Donald J. Trump wins Presidency

Old Holborn✘‏ @Holbornlolz 19m19 minutes ago
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Boris: There is overwhelming, conclusive proof Assad used Chemical weapons. So much proof

Can we see it?

Boris: No

WE'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE

Exactly.

So......are we getting on the edge of war because the Pres' daughter was sobbing?

It looks like it right now, Lily. No word on whether she will be sobbing over the millions of Christians and other minorities currently being protected by Assad, who will be slaughtered if the headchoppers get half a chance.

Meanwhile, in Washington....

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/sean-spicer-hitler-didn-chemical-weapons-article-1.3043835

WASHINGTON — White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer declared unequivocally that Adolf Hitler didn't use chemical weapons during World War II on Tuesday, triggering a firestorm as people pointed out Nazis' use of gas to kill Jews and others during the Holocaust.

"We didn't use chemical weapons in WWII. We had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons," Spicer declared as he attacked Russia for backing Bashar Assad's brutal regime in Syria.

He dug himself deeper when offered a chance to clarify a few minutes later.

/AP)
BY
CAMERON JOSEPH
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, April 11, 2017, 2:23 PM
WASHINGTON — White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer declared unequivocally that Adolf Hitler didn't use chemical weapons during World War II on Tuesday, triggering a firestorm as people pointed out Nazis' use of gas to kill Jews and others during the Holocaust.

"We didn't use chemical weapons in WWII. We had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons," Spicer declared as he attacked Russia for backing Bashar Assad's brutal regime in Syria.

He dug himself deeper when offered a chance to clarify a few minutes later.


"When you come to sarin gas, he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing," he said to shock in the White House briefing room.

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Press Sec. on Hitler/Assad comments: "He was not using the gas on his own people the same way...he brought them into the Holocaust centers."

[video]

Just resign now, you complete and utter ar@e.

Perhaps Hitler's reason for not using gas in WW2 (other than Zyklon B in the extermination camps) was his own experience with being gassed in WW1? In October 1918, Hitler was partially blinded in a mustard gas attack near Ypres in Belgium. LL

More likely he knew that Churchill wouldn't hesitate to retaliate?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raid_on_Bari

The air raid on Bari was an air attack by German bombers on Allied forces and shipping in Bari, Italy on 2 December 1943 during World War II. In the attack, 105 German Junkers Ju 88 bombers of Luftflotte 2 achieved complete surprise, bombing shipping and personnel operating in support of the Allied Italian campaign and sinking 27 cargo and transport ships and a schooner in Bari harbour.

The attack lasted a little more than one hour and put the port out of action until February 1944; it was called the "Little Pearl Harbor". The release of mustard gas from one of the wrecked cargo ships added to the loss of life. The British and US governments covered up the presence of mustard gas and its effects on victims of the raid.

and


From the start, Allied High Command tried to conceal the disaster, in case the Germans believed that the Allies were preparing to use chemical weapons, which might provoke them into preemptive use, but there were too many witnesses to keep the secret, and in February 1944, the U.S. Chiefs of Staff issued a statement admitting to the accident and emphasizing that the U.S. had no intention of using chemical weapons except in the case of retaliation.[33]

General Dwight D. Eisenhower approved Dr. Alexander's report. Winston Churchill, however, ordered all British documents to be purged. Mustard gas deaths were described as "burns due to enemy action".[3]

U.S. records of the attack were declassified in 1959, but the episode remained obscure until 1967 when author Glenn B. Infield published the book Disaster at Bari.[32] In 1986 the British government admitted to survivors of the Bari raid that they had been exposed to poison gas and amended their pension payments.[34]

Something as serious as this needs to be thought through very, very carefully. We all know this. He should not be reacting to his emotional daughter....if that is the case.

I see no reason to think it wasn't her doing, Lily, especially when Trump started babbling about 'beautiful babies'.

I am still gobsmacked by Spicer's callous remark, and the insult to Holocaust victims and survivors. And of course, there is one country that has freely used chemical weapons against civilians.

Has he 'forgotten' napalm and Agent Orange?

Tsk tsk Bonny.  Why are you mentioning those two chemicals.  

Oh, I know. Those are different....

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld helped Saddam Hussein build up his arsenal of deadly chemical and biological weapons, it was revealed last night.
As an envoy from President Reagan 19 years ago, he had a secret meeting with the Iraqi dictator and arranged enormous military assistance for his war with Iran.
The CIA had already warned that Iraq was using chemical weapons almost daily. But Mr Rumsfeld, at the time a successful executive in the pharmaceutical industry, still made it possible for Saddam to buy supplies from American firms.
They included viruses such as anthrax and bubonic plague, according to the Washington Post.
The extraordinary details have come to light because thousands of State Department documents dealing with the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war have just been declassified and released under the Freedom of Information Act.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-153210/Rumsfeld-helped-Iraq-chemical-weapons.html#ixzz4dz3NS0cz
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Blood tests from victims show sarin was used, Turkish officials revealed today

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4401818/Sarin-attack-Syria-real-says-Turkey.html#ixzz4dz8zOUd7
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Aye, right. So why aren't the 'rescuers' all dead, then, as they are touching 'sarin victims' without even wearing gloves? And 'Turkey says' is the final confirmation that the whole thing is a crock of sh*t.

It's not just Syria. Trump is ratcheting up wars across the world.

From the expansion of official US war zones in Yemen and Somalia to a spike in drone strikes, conflicts are heating up on several fronts.

Let’s put aside, for the time being, that the Trump administration openly admits it has no clue what it is going to do in Syria next. Or that key members of Congress and in the administration are clearly eager for “regime change” in Syria with no plan for the aftermath. And the fact that hardly anyone seems to care that Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev said over the weekend that Syrian strikes put the US “on the verge of a military clash with Russia” – a nuclear power with thousands of warheads.

As troubling as these developments are, we should be just as concerned about the explosion of civilian deaths – more than 1,000 in March alone – that have come directly as the result of the Trump administration’s other reckless military campaigns across the Middle East over the past few weeks. Full report at link.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/10/not-just-syria-trump-ratcheting-up-wars-world

Exactly, LL. Why the sobbing over 'beautiful babies' in Syria, when children are dying horribly in Yemen, indeed, all over the world, generally because of Washington?

The open borders lot are now saying, with impeccable logic, if little common sense, that if Trump cares so much about 'beautiful babies', he should be ushering every single refugee into the US.

he should be ushering every single refugee into the US.

No way, Jose!   America for Americans, and sod anyone else who doesn't happen to be a US citizen! What I think of Trumper is unrepeatable in public!!   LL

Well yes, exactly! I agree - and the whole business of being an asylum seeker has been degraded. Turkish officers who cannot return to Turkey because Erdogan will jail/kill them = genuine. Armies of healthy, aggressive young men marching into Europe demanding free stuff = scroungers, frauds and trouble.

But - Trump's public emoting has allowed the open borderers to say Oh, so seeing suffering children makes you cry? Then let them into the Land of the Free.

The only people who thought last week's folly made Trump look 'strong' are the ones that just love photos of missiles leaving warships to a backdrop of the Stars and Stripes. To the strong men in charge of most of the world, he looked weak, and easily manipulated by his wailing daughter who should have been told to get back to sewing frocks.

US Official: Russia knew Syrian chemical attack was coming

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has concluded that Russia knew ahead of time that Syria would launch a chemical weapons attack last week, a senior U.S. official says. The official offered circumstantial elements to back up his claim, but no concrete proof. And others in the Trump administration cautioned that final American determination had been made that Russia had advance knowledge of the attack, which killed more than 80 people and prompted retaliatory U.S. cruise missile strikes.

The senior official said Monday that a drone operated by Russians was flying over a hospital as victims of the attack were rushing to get treatment. Hours after the drone left, a Russian-made fighter jet bombed the hospital in what American officials believe was an attempt to cover up the usage of chemical weapons.

The presence of the surveillance drone over the hospital couldn't have been a coincidence, the senior U.S. official said, arguing that Russia must have known the chemical weapons attack was coming and that victims were seeking treatment

The official, who wasn't authorized to speak publicly on intelligence matters and demanded anonymity, didn't give precise timing for when the drone was in the area. The official also didn't provide details for the military and intelligence information that form the basis of what the Pentagon now believes.

A senior White House official later said there is "no U.S. intelligence community consensus" yet on when Russia might have known of the attack. That official refused to be quoted by name, even though President Donald Trump has criticized media for citing anonymous sources.

The allegation of Russian foreknowledge is grave, even by the standards of the currently dismal U.S.-Russian relations. And it is being made as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson travels to Moscow for talks on Syria and other matters.

Although Russia has steadfastly supported Syrian President Bashar Assad's government, and they've coordinated military attacks together, Washington has never previously accused Moscow of complicity in any attack that involved the gassing of innocent civilians, including children. The former Cold War foes even worked together in 2013 to remove and destroy more than 1,300 tons of Syrian chemical weapons and agents.

Until Monday, U.S. officials had said they weren't sure whether Russia or Syria operated the drone. The official said the U.S. is now convinced Russia controlled the drone. The official said it still isn't clear who was flying the jet that bombed the hospital, because the Syrians also fly Russian-made aircraft.

U.S. officials previously have said Russians routinely work with Syrians at the Shayrat air base where the attack is supposed to have originated. U.S. officials say the chemical weapons were stored there and that those elements add to the conclusion that Russia was complicit in the attack.

Last Thursday 59 Tomahawk missiles were fired on the government-controlled base in the United States' first direct military action against Assad's forces..

https://www.mail.com/int/news/us/5107482-us-official-russia-knew-syrian-chemical-attack-was.html#.1258-stage-hero1-3

The official, who wasn't authorized to speak publicly on intelligence matters and demanded anonymity, didn't give precise timing for when the drone was in the area. The official also didn't provide details for the military and intelligence information that form the basis of what the Pentagon now believes.

Washington not done insulting the world's intelligence, then?

Dim hope for Trump-Russia rapport as Tillerson visits Moscow.

MOSCOW (AP) — Early expectations of an easy rapport between the Trump administration and Russia are crashing into reality as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has a fraught meeting in Moscow beset by escalating allegations over Syria.

The first Trump Cabinet official to visit Russia, Tillerson is on a thus-far-futile mission to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to abandon support for Syrian President Bashar Assad. The fallout from Assad's chemical attack last week and the U.S. airstrikes that followed have plunged the United States and Russia into tensions rarely seen since the Cold War.

As Tillerson arrived in Moscow, President Donald Trump declared Assad "an animal." "Frankly, Putin is backing a person that's truly an evil person. I think it's very bad for Russia," Trump told the Fox Business Network. "I think it's very bad for mankind."

Tillerson planned to meet Wednesday with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, a seasoned diplomat whose strident defense of Putin's agenda has frustrated several previous U.S. secretaries of state. It was unclear whether Putin, who typically doesn't announce high-level meetings in advance, would grant Tillerson an audience while he is in Russia. Full report at link.

https://www.mail.com/int/news/europe/5110036-dim-hope-trump-russia-rapport-tillerson-visits-mos.html#.1258-stage-hero1-1

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-11/while-apologizing-hitler-fiasco-spicer-says-trump-trying-destabilize-middle-east

Spicer's bizarre attempt to make Assad appear worse than Hitler promptly drew demands for Spicer's resignation from the likes of Nancy Pelosi, the Anne Frank center and various Jewsish groups.

That in turn prompted Spicer to appear on CNN to apologize for his earlier comments, when in yet another stunning implosion, he only made things worse by saying, or rather admitting, that President Trump is trying to "destabilize" the Middle East. Specifically, when speaking to Wolf Blitzer, Spicer said that he did not want his comments on Hitler to distract from Trump's attempts "to destabilize the region."

"I came out to make sure we stay focused on what the president is doing and his decisive action. I needed to make sure that I clarified, and not was in any shape or form any more of a distraction from the president's decisive action in Syria and the attempts that he is making to destabilize the region and root out ISIS out of Syria," Spicer said.



Oh God. Do these fools actually understand what words mean, and that the genuinely tough characters who are in charge of much of the rest of the world are listening? That they are going to assume Spicer means what he says?

Good God, even Italy told Washington's proxy, Boris, to take a hike yesterday, and made Tillerson look a bit of an idiot before he even landed in Russia.

Could we maybe let Fattie do one, tiny little EMP - right over Washington? If Washington was shut up, it would do wonders for world peace.

As Tillerson arrived in Moscow, President Donald Trump declared Assad "an animal." "Frankly, Putin is backing a person that's truly an evil person. I think it's very bad for Russia," Trump told the Fox Business Network. "I think it's very bad for mankind."

Oh, shut up and stop talking rot! There's nothing 'evil' about not wanting your country turned into a sh*thole like Freedumbed Libya or Iraq, or any of the other now-failed states has attacked. There's nothing 'evil' about defending your people from head-chopping crazies, liver-eating savages, and all the other scum the US has been financing and arming.

I don't see Trump even making it to the end of a four year term at this rate. He should never, ever have betrayed his base supporters, to whom he promised real change. Another few weeks of this and his former supporters will be baying for him to be impeached.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/04/potus-trump-sending-armada-powerful-including-submarines-north-korea/

PRESIDENT TRUMP: We Are ‘Sending an Armada, Very Powerful’ Including Submarines to North Korea



The USS Carl Vinson and other warships are on their way to North Korea.

President Donald Trump sat down with Maria Bartiromo for an interview that will air Wednesday at 6:00 AM ET on Fox Business Network.

The president is expected to address the Syria airstrikes, the state of the U.S.-Russia relationship, new Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, his meeting with China’s president, his tough talk on North Korea and much more.

During the interview that was prerecorded President Trump said he was sending an entire armada to North Korea including submarines.

Via Chris Snyder:



Could someone please remind him what happened to the original Armada?

Or point out the relevance of the kamikazi 'divine wind' business?

The submarines might survive a swarm attack by NK, but the surface vessels will be in trouble. Does he even understand the concept of the low-tech swarm attack?

Vladimir Putin says US-Russia relations are worse since Donald Trump took office.

White House accuses Russia of 'cover up' over suspected Syrian chemical weapons attack.

Vladimir Putin has said trust between Russia and the United States has deteriorated since President Donald Trump took office.

"One could say that the level of trust on a working level, especially on the military level, has not improved, but rather has deteriorated," Mr Putin said in an interview when asked about relations with Washington since Mr Trump became president.

US intelligence agencies have accused Mr Putin of trying to help Mr Trump get elected as president.

When he was asked about accusations that Syria's government launched a chemical weapons attack in Idlib province, which killed 87 people including many children, Mr Putin said Damascus had given up its chemical weapons stocks.

He said he believed there were two main explanations for the alleged chemical weapons attack: that Syrian government air strikes had hit rebel chemical weapons stocks, releasing poisonous gas, or that the incident was a set-up to discredit the Syrian government. More at link.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-us-russia-relations-worse-military-syria-chemical-attack-barack-obama-a7679796.html

The missile strike was, IMO, an appalling blunder, LL. There are various legal reasons why it was wrong, and also, other world leaders saw how readily Trump betrayed one of his most basic promises to his own supporters. Who can now trust him - and why should they?

There's also this:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/tillerson-faults-russia-not-enforcing-syria-chemical-weapon-pact/


MARGARET WARNER: Hours later, White House officials accused Moscow of attempting to cover up Syria’s culpability with — quote — “false narratives.” They said satellite and open source imagery establishes Syria was responsible, and disproves Russia’s claims that the gas was released by a government strike on a rebel depot.

Those would be the satellite images the US is refusing to release. And as for 'open source' - that's actually the public internet, particularly twitter. It's any old rubbish faked up by the White Helmets/Turkey/jihadist, struck-off doctors being given the same weight as GENUINE intelligence gathered by neutral parties.

Any lingering doubt I might have had that the whole thing was a pack of lies, an excuse for Trump to look macho, has now gone.

Trump’s Shift on Russia Brings Geopolitical Whiplash.

WASHINGTON — A week ago, President Trump was accused of being a tool for the Russians, an unwitting agent of influence, so full of admiration that he defended President Vladimir V. Putin against critics who called him a killer.

Now, Mr. Trump is in a diplomatic clash with Mr. Putin’s Russia, his administration accusing Moscow of trying to cover up a Syrian chemical weapons attack on civilians and his secretary of state delivering us-or-them ultimatums.

Even in a presidency marked by unpredictability, the head-spinning shift from coziness to confrontation has left Washington and other capitals with a case of geopolitical whiplash. The prospects of improving Russian-American relations were already slim given the atmosphere of suspicion stemming from Kremlin meddling in last year’s election, but the détente once envisioned by Mr. Trump has instead deteriorated into the latest cold war.

For Mr. Trump’s camp, the abrupt turnaround simply proved how false the conspiracy narrative was from the start. “If there was anything that Syria did, it was to validate the fact that there is no Russia tie,” said Eric Trump, the president’s son.

For some critics, it seemed to be a cynical way of distracting attention from the multiple investigations into possible contacts between associates of Mr. Trump and Russia even as Moscow was trying to help Mr. Trump win the presidency.

Either way, it suggested that the relationship between the two powers could be volatile in the months to come, subject to the impulsive reactions of a president with no prior experience in foreign policy, the often strident responses of a Russian leader given to his own moments of pique and the clashing national interests of both countries in key areas around the world.

“I was skeptical from the beginning that it would be possible for the United States and Russia, after all that happened in the last few years, to engage in a successful reset,” said Angela Stent, a former national intelligence officer on Russia now at Georgetown University. “What’s surprising is how quickly we returned to the status quo ante we had at the end of the Obama administration.”

John R. Beyrle, a former ambassador to Moscow, said the extremes of the relationship were being exaggerated and it would probably settle back into the middle. “Levels of trust have deteriorated so much that these initial meetings will produce little in the way of agreements and the investigations into likely Russian interference in the election cast a huge shadow that both sides need to acknowledge,” he said.

Mr. Trump is the fourth president in a row who came into office determined to reboot the relationship with Moscow, an ambition that often eluded the other three. The difference is that the hacking of Democratic email during last year’s election, for which intelligence agencies blamed Russia, made Mr. Trump’s embrace of Mr. Putin politically problematic.

His willingness to overlook Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its armed intervention in eastern Ukraine and, until now, its support for President Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria mystified many experts. He called Mr. Putin “a stronger leader” than President Barack Obama, praised him for “doing a great job” and expressed hope that he would be “my new best friend.” Michael Morrell, a former acting C.I.A. director, wrote last fall that Mr. Trump seemed to be an “unwitting agent of influence” for Moscow.

By Tuesday, after Mr. Trump ordered a missile strike against Syria in retaliation for using chemical weapons on its own people, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson arrived in Moscow with a harsh warning that Russia had better give up its support of Mr. Assad. He was greeted with a cold shoulder, denied a meeting with Mr. Putin as no secretary of state has been on a first visit to Moscow going back to the days of Cordell Hull in World War II. Back in Washington, the White House held a briefing accusing Russia of shielding Syria’s chemical weapons attack on civilians.

The Russians have responded with harsh language of their own. On Tuesday, Mr. Putin compared Mr. Trump’s action in Syria to President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. And Prime Minister Dmitri A. Medvedev suggested that Mr. Trump has turned out not to be what he presented himself to be during last year’s campaign.

“That’s it,” he wrote on Facebook last week. “The last remaining election fog has lifted.” In the end, he said, Mr. Trump was “broken by the existing power machine” in Washington.

Mr. Morrell said on Tuesday that despite calling Mr. Trump a virtual Russian agent, he always believed Russian behavior would lead to a parting of the ways. “This seems to be happening now,” he said. But he noted that Mr. Trump has left it to Mr. Tillerson and others rather than speaking out himself.

“He needs to do that, and he needs to be critical of the large number of other aggressive actions that Putin has undertaken over the past two years,” Mr. Morrell said.

Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director for Hillary Clinton’s campaign last year, said the shift in tone in recent days did not mean there was not collusion during the election. “Everything we believed happened in the election could be true — Putin wanted him to be president and the administration took the action it took last week,” she said. “It could all be part of the master ruse — or Putin could be upset about it.”

Either way, she said, “There’s no evidence that it changes anything I think happened in the election or that Democrats should back off investigations. And moreover, it’s really weird that he himself hasn’t said anything.”

Mr. Trump will have the opportunity on Wednesday when he hosts NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg. European leaders will be listening to what Mr. Trump has to say, given that during the campaign he criticized NATO even as he praised Mr. Putin.

Aides to Mr. Trump have been frustrated at the focus on the Russia investigations and the assumptions that the president’s associates did something wrong even though several officials have said no evidence has emerged that proves collusion with Russia. They blame the media for creating a false narrative that they see as now disproved. How, they ask, could Mr. Trump’s team have made secret deals with Russia if his own secretary of state cannot even get a meeting?

“It’s interesting that we went from all of these direct links to Russia to now are we disappointed that we can’t even get a meeting with him,” Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary. “There is a bit of irony in the question.”

Eric Trump voiced that sentiment in an interview with London’s Daily Telegraph published on Tuesday. The younger Mr. Trump said his father was influenced to retaliate against Syria for using chemical weapons on civilians in part by his sister Ivanka, who was “heartbroken and outraged” by the atrocity.

Even though some question the president’s approach to Russia, Eric Trump said his father would not be “pushed around” by Mr. Putin. “He is not a guy who gets intimidated,” he said.

The back-and-forth over Russia left lawmakers trying to make sense of it.

“It speaks to the broader incoherence of this administration’s foreign policy,” said Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut. “The change in rhetoric on Russia is head-spinning. I’m glad to see it and I hope it continues, but so far the only thing we know about this administration’s foreign policy is that it will probably change in a week or two.”

But Mr. Murphy said the congressional intelligence committees still need to investigate what happened in last year’s election. If the shift in tone from the administration happened two months ago, he said, it might have undercut that determination. But since then, he said, more evidence has emerged.

“There’s now some pretty important meat on the bones of this story,” he said. “The imperative remains to get to the bottom of it.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/world/europe/russia-putin-trump.html?_r=0