Hope the President does a good job for USA

[soxfan]

https://thehill.com/homenews/admini...-offices-weeks-after-trump-alleges-corruption

I hate this administration.

 

[AGBF]

Turkey has an audio recording of this. Do you think President Trump has not heard it? Can you support him and his continued ties to Saudi Arabia? Can you allow him to send Secretary of the Treasury Mnuchin there for "Davos in the Desert" to enrich the Saudis and help them gain more prestige on the world stage?

How dare he send our Secretary of State-Our Secretary not his personal secretary-to Saudi Arabia after what they did: to torture by dismemberment a permanent resident of the United States and a journalist for a prominent US newspaper?

Can Donald Trump stifle us so that our government stands for no values?

ISTANBUL — His killers were waiting when Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago. They severed his fingers and later beheaded and dismembered him, according to details from audio recordings described by a senior Turkish official on Wednesday.

Mr. Khashoggi was dead within minutes, and within two hours the killers were gone, the recordings suggested.

The leaking of such details, on the same day Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was visiting Turkey, reflected an escalation of pressure by the Turkish government on Saudi Arabia and the United States for answers on the fate of Mr. Khashoggi, a prominent dissident journalist who wrote for The Washington Post.

Fifteen days after he entered the consulate in Istanbul and was never seen coming out, the Saudis have yet to give an explanation.


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/world/europe/turkey-saudi-khashoggi-dismember.html

AGBF

 

[vintageloves]

I hate Trump. HATE him. But, our relationship with Saudi Arabia has been twisted for decades. Another President would have had smarter, more coherent, more correct rhetoric. In the end, the results would be much the same. Because it's been nothing but nice rhetoric for 30 years. We'd still be dealing them arms and kissing their behinds. Bush II basically ignored the fact that the Kingdom gave sanctuary to extremists, and it's no accident that most of the 9-11 hijackers were Saudi. And who got us into this war with Yemen on their beck and call? Obama or Bush?

If the congress doesn't use the Magnitsky Act, on these bastards, I will lose my remaining shred of faith in humanity.

 

[redwood66]

We are stuck with this disgusting relationship with SA because of decades of looking the other way. Now they are necessary in order to keep some semblance of order in the ME, and that sucks balls. If we totally forego the relationship then it opens up Iran becoming too strong along with the Muslim Brotherhood and other bad actors. SA needs the US and the best thing for them would be to suck it up and take sanctions without retaliation because this requires a response from the US if it is proved to be as awful as it seems to be.

 

[AGBF]

I do not totally disagree with you redwood and vintageloves. I believe that any administration would have been loathe to give up our relationship with Saudi Arabia completely. However, another administration would have handled this crisis with more dignity and aplomb. It is really disgusting to see a representative of the United States (Secretary Pompeo) sent to Saudi Arabia, the country that committed the murder, to help them to save face for the act.

Moreover, another administration would have moved to take sanctions against Saudi Arabia so the governments would not have treated the situation exactly the same. As has been said by so many journalists, Saudi Arabia is not doing the United States a favor by buying our top grade military goods. We do not need to sell them our best arms. They cannot simply switch to Chinese or Russian arms now that they have committed to US arms and, they also prefer US arms.

Nor are we at the mercy of the Saudis for oil in 2018. (But Donald Trump makes a lot of money personally from the Saudis.)

And if the United States has been too accommodating to Saudi Arabia in the past, maybe it is time to stop.

At least in the past the US tried to tie arms sales to agreements to cooperate with the United States. Instead of asking them to support the move of a US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, maybe we should have asked them to stop the war in Yemen and to cease beheading dissidents. (Not that Khashoggi was even a dissident. He was only mildly critical of the Saudi government.)

We can get the Saudis to modify their bad behavior if we apply pressure on them.

AGBF

 

[Dancing Fire]

This must be stop now!
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...e-stop-caravan-u-s-bound-migrants/1674954002/

 

[Alexiszoe]

If the US economy tanks and interest rates go up too high and too quick.

Thanks @Dancing Fire for the reply. To build on this a bit more, what kinds of evidence, and from what sources would you consider as Trump's administration being responsible/not responsible for the US economy tanking/interest rates go up too high/quick?

 

[Dancing Fire]

This is just “fake news.”

DF also complained about job creation the entire time that Obama was in office, yet Trump has failed to perform in that area as well. I’ll bet not a word has been said about that.

FYI...
https://money.cnn.com/2018/06/05/news/economy/job-openings-unemployed-workers/index.html

 

[soxfan]

DF, can you just reign it in for a moment? Just enough to respond to a man being cut up with a bone saw for 7 minutes until the screams were so bad, they lethally injected him to shut him up and finish the job- or are stocks all you care about?

 

[soxfan]

Two words for you Trump supporters: Otto Warbier. You HYPOCRITES

https://thehill.com/homenews/admini...wjxeRyfxmOnYTGhWUPe9dcWxIa8OhVPBVQ4LHfywMCIew

 

[cmd2014]

https://www.greenwichtime.com/news/...nsfers-100-million-US-journalist-13315470.php

Money makes everything ok I guess.

 

[Dancing Fire]

DF, can you just reign it in for a moment? Just enough to respond to a man being cut up with a bone saw for 7 minutes until the screams were so bad, they lethally injected him to shut him up and finish the job- or are stocks all you care about?

Let's go bomb SA?.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Thanks @Dancing Fire for the reply. To build on this a bit more, what kinds of evidence, and from what sources would you consider as Trump's administration being responsible/not responsible for the US economy tanking/interest rates go up too high/quick?

Good or bad the Trump admin. should be held accountable.

 

[AGBF]

"The New York Times" just published this superlative piece of writing by Nicholas Kristof and the comments by readers are incisive. The readers' comments really helped me to focus on what is important in this debacle. The readers of "The New York Times" are very often far more thoughtful than I am and, in their collective wisdom, get my brain started. After reading the Op.ed piece and some of the comments I really thought I was starting to home in on the core problem, and I think it is that President Trump has a personal interest in doing business with Saudi Arabia, not that he has US-Saudi relations at heart or that he "transactional".

The problem with allowing a president to have so many conflicts of interest is that when he acts in ways that appear to be in conflict with the best interests of the United States there is always an appearance of wrongdoing, whether or not there is wrongdoing. Naturally President Trump should never have been allowed to keep all his businesses while he remained president and to allow his businesses to be enriched from his being president. He has been a pig at the trough making money from paying guests at Mar-a-Lago and at the Trump Hotels in return for US policy decisions that favor his beneficiaries.

The corruption has truly gotten out of hand.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/opinion/khashoggi-saudi-arabia-trump.html#commentsContainer

AGBF

 

[AGBF]

One small step towards reining in that b*stard who is currently the President of the United States. How dare he plan to send OUR Secretary of the Treasury to that land where the hands of the hosts are dripping with the blood of innocents?

"WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has withdrawn from the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh next week after facing bipartisan backlash over his plans to attend despite the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident Saudi journalist.


Mr. Mnuchin was planning to speak at the conference during a six-country, weeklong swing through the Middle East, focused on combating terrorism financing. Several prominent chief executives canceled plans to attend the conference, along with ministers from Britain, France and the Netherlands.

The Treasury secretary, who had been fielding calls from executives in recent days about the wisdom of attending, had been urging everyone to focus on the facts and evidence.


However, the pressure to cancel — which included calls from Republican lawmakers — became too much and, on Thursday, Mr. Mnuchin decided to withdraw. It was uncertain as of Thursday morning whether he would still travel to Riyadh, where he was also planning to visit the Terrorist Financing and Targeting Center, a joint initiative between the United States, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations unveiled a year ago."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/us/politics/saudi-arabia-khashoggi-mnuchin.html

AGBF

 

[vintageloves]

Let's go bomb SA?.

There's a canyon 100 miles wide and 100 miles deep between turning a blind eye to a horrific murder and torture of an innocent man and bombing the KSA.

What happened to standing up for ourselves and our values? Trump is such a weenie, weak leader. And, yeah, maybe Obama or Bush the Lesser would fold, too, but Trump ran an entire campaign on being smarter and better than any president before him. What a joke.

 

[monarch64]

There's a canyon 100 miles wide and 100 miles deep between turning a blind eye to a horrific murder and torture of an innocent man and bombing the KSA.

What happened to standing up for ourselves and our values? Trump is such a weenie, weak leader. And, yeah, maybe Obama or Bush the Lesser would fold, too, but Trump ran an entire campaign on being smarter and better than any president before him. What a joke.

Heyyyy, now, he is super smart AND he has a natural instinct for science!

 

[Calliecake]

@vintageloves Half the country no longer has any values. Trump praised a congressman who body slammed a reporter at his rally last night.

This administration is the epitome of trash.

 

[Dancing Fire]

@vintageloves Half the country no longer has any values. Trump praised a congressman who body slammed a reporter at his rally last night.

This administration is the epitome of trash.

CC
Are you referring to these two incidents? ...
http://www.fox9.com/news/two-minnesota-gop-candidates-say-they-were-attacked-punched

 

[Calliecake]

@Dancing Fire , I am against violence period. I am also against anyone who acts like Trump. A President’s job is to unite the country. Trump does nothing but play to his toxic base. A decent person doesn’t try to incite violence.

 

[Dancing Fire]

@Dancing Fire , I am against violence period. I am also against anyone who acts like Trump. A President’s job is to unite the country. Trump does nothing but play to his toxic base. A decent person doesn’t try to incite violence.

So, IOW you agree that the Dems. incite violence?

 

[Maria D]

CC
Are you referring to these two incidents? ...
http://www.fox9.com/news/two-minnesota-gop-candidates-say-they-were-attacked-punched

That is just awful DF! Which powerful dem leader incited those 2 crazies to violence? Was it Obama???! Warren? Booker? Pelosi? Wait I’ll bet it was Hillary wasn’t it! It’s always Hillary- everything bad is always her fault. Lock her up!!

 

[Calliecake]

It doesn’t seem to register with Republican voters that Republican politicians consider social security and Medicare entitlements. I find it amazing that the people who will need these “entitlements” to survive vote against their best interests. I hope they all enjoy working until they are 85 with their pre existing conditions not being covered.

 

[Matata]

 

[monarch64]

It doesn’t seem to register with Republican voters that Republican politicians consider social security and Medicare entitlements. I find it amazing that the people who will need these “entitlements” to survive vote against their best interests. I hope they all enjoy working until they are 85 with their pre existing conditions not being covered.

Look, all you have to do to get the right wing conservative vote is tell them it's god's plan. They don't hear anything else. I hate having that attitude but it's the damn truth.

 

[redwood66]

Look, all you have to do to get the right wing conservative vote is tell them it's god's plan. They don't hear anything else. I hate having that attitude but it's the damn truth.

Stop stereotyping because not all left leaning people are SJW nutjobs either.

 

[Calliecake]

Look, all you have to do to get the right wing conservative vote is tell them it's god's plan. They don't hear anything else. I hate having that attitude but it's the damn truth.

@monarch64 You may be correct. The mega churches are popping up all over the suburbs. My guess is it is more likely people have the mindset of @Dancing Fire where they think anyone getting something they aren’t getting is terrible.

This has been the only year I’ve ever considered getting a sign for our yard. After reading the comments here I think I’ll pass.

 

[monarch64]

Stop stereotyping because not all left leaning people are SJW nutjobs either.

LOL "stop stereotyping?" What exactly do you think (all) campaign strategists do? What do you think advertising companies do? The context of the conversation happens to be about right wing conservatives, and/or Republicans voting against their own best interests. I'll stereotype all I want to in this context, thankyouverymuch.

Look, my ballot contains a yes/no on an amendment championed by Mike Pence that seeks to maintain a balanced budget (making it impossible to spend more than IN earns via tax dollars.) Who wouldn't want that, you ask? Hmm. Read further into it, and find out that it also includes a workaround in times of "need," which is taking pension money from the Big 3--police, firefighters, teachers. Um...most if not all law enforcement and MANY firefighters I know are straight up god-fearing Republicans. They'll all vote "yes" because all they hear is "balanced budget" and they won't bother to question/read further because they are good little sheep who follow their shepherd. FACT. Even if you show them this information, they'll turn a blind eye, because FAITH. I grew up in and still live in the Bible Belt. This is not new information, and it's not a stereotype when the overwhelming majority of people here are driven by Jesus First, Family Second, Prosperity Gospel mentality.

I'm fed up with Americans having the wool pulled over their eyes in the name of Christianity, and straight up propaganda. I have just as little patience for extreme lefty's, but that wasn't what Callie mentioned. The topic was R's voting against their own best interest.

*edited to remove unnecessary apostrophe.

 

[Calliecake]

It was reported yesterday that Trump announced the GOP is considering another tax cut for the middle class before November. Gotta love the party of fiscal responsibility LOL. It looks like some of his supporters may be waking up to the fact that they weren’t the big winners in the last tax cut.

The Trump administration is considering a legal definition of gender as immutable and fixed at birth. This is a drastic move against transgender people. Seriously, with everything going on in the world, they chose this as something to focus on. Religion will be used to justify this move. This administration is not happy unless they are kicking people in the head.

 

[redwood66]

LOL "stop stereotyping?" What exactly do you think (all) campaign strategists do? What do you think advertising companies do? The context of the conversation happens to be about right wing conservatives, and/or Republicans voting against their own best interests. I'll stereotype all I want to in this context, thankyouverymuch.

Look, my ballot contains a yes/no on an amendment championed by Mike Pence that seeks to maintain a balanced budget (making it impossible to spend more than IN earns via tax dollars.) Who wouldn't want that, you ask? Hmm. Read further into it, and find out that it also includes a workaround in times of "need," which is taking pension money from the Big 3--police, firefighters, teachers. Um...most if not all law enforcement and MANY firefighters I know are straight up god-fearing Republicans. They'll all vote "yes" because all they hear is "balanced budget" and they won't bother to question/read further because they are good little sheep who follow their shepherd. FACT. Even if you show them this information, they'll turn a blind eye, because FAITH. I grew up in and still live in the Bible Belt. This is not new information, and it's not a stereotype when the overwhelming majority of people here are driven by Jesus First, Family Second, Prosperity Gospel mentality.

I'm fed up with Americans having the wool pulled over their eyes in the name of Christianity, and straight up propaganda. I have just as little patience for extreme lefty's, but that wasn't what Callie mentioned. The topic was R's voting against their own best interest.

*edited to remove unnecessary apostrophe.

Yep you can do it all you want, but, you are making assumptions and maybe where you live there is a preponderance of Christians who do not vote as you do. But that is not the case for Rs across the board or conservatives for that matter. Do you have unions for the Big 3 where you live? If so then they would not likely be in favor of this measure. Though in my experience public sector unions, and specifically bloated pensions, are part of the reason for out of control state and municipal unfunded liability. A balanced budget is a good idea and our Congress should do it as both sides spend like drunken sailors on their respective pet agendas. But I don't know what any of that has to do with being Christian or "following their shepherd." As far as being driven by Jesus First, Family Second, Prosperity Gospel mentality, I don't see anything wrong with that. It is a free country after all, at least for now. It seems you hate where you live as you complain about it quite a bit yet you have lived there all your life. Why don't you move to somewhere more conducive to your ideology if you are so unhappy? People do it all the time and that is the beauty of a constitutional republic of states as anyone can find a place to their liking. Life is too short to be miserable but no one said it was going to be a picnic either. If you choose to stay then it's your choice just like the others living around you. But if you are grumbling just to grumble then it really must not be all that terrible. There is no Utopia.

If I thought all of the left leaning people in the country were screaming at people in restaurants, getting arrested in the SC, and whatever other SJW nutjob harassment of the day, then I would be more worried for our country. Fact is that group is not the majority or even a large minority, but it seems like it because of media coverage. Most people are going to work, taking care of their business, and voting when it's time. If the harassment continues or gets worse, people in the middle will get tired of it and pull the lever for the ones not acting like lunatics.
People are getting tired of it.
http://www.tmz.com/2018/10/20/senator-mitch-mcconnell-confronted-restaurant-protesters/

You (collective) don't get to decide what's in someone else's best interest and neither do I. You can piss and moan about it all you want but in the end you have no say. Does that make you angry that you cannot dictate what someone else does? You only have their best interests at heart correct? I'm fine with you living as you like as long as you do the same in return. People should spend less time worrying about what their neighbors are doing and more time helping those who are in need. JMHO.