President Trump Tells GOP Leaders He Will Not Sign Funding Bill Without Border Security….


Sticking to his prior statements about omnibus spending, President Donald Trump called republican leaders to the White House and informed them he will NOT sign a short-term resolution that does not provide funding for border security.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy hold a quick presser following their visit with President Trump:

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

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Flashback 2016: Secretary of State John Kerry Admits President Obama Intentionally Armed ISIS in Syria…


CTH has some new readers, so against the backdrop of the UniParty in Washington DC jumping into action to criticize President Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria; perhaps a little factual historic refresher is in order….

On September 30th 2016 the New York Times quietly released a leaked audio recording of Secretary John Kerry meeting with multiple factions associated within Syria.

The 40-minute discussion took place on the sidelines of a United Nations General Assembly in New York. The meeting took place at the Dutch Mission to the United Nations on Sept. 22nd 2016:

[…] Kerry’s off-record conversation was apparently with two dozen ‘Syrian civilians’, all from US backed opposition-linked NGO’s in education and medical groups supposedly working in ‘rebel-held’ (aka terrorist-held) areas in Syria.

This opposition conclave also included ‘rescue workers’ which can only be ambassadors from the White Helmetsa pseudo NGO which serves as Washington and London’s primary PR front in pursuit of a “No Fly Zone’ in Syria, and it’s being bankrolled by the US, UK, EU and other coalition states to the tune of well over $100 million (so far). (link)

When you listen to the audio recording (embedded below) it becomes immediately obvious what was going on in 2014, 2015 and 2016 as an outcome of policy from the White House. In addition, you discover why this jaw-dropping 2016 leak/story was buried by the U.S. media and how it connects to the prior 4 years of perplexing U.S. mid-east policy.

This evidence within this single story would/should forever remove any credibility toward the U.S. foreign policy under President Obama. It also destroys the credibility of a large number of well known republicans, and explains how the prior action placed President Trump into a precarious position requiring a careful approach.

The key Secretary Kerry moments are at 02:00, and again at approximately 18:30 forward.

The discussion from 18:30 through to 29:00 are exceptionally revealing and should be listened to by anyone who has wondered what was going on in Syria. Kerry even makes mention of the “Responsibility to Protect, or R2P” principle:

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@18:30 Secretary John Kerry [transcript]:

[…] “Well, the problem is the Russians do not care about law, and we do. And, we don’t have a basis -our lawyers tell us- unless we have a U.N. Security Council resolution, which the Russians can veto and Chinese, OR unless we are under attack from the folks there, or unless we are invited in. Russia was invited in by the legitimate regime, well, it’s illegitimate in our mind, by the regime. And so, they were invited in and we’re not invited in.”

“We’re flying in airspace there, where they can turn on the air defense and we have a very different scene. The only reason they’re letting us fly is because we’re going after ISIS. If we were going after Assad, those air defenses, we’d have to take out all those air defenses, uh, and we don’t have a legal justification, frankly, for doing that unless we stretch it way beyond the law on a humanitarian basis, which some people argue we should – by the way.”

“Uh, but so far American legal theory has not gone into these so called “right to protect”, uh, and we don’t even have what we had in Kosovo where we had an, you know, an existing resolution and so forth. Uh, even though we went alone.”

“And so it’s complicated, it’s not easy. And we’ve been fighting. How many wars have we been fighting? We’ve been fighting in Afghanistan, we’ve been fighting in Iraq, we’ve fighting -you know- in the region for fourteen years. And a lot of Americans don’t believe that we should be fighting and sending young Americans over to die in another country. That’s the problem.”

“The congress won’t vote to do it. And you can be mad at us, but what we’re trying to do is help Syrians fight for their own country; and we’ve been spending a lot of money, a lot of effort to try and help do this. So, there’s an opposition there; the opposition is doing very well. Russia came in, and that’s a problem I know, because, uh, y’ know, uh, we don’t behave like Russians, it’s just a different standard.”

“So we are trying to see if we can test whether Russia, you see, is serious about a political solution. And if they are not serious, then we will help the opposition more. But I don’t think that’s particularly good for Syrians in the end because it will mean more fighting.”

Secretary Kerry is then questioned by an obvious sympathizer toward the extremist elements (calls pro-assad Sunni faction “Sunni Jews”) about why the U.S. fights the extremist Sunni (ISIS), but not the extremist Shia (Hezbollah). Kerry’s response:

“Well, they’re [Hezbollah] a terrorist organization, we’ve designated them a terrorist organization. The reason for [airstrikes against the Sunni Extremists] is because they have basically declared war on us; and are plotting against us, and Hezbollah is not plotting against us; Hezbollah is exclusively focused on Israel, they’re not attacking now, and on Syria where they are attacking in support of the, uh, in support of Assad.”

“So it a, uh, it’s…”

[Interrupted]

Question: “But how to make the majority of the Syrian people accept this approach, that because Hezbollah or the Iraqi or Iranian groups are not attacking the U.S. now when they are attacking against the terrorism in Syria?”

Kerry: “Well, they, they are targeted by the opposition who we are arming and training.”

What the recording reveals is substantive:

♦ Firstonly regime change, the removal of Bashir Assad, in Syria was the 2013, 2014, and 2015 goal for President Obama. This is admitted and outlined by Secretary John Kerry.

♦ Secondly, in order to accomplish this primary goal, the White House was willing to watch the rise of ISIS (’13, ’14, ’15) by placing their bet that ISIS’s success would force Syrian President Bashir Assad to acquiesce toward Obama’s terms and step down.

♦ Thirdly, in order to facilitate the objective, Obama and Kerry intentionally gave arms to ISIS and even, arguably, attacked a Syrian government military convoy to stop a strategic attack upon the Islamic extremists killing 80 Syrian soldiers.

Pause for a moment and consider those three points carefully. Because the audio, along with accompanying research now surfacing, not only exposes these three points as truth – but also provides the specific evidence toward them.

The problem in the Obama/Kerry’s secret strategy became clear when ISIS grew in sufficient strength to give the White House optimism for the scheme – however, instead of capitulation Assad then turned to Russia for help.

When Russia came to aid Bashir Assad the Syrian Government began being able to defeat ISIS and the Islamic Extremist elements within Syria. For the hidden plan of Obama/Kerry (and also McCain, Graham, et al), Russia defeating ISIS, al-Qaeda and al-Nusra, upended their objective.

Against the backdrop of this recording we can reconcile so many historic issues. We already know of a Second Presidential Finding Memo authorizing additional CIA covert action in 2012, this time in Syria. However, unlike the 2011 Libyan operation we do not know the operational name of the second action in 2012 Syria.

2012: WASHINGTON, Aug 1 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, U.S. sources familiar with the matter said.

Obama’s order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence “finding,” broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad. (link)

Further consider how this Kerry audio tape, and the now transparent Obama policy toward Syria, absolutely confirms our earlier research as contained within the Benghazi Brief surrounding Syria. [Previous post]

President Obama, Secretary Clinton (2011, 2012) and later Secretary Kerry, together with John McCain, and the CIA tentacled team within the Republican party (2013, 2014, 2015) were willing to support extremist (under all factional names) in order to overthrow Bashir Assad…

THIS WAS THE Obama/Kerry POLICY.

This was their 2016 admitted policy, only because they were caught.

Nothing else mattered.

President Trump took office in January 2017, and began a process to kill and remove, with extreme prejudice, the ISIS forces that President Obama, Secretary Clinton and Secretary Kerry armed.  He began with the end in mind, and delivered the following quote:…

That mission has been accomplished.

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President Trump Delivers a Message on Syria…


President Trump delivers a deliberate message announcing the full U.S. military withdrawal from Syria.

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Thank You, and Merry Christmas.

Two days ago, December 17th,  the move was signaled when Ambassador James Jeffrey, Secretary’s Special Representative for Syria Engagement, delivered a keynote address at the Atlantic Council’s “The Future of U.S. Policy in Syria” program:

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PM of Israel

@IsraeliPM

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Poland Signs 20 Year Deal to Purchase U.S. Liquefied Natural Gas….


Economic security is national security… In July 2017 President Trump traveled to Polandto attend the Three Seas Initiative Summit, a gathering of countries bordering the Adriatic, Baltic and Black Sea (Poland, Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia).

The primary purpose of the visit was to discuss security initiatives including how to diminish Russian influence through a cooperative agreement over energy.  President Trump took the SME’s, and delivered a speech in Warsaw, Poland:

[…] “President Duda and I have just come from an incredibly successful meeting with the leaders participating in the Three Seas Initiative. To the citizens of this great region, America is eager to expand our partnership with you. We welcome stronger ties of trade and commerce as you grow your economies. And we are committed to securing your access to alternate sources of energy, so Poland and its neighbors are never again held hostage to a single supplier of energy.”

Well, today a massive multi-billion energy contract for the United States sale and Poland purchase of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) was announced.  While financial terms were not disclosed, the agreement is for the sale and purchase of approximately 2.7 billion cubic meters per year (after regasification) – enough natural gas to meet about 15 percent of Poland’s daily needs.  The contract is for 20 years of purchases.

SAN DIEGODec. 19, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Port Arthur LNG, LLC, a subsidiary of Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE), and the Polish Oil & Gas Company (PGNiG) today announced they have entered into a definitive 20-year sale-and-purchase agreement for liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Port Arthur LNG liquefaction-export facility under development in Jefferson County, Texas.

Today’s announcement is an important milestone as Sempra Energy pursues its long-term goal of exporting 45 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) of North American LNG.

“This agreement marks an important step toward Poland’s energy independence and security,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. “As demonstrated with the launch of the Strategic Dialogue on Energy in Poland last month, the Trump Administration remains committed to increasing energy diversity, advancing energy security, strengthening national security, and creating a future of prosperity and opportunity in Poland and throughout the region.”

“This agreement with PGNiG represents an important expansion of our portfolio of contracts for LNG exports and major step forward in the development of our Port Arthur LNG project,” said Jeffrey W. Martin, chairman and CEO of Sempra Energy.  “Last month, we began the commissioning phase of our Cameron LNG liquefaction-export facility in Louisiana. This agreement, along with the great progress on Cameron LNG, continue to validate our growth strategy as we advance our vision to become North America’s premier energy infrastructure company.”  (read more)

When I read this announcement, the first picture that came to my mind was a meme CTH shared well over a year ago while watching Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in the audience at Trump’s Warsaw speech:

CTH has now achieved master level meme prediction skillz.

Rick Perry

@SecretaryPerry

This @ENERGY-led agreement marks an important step toward Poland’s energy independence and security. @POTUS remains committed to increasing energy diversity, strengthening national security, and creating a future of prosperity and opportunity in Poland. https://www.sempra.com/newsroom/press-releases/sempra-energy-subsidiary-and-polish-oil-gas-co-sign-definitive-agreement 

Sempra Energy Subsidiary And Polish Oil & Gas Co. Sign Definitive Agreement To Export U.S. LNG To…

SAN DIEGO, Dec. 19, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Port Arthur LNG, LLC, a subsidiary of Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE), and the Polish Oil & Gas Company (PGNiG) today announced they have entered into a definitive…

sempra.com

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Robert Palladino

@StateDeputySPOX

In , Deputy Secretary Sullivan reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to the @NATO Alliance, commended Poland’s commitment to spend 2.5% of GDP on defense by 2030 and celebrated the centennial of Poland’s reclaimed independence. https://go.usa.gov/xExAM 

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Conspicuous Timing – President Trump Punches Back at Senate Decepticons, Announces Withdrawal From Syria…


The White House says U.S. has started returning troops home from Syria as it transitions to next phase of campaign.  Additionally, all U.S. State Department personnel are being evacuated from Syria within 24 hours (link).

White House – “Five years ago, ISIS was a very powerful and dangerous force in the Middle East, and now the United States has defeated the territorial caliphate. These victories over ISIS in Syria do not signal the end of the Global Coalition or its campaign. We have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign. The United States and our allies stand ready to re-engage at all levels to defend American interests whenever necessary, and we will continue to work together to deny radical Islamist terrorists territory, funding, support, and any means of infiltrating our borders.”  (Link)

The UniParty Decepticons will not be pleased…


As expected the UniParty legislature in Washington DC; bought and paid for by lobbyists with specific intention to oppose President Trump; have constructed a short-term funding mechanism that kicks-the-can to February 2019.

Mitch McConnell announced on the Senate floor the stopgap funding mechanism, for departments and agencies not already funded for fiscal year 2019, would run through Feb. 8th, 2019.  The Big Club lobbyists control the UniParty.  President Trump pushes back by announcing a U.S. military withdrawal from Syria…

(Via Roll Call) […] “Later this morning I’ll introduce a continuing resolution that will ensure continuous funding for the federal government,” McConnell said. “Even if the face of a great need to secure the border and following good-faith efforts by the president’s team, our Democratic colleagues rejected an extremely reasonable offer yesterday.”

“It would have cleared the remaining appropriations bills which have received bipartisan support in committee and provided an additional $1 billion to tackle a variety of urgent border security priorities,” the majority leader added.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York said that while it was not ideal, the short-term bill would be acceptable.

“I’m glad the leader thinks the government should not shut down over the president’s demand for a wall. And Democrats will support this CR,” Schumer said after McConnell announced the plan.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said House Democrats would go along with it, as well. (more)

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U.S. Pledges $10.6 Billion For Central America and Southern Mexico…


There are many voices very angered by an announcement that the U.S. State Department is providing $10.6 billion to Mexico and Central America while congress fights over $5 billion in funding for a Southern Border Wall. CTH is not one of those voices.

First, the article (emphasis mine):

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The United States pledged $5.8 billion in aid and investment Tuesday for strengthening government and economic development in Central America, and another $4.8 billion in development aid for southern Mexico.

The U.S aid aims to promote better security conditions and job opportunities as part of a regional plan to allow Central Americans and Mexicans to remain in their countries and not have to emigrate.

The plan was announced in a joint U.S.-Mexican statement released by the State Department and read aloud by Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard in the Mexican capital.  “In sum I think this is good news, very good news for Mexico,” Ebrard said.

Newly inaugurated President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador waxed poetic about the plan to provide jobs so people won’t have to emigrate.

“I have a dream that I want to see become a reality … that nobody will want to go work in the United States anymore,” Lopez Obrador said at a morning news conference before the announcement.

The combination of public and private investment for the stay-at-home effort doesn’t require congressional approval, unlike Trump’s signature project to stem illegal immigration — a border wall. (read more)

What I see here is President Trump deploying a root-cause workaround for the current border argument, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo carrying it out.

I strongly suspect there was an agreement of this sort long before the USMCA was finalized and made public.  As part of an agreement with President Lopez-Obrador, [insert Jared Kushner here] these funds will be used to secure Mexico’s border effectively cutting-off the Central American migration flow before it can reach the Southern U.S.

This approach is entirely in line with nationalist AMLO’s objectives for a larger and more stable economy within Mexico specifically by partnering with nationalist U.S. President Trump toward that common goal [See USMCA details].

If Trump can’t get congress to agree to defend the U.S. border, he can damn sure leverage and entice Lopez-Obrador to do it a few miles south.  This approach is POTUS Trump working on optimal solutions while encountering domestic political roadblocks.  This is exactly what President Trump does…. find solutions.

President Trump can sit around righteously fighting with the swamp over the security issues (historic political approach); or he can fight the swamp while simultaneously deploying a solution that mitigates the issue at its root cause (thinking outside the box).

What would a businessman president do?

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Arizona Governor Ducey Appoints Martha McSally to Fill Senate Term…


Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey announced Tuesday he will appoint GOP Rep. Martha McSally to the Senate to fill the seat of the late Sen. John McCain.

“All her life, Martha has put service first — leading in the toughest of fights and at the toughest of times. She served 26 years in the military; deployed six times to the Middle East and Afghanistan; was the first woman to fly in combat and command a fighter squadron in combat; and she’s represented Southern Arizona in Congress for the past four years. With her experience and long record of service, Martha is uniquely qualified to step up and fight for Arizona’s interests in the U.S. Senate. I thank her for taking on this significant responsibility and look forward to working with her and Senator-Elect Sinema to get positive things done.” ~ Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey

Intermission: First Lady Melania Trump Visits Military Bases and USS George H.W. Bush….


We interrupt your regularly scheduled political anxiety with a brief intermission…

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Thank you.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled state of angst.

More Pictures Here

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ps. don’t forget to enjoy life.

Sarah Sanders White House Press Briefing – December 18th…


White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders delivers the White House press briefing for December 18th, 2018:

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