Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[D Luniz]

Last time I checked today's report wages were down -.01 and inflation was not negative...…

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Gee, another promise broken and you sit here and cheer about it.
what happened to bringing the country together....hmmm

loves fighting....

So we can officially add "divisiveness" to the list of things the GOP was clutching pearls over that was just to bludgeon the previous president with.

It's not like we didnt know before, but now even they are admitting it was bullshit that as one have their backers here put it "were smearing on the wallsç

[nonameelf]

So we can officially add "divisiveness" to the list of things the GOP was clutching pearls over that was just to bludgeon the previous president with.

It's not like we didnt know before, but now even they are admitting it was bullshit that as one have their backers here put it "were smearing on the wallsç

Republicans have been the divisive ones since before Trump took office. What with McConnel's "we're going to make Obama a 1 term president" then obstructing basically everything in the senate, Fox new's constant insanity, and even Trump's own decade+ long war against the Democrats/Obama.

[Mayhem]

Don't believe Donald Trump, just listen to Donald Trump!

Hey, that's unfair, Campaign Donald Trump is not President Donald Trump, there's a difference, Donald Trump said so himself.

[Breccia]

Donald Trump is a national security threat.

Just a reminder: Trump unilaterally ended the Iran Nuclear Deal, giving the reason as "the deal doesn't stop them from sponsoring terrorism" for which he could have had separate sanctions or other penalties, rather than void the whole deal. You can see the details here:

Trump’s Iran Policy Is a Failure

This month’s attack on two Saudi Aramco oil facilities marked a stunning escalation of tensions in the Middle East. The scale, sophistication, and accuracy of the strikes all suggest that Iran most likely conducted them, as both Riyadh and Washington allege.

The strikes represent a surprising and ill-conceived escalation by Iran, just as U.S. President Donald Trump appeared be on the brink of offering concessions as an incentive to return to direct negotiations with the United States. But they also represent a massive, self-inflicted policy failure by the Trump administration, which triggered the crisis in the first place and has since worsened it through diplomatic, rhetorical, and strategic blunders. In his speech at the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday, Trump offered more of the same: the promise of continued economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran, which will do little to reduce tensions deter Iranian aggression.

Wait, no, that's about the Saudi attacks. Let's try again.

Obama, others warned Trump that pulling out of Iran nuke deal could lead to war

In his 2015 speech, Obama said that without an agreement limiting Iran's nuclear program in return for sanctions relief, any U.S. administration would be left with only one option to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon — "another war in the Middle East."

Obama said that Iran — unrestrained by the nuclear accord — would soon be on the threshold of developing an atomic bomb. "Without this deal, Iran will be in a position — however tough our rhetoric may be — to steadily advance its capabilities. Its breakout time, which is already fairly small, could shrink to near zero."

"Does anyone really doubt that the same voices now raised against this deal will be demanding that whoever is president bomb those nuclear facilities?" Obama said.

In another speech in 2016, Clinton said Trump's approach to the issue was reckless.

"Donald Trump says we shouldn't have done the deal. We should have walked away. But that would have meant no more global sanctions, and Iran resuming their nuclear program and the world blaming us. So then what? War? Telling the world, good luck, you deal with Iran?" Clinton said.

The former head of U.S. Central Command, U.S. Army Gen. Joseph Votel, told senators at a hearing in March 2018 that the nuclear agreement provided a way to counter the threat of Iran developing nuclear weapons, and that it was not clear how that would be addressed if Washington pulled out.

"The JCPOA addresses one of the principle threats that we deal with from Iran, so if the JCPOA goes away, then we will have to have another way to deal with their nuclear weapons program," Votel said.

No, hold on, I swear it's in here somewhere.

Trump wants a new nuclear deal with Iran. No one else does.

President Donald Trump arrived at a gathering of world leaders Thursday searching for support for a new deal to curtail an increasingly aggressive Iran. He’s not likely to find any.

Not only do other countries still support a 2015 nuclear pact, they’re skeptical Trump can strike a better agreement within the time constraints of his fast-approaching reelection campaign, especially after Iran recently proclaimed the end of diplomacy with the U.S.

The pressure is on. Iran threatened to violate limits set under the 2015 international nuclear agreement, angry at Trump for unilaterally pulling out of the pact and for slapping harsh sanctions on the country. The move threatens to kill the deal for good, leaving the global community without any comprehensive restrictions on Iran’s nuclear ambitions — let alone its funding of violent proxy groups in the region activities — activities Trump has long said he wants to pursue as part of an expansive agreement.

“The Iranians believe a gamble on Democrats winning the White House would be worth the risk of filibustering the Trump administration,” said Michael Rubin, a former Defense Department official who now serves as a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “In short, there’s a cost to us when there is no partisan solidarity on the foreign policy front.”

Dammit, I keep trying to find Trump's exact quote for leaving the Iran Nuclear Deal because it didn't stop terrorism, and all I find are Trump wanting to negotiate a deal with Iran while they're blowing up Saudi oil refineries in an act of terror. Why can't I find Trump refusing to deal with terrorist Iran through all this news of Trump dealing with terrorist Iran?

"You have 'Only Show Facts' checked in Settings."

Oh, thanks. Ah, yep, whitehouse.gov right there at the top of the list.

The Iranian regime is the leading state sponsor of terror. It exports dangerous missiles, fuels conflicts across the Middle East, and supports terrorist proxies and militias such as Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban, and al Qaeda.

Over the years, Iran and its proxies have bombed American embassies and military installations, murdered hundreds of American servicemembers, and kidnapped, imprisoned, and tortured American citizens. The Iranian regime has funded its long reign of chaos and terror by plundering the wealth of its own people.

No action taken by the regime has been more dangerous than its pursuit of nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them.

In 2015, the previous administration joined with other nations in a deal regarding Iran’s nuclear program. This agreement was known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.

In theory, the so-called “Iran deal” was supposed to protect the United States and our allies from the lunacy of an Iranian nuclear bomb, a weapon that will only endanger the survival of the Iranian regime. In fact, the deal allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium and, over time, reach the brink of a nuclear breakout.

The deal lifted crippling economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for very weak limits on the regime’s nuclear activity, and no limits at all on its other malign behavior, including its sinister activities in Syria, Yemen, and other places all around the world.

In other words, at the point when the United States had maximum leverage, this disastrous deal gave this regime — and it’s a regime of great terror — many billions of dollars, some of it in actual cash — a great embarrassment to me as a citizen and to all citizens of the United States.

A constructive deal could easily have been struck at the time, but it wasn’t. At the heart of the Iran deal was a giant fiction that a murderous regime desired only a peaceful nuclear energy program.

Today, we have definitive proof that this Iranian promise was a lie. Last week, Israel published intelligence documents long concealed by Iran, conclusively showing the Iranian regime and its history of pursuing nuclear weapons.

The fact is this was a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made. It didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will.

In the years since the deal was reached, Iran’s military budget has grown by almost 40 percent, while its economy is doing very badly. After the sanctions were lifted, the dictatorship used its new funds to build nuclear-capable missiles, support terrorism, and cause havoc throughout the Middle East and beyond.

The agreement was so poorly negotiated that even if Iran fully complies, the regime can still be on the verge of a nuclear breakout in just a short period of time. The deal’s sunset provisions are totally unacceptable. If I allowed this deal to stand, there would soon be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Everyone would want their weapons ready by the time Iran had theirs.

Making matters worse, the deal’s inspection provisions lack adequate mechanisms to prevent, detect, and punish cheating, and don’t even have the unqualified right to inspect many important locations, including military facilities.

Not only does the deal fail to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but it also fails to address the regime’s development of ballistic missiles that could deliver nuclear warheads.

Finally, the deal does nothing to constrain Iran’s destabilizing activities, including its support for terrorism. Since the agreement, Iran’s bloody ambitions have grown only more brazen.

As demonstrated by Trump's own words, he cited "terror" plenty of times, bolded, plus some blatant lies -- WaPo does their usual work so I didn't bother highlighting those. It would have been most of the speech.

So there you have it, Trump saying Iran is a terror state, as a reason for leaving the deal. Finally got that cl--

"Hey wait, what's the bolded and orange?"

Ah, yes, the part where another part of leaving the Iran Nuclear Deal was the lack of specifically talking about missiles. Hmm. Why would I bold and orange that, when North Korea just tested a submarine missile, a week after firing more ballistic missiles, and while planning on having yet another round of talks with North Korea?

Remember: the internet never forgets. Especially since I think there's laws about archiving Presidential speeches. Trump left the Iran Nuclear Deal for several reasons, some of which were blatant lies, and the others -- terror and missiles -- suddenly don't matter anymore.

Objective hypocrisy. Add that to meeting the Taliban on the White House lawn. Trump is negotiating bad deals with bad actors, according to himself, and he negotiates with terrorists, according to himself.

[nonameelf]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...40498478534658

I think he needs to be impeached for this tweet alone.

[Pendulous]

I'm soooooo confused on the logic of that tweet. Oh...well, it is Trump, I guess that's why. I can't keep up with his "big, a-brain".

[Edge-]

I'm soooooo confused on the logic of that tweet. Oh...well, it is Trump, I guess that's why. I can't keep up with his "big, a-brain".

I mean...ignoring that Medicare Advantage handles payments and not actually healthcare...but that's the kind of detail that Trump is likely incapable of understanding.

This is the same guy who thought that health insurance worked like life insurance where you pay into it your whole life and cash it out at the end...

[Paranoid Android]

I mean...ignoring that Medicare Advantage handles payments and not actually healthcare...but that's the kind of detail that Trump is likely incapable of understanding.

This is the same guy who thought that health insurance worked like life insurance where you pay into it your whole life and cash it out at the end...

Plus, "Who knew healthcare could be so complicated". My favorite.

[Breccia]

Oh hey, about those climbers.

And then they had a contest!

No one in our climbing community knows any of these 20 mountaineers. I doubt if they exist. More importantly, to declare something to be impossible to climb to a bonafide rock climber is to issue a challenge.

So, I decided to build an exact replica and hold a competition. Although I’m 75 years old, I am still an active rock climber and hold certification by American Mountain Guide Association as a Single Pitch Instructor. It helped that I’m also a retired engineer.

We will be hosting the event on land my wife and I own in the Red River Gorge region of eastern Kentucky, adjacent to Muir Valley. (We’re the founders of Muir Valley, one of the premier rock climbing preserves in North America.) The dates are October 11 and 12, which coincides with one of the largest gatherings of climbers in the U.S.—an annual event called Rocktoberfest.

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In the ongoing effort to work diplomatically with Trump and reach a peaceful, sustained solution, Iran tries to hack Trump's campaign emails.

So...remember when Trump said he could negotiate a better deal? How's that working?

[Poopymonster]

Sure, he's a Republican...and I've taken issue with a lot of stuff he's said and done in the past...but the reason he gets respect is because, unlike a lot of other spineless pufferfish that call themselves Conservatives, he took a stand against Trump...even though it meant going against his own party.

I don't have to agree with people on every issue in order to respect them. I can respect them for actually having the courage to stand by their convictions...even if they are counter to my own.

He's not a Republican. He's a Conservative. There is a bigly yuge difference between the two in the last few years.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

He's not a Republican. He's a Conservative. There is a bigly yuge difference between the two in the last few years.

He's a Republican...hes just not a Trump Republican.

He's said himself that, before Trump, he voted Republican.

[Poopymonster]

He's a Republican...hes just not a Trump Republican.

He's said himself that, before Trump, he voted Republican.

Today's Republicans are not Conservatives. He still adheres to the a fair number of actual Conservative ideals, while being horrified by what the Republicans, formerly Conservatives, have become. Hence, he's disavowed what his party, Republicans have become (Trumpublicans) and still be a Conservative.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Today's Republicans are not Conservatives. He still adheres to the a fair number of actual Conservative ideals, while being horrified by what the Republicans, formerly Conservatives, have become. Hence, he's disavowed what his party, Republicans have become (Trumpublicans) and still be a Conservative.

He's temporarily disassociated himself with them. Once they get rid of Trump, he'll be a Republican again.

[Poopymonster]

He's temporarily disassociated himself with them. Once they get rid of Trump, he'll be a Republican again.

I think once they clean house, get their shit together, take it to the shit store or a shit museum, I don't care, just get their shit together and become actual Conservatives again, he will go back. In it's current form? I don't see it happening. But this is all speculation and I'm sure @Skroe will be able to speak for himself on this. Once he's back from his vacation due to reesons that aren't allowed to be discussed in public.

Let's try to get back on topic though, since discussing Skroe's political affiliation is NOT the topic of the thread.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Let's try to get back on topic though, since discussing Skroe's political affiliation is NOT the topic of the thread.

You're the one that wanted to take this walk down speculation avenue...

[Zaydin]

I remember when they screamed about the labor participation rate when Obama's unemployment numbers kept dropping. But there it is, pretty much the same as during Obama's term. No mention.

Yeah. I always thought that was hilarious, especially given they screeched that the jobs numbers weren't the REAL jobs numbers because it didn't count people who weren't looking for work or could not work at all.

[Machismo]

I remember when they screamed about the labor participation rate when Obama's unemployment numbers kept dropping. But there it is, pretty much the same as during Obama's term. No mention.

I've never held much sway with unemployment numbers, much less the labor force participation rate. All that does, is show how many households are now requiring two incomes, instead of one. I actually want that number lower, because the ideal situation for many households is that only one parent work, and one parent focus on raising kids.

[ati87]

I've never held much sway with unemployment numbers, much less the labor force participation rate. All that does, is show how many households are now requiring two incomes, instead of one. I actually want that number lower, because the ideal situation for many households is that only one parent work, and one parent focus on raising kids.

Point is though, you need to have some fixed KPI's to know if you go to the right direction and compare numbers while what you don't need is to bitch about numbers because you have a black guy as a president.

[Machismo]

Point is though, you need to have some fixed KPI's to know if you go to the right direction and compare numbers while what you don't need is to bitch about numbers because you have a black guy as a president.

I get why they push those numbers, but since it's also easy to skew them, then I don't hold much sway. If they have to go back and correct them a month, quarter, and year later... by as much as 25-30%, then they are not very good statistics.

I'm much more concerned about the shift in how much personal debt is accrued, amount in savings, and especially, retirement preparedness. Those numbers are terrifying.

[Paranoid Android]

Staff long “horrified” by DJT’s phoners: They worried “he would make promises he shouldn’t keep, endorse policies the US long opposed, commit a diplomatic blunder that jeopardized a critical alliance, or simply pressure a counterpart for a personal favor.” https://t.co/rJTZOQqy7x

https://twitter.com/TimOBrien/status...231489024?s=19

Unfit for office. This had been a narrative for his whole Presidency that his staff basically thinks he is incompetent or inept.