hand,  there is a lot of uncertainty as to whether the benefits from repatriation and the tax relief have kicked in or are yet to take effect.

Trade issues are bumping up against deadlines and no one knows whether Trump will get some relief he is seeking.

Illegal immigration and sanctuary issues continue their slow pace through our court system and one would hope the president's constitutional authority to protect and defend our nation would be recognized and upheld.

The 2018 election could result in Democrats capturing The House, use Mueller's investigation as the basis of bringing impeachment charges and much of Trump's accomplishments would be placed in jeopardy. The last thing our battered nation needs is more political trauma,

While all of the above is being resolved, one way or the other, China continues to move forward with their military and commercial  expansion and Russia continues to deepen its roots in The Middle East. Meanwhile, The Saudis are engaged in Democratization and regime change just as radical Islamist's feel emboldened by support received  from Iran. 
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Dick
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1)

U.S. Confirms Authenticity of Secret Iran Nuclear Docs, Officials See Game Over for Deal

Trump administration officials praise Netanyahu's 'powerful presentation'


BY: Adam Kredo 

U.S. officials and congressional insiders view the disclosure Monday by Israel of Iran's ongoing efforts to develop a nuclear weapon as game over for the landmark nuclear deal, telling the Washington Free Beacon that new evidence of Iran's top secret nuclear workings makes it virtually impossible for President Donald Trump to remain in the agreement.

Senior Trump administration officials confirmed the findings as authentic and praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's for disclosing thousands of secret documents proving Iran lied about its past work on a nuclear warhead, telling the Free Beacon the revelation was a "powerful presentation" by Israel outlining why the Iran deal must be fixed or killed.

U.S. officials who reviewed the secret documents confirmed their authenticity and said that Israel has shared the information fully with the United States, most likely to help build the case for Trump to abandon the nuclear deal, rather than try to fix what the White House views as a series of insurmountable flaws.

A State Department official confirmed to the Free Beacon Monday evening that it is "aware of the information just released" by Israel and is "examining it carefully."

"The United States has reviewed many of the documents Israel has obtained relating to Iran’s nuclear weapons program," an official confirmed to the Free Beacon. "We assess that the documents that we have reviewed are authentic."

The State Department further confirmed that "new details in this information are consistent with a large body of evidence and intelligence the U.S. government has amassed over many years on Iran’s past clandestine nuclear weapons program," according to the official.

While the administration's analysis of the document cache is "ongoing," officials said they "agree with the Israelis that…. this information provides new and compelling details about Iran's past efforts to develop nuclear weapons deliverable by a Shahab-3 ballistic missile."

In addition, the new "information indicates plans for Iran’s nuclear weapons program included building five nuclear weapons," the official said. "It demonstrates once again that Iranian leaders have for years lied to the world and their own citizens when they claim Iran has never pursued nuclear weapons."

The documents confirm a longstanding U.S. suspicion that "Iran has systematically hid evidence of clandestine weapons work from international inspectors," according to the State Department official.
"If there was ever any doubt, every struggling Iranian citizen must now realize that Iran has lost countless dollars from nuclear sanctions for one reason, and one reason alone: the Iranian regime's reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons, weapons that Supreme Leader Khamenei personally insists are un-Islamic," the official said. "It is long past time for Iran to come clean and cooperate with international inspections into its past weapons work in order to convince the world it is serious about never again pursuing nuclear weapons."

Iran's efforts to obfuscate this information will "be a key factor" in Trump's decision on either stay in or withdraw from the nuclear deal on May 12, the official said.

Multiple sources who spoke to the Free Beacon say that Monday's presentation by Netanyahu resulted from a recent conversation between the prime minister and Trump, who has expressed his opposition to remaining in the deal.

During his presentation, Netanyahu disclosed that Israel had obtained some 100,000 secret documents that provide "conclusive proof" Iran lied to the world about its past nuclear work. The Israeli leader further presented information from these documents purporting to show that Iran continues to build on its nuclear know-how in pursuit of a fully functioning weapon.

While Trump has not made a final decision on whether to scrap the deal, sources close to the president say he is increasingly wary of the deal itself, as well as proposed fixes to the deal currently being discussed by the Europeans.

One senior administration official, speaking only on background, confirmed to the Free Beacon that the United States assessed the secret documents obtained by Israel to be fully authentic.

"All the materials we have reviewed are in our assessment authentic," the official said, praising Netanyahu for presenting the evidence to the world.

"Prime Minister Netanyahu gave a powerful presentation today of compelling new evidence documenting Iran's determined pursuit of a nuclear weapon," the senior official said. "It certainly would have been helpful to have this information when the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] was negotiated but the Iranians decided to lock it away in a secret vault for future reference."
The cache of documents showing that Iran has retained the infrastructure and know-how to produce a nuclear weapon has cast further doubts on U.S. efforts to broker a series of fixes to the landmark agreement.

"Only the regime knows what else they're hiding, but the revelations today don't give us much confidence in their protestations that they have never had interest in militarizing their nuclear program," the official said. "They're showing us in Syria how they plan to deploy their existing arsenal—we would be foolish to think that behavior is going to change because of a deal that was implemented two years ago that was based on a lie."

Following Netanyahu's remarks, Trump emphasized his opposition to the deal.

Those familiar with the president's thinking said that he has soured on efforts to fix the deal and would prefer to see a wholly new agreement, a demand Iran has rejected in recent days.
Trump "made a clear signal today that he's not confident in the JCPOA," said the senior administration official. "The decision is with him and I don't think he's made it, but he seemed to indicate he's more open to a new deal then to try to fix something this broken."

A senior congressional official who has worked closely with the White House on the Iran issue told the Free Beacon the news has sent shockwaves through Capitol Hill.

"Everything the Obama administration told us about the Iranian nuclear program was a lie," said the source, who was not authorized to speak on record. "They assured us that we knew everything about Iran's nuclear weapons program, that it was put on ice, and that the intelligence community had full insight into what was going on."

"Now we find out the Iranians have warehouses of nuclear weapons designs. People are in shock," the source said. "Forget the policy implications, which get to the heart of the deal, this shows how the whole sale was built on a lie. Expect to see momentum build in Congress for just scrapping the whole thing."

"The United States is aware of the information just released by Israel and continues to examine it carefully," the White House said. "This information provides new and compelling details about Iran’s efforts to develop missile-deliverable nuclear weapons.  These facts are consistent with what the United States has long known: Iran has a robust, clandestine nuclear weapons program that it has tried and failed to hide from the world and from its own people.  The Iranian regime has shown it will use destructive weapons against its neighbors and others.  Iran must never have nuclear weapons."
The White House National Security Council has yet to comment formally on Netanyahu's disclosures. The Free Beacon will update this report as more information becomes available.
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2)

Capitalism Can’t Work Without Losers

By Patrick Watson
Those who support free-market economics say it is the best, most efficient path to maximum prosperity for everyone.
In other words, everybody wins in a free market—not equally, but each person at least has the opportunity for a prosperous life.
I agree with all that, except the “everybody wins” part.
In fact, free markets don’t work well at all unless certain people lose. Otherwise the entire system fails and everyone loses. Which is happening right now.
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Netanyahu"s Revelations Regarding Iran's Lying.



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Ted Nugent certainly gets an A+ for correctly answering the question of the animal activist
Ted Nugent, rock star and avid bow hunter from Michigan, was being interviewed by a liberal journalist who also happens to be an animal rights activist. The discussion came around to deer hunting. The journalist asked, "What do you think is the last thought in the head of a deer before you shoot him? Is it, 'Are you my friend?' or is it 'Are you the one who killed my brother?'"

Nugent replied, "Deer aren't capable of that kind of thinking. All they care about is what am I going
 to eat next, who am I going to screw next, and can I run fast enough to get away. They are very much like the Democrats in Congress."

The interview ended.


And:

Please recommend www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com and forward this email to friends, family and colleagues and especially to any individuals whom you think need to know about the good work that Israel does.

Finally:

What’s in a word? Does it matter, for example, whether we call a foreigner who illegally moves to the United States an “illegal alien” or an “undocumented immigrant”? Because language shapes how we see our world, the culture war is first and foremost a war of words – and the left is winning. The consequences can be seen everywhere: in politics, in education, in media. In this week’s video, Michael Knowles, host of the Michael Knowles Show, explains why we should not cede another syllable.
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Mass media hits a new low?  You decide. 

Controversy swirls around White House Correspondent's Dinner after profane headline
performance. https://tiny.iavian.net/mpdb
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Netanyahu makes stunning broadcast revealing Israel has obtained archival evidence Iran has been lying and is/has been in violation of The Iran Deal because they have a nuclear program (Project Amad) which has 5 components.

Their secret nuclear project involves 5 Hiroshima size bombs.

Five Components:

Designing nuclear weapons  

Developing nuclear cores.

Building nuclear implosion systems

Preparing nuclear tests

Integrating nuclear warheads on missiles.

In addition to the above, Iran continues working on missile delivery capabilities.

Conclusion:

Iran lied

Iran continued to expand their files after The Iran Deal.  Went to covert to overt.

Iran lied and continues to lie.  All of these conclusions are based on 100,000 purloined files Israel obtained.

Netanyahu has provided all of these files to the U.S and is willing to send them to any nation wanting to review them. Bibi has challenged Trump to renounce the Iran Deal.

Europe is trying to stick with the deal for commercial reasons.

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Democrats are looking increasingly pathetic when it comes to having supported Obama's Iran Deal, when it comes to videos showing caravans of illegals seeking to make a mockery of our laws as well as the sanctity of our borders. Additionally vicious attacks on Trump Administration personnel and their slow walking and scurrilous attacks on his appointees are other tactics beginning to show Democrats in the most negative light.

Comey's effort to sell his self-serving book of lies and admissions and his biased cover up of the way he led his agency into a brick wall is another tragic episode which Democrats and Obama were so much a part of as they pursued their campaign support of Hillary.

Mid-term elections never bring out large number of voters and this is the risk Republicans run in order to hold onto The House because the news  and events should not favor Democrats who look more pitiful with the passing of each day The economy is improving, N Korea seems to looking more positive, The Iran Deal looks less viable, Trump's favor-ability is rising and  these are positive factors.  Republicans need to avoid internal food fights and nominate some worthy candidates.I doubt they will and the number of their retirees and candidates up for re-election does not favor them.

If Democrats take The House they will seek Trump's impeachment unless more sensible heads prevail so very little will happen in the last two year's of his first term.

Quite early to make such comments but this is the way I see things at this time. (See 1 and 1a  below.)
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We leave again this Saturday to attend a Diabetes Fund Raiser event in Atlanta, returning late Sunday.
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Dick
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On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced to the world that Israel had carried out a stunning intelligence operation: their agents had smuggled tens of thousands of physical documents about Iran’s nuclear program out of Iran itself. Those “half a ton” of documents demonstrate Iran’s ongoing nuclear program, and the fact that the Obama administration lied constantly and repeatedly to the public about Iran’s newfound moderation in order to scam the public into approving Obama’s Iran nuclear deal – a deal that allowed Iran to maximize its regional power with income from the West.
Netanyahu announced, “Iran lied. Big time. After signing the nuclear deal in 2015, Iran intensified its efforts to hide its secret nuclear files.” Netanyahu said that a dilapidated warehouse contained Iran’s nuclear files: “55,000 pages, another 55,000 files on 188 CDs.” The files included incriminating documents, charts, and presentations.

According to Netanyahu, Iran had a comprehensive program, Project Amad, to design and develop nuclear weapons, and they have now disassembled the program for later reassembly. The specific goal of Project Amad: designing nuclear weapons; developing nuclear cores; preparing nuclear implosions; preparing nuclear tests; integrating nuclear warheads on missiles. Iran devised a plan after the beginning of the Second Gulf War to further develop its nuclear weapons program in secret – and to form new organizations to continue the work of Project Amad. Today, Netanyahu said, the work was carried out inside the Iranian Defense Ministry, and many of Amad’s key personnel continued to work on the project. The Iranians did not declare their program to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran instead denied the existence of a program and specifically denied the Amad plan.

This presentation was undoubtedly carried out with the knowledge of the United States; Netanyahu said that the information had been shared with the United States.

This is likely the precursor to the Trump administration moving to end the Iran nuclear deal, as they should. The Obama administration misled the American public, promoted Iranian lies repeatedly, and as Netanyahu said, “The nuclear deal is based on lies. 100,000 files right here prove that they lied…Iran continues to lie…The nuclear deal gives Iran a clear path to an atomic arsenal.”


1a)

‘Iran lied’: Netanyahu drops a Mossad bombshell on the Iranian nuclear deal

Israel always claimed Iran duped the world, and the 2015 deal paved its path to a nuclear arsenal. Armed with Iran's own archive, PM now looks to Trump to do 'the right thing'


By David Horovitz

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday dropped a Mossad intelligence bombshell on Iran, and on the Obama administration-led international community that negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran. He showcased a vast archive of Iran’s own documentation demonstrating that Tehran worked to develop a nuclear weapons arsenal, lied to the international community about it, and has taken the steps necessary to ensure it can proceed to the bomb within the framework of the 2015 deal.
In a brief, devastating presentation at the Tel Aviv Defense Ministry headquarters, Netanyahu unveiled what he described as one of Israeli intelligence’s greatest ever achievements — getting its hands on Iran’s own archived nuclear weapons program paperwork: 55,000 pages, and another 55,000 files on 183 CDs, he said. That archive faithfully records the progress of Iran’s comprehensive program to build nuclear weapons, named Project Amad, he noted — speaking in English, for maximal international resonance. And by obtaining that material, he declared, Israel could now incontrovertibly demonstrate that Iran’s leaders have “brazenly” lied to the world, and that the 2015 accord is founded on Iranian “deception.”
“100,000 files right here prove that they lied,” he declared, standing in front of what he said were copies of the Iranian files and CDs.
Netanyahu said he had already shared the material with the United States, and that the US could vouch for its authenticity. He said he would also share it with other countries and the International Atomic Energy Agency. The prime minister has always opposed the 2015 deal, negotiated by the P5+1 powers led by President Barack Obama. His presentation on Monday was plainly designed, among other factors, to advance his “fix it or nix it” demand — a stance, crucially, shared by US President Donald Trump, who has to decide in less than two weeks whether to withdraw from the accord.Watching the prime minister’s presentation in a TV studio, the former head of Military Intelligence in the Israeli army, Amos Yadlin, called the material “conclusive proof” of Tehran’s duplicity — vindication of Israel’s consistent claim that Iran had a nuclear weapons program, continued to work on it in recent years, and duped the world about it. The captured archive material contains “no smoking gun since 2015,” Yadlin observed, because that most recent material presumably hasn’t been archived yet. However, since Iran now demonstrably lied to the world until 2015, Yadlin added dryly, “it has presumably continued to lie since then as well.”
The prime minister was notably non-specific regarding what action he thinks the US and the other P5+1 countries should take. As in, should they fix it, or should they nix it? He simply said that he was certain Trump would do “the right thing — the right thing for the United States, the right thing for Israel, and the right thing for the peace of the world.”
For the first time anyone could recall, Netanyahu had skipped his scheduled speech at Monday’s opening of the new Knesset session in order to marshall his material and prepare his speech. That cancellation, which came just hours after a reported major raid on an Iranian base in Syria, sparked a mini-panic among some Israelis. Awaiting Netanyahu’s address, the news anchor at Israel’s Hadashot TV news assessed, with only a small degree of exaggeration, that “every household in Israel” was now bracing for the prime minister’s address and wondering whether war with Iran was “inevitable.”
“No,” came the succinct answer from military analyst Roni Daniel.
Elaborating, a widely respected former Defense Ministry official, Amos Gilad, said in the studio: “Let’s reassure the public: There is no danger of war. And Iran is not attacking us.”
Gilad, however, then rather undermined his attempts at defusing panic by adding: “Iran is determined to get rid of Israel. They take the historical view… They are developing missiles. They say the agreement with Obama allows them in eight years time to develop nuclear weapons if they want to…”
It is that patient Iranian approach, that relentless Iranian threat, that Netanyahu was determined to highlight in his presentation. To that end, his speech had several complementary goals:
First, showing the Iranians the potency of Israel’s security and intelligence apparatuses — capable of removing Iran’s own closely guarded material from right under its nose (and consequently capable of identifying the key personnel, like Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, leading the nuclear weapons program).
Second, detailing, stage by stage, the progress of the Iranian nuclear weapons program as gleaned from Iran’s own documents, map, photos and videos — in five stages that he showcased slide by slide: from designing nuclear weapons, to developing nuclear cores, to building nuclear implosion systems, to preparing nuclear tests and, finally, to integrating nuclear weapons on missiles.
Third, giving the international community extraordinary evidence on which to formulate a more appropriate response to Tehran’s terrifying duplicity.
US President Donald Trump speaks during a joint press conference with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari in the Rose Garden of the White House on April 30, 2018, in Washington, DC. Trump said the current Iranian nuclear deal was ‘unacceptable.’ (AFP/Saul Loeb)
And, fourth, providing Trump with the intelligence information he needs to take the firmest stance against the maintenance of the 2015 deal in its current form — no matter how derisive or threatening the Iranian response.
Will it work? Will the P5+1 countries suddenly discover a new iron will when it comes to confronting the malevolent ayatollahs? Netanyahu, for one, evidently puts little faith in that. But, as he detailed, he has been coordinating with the Trump administration. And the president, within minutes of Netanyahu’s presentation in Tel Aviv, was declaring on the White House lawn that Netanyahu had sent the right message, and that an Iranian path to the bomb in seven years is “not acceptable.”
Netanyahu argued Monday, as he has argued consistently all along, that the 2015 accord is “a terrible deal” that “should never have been concluded.” Now, he said, he had the proof.
Then US president Barack Obama, right, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on November 9, 2015. (AFP/Saul Loeb)
The Obama administration claimed that no deal would have satisfied Israel, but that was always untrue. Israel wanted to see a deal that would dismantle Iran’s entire nuclear weapons program; the 2015 deal simply didn’t do that. Again, Netanyahu now had the proof.
Even Monday, armed with that Iranian archive of danger and duplicity, Netanyahu did not demand that the deal be scrapped. He stressed, rather, that the accord, as it stands, gives Iran a clear path to a nuclear arsenal, and asserted that the material he was presenting shows without a shadow of doubt that the Iranians fully intend to follow that path — to enrich mountains of uranium, to develop their ballistic missiles, to weaponize.
His message to the world on Iran’s rapacious leaders and their nuclear goals: They’re dangerous. They’re duplicitous. They have to be stopped. And… it’s not too late
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Stella Turns 6, Melania Turns 48. Putin's Surrogates.Kim Offers Very Sound Advice. Stripping Because Muslims Want To Kill Me. Uber Alles!




Back from Stella's 6th birthday party.  Tammy  did most of the baking and it was all beautiful.  The kids were primarily from her school class and they were so well behaved.  The event took place at a  bouncey facility and all seemed to have a good time.
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Prospect of Iran Israel confrontation heightens. (See 1 below.)
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Melania turns 48. Wish her a happy birthday. Were President Trump not a Republican, Melania Trump would be hailed as the second iteration of Jackie Kennedy, for her beauty, style, and poise.

This is a side of Melania that the media won't, and contrast her achievements with the presidential wives that have preceded her. This classy lady deserves much better than she gets in the press, as she stands out as a great American story. Happy birthday Melania:***CLICK HERE TO BEGIN SLIDESHOW***
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One of the reasons Putin is able to fight in Syria is he is using surrogate forces and thus his own soldiers are not casualties of the fighting.  Paid mercenaries are dying. (See 2 below.)
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Kim offers some of the best advice ever to Trump.  Will 
he take it?(See 3 below.)
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Israel means what it says. (See 4 below.)
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While I was in Pittsburgh I
read the book written by
Osama's sister in law and
it was about life in Saudi
Arabia and being part of a
strict Muslim family.

I had a temporary driver's
license and therefore, had to go through a full shakedown.

Had I known, I would have 
brought my pass port.  As I
was taking off my shoes, belt etc. I began to think I had to
do all of this because some
radical Islamist wants to
kill me.
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Another  out of the box thought pertains to UBER.  For
those old enough to remember Hitler's rally song was
Uber Alles.  As I let my mind wander I began to come
up with ads like "Heil an Ubber."  You get the drift?

My mind is wired in a weird way.

And while I am at it:


Breaking Character Breaks Relationships


Finally:

Go to this site if you want to watch something clever: Bad Lip Reading.com
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Dick
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1)
Mattis, receiving Liberman, warns of ‘likely’ conflict between Israel and Iran
By MICHAEL WILNER
“I can see how it might start, but I am not sure when or where,” the secretary told lawmakers.

WASHINGTON —  Direct conflict between Israeli and Iranian forces is increasingly 
likely in Syria as Tehran pursues a permanent military presence there, US 
Secretary of Defense James Mattis warned on Thursday.

Addressing a congressional panel before hosting his Israeli counterpart, Avigdor 

Liberman, at the Pentagon, Mattis said it was “very likely” from his perspective, 
“because Iran continues to do its proxy work there through Hezbollah.”

Receiving Liberman, Mattis told reporters that he saw no reason for Iran to ship 

advanced missiles to Hezbollah through Syria except to threaten Israel.

“I can see how it might start, but I am not sure when or where,” the secretary told 

lawmakers. Mattis then echoed Liberman’s warning from earlier in the day, issued 
through a Saudi newspaper, in which he said Israeli forces would strike Tehran if 
Iranian missiles ever hit Tel Aviv.

The two met at the Pentagon after Liberman met with US President Donald Trump’s

national security advisor, John Bolton; his special representative for international 
negotiations, Jason Greenblatt; and his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared 
Kushner, at the White House.

Iran was the focus of conversation there, as well, according to a statement issued 

by Israel’s embassy in Washington.

At the hearing, Mattis seemed to question the wisdom of hastily withdrawing from t

he Iran nuclear accord, just two weeks shy of a May 12 deadline set by Trump for 
US and European diplomats to come up with "fixes" to its most controversial 
provisions.

Should they fail, Trump is threatening to withdraw the US from the agreement by 

reimposing nuclear-related sanctions on Iran lifted by the 2015 deal.

Mattis said that criticisms of the agreement are "valid," but that, " obviously, 

aspects of the agreement that can be improved upon." The position appeared in 
sync with that of French President Emmanuel Macron, who at the White House on 
Tuesday proposed expanding on the existing nuclear deal rather than attempting to
start from scratch.

​"​I will say it is written almost with an assumption that Iran would try to cheat,​"​ ​Mattis ​told the Senate panel.​ He said he had read the agreement in full several times, including its classified annexes.​

​"​T​he verification, what is in there, is actually pretty robust as far as our intrusive 

ability to get in​.​"

Trump says he wants new terms imposed onto the deal by France, Britain, 

Germany and the US that will grant international inspectors greater access to Iran's
 military sites. He also hopes to impose new restrictions on Iran's ballistic missile 
work – inextricably linked to the nuclear warheads they are built to deliver, his 
administration says– and to scrap "sunset clauses" in the deal that will allow Tehran
to resume much of its nuclear enrichment work.

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2)

Mattis Gives Epic Description Of 

Russian Mercenary Annihilation

     
  • by: Ryan Saavedra

Read more at http://trumptrainnews.com/articles/mattis-
Thursday, Secretary of Defense James Mattis told the Senate Armed Services 
Committee that he ordered Russian mercenaries in Syria to be annihilated once he 
found out that they were not part of the Russian military.

Mattis revealed that the military used a deconfliction line with Russia to make sure 
that forces with which they were engaged in conflict were not part of the Russian 
military. Once the military received confirmation from Russia, Mattis ordered U.S. 
military forces to destroy the Russian mercenaries, The Washington Free Beacon 
reported.

"The Russian high command in Syria assured us it was not their people, and my 
direction to the chairman was for the force, then, to be annihilated," Mattis said. 
"And it was."

Mattis added that at this point he couldn't attribute responsibility for who was behind
 the Russian mercenaries to the Russian government, noting that there are multiple
 forces involved in the operations in Syria.
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3)

How Trump Takes On Obstruction

Focus on the threat to the powers of the presidency, not the president personally.


President Trump vociferously protests his innocence as Robert Mueller finishes the first year of his Russia investigation. Still, the endless Tweet bleats of “PHONY” and “WITCH HUNT” are doing little to help his cause.
The question is why this high-energy president seems to have fallen for the media claim that his only proactive course is to fire Mr. Mueller. It isn’t. There are two very bold actions the Trump White House could take to reset the Russia dynamic. Both would aid Mr. Trump’s presidency and serve the executive branch and the public in the longer term.
The first is an abrupt overhaul of the president’s legal team and strategy. Mr. Trump has talented lawyers, but not ones skilled at confronting the threat at hand. They continue to fret over his personal liability, when the real threat is to the Constitution—to this presidency and every future one. Mr. Mueller is by all accounts now focused on obstruction of justice. Mr. Trump needs constitutional powerhouses who can swiftly take that issue off the table.
Constitutional lawyer David Rivkin in December argued on these pages that a president’s exercise of the powers of his office cannot legitimately be construed as obstruction of justice. Among those powers are the right to direct law enforcement and to fire executive-branch appointees at will. Whether or not Mr. Trump’s conversations with former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey, or his firing of Mr. Comey, were wise, Mr. Trump was exercising rightful powers. If Congress believes he abused his office, it has the power to impeach. If Congress had the authority to criminalize the exercise of presidential power, or the judiciary to question a president’s motives, the separation of powers would be severely threatened.
Already we are seeing the obstruction narrative threaten other core powers. We are now told it is obstructionist for a president to use his pardon power, as Mr. Trump did with Joe Arpaio and Scooter Libby. We are told that Mr. Trump is obstructing justice by ordering the attorney general to cooperate with congressional document demands. And Team Trump needs to understand that the mere specter is enough to constrain the presidency; Mr. Mueller doesn’t need to bring a charge.
Which is why the president needs a team that focuses on the Constitution, decoupling its defense of Mr. Trump’s presidential powers from his personal legal risk. Example: The president’s lawyers are currently resisting a Mueller interview for fear the president might perjure himself. The correct grounds for refusing should be that the president will not parlay with any special prosecutor engaged in an unconstitutional obstruction probe. He needs a team that immediately goes to federal court to obtain a declaratory judgment that presidents cannot obstruct justice while exercising core powers. This legal clarification is crucial, to pre-empt any Mueller charge or even report. It’s also necessary to make clear that should the House impeach on obstruction, it will not be doing so on grounds that the president violated criminal law.
Simultaneous to legal overhaul, the White House should immediately order the declassification (with redactions for sources and methods) of every underlying document in the Justice Department and FBI counterintelligence probe, including any paper at the State Department, Central Intelligence Agency and any other agencies that were involved. Everything. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants. Emails. Texts. The interviews with dossier author Christopher Steele. The story of how exactly the FBI came into possession of info about Trump aide George Papadopoulos. Details of any as yet undisclosed FBI spying on the Trump campaign.
Mr. Trump’s advisers have warned him off this transparency, on the grounds—yet again—that such a release might be construed as obstructing the Mueller probe. To repeat: The president has ultimate authority over classification, and no exercise of that constitutional power can be obstruction. Even the few documents the public has seen—the Comey memos, the Peter Strzok-Lisa Page texts, a glimpse of one FISA warrant—have created a compelling case that the FBI and Justice Department in 2016 abused their power.
Yes, there are risks of a worrisome declassification precedent. But they are outweighed by the gravity of the threat to the executive branch and the potential loss of faith in law enforcement. The nation has the right to the full story now—to understand better how we ever got to a special counsel, and to put Mr. Mueller’s ultimate findings in context.
The media and anti-Trump elites have created a false choice: that Mr. Trump must either sit back and take it, or go on a firing rampage. He has better options. He can define the terms of this debate and defend the executive branch. And he can enlighten the country. But his time for doing so productively is growing very short.
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4)
Iranians killed in alleged Israeli strike on military site in Syria
By  ANNAAHRONHEIM
The target was reportedly an underground missile production facility and depot for surface-to-surface missiles.

The Syrian army confirmed that Sunday that several military bases in northern Syria were struck in an attack blamed on Israel by the Hezbollah-affiliated newspaper Al Akhbar.

According to official news agency SANA, a military source said that “some military sites in the countryside of Hama and Aleppo provinces were exposed at 10:30 PM to a new aggression with hostile rockets.”

The explosions following the strike registered as a 2.6 magnitude earthquake by the European Mediterranean Seismological Center, but the weapons used did not cause the quake. Over 18 people were killed and another 60 were wounded, Sky News Arabia reported citing regime media.

Al Akhbar reported the targets of the strike were Syrian army bases being used by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and Shi'ite militias with troops from Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Hezbollah’s Al Mayadeen reported missiles also struck targets in the Al-Malikiyah area, north of the Aleppo’s airport. 

Iran's Tasnim news agency denied that its bases were hit. 

According to some reports the target in Hama, an army base known as Brigade 47, was an underground missile production facility and depot for surface-to-surface missile funded by Iran and built with the help of North Korea. Located near Hama, it was also widely known as a recruitment center for Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias who fight alongside President Bashar Assad's force.

Unconfirmed reports stated that an Iranian general was killed in the strike on Brigade 47 and former IDF intelligence chief Major General Amos Yadlin warned of a more volatility if Iranians were indeed killed in the strike.

"If the casualties were Syrians, they would simply be another addition to the half million people already killed in the civil war to this day. If they are Iranians, it will be added to the unfinished business they have with us, and then the month of May will be very volatile,” he said on Army Radio.

Tensions have risen dramatically between the two arch-enemies in recent months. 

In February an armed Iranian drone infiltrated northern Israel in a move which the IDF claims was on a sabotage attack mission. In mid-April a strike on the T4 airbase in Homs province blamed on Israel killed seven IRGC soldiers, including Col. Mehdi Dehghan, who led the drone unit operating out of the base. Reports later surfaced that advanced Iranian Air defenses had been the target of the strike. 

Referring to Iran's promises to respond to the alleged attack by Israel on a T-4 base in early April, Yadlin stated that the target of the attack may have been based on intelligence that Iran was preparing the retaliatory strike that Tehran has warned is coming.

"We have to investigate whether the attack came in response to weapon transfers to Hezbollah, to Iranian infrastructure being built in Syria or whether there was intelligence about Tehran's possible response and a decision was made to thwart it."

According to Michael Horowitz, Director of Intelligence at Le Beck, a Middle East-based geopolitical consulting group, Israel has stepped up its frequency of strikes and the nature of targets which have been attacked have changed.

“There’s been a clear change in Israel’s strategy in Syria since last year." According to foreign source, "Israeli strikes are both hitting targets deeper inside Syria and the nature of these targets has change from weapons convoy and depots to actual Iranian bases,” he told The Jerusalem Post.

According to Horowitz, the strike on the Taqsis base in Hama “is very significant” as “such factories that produce ballistic missiles could help Iran gain game-changing capabilities to be used in a potential confrontation with Israel, by significantly increasing the number of precision-guided missiles within Hezbollah’s arsenal. 

“It is also notable because of the challenge striking such a facility represents. The Taqsis base is built inside a mountain," and Israel, had it carried out the attack, "would have had to use advanced weapons, such as bunker busters, to hit it,” he said, adding that “a successful such strike would send a clear message of deterrence to Iran that even underground facilities (including other missile-production sites in Syria or Lebanon and even nuclear-related sites in Iran) are within Israel’s reach.”

Earlier on Sunday Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman stated that the Jewish State would not respond forcibly if any rockets are launched toward Israel or Israeli jets. 

“If someone thinks that it is possible to launch missiles to Israeli cities or our aircraft, no doubt we will respond and we will respond very forcefully,” he said at The Jerusalem Post conference in New York when asked by Yaakov Katz, Editor-in-Chief of the Post.

“We will keep our freedom of operation in all of Syria. We have no intention to attack Russia or to interfere in domestic Syrian issues. But if somebody thinks that it is possible to launch missiles or to attack Israel or even our aircraft, no doubt we will respond and we will respond very forcefully.”
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