Mike Pompeo and Gina Haspel Are Symptoms of a Much Deeper Problem

(RPI Op-ed) — President Trump’s recent cabinet shake-up looks to be a real boost to hard-line militarism and neo-conservatism. If his nominees to head the State Department and CIA are confirmed, we may well have moved closer to war. Before being chosen by Trump to head up the CIA, Secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo was one of […]

Rand Paul Blasts Trump for Appointing “War Loving” Neocons, Threatens to Filibuster Nominees

 “I’m perplexed by the nomination of people who love the Iraq War so much that they would advocate for a war with Iran next,” Rand Paul said.

The post Rand Paul Blasts Trump for Appointing “War Loving” Neocons, Threatens to Filibuster Nominees appeared first on The Free Thought Project.

WikiLeaks Releases Proof of NY Times Colluding With Clinton’s State Dept to Deceive America

A New York Times reporter was exposed colluding with the U.S. State Department by providing a timetable of upcoming publications during Cablegate.

Two Paths Diverge: Which One Will the President Take?

At the beginning of the year as the President was assuming office, I penned a piece that focused upon the need for the President to “clean house” regarding the Administration, and putting Congress in its place. I also stressed the need for him to run a “tight ship,” as the midterm elections of Congress in 2018 are going to determine the success of his term. As it stands, things do not look very promising. RINO (Republicans in Name Only) members of Congress have derailed his efforts on everything from Obamacare to Border Control. Every effort the President has initiated has met with dogged resistance.

Who are these resistors? To be sure, many of them can be found ensconced within levels of government or government-influenced positions where said position is not necessarily determined or changed by an incoming administration. An example of how this happens is Ben Bernanke, appointed to head the Federal Reserve under George W. Bush, and kept in place by Obama until 2014 when Yellen stepped into the spot.

The prime example of an infestation are the holdovers from the Obama administration in the State Department…the same department boasting such “winners” as Victoria Nuland and Hillary Clinton. The State Department that almost singlehandedly (with the help of Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain) toppled the government of Ukraine via coup d’état, as well as enabling the “Arab Spring” to unfold.

The recent “malfeasance” by the State Department will be revelatory, and will tell where President Trump is heading. One possibility that has not been mentioned is with a “Merovingian” policy, one could feign the forces arrayed against him are too strong to defeat. In reality, the “Neo-Merovingian” would only be giving the appearance of disagreeing with the course of the stream. Time will tell, but in the meantime, look at this out of Breitbart – released on 11/22/17 with the title in the first line:

The U.S. State Department has courted controversy by announcing it will plough $700,000 into Hungarian media, angering the country’s anti-globalist, conservative government.

The funding was announced by U.S. Chargé d‘Affaires David Kostelancik, who has previously appeared to openly criticize the Trump administration by alluding to “apparent inconsistencies in [U.S.] foreign policy” and remarking that “not every criticism of the government is ‘fake news’.”  Breitbart London spoke to a State Department official who confirmed it supports what it calls “democracy and human rights programming” in many countries, and that its intentions in Hungary — a NATO ally — are to “support media outlets operating outside the capital … to produce fact-based reporting and increase their audience and economic sustainability”.

The State Department also echoed Kostelancik’s claim that too many Hungarian news outlets are sympathetic to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s popular conservative government — which has earned powerful enemies by opposing the European Union on mass migration, building a highly effective border wall, and exposing the network of European politicians deemed “reliable allies” by billionaire open borders campaigner George Soros.

The obvious subtext to all of this is that the State Department funding effort is intended to bolster anti-government and opposition media. This suggests it is still pursuing Obama era, anti-conservative policy objectives internationally in defiance of President Trump, who has praised Prime Minister Orbán — the first European leader to back him — as “strong and brave.”

The last paragraph is the “kicker,” as this is the likely state of the State Department, and the department is a “representative slice” of the whole pizza…Congress and the Supreme Court included…showing the actions of Obama-era holdovers.

It is far more than just a slice: it is a test that will “prove” (and “proof,”) the President…to see who is really running the pizza shop.

As the President of the United States, the State Department is completely obligated to follow his directives. If this $700,000 is authorized by him? He will either allow it to go through without one word of complaint, agreeing with it or pretending it slipped by him, or he will “protest” and feign as if it is a done deal and his hands are tied.

Or he’ll disallow it immediately.

We’ll see if the President chooses the right path on this. It is a complete test that will show who…and how… he truly is.

    …Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Hacker ‘Guccifer’: ‘Hillary Clinton’s server was scanned by three countries in 2012-13, mirrored’

ARAD, Romania (INTELLIHUB) — Speaking to Fox News from his prison cell, the hacker ‘Guccifer’ who exposed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to conduct classified government business claims that he is positive that Hillary Clinton’s private email server was scanned by three countries in 2012 and 2013 and that the content was likely mirrored.

‘Guccifer,’ a.k.a. Marcel Lazar, is currently serving a 7-year prison sentence for hacking crimes but managed to spill the beans, the real truth, about the former Madam Secretary’s Chappaqua, New York, server location.

“Look — about the server in Chappaqua, in New York state — that server was scanned [in] 2012 from IP numbers in Serbia and Belgrade, it was scanned again in 2013 from IPs in Ukraine and Russia,” Lazar said. “The point is that somebody had copied, mirrored, the whole server of Hillary Clinton. The question is how many countries […] one, two, or three?”

Moreover, the infamous hacker said that ‘Guccifer 2.0’ is an “inside job” and was fabricated by “guys at the State Department, some guys at Cyber Command of the NSA, and some guys from the vault, Vault 7 of the CIA” to “point a finger at Russia.”

Featured Image: WNPR/Flickr

©2017. INTELLIHUB.COM. All Rights Reserved.

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Shepard Ambellas is an opinion journalist, analyst, and the founder and editor-in-chief of Intellihub News & Politics (Intellihub.com). Shepard is also known for producing Shade: The Motion Picture (2013) and appearing on Travel Channel’s America Declassified (2013). Shepard is a regular contributor to Infowars. Read more from Shep’s World. Follow Shep on Facebook and Twitter.

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Judge orders State Department to search Hillary Clinton’s fmr. closest advisers emails over “Benghazi”

State Department ordered to produce records pertaining to the 2012 Benghazi attack, search email accounts belonging to Hillary Clinton"s closest advisers

WASHINGTON (INTELLIHUB) — On Friday, a federal judge ordered a State Department search of email accounts belonging to Hillary Clinton’s closest advisers during her tenure at the State Department for any information pertaining to “Benghazi.”

The search was ordered after a judge agreed with details submitted in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch aimed at exposing the former Madam Secretary’s mishandling of classified information which led to the Benghazi attack in 2012.

“This is a Freedom of Information Act case that we filed for all of Secretary Clinton’s emails related to the Benghazi attacks and from the onset the State department said that they are not going to search the official state.gov email accounts of her most senior aides who the State Department itself identified as individuals who worked closely with Secretary Clinton about Benghazi,” Judicial Watch attorney Ramona Cotca told One America News Network. “So it’s astonishing that that’s their position. We fought it in court this week and the judge agreed with us that the State Department needs to go back and search those email accounts.”

Cotca said that it’s been a long uphill battle trying to get the State Department to search the emails and said that they previously had “flat out refused to do it.” The attorney also pointed out how Hillary Clinton had “hand selected” and turned over only a small number of the 33,000 total emails in question and said that there is “no assurance provided by the State Department that that is a complete set of emails.”

According to Cotca, it should be a “simple” task to search the server for the records requested.

Featured Image: aphrodite-in-nyc/Flickr

©2017. INTELLIHUB.COM. All Rights Reserved.

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Shepard Ambellas is an opinion journalist, analyst, and the founder and editor-in-chief of Intellihub News & Politics (Intellihub.com). Shepard is also known for producing Shade: The Motion Picture (2013) and appearing on Travel Channel’s America Declassified (2013). Shepard is a regular contributor to Infowars. Read more from Shep’s World. Follow Shep on Facebook and Twitter.

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Lawsuit Filed Against State Department for Ignoring Fast and Furious Freedom of Information Act Request

Read the complaint.

“Today we filed suit against the Department of State on behalf of Kent Terry and David Codrea,” Stamboulieh Law, PLLC announced Sunday. The complaint was filed due to State’s inaction on complying with a Freedom of Information Act Request submitted in June, 2016 seeking information on correspondence, documents and the like pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious “gunwalking” and State Department interactions with the government of Mexico.

There are multiple reasons for filing the request, AmmoLand Shooting Sports News reported when the FOIA (read it here) was filed, primarily because it explores an area that has been left largely unresolved by official inquiries from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General. Included in the concerns:

• To corroborate if the government of Mexico was intentionally not informed of a U.S. government law enforcement operation where it was known guns were being illegally exported across its border.


• To determine if Arms Export Control Act regulations were violated and/or ignored.


• To seek further information on why the then-White House Counsel denied the House Oversight Committee access to a former National Security Council official who had been given information on Gun Running Impact Teams by the former top ATF official in Phoenix associated with Fast and Furious, along with the disclaimer “You didn’t get these from me.”

Stamboulieh with Dick Heller at Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

“DoS was required to determine whether to comply with Plaintiffs’ request within twenty (20) working days of receiving the request, or on or about July 29, 2016,” the complaint asserts. “Because DoS failed to determine whether to comply with Plaintiffs’ request within the time period required by FOIA, Plaintiffs are deemed to have exhausted their administrative remedies.”

Because of what appears to be deliberate indifference and stonewalling, the court is being asked to:

• “Order Defendant to conduct a search for any and all responsive records to Plaintiffs’ FOIA request…


• “Produce, by a date certain, any and all non-exempt records to Plaintiffs’ FOIA request…


• “Enjoin Defendants from continuing to withhold any and all nonexempt records…


• “Grant Plaintiff an award of attorneys’ fees and other litigation costs reasonably incurred…


• “Grant Plaintiff such other relief as the Court deems just and proper.”

Terry and sister Michelle received assurances from Donald Trump.

This independent action by private citizens, a man demanding justice for a brother slain in the line of duty in an action involving Fast and Furious weapons, and a gun owner rights advocate is further warranted because:

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If you believe in the mission of Oath Keepers, to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, please consider making a donation to support our work.  You can donate HERE.

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David Codrea’s opinions are his own. See “Who speaks for Oath Keepers?“

Trump Budget Cuts Hit As State Department Imposes New Hiring Freeze

In an effort to support President Trump’s plans to cut the State Department budget by about one-third in fiscal year 2018, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has imposed a new freeze on hiring.

As a reminder, President Trump instigated an across-the-board hiring freeze in his first days as President, then lifted it in April in favor a more "surgical freeze."

Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, described the new stay on hiring as a more "surgical" freeze than the first.

"This is a big part of draining the swamp," he said. "Really what you"re talking about doing is restructuring Washington, D.C., and that is how you drain the swamp, so this is a centerpiece of his campaign and a centerpiece of his administration."

But now, as Bloomberg reports, it appears the planned budget cuts are being prepared for as an emailed memo sent to State Department staff calls for immediate freeze to “all position upgrades, reorganizations, and lateral reassignments,” according to a copy of the document seen by Bloomberg.

Memo sent June 27 bars creation of any new positions including "senior advisors, envoys, chiefs of staff"

“These restrictions are necessary and prudent to insure we do not permit additional position and grade level growth at a time when the Department is undergoing reform and restructuring."

Notably, the memo added that exceptions may be considered for a “national security, life safety” or “public health situation."

Trump Administration attempts to make Benghazi documents exempt from disclosure

Is Trump privy to the ruling or did the deep state gatekeep?

(INTELLIHUB) — Judicial watch President Tom Fitton says his organization filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests pertaining to the Benghazi debacle, specifically in regards to emails that Hillary Clinton received from Fmr. President Barack Obama about what happen at Benghazi, before the Trump Administration asked the court to reconsider its ruling in an effort to keep the documents classified.

Fitton says that the emails came from Clinton’s system and were not classified, however, the Justice Department and the State Department do not want them out.

“Either way, we want to find out exactly what went on with this classification issue,” the Judicial Watch president said. “But I can tell you it’s disappointing to fight the Trump Administration on this issue.”

Fitton says that he “can’t imagine” that President Trump knows about this issue and feels that it’s likely the deep state acting as a gatekeeper to the info.

“We are getting the pushback from the Justice Department and the State Department being run by appointees of President Trump,” Fitton said. “We are going to fight this in court.”

H/T: Avalon

Shepard Ambellas is an opinion journalist, analyst, and the founder and editor-in-chief of Intellihub News & Politics (Intellihub.com). Shepard is also known for producing Shade: The Motion Picture (2013) and appearing on Travel Channel’s America Declassified (2013). Shepard is a regular contributor to Infowars. Read more from Shep’s World. Get the Podcast. Follow Shep on Facebook and Twitter.

©2017. INTELLIHUB.COM. All Rights Reserved.

Hillary’s State Department was wrapped up with allegations of sexual misconduct, pedophilia, and cover-up: Report

WASHINGTON (INTELLIHUB) — According to the NBC’s Today, State Department internal memos suggest that the department, during Hillary Clinton’s tenure, may have “called off or interviewed an investigation” into sexual misconduct and even pedophilia.

The memos suggest that the department the investigation was intervened to “protect jobs and avoid scandals” despite the seriousness of the allegations.

NBC’s Chuck Todds said that the allegations are “disturbing” in two ways — not only were the crimes committed but they were also covered up.

Todd said that the allegations surround an ambassador and security agents of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

A portion of a memo obtained by NBC reads:

“[The ambassador] routinely ditched his security detail in order to solicit sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children.”

But equally disturbing is the fact that an unnamed high-ranking official from inside the State Department opted to “cease the investigation” into the ambassador’s alleged misconduct.

Who could this official be?

https://twitter.com/BasedVet/status/845974878280933376

H/T: Tabetronic/Twitter

Shepard Ambellas is an opinion journalist and the founder and editor-in-chief of Intellihub News & Politics (Intellihub.com). Shepard is also known for producing Shade: The Motion Picture (2013) and appearing on Travel Channel’s America Declassified (2013). Shepard is a regular contributor to Infowars. Read more from Shep’s World. Get the Podcast. Follow Shep on Facebook and Twitter.

Image: Medill DC/Flickr

©2017. INTELLIHUB.COM. All Rights Reserved.

The Leaks Just Keep Coming

(COMMONDREAMS) The leaks just keep on coming.

While President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration over the unsanctioned release of internal documents and information, the Washington Post reported Friday morning on the existence of a State Department memo specifically warning agency employees against unauthorized leaks.

How did the paper know about the memo? Because it was leaked, of course.

We"re revolutionizing the news industry, but we need your help! Click here to get started.

As the Post‘s Josh Rogin reports:

“The State Department legal office prepared a four-page memo for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warning of the dangers of leaking by State Department employees. It promptly leaked, to me. That’s only the latest sign that the relationship between the Trump administration political appointees and the State Department professional workforce is still very much a work in progress.

“The Feb. 20 memo by State Department acting legal adviser Richard Visek to Tillerson is entitled ‘SBU: Protecting Privileged Information.’ The SBU stands for Sensitive But Unclassified, a designation used on documents that are not technically secret but also not supposed to be shared. The memo itself is marked SBU and begins with detailed explanation of how and when Tillerson has the privilege of protecting certain types of information from public disclosure, such as anything that has to do with internal State Department deliberations.”

It’s an ironic twist, of course, that comes as the president continues to grapple with many agency employees skeptical of his administration’s approach to governing and offers further evidence that Trump will continue to face internal dissent.

By Jon Queally / Creative Commons / Common Dreams / Report a typo

Maduro Kicks CNN Out of Venezuela, Following Trump Resistance to “Coup By Fake News”

Embattled Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro is following in the footsteps of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump – in dissing CNN and calling them out as “fake news.”

Indeed, it seems that world leaders are now officially onto their tricks.

Only weeks ago, President-elect Trump denied a CNN reporter a question at his first press conference, after ranting about things he indicated the network has done, before accusing them being “fake news.” No question for you:

President Donald Trump Slams CNN and calls them Fake News!!!

It turned out to be the shot heard ’round the world.

As Zero Hedge reported:

Two days ago, we reported that Venezuela’s President Maduro threatened to take CNN off the air as a result of accusations it was spreading propaganda and “fake news.” Well, it is now official because as AP reports, Venezuela’s government has officially suspended CNN in Spanish, shutting off the news channel after a report on fraudulent passports that drew angry criticism from officials.

The country’s National Telecommunications Commission announced Wednesday that it initiated the “administrative sanction” because of news stories it considered “direct aggressions” against Venezuela.

As we explained on Monday, over the weekend Maduro said he wanted CNN out of the country, accusing it of spreading fake news, misrepresenting the truth and meddling in issues that are not of its concern. According to a PanAmPost report, Maduro’s anger was the result of a student demand on national television that the president improve the conditions of his school, asking for security, infrastructure and food so his classmates wouldn’t faint from hunger anymore. CNN en Español visited the high school and talked with the staff about the student, and whether Maduro had made any improvements since that incident only to discover he had not.

CNN has been exposed as a propaganda outlet, and identified as such – an unofficial but very direct arm of U.S. State Dept. propaganda policy. Thanks to some tweaks in the law passed under President Obama, propaganda was officially legalized within the borders of the United States, expanding the previous mandate for ‘official’ propaganda only being broadcast in overseas targets. Now, covert ties, and conflicts of interests need not be tended to, nor a check on bias and facts.

Propaganda is legalized, weaponized and a potent, and regular weapon of population conditioning both at home and abroad. CNN has proved to be a particularly flagrant example, and have no doubt spun some webs for the corporate empire, some of which is based in U.S. power.

This is interesting because of the pattern that is developing.

This is a cross-stitched, ingrained pattern – it cuts both ways.

CNN has now been officially outed as a weapon of state. Its propaganda line favors some rather obvious interests, from the general establishment line, to scrimmage against anti-vaccine news to defend pharmaceutical sponsors, to partnering with foreign governments and granting favorable coverage, to allegedly manufacturing stories and events with a dubious basis in reality. The network, strapped for cash to continue its operations has even gone so far as to create PR items for sponsors that appears to be, or could easily be confused with, actual news coverage, that instead touts positive associations and talking points.

Al Jazeera reported on the phenomenon, asking CNN to broadcast corporate propaganda as news? A cynical but witty observer would point out the obvious lack of distinction between this new policy, and every other day of broadcast when corporate interests are promoted:

On June 8, CNN unveiled “Courageous,” a new production unit and an in-house studio that would be paid by advertisers to produce and broadcast news-like “branded content.”

“This isn’t about confusing editorial with advertising,” CNN executive Dan Riess told the Wall Street Journal. But a corporation going beyond advertising on a channel and funding the network to produce PR segments made to look like news is exactly the kind of confusion Riess is referring to.

It is a difficult line, but CNN should, in fact, but painted with a scarlet letter “P” for propaganda so that everyone can see them approaching.

In this case, CNN has it coming, and we can only chuckle at seeing them reprimanded. But other cases might not be so funny. Harsh rules could chill free speech and stifle legitimate investigative journalism, in spite of the fact that many of these outlets and fronts are being used in attempt to destabilize foreign regimes, or, let’s say, help pick the president in a given American election. The fact that Trump fought back against CNN was justified, but not the lawsuits that have been filed against journalists for reporting about alleged scandals in his wife’s past.

In point of fact, the false narrative about “fake news” that was propagated by the left, and the supporters of the former Secretary of State, who was in a sense, once the premier U.S. official over the use of propaganda, succeeded in stripping advertising revenue, You Tube monetization and other financial supporter for many alternative media outlets, both big and small.

I know from personal stories that people have been hurt by this – without any specific charge against their website, but because they were included on the ProporNot blacklist of “fake news” alternative media sites, many of whom supported Donald Trump in the election.

This is an information war, and the pendulum will swing in both directions.

At one end is total state control of the media and media censorship. This happens in a clumsy, but complete sort of way in many authoritarian regimes, and in a subtle and crafty way in democratic societies. Individual rights are at risk; freedom of speech is violated even in places that should guard it. Data and information have become just another avenue for police, customs and border or civil authorities to investigate, examine and control. But intellectual thoughts and expressions should remain protected in the right to say them, and private in the transfer and storage and free from data collection unless there is a specific warrant for a specific case.

And on the other end, stealthy covert warfare has been ongoing through the fronts of philanthropy and charity organizations, think tanks and protest coalitions and the indirect funding of proxy groups. Vladimir Putin set the tone by kicking out hundreds of NGOs and diplomatic organizations that he rightly branded as “undesirable” – these groups chiefly centered around their connections to billionaire George Soros, who has admittedly been sponsoring color revolutions since the string of rebellions that split up the Soviet Union.

via Washington Times:

Two pro-democracy foundations launched by liberal U.S. billionaire businessman George Soros have been officially banned by the Russian government, the Kremlin said Monday, which charged that the groups pose a threat to Russian national security and public order.

The decision by the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, which extends a crackdown on foreign nongovernmental organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy and Freedom House begun this summer, puts the Moscow branches of Mr. Soros‘ Open Society Foundations and an allied foundation on a so-called “stop list” of foreign NGOs that are no longer allowed to operate within Russia’s borders or give money to Russian individuals and civil society organizations.

“It was found out that the activity of the Open Society Foundations and the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation poses a threat to the foundations of the Russian constitutional system and security of the state,” said Marina Gridneva, the spokesperson of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, in a statement Monday.

More recently, Soros, and partners like former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have been using foundation front groups and artificial protests to agitate and overturn ‘undesirable’ regimes. Much of the Arab Spring consisted of such phony uprisings, which advanced covert policy objectives of the U.S. State Dept. and the private whims of an eccentric villain. Russia has been the major target of this work, though much of it has been conducted at indirect targets. NGOs have been positively connected to protest movements in Russia, outspoken critics of Putin and attempts to stir a color revolution inside the Russian state.

While testifying to Congress as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton noted the rise of information warfare – a battle which she claimed the U.S. was losing, in part to lobby for more State Dept. propaganda funds – and the multi-polar world where RT and Al Jazeera have become counter-propaganda outlets, carrying information that (often rightly) contradicts the falsities and fictions of the official government mouthpieces and corporate media sycophants.

Hillary identified Venezuela, Russia and China as “enemies” whose propaganda should be met with increased funding for U.S. counter-propaganda and broadcast efforts. Hence, Maduro’s ban of CNN, just like Putin’s kicking out the Soros-linked foundations, is actually proportional to clear activities directed against it. Though Maduro is not a good guy, he is certainly justified in suggesting that U.S. corporate media is attempting to undermine his authority, and further, it would not be radical to suggest that a sustained campaign was intended to fuel his ouster.

Later in her 2016 campaign, a bitter Hillary Clinton would also label alternative media outlets inside the U.S. as enemies and/or deplorables. Where she was able to, she and her surrogates also connected alternative media to Russian propaganda strings.

That narrative chased candidate, then President-elect, and now President Trump all the way into the Oval Office, and attempted to delegitimize Trump’s victory with the false narrative of Russian hacking. With the firing of Gen. Flynn, the narrative takes a new, and strong turn, suggesting blackmail and intrigue with Russian counterparts inside Trump’s cabinet.

Who controls this narrative? With a free and open Internet, we can hope that the truth will always out, in one way or another. In fact, it is countless ordinary Americans, outraged at the things taking place in their name and insider our borders who’ve been speaking out, holding political leaders accountable with tough questions, taking elected officials to task at town hall meetings, driving alternative media blogs and You Tube accounts, fighting IRS and Obamacare corruption, etc. etc.

Slapping down CNN and the other news whores is long overdue; but not if it infringes on legitimate free speech.

Information is a powerful weapon of regime change; and it should remain that way, with everyone equally armed.

Read more:

Watch: CNN Cuts Off Bernie Sanders After He Mentions “Fake News” On Air… Trump Slams… CNN Denies

“Assad Stroke After Assassination Attempt”? CIA Plants Fake News About Near Death to Torment Syrian Leader

It’s Happening: They Are Shutting Down “Fake News” Websites to Punish Alt Media Hillary Opponents

Digital Lock Down: Google and Facebook Take Aim At ‘Fake News’ Websites: “The Establishment Is Scared Sh*tless”

List of “Fake” News Sites for Google to Target Released; Every Alt Site You Know (Including The Daily Sheeple) Is On It

Elliott Abrams To State Dept? You Can’t Be Serious!

Rumors are flying that today President Trump will name arch-neocon interventionist Elliott Abrams as Deputy Secretary of State. Will the neocons grab full control despite Trump’s vows to the contrary?

DHS Suspends "All Actions" On Trump Travel Ban, Reverses Visa Cancelation; Vows To Fight

In what is an almost complete reversal of Trump"s immigration executive order, which temporarily banned the entry of refugees and citizens from seven mostly Muslim nations into the US, moments ago the Department of Homeland Security announced that "in accordance with the judge"s ruling, DHS has suspended any and all actions implementing the affected sections of the Executive Order entitled, "Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States." 

"This includes actions to suspend passenger system rules that flag travelers for operational action subject to the Executive Order. DHS personnel will resume inspection of travelers in accordance with standard policy procedure."

However, keeping the defiant tone, the DHS also said that "at the earliest possible time, the Department of Justice intends to file an emergency stay of this order and defend the President"s Executive Order, which is lawful and appropriate. The Order is intended to protect the homeland and the American people, and the President has no higher dury and responsibility than to do so."

That may be true, although at this point an "epic court battle", including a Supreme Court showdown now appears inevitable.

Furthermore, as Reuters adds, the State Department issued a statement in which it said that the DOJ informed it of the Washington state court ruling barring the U.S. government from enforcing certain provisions of Executive Order 13769, and thus "we have reversed the provisional revocation of visas under Executive Order 13769.  Those individuals with visas that were not physically cancelled may now travel if the visa is otherwise valid."

In other words, any travelers from the seven countries who have active visas, can once again enter the US. The department adds that it is "working closely with the Department of Homeland Security and our legal teams" and will provide "further updates as soon as information is available."

This means that entry for citizens from the seven formerly banned nations are once again permitted, and thus they can resume boarding U.S.-bound flights, major airlines said on Saturday, after a Seattle judge blocked the executive order. As Reuters adds, the ruling gave hope to some Middle East travelers but left them unclear how long the new travel window might last. Trump denounced the judge on Twitter and said the decision would be quashed.

In the wake of Friday"s ruling, Qatar Airways was the first to say it would allow passengers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen to resume flying to U.S. cities if they had valid documents.

Fellow Gulf carriers Etihad and Emirates said they would do the same, as did Air France, Spain"s Iberia and Germany"s Lufthansa. Officials in Lebanon and Jordan said they had received no new instructions on the issue.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection told airlines they could board travelers affected within hours of Friday"s ruling, but budget airline Norwegian, which operates transatlantic flights including from London and Oslo, said many uncertainties remained about the legal position. "It"s still very unclear," spokeswoman Charlotte Holmbergh Jacobsson said. "We advise passengers to contact the U.S. embassy ... We have to follow the U.S. rules."

In Cairo, aviation sources said Egypt Air and other airlines had told their sales offices of Friday"s ruling and would allow people previously affected by the ban to book flights.

As a result, following the Friday ruling, travelers from affected countries are delighted, and rushing to get to the US: "Ibrahim Ghaith, a Syrian barber who fled Damascus in 2013, told Reuters in Jordan: “Today we heard that the measures may have been abolished but we are not sure if this is just talk. If they go back on the decision, people will be overjoyed." Iraqi refugee Nizar al-Qassab told Reuters in Lebanon: "If it really has been frozen, I thank God, because my wife and children should have been in America by now." The 52-year-old said his family had been due to travel to the United States for resettlement on Jan. 31. The trip was cancelled two days before that, and he was now waiting for a phone call from U.N. officials overseeing their case. "It"s in God"s hands," he said."

Two Sudanese travellers told Reuters they were trying to travel as soon as possible, fearing the ban might be reinstated.

“I’m in a race against time," said a 31-year-old female academic who declined to be named for fear of any consequences.

"Today I face a real problem in Khartoum because the international airlines are refusing to sell me a ticket to travel for fear of contradicting the President’s decision. Now I am going from one airline company to another to convince them about the court’s decision,” she said.

A 34-year-old Sudanese engineer, who also did not want to be named, said: "After the court’s decision I am now trying to leave as fast as possible before the situation changes once more."

The State Department said on Friday that almost 60,000 visas were suspended following Trump"s order. It was not clear whether that suspension was automatically revoked or what reception travelers with such visas might get at U.S. airports, although according to today"s State Department clarification it appears that virtually all travelers who previously had an active visa will once again be allowed into the US.

Entire Senior Staff at State Department ‘Unexpectedly’ Resigns

January 26, 2017   |   admintam

(COMMONDREAMS) In what some are interpreting as a collective—and “unexpected”—expression of dissent aimed President Donald Trump and his newly-confirmed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the entire senior management at the State Department reportedly resigned from their positions early Wednesday afternoon.

According to the Washinginton Post‘s Josh Rogin, who first reported the news:

Tillerson was actually inside the State Department’s headquarters in Foggy Bottom on Wednesday, taking meetings and getting the lay of the land. I reported Wednesday morning that the Trump team was narrowing its search for his No. 2, and that it was looking to replace the State Department’s long-serving undersecretary for management, Patrick Kennedy. Kennedy, who has been in that job for nine years, was actively involved in the transition and was angling to keep that job under Tillerson, three State Department officials told me.

Then suddenly on Wednesday afternoon, Kennedy and three of his top officials resigned unexpectedly, four State Department officials confirmed. Assistant Secretary of State for Administration Joyce Anne Barr, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Michele Bond and Ambassador Gentry O. Smith, director of the Office of Foreign Missions, followed him out the door. All are career foreign service officers who have served under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

“It’s the single biggest simultaneous departure of institutional memory that anyone can remember, and that’s incredibly difficult to replicate,” David Wade, who served as State Department chief of staff under Secretary of State John Kerry, told Rogin.

Responding to the news, Naomi Ages, a climate campaigner with Greenpeace USA, said the exodus makes sense for career officials unwilling to work under the controversial new head of their agency.

“We know former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson is dangerous, we know he’s unqualified, we know Americans don’t want him representing them, and it now seems like the most senior officials of the State Department know it too,” Ages said in a statement immediately after the news broke. “It’s unclear why exactly these officials resigned in every case, but it seems certain that they didn’t agree with the direction Trump and Tillerson are taking our foreign policy. It is still possible for our Senators to change course and reject Rex Tillerson. It’s their duty to stop this disaster from unfolding any further.”

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This article (Entire Senior Staff at State Department ‘Unexpectedly’ Resigns) by Jon Queally originally appeared on CommonDreams.org and is licensed Creative Commons 3.0. The Anti-Media radio show airs Monday through Friday @ 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Help us fix our typos: edits@theantimedia.org

Trump Orders Creation of Syria ‘Safe Zones’

January 26, 2017   |   admintam

(ANTIWAR) Turkey has long sought an internationally-imposed series of “safe zones” in northern Syria to house refugees, as a way to limit the number of refugees who actually end up crossing into Turkey. The White House resisted, fearing it would be too complicated, and President Trump’s intention to shift Syria policy toward fighting ISIS made it seem like the idea was very unlikely.

Instead, President Trump made a surprise move, ordering the State Department and Pentagon to prepare for the establishment of safe zones in Syria, giving them 90 days to provide a full blueprint for how they would go about it.

Arguments over the theoretical viability of such safe zones centered on the question of airspace control, with Turkey arguing the zones would be meaningless without a no fly zone, and Pentagon officials warning at the time that would mean war with both Syria and Russia.

During the campaign, Trump had endorsed the idea of safe zones on humanitarian grounds, but also scorned Hillary Clinton for supporting the no-fly zone aspect, citing the concerns about starting such huge new wars.

Trump has made clear repeatedly that he doesn’t want to go to war with Russia, though so far it is unclear how this will work with the safe zones order. Another complicating factor is that Turkey has conquered a significant chunk of northern Syria in the past few months, and presumably will be loathe to demilitarize parts of its territory if the US stops short of the no-fly zone declaration.

It is possible that the Trump Administration is underestimating the difficulty of this move, and that the blueprints, once delivered, will sufficiently scare them away from the idea. That the plan was put into an executive order, however, suggests it is more than just an attempt at quietly collecting potential options.

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This article (Trump Orders Creation of Syria ‘Safe Zones’) by Jason Ditz, originally appeared on AntiWar.com and was used with permission. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

US Government Acknowledges That al-Qaeda Is Not A Priority In Syria

October 26, 2016   |   Darius Shahtahmasebi

(ANTIMEDIA) — Last week, the U.S. State Department acknowledged that al-Qaeda-linked terror group Jabhat al-Nusra is not a “priority” for the United States’ efforts in Syria.

One might ask, then: if al-Qaeda in Syria is not a priority for the war on terror, what is?

State Department spokesman John Kirby provided some useful insight into this dilemma, stating:

“The only thing that stands between where we are now and a permanent and enduring ceasefire in Syria is Bashar al-Assad and his supporters. We recognize Al-Nusra as a spoiler, we have concerns about co-mingling, I’ve talked about this ad nauseam.”

Largely missing from the American narrative of the Syrian conflict is that al-Nusra is shelling residential areas in Aleppo, where the government holds control of the majority of Aleppo’s citizens. In other parts of the world, these al-Qaeda-linked extremists are seen as the enemy, whereas in Syria, Western media will often refer to them as mere “rebel” groups.

The United States first officially used the term “war on terror” on September 20, 2011, to refer to the military campaigns that followed the attacks of September 11. The stated aim at the time was to defeat Islamic-linked terrorist organizations and dismantle regimes the U.S. government accused of supporting terrorism.

In 2013, Obama stated:

“We must define our effort not as a boundless ‘Global War on Terror,’ but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America.”

The fact that a terror group — one linked to the organization that allegedly launched an act of war against the United States on American soil  — is not a priority of the United States State Department should tell you something about how farcical and ineffective the war on terror actually is.

This change in rhetoric, which is ultimately designed to push ulterior economic agendas in the Middle East, is an insult to the thousands of soldiers who sacrificed their lives under the false pretense that they were going to protect their families from al-Qaeda-linked terrorists.

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This article (US Government Acknowledges That al-Qaeda Is Not A Priority In Syria) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Darius Shahtahmasebi and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.