US conducts missile strikes on Syria with Britain and France

American Military News 
Note: This article has been updated to reflect Secretary of Defense Mattis’ and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dunford comments on the Syrian missile strikes.
"Friday night President Trump addressed the nation in a televised news conference announcing that the United States was carrying out a strategic strikes on Syria with Britain and France as he was speaking.
"The strikes, which contained nearly double the amount of missiles as the 2017 Syrian strike, is in response to Syria’s dictator Assad gassing entire families to death Saturday night in Douma and East Ghouta.
"Groups in the area, which put Assad’s chemical gas attack death toll at more than 70, said many residents were hiding in cellars, suffocating from poison gas.
"There are images and videos emerging of explosions in Damascus, the Syrian capital." . . .

#BREAKING - First photo of #Syrian air defense missile launched against #US, #UK and #French cruise missiles striking the capital #Damascus. Via @AlSuraEnglish

Haley to Russia on Syria’s Chemical Weapons: ‘We Know Who Did This’
"If Russia kept its promise to remove chemical weapons from Syria, “we would not be here today.' ”

Efforts To Minimize Civilian Casualties In Syria Appear Successful  "Looks like there is some additional good news from the airstrikes in Syria tonight: not only were the strikes we conducted in coordination with Britain and France successful in hitting their selected targets, early local sources are reporting no civilian casualties (disregarding of course the obvious Russian/Syrian allied propaganda outlets).

"In a briefing from the Pentagon earlier tonight, Secretary of Defense Gen. James Mattis described the avoidance of civilian casualties as a top priority.

“ 'We did very close analysis,” said Mattis. “We did everything we could, in our intelligence assessment and our planning, to minimize to the maximum degree possible any chance of civilian casualties. We are very much aware this is difficult to do in a situation like this.' ” . . .

Comey Didn't Tell Trump the Infamous Dossier Was Financed By Hillary Clinton

Katie Pavlich   "In the fall of 2016 just before the presidential election, then FBI Director James Comey informed Republican candidate Donald Trump they had received "materials" alleging salacious misconduct by the business man. Comey warned the candidate the information could be used as blackmail.

"Those "materials" Comey referred to was the now infamous and fake Russian dossier put together by British spy Christopher Steele. Steele was paid for the "opposition research" by the Clinton campaign and the DNC. 
"When Comey briefed Trump, he knew where the funding for the dossier came from but failed to disclose those facts at the time.
"Did you tell him that the Steele dossier had been financed by his political opponents?" ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos asked in an interview set to air this weekend.
" 'No. I didn’t," Comey responded. " 'But did he have a right to know that?" Stephanopoulos followed up.

" 'That it had been financed by his political opponents? I don't know the answer to that," Comey said." . . .

HOW A REPUBLIC DIES: The Federal Leviathan Wages All-Out War With a Duly Elected President

 "There are plenty of gatekeepers to keep a common sense idea from being implemented. If a congressman proposes that sensible measure you suggest to him, it will never leave the committee or it’ll be watered down. The Senate will neuter it or the president, on the advice of his advisors, will veto. And then came Trump." 

Daniel Greenfield at the Doug Ross Journal  "In the early seventies, political operatives disguised as delivery men broke into a Washington D.C. office. These efforts to spy on the political opposition would culminate in what we know as Watergate.

"In the late teens, political operatives disguised as FBI agents, NSA personnel and other employees of the Federal government eavesdropped, harassed and raided the offices of the political opposition.

"The raids of Michael Cohen’s hotel room, home and office are just this week’s Watergate.

"Political operatives have now seized privileged communications between the President of the United States and his lawyer. Despite fairy tales about a clean process, these communications will be harvested by the counterparts of Peter Strzok, who unlike him are still on the case at the FBI, some of it will appear in the Washington Post and the New York Times, and some will be passed along to other political allies.

"That’s what happened at every juncture of Watergate 2.0. And it only follows that it will happen again.

"Just like the eavesdropping, the process will be compartmentalized for maximum plausible deniability. The leakers will be protected by their superiors. The media will shrilly focus the public’s attention on the revelations in the documents rather than on the more serious crimes committed in obtaining them.

"Nixon couldn’t have even dreamed of doing this in his wildest fantasies. But Obama could and did. Now his operatives throughout the government are continuing the work that they began during his regime." . . .

The Bolton-Pompeo Package

Columnist Paul R. Pillar likes neither Mr. Bolton nor President Trump. However former assistant foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Binyamin Netayahu, Caroline Glick, calls the Bolton appointment "brilliant"

The National Interest

Pompeo

"The Senate is about to have an opportunity to weigh in on another highly important foreign policy position, that of secretary of state, for which President Trump has nominated Mike Pompeo.  Senators ought to consider that nomination in tandem with the appointment of Bolton as national security adviser, even though the Senate formally has a role with only one of those appointments and not with the other.  Senators should consider the two as a package deal.  They should not vote to confirm Pompeo if they are uncomfortable with either part of the package.

"The main reason to approach the Pompeo nomination this way is that the nation currently has a president who, sad to say, needs restraint.  He will need restraint all the more during the coming months as troubles of his own making increase the chance that he will lash out in destructive ways. The copious commentary during the fifteen months of the Trump presidency about having “adults in the room” to restrain the worst urges of an inexperienced and impulsive president speaks to an important truth. " . . .

Caroline Glick: Bolton’s appointment is a brilliant America first move

Bolton

. . . "While it is true that Bolton is from Washington – or Baltimore, to be precise – and although it is true that he held senior foreign policy positions in both Bush administrations, he has always been a thorn in the side of the establishment rather than a member of that establishment.

"For the better part of three decades, Bolton has bravely held positions that fly in the face of the establishment’s innate preference for appeasement. He was a vocal critic, for example, of then-President Bill Clinton’s disastrous nuclear diplomacy with North Korea.

"The 1994 “Agreed Framework” that Clinton concluded with Pyongyang was touted as a peaceful resolution of the nuclear crisis with North Korea. In exchange for shuttering – but not destroying — its nuclear installations, North Korea received light water reactors from the U.S. and massive economic relief. As Bolton warned it would, North Korea pocketed the concessions and gifts and continued to develop its nuclear weapons. In other words, far from preventing North Korea from developing nuclear weapons, the Agreed Framework preserved the North Korean nuclear program and enabled the regime to develop it effectively with U.S. assistance.

"For his warnings, Bolton has been reviled as a “warmonger” and a “superhawk” by the foreign policy elite, which has gone out if its way to undercut him." . . .

'Chappaquiddick': The Grim Record of a Kennedy Cover-Up

John Podhoretz at Weekly Standard

New movie approaches the grisly story non-ideologically.

"The existence of Chappaquiddick, the new movie about the 1969 car accident from which Ted Kennedy walked away while his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne likely suffocated slowly inside his partly sunken Oldsmobile, is a miracle of a kind. The script by Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan was included on the 2015 Black List, the annual compendium of yet-to-be-sold screenplays of un-common quality. Only a third of Black List titles ever make it to the big screen. And the fact that Allen and Logan’s screenplay offered a cold-eyed view of a liberal icon gave everyone reason to think it would stay among the unfilmed.

"And yet filmed it was—a strong, astringent piece of work, beautifully directed by John Curran and centering on a brilliantly understated performance by the Australian Jason Clarke. And released it has been—by a company called Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures, run by former stand-up comedian Byron Allen (no relation to Taylor Allen). “There are some very powerful people who tried to put pressure on me not to release this movie,” Byron Allen told reporters. “They went out of their way to try and influence me in a negative way. I made it very clear that I’m not about the right, I’m not about the left. I’m about the truth.' ” . . .

. . . Chappaquiddick has one grave flaw. Teddy interacts repeatedly with his stroke-afflicted father Joseph (Bruce Dern), who speaks the word “alibi,” slaps him across the face, and in general makes it clear he loathes his boy. I hold no brief for Joseph Kennedy, one of the more repellent Americans of the 20th century, but there’s no evidence any of this happened or that he was even compos mentis by the time of Chappaquiddick. The falsity of these scenes takes away from the devastatingly suggestive tone of the rest. . . .

Report: Trump to Pardon Cheney’s Former Aide Scooter Libby

Legal Insurrection

"Yes, Comey had involvement in the Libby case. In 2003, Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the case, which meant responsibilities fell into the lap of the deputy attorney general. That man? James Comey."

"Reports have emerged that President Donald Trump will pardon former Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff Scooter Libby, who received a conviction of lying to the FBI and obstruction of justice in 2007.

"Libby received his conviction over the leak of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity. He had a 30 month sentence, but President George W. Bush commuted it.

"From NBC News:

Libby was convicted of one count of obstruction, two counts of perjury and one count of lying to the FBI about how he learned Plame’s identity and whom he told. Prosecutors said he learned about Plame from Cheney and others, discussed her name with reporters and, fearing prosecution, made up a story to make those discussions seem innocuous.

The trial revealed that top members of the Bush administration were eager to discredit Plame’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who accused the administration of doctoring prewar intelligence on Iraq.

. . . "CNN reported that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said “that he was the source who first revealed” Plame’s identity to syndicated columnist Robert Novak in 2003:" . . .

. . . "As his second term ended, “Bush mulled candidates for presidential pardons.” Cheney tried to persuade Bush to pardon Libby, but it never happened.

"The commute of Libby’s sentence kept him out of prison, but the conviction remained and disbarred as a lawyer. The bar reinstated him in 2016." . . .

George W. Bush: Dick Cheney Was Angry I Didn't Pardon Scooter Libby

Libby was sentenced to thirty months in prison. He ultimately avoided jail time thanks to Mr. Bush, who commuted his sentence to $250,000 in fines and two years of probation.

Cory Booker disgraced himself questioning Pompeo (Updated)

Thomas Lifson  "See also: What a Crumby Thing for Cory Booker to Say*

"Once upon a time, Cory Booker posed as a dedicated reformer running against a corrupt political establishment.  An Academy Award-nominated documentaryabout his first run for political office portrayed him in a heroic light and led to his becoming mayor of Newark, and on to the U.S. Senate, representing the Garden State.  But since tasting the waters of Washington, he has fallen about as far as a politician can, from hero to hack.

"During Senate confirmation hearings for Mike Pompeo's nomination as secretary of state, Booker made an ass of himself, shamelessly posturing as a social justice warrior scoring points with special-interest constituencies.  Two somewhat contradictory lines of question preoccupied him.

"First, Booker posed as an advocate of religious liberty, angrily quoting something Pompeo earlier said about the need for Muslims to speak out against jihad terror attacks:" . . .

* ". . .  presidential wannabe Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) blamed middle-class Americans keeping more of their money and corporations sharing more of their profits for driving up the debt:" . . .

UPDATE: Senator Booker's lust for ignorance  "We have an endless war in Afghanistan, a dictator gassing civilians in Syria, a nuclearized Korean peninsula, trade agreements under negotiation, tensions between Russia and its former Soviet satellite republics, an Islamic invasion of Europe, and frenemies in NATO.
"So what did Democratic Senator Cory Booker ask the nominee for secretary of State about?
"Gay sex." . . .

 Meanwhile, Democrats are blocking the confirmation Richard Grenell as ambassador to Germany because he is gay. Democrats are all for gay people, unless they are conservative.

More at Don Surber

Turns out Comey gave Hillary a pass on emails because he thought she would win

James Comey's memoir, pompously titled A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, set for release on April 17, is out from the reviewer class, and all but one seems to have missed the bombshell in it: that Comey neglected to prosecute Hillary Clinton for her refusal to properly handle the nation's top secrets through her illegal private bathtub server, and exposed those secrets to  our nation's enemies, because he thought she would win the 2016 election.

Monica Showalter  . . . "In other words, Comey was watching the elections closely and very concerned as to their impact on the Clinton email investigation.  When he thought Hillary had it in the bag, he announced his re-opening of the case in the last week of October, following pressure from the New York cops who had found that the classified emails had spread to Anthony Weiner's pervert-filled computer, where his proclivities for little girls eventually put him in the can.  The information from the cops was going to spill out anyway.  And the fix was in that Hillary would be let off the hook, by Comey, as he conspired with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, as emails uncovered by Sharyl Attkisson revealed last January.

"The implication is that he gave her the initial pass on the emails because he wanted her to win.  He was focused on her "legitimacy."  Busting sailors for careless photos was all fine with him, but he had no problem with Hillary opening a private server illegally in some guy's bathroom because it was all about her winning.  He'd give her a stern warning instead of an arrest warrant in the name of his "integrity," yet there was no way he wouldn't protect her "legitimacy," which wasn't his job.  It's always OK if the person in power does it, the person he wants to  win does it, right, James?  Laws are for little people.

"What we learn here is that Comey was as political an animal as it was possible to be in his decisions about investigating both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.  He didn't succeed with this philosophy, so now he's doing his memoirs.  Let's hope they make a quick trip to the remainder bins." . . .

The film "Chappaquiddick" and the many things left undone around it.

No 'We remember Mary Jo' at the women's marches

All photos added by TD

. . . The film, "Chappaquiddick"* "will be worth watching.

"Recently, we've heard about former President Clinton and his behavior with women.  It may be time to come to terms with Senator Kennedy's own behavior and the Democratic women who defended him over the years.

"It's time for the women's march to remember Mary Jo." . . .

*Variety review: 

The film says that what happened at Chappaquiddick was even worse than we think. Kopechne’s body was found in a position that implied that she was struggling to keep her head out of the water. And what the film suggests is that once the car turned upside down, she didn’t die; she was alive and then drowned, after a period of time, as the water seeped in. This makes Edward Kennedy’s decision not to report the crime a clear-cut act of criminal negligence — but in spirit (if not legally), it renders it something closer to an act of killing.

‘Chappaquiddick’ Lets Ted Kennedy Off the Hook for the Death of Mary Jo Kopechne  . . . "Devoid of revelations, the film instead focuses on the creation and delivery of the narrative that Kennedy used to survive this calamity—if not with plausible presidential hopes (which, it argues, he may have never had in the first place), then at least with a career and reputation intact. That, however, has an unexpected upside: It allows Chappaquiddick to become an example of the very thing it portrays." . . .

". . . What he does, ultimately, is triumph by wielding his tremendous political power to (re)write history. And thus Chappaquiddick, incapable of uncovering the truth about what really took place on July 19, 1969, confirms that such power exists—and that the narratives fashioned by those who possess it endure long after everyone involved in such tall tales are gone."

What to know about Ted Kennedy and the death at Chappaquiddick amid new movie's release

. . . "Fishermen spotted the overturned car in the pond the next morning and police were called to the scene. The captain of the Edgartown Fire Rescue team, John Farrar, was called and arrived at roughly 8:45 a.m. He donned scuba diving gear and he was the one to realize that a woman was in the vehicle."Farrar testified in a subsequent inquiry that if he had been called the night of the accident, "I could have had her out of that car 25 minutes after I got the call.' " . . .

Chappaquiddick island- Ted Kennedy incident from Google Earth.

Unprecedented: California Takes Massive Step Towards Actually Splitting State

Reporting the News 24/7  

"Looks like things are getting very serious in California. There have been people moving to split up California for a while now. But now they have the numbers behind it and there appear to be enough people behind it to put the question on the ballot in California in November.

"From PR Newswire:

For the first time in more than 150 years, Californians are poised for the unprecedented and historic opportunity to vote on a ballot measure to sensibly partition California into three states.Next week, CAL 3 will deliver to the California Legislature more than 600,000 signatures from Californians representing all 58 counties to ensure a November ballot measure to let Californians vote on the partition. That is nearly twice as much support as is required by state law to get an initiative on the ballot and the first time in modern state history that a partition has reached the preponderance of support required to be approved as a ballot measure.“This is an unprecedented show of support on behalf of every corner of California to create three state governments that emphasize representation, responsiveness, reliability and regional identity,” CAL 3 chairman Tim Draper said.

"Many are not happy with the leadership of Sacramento, the taxes, the failing schools, sanctuary state policies and poor infrastructure.

"The various areas of the state have various needs and political sensibilities but they are all overrun by the Democrats out of Sacramento and people who have pushed for seperation(sp) are just tired of it." . . .

Related: 3 more California cities opt out of state's sanctuary law

. . . "Watch the interview from "Fox & Friends" above, and read more about other California cities opting out of the sanctuary law." . . .

Obama Holdover Accused of Corruption Approved Trump Lawyer Raid

Frontpage Mag

"The inmates are running the asylum and locking up the guards.

"When the media first began to spin the raid on the president's lawyer, they claimed that it had been approved by a Trump appointee. Of course it hadn't. It came from Rosenstein on one end. And Trump's appointee had recused himself. That left his deputy, an Obama holdover.

"Robert Khuzami. And there are reports that he allegedly made the decision.

"Khuzami was in charge of SEC enforcement under Obama. He did speak at the RNC convention in '04 in support of the Patriot Act and donated to McCain in '08. But as we've seen with Mueller, that kind of thing is old news. The much more significant factor is his SEC gig.

"And he has quite the stunning history. " . . .

Mom Of Injured Parkland Survivor Says School Ignored Injured Son But Trump Reached Out

Daily Caller  "Lisa Olsen, mother of  Stoneman Douglas survivor William, slammed the Broward County School Board Tuesday night for not reaching out to students who bore injuries as a result of February’s deadly mass shooting.

“ 'Even the president of the United States, the first lady, the governor, the attorney general, the chief of staff, and the senator had time to hug my son, but not my school district and not my son’s principal,” Olsen scolded the school board." . . .